Do More Faster India, 2nd Edition

Chapter 79Turn Work into Play

Howard Lindzon

Howard is managing partner of Social Leverage and is the cofounder of StockTwits. Howard has been a Techstars mentor since 2007.

I am passionate about the financial markets, so many of my startups—all involved with financial markets—have been fun. I’m also passionate about golf; in fact, I moved to California so that I could play golf more often. In 2006, I started Wallstrip, which was a daily three-minute web videoblog covering one great stock at a time. I invest in trends, and our goal with Wallstrip was to unlock the best stocks that were trending up and think about why. I wanted Wallstrip to do for the stock market what Jon Stewart had done for politics and news.

I believe magical things can happen when you can invest your energy where your passion lies. Entrepreneurs need an edge. No matter what the startup, the work is endless and will be tedious at times. It helps to know your industry inside out. If you choose an area to work in which you have passion and deep knowledge, you will know more about the opportunities that lie ahead and the products that could lead to profits. The roadblocks you hit will seem solvable. Your daily progress will be easily measured, and you will know when you are on the right track.

I knew exactly the product that I needed to deliver for Wallstrip to gain attention and an audience. We built it and delivered it every day, we worked like crazy together as a team to do an amazing job, and we created ...