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12: Growing oDesk to Become The Market Leader in Online Work
Manage episode 97617849 series 80585
Gary Swart joined oDesk in 2005 as CEO and led the company for over 8 years, turning into the market leader in the online work industry. It was the first workplace to reach $1 billion in work, and has over 5 million freelancers and thousands of jobs posted daily. Gary led the company through a merger with #2 player eLance before leaving to join Polaris.
In this episode, part II of our conversation, he shares with us the importance of focus in a company, iterating quickly, why he thinks being an execepreneur is a good idea – and why he’s ok being hit by a pitch.
My question for Gary this week: Having been involved with large corporations like IBM, and a number of startups, what motivates you to help grow small to large and what’s your advice for execepreneurs?
“I remember flying home from Seattle in a small Alaska Airlines plane and I got claustrophobic… I said I don’t want to wake up 15 years from now saying I didn’t step up to the plate. That wasn’t going to be good enough for me. Even if I didn’t hit the ball I wanted to stand at the plate”
Questions:
- You started to discuss focus last week and how that was critical for oDesk - can you give us examples of tradeoffs you had to make?
- What are your thoughts about Executives taking the leap to entrepreneurship, similar to your situation?
- What’s the one thing you’d leave our Execepreneur audience with?
20 epizódok
Manage episode 97617849 series 80585
Gary Swart joined oDesk in 2005 as CEO and led the company for over 8 years, turning into the market leader in the online work industry. It was the first workplace to reach $1 billion in work, and has over 5 million freelancers and thousands of jobs posted daily. Gary led the company through a merger with #2 player eLance before leaving to join Polaris.
In this episode, part II of our conversation, he shares with us the importance of focus in a company, iterating quickly, why he thinks being an execepreneur is a good idea – and why he’s ok being hit by a pitch.
My question for Gary this week: Having been involved with large corporations like IBM, and a number of startups, what motivates you to help grow small to large and what’s your advice for execepreneurs?
“I remember flying home from Seattle in a small Alaska Airlines plane and I got claustrophobic… I said I don’t want to wake up 15 years from now saying I didn’t step up to the plate. That wasn’t going to be good enough for me. Even if I didn’t hit the ball I wanted to stand at the plate”
Questions:
- You started to discuss focus last week and how that was critical for oDesk - can you give us examples of tradeoffs you had to make?
- What are your thoughts about Executives taking the leap to entrepreneurship, similar to your situation?
- What’s the one thing you’d leave our Execepreneur audience with?
20 epizódok
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