Do More Faster India, 2nd Edition

Chapter 36It’s Just Data

Bill Warner

Bill was the founder of Avid Technology (the pioneer in video editing software) and Wildfire Communications. He is also a founding investor in Techstars Boston and was the motivating force behind Techstars doing its first geographic expansion.

Good advice is a good thing, right? Therefore, lots of good advice should be an even better thing.

Well, not really. But we do it anyway at Techstars, as the companies get flooded with good advice and some bad advice, too. I know, since I have provided both good and bad advice to startup founders.

In the Techstars Boston 2009 program, brothers Mike and Tom Monaghan started a company called TempMine. The initial idea was simple: build a marketplace for temporary workers through which they can market themselves, let them sell themselves directly to hiring companies, and cut out the middleman. Tom and Mike’s premise was that eliminating temp agencies would be a good thing.

The summer began with advice from many mentors, including negative feedback suggesting that TempMine would be breaking the law, that labor rules are strict and impossible to work around, and there’s no way someone can work directly for companies on a 1099 wage-reporting tax form. So, Mike and Tom started reworking the plan.

At the same time, I spent time talking with Tom about what really drove him to start the company in the first place. He realized that he was motivated to help people find the right job direction and he thought temping ...