26: Rob Kall Zero to One - 3 Exits for Over $100m
Invest Like a Boss
Sam Marks Johnny FD Derek Spartz
4.8 • 518 Ratings
🗓️ 3 November 2016
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rob Käll has achieved the real American Dream. He immigrated from Sweden in his early 20’s wanting to become a Rockstar in Miami. But this dream was short-lived and he quickly pivoted into start-ups as a technical talent. Over the course of 10 years, he went on to apply lessons from a failed start-up he was employed at to building 3 businesses and selling them for a total of close to $100 Million.
In this episode, Rob takes us through his path and how the exits came about. We also learn about his perspective and the difference in being a start-up founder and a senior executive for a public company, and key lessons he learned to apply to his businesses that help them become successful where others failed. Uninterested in retiring, Rob has now founded his next company in his new field he is passionate about – Artificial Intelligence.
Rob’s Links
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertkall
Twitter - https://twitter.com/robertkall
Where are we:
Sam – Florida
Rob – Barcelona, Space
Recommended:
Losing My Virginity – Richard Branson
How To Get Rich – Felix Dennis
Art of the Start – Guy Kawasaki
The 4 Hour Work Week - Tim Ferriss
Discussed:
http://www.cien.ai/ - Rob’s new Artificial Intelligence start-up
https://www.realpage.com/ - Property management software and rental housing management solutions
https://www.coworker.com/ - Find your perfect coworking space in 100+ countries
Show notes:
04:40 - How Rob and Sam met
04:21 - Start up space in Barcelona
06:06 - Becoming a rockstar in the U.S.
07:13 - Coding for a corporate company
11:55 - Starting a real estate technology company
15:35 - Buying the company and creating an exit
16:33 - Working as an Executive at eNeighborhoods
22:20 - Taking the next step towards a CEO
23:40 - Tracking and owning you KPI
24:40 - Building a partnership with Tripadvisor
33:10 - People, Process and Product
34:40 - Advice for aspiring startup entrepreneurs
35:20 - Hiring quality employees
36:40 - Investing in real-estate and coworker.com
39:40 - Dealing with difficult situation
41:40 - Sales Productivity
43:00 - Working in alignment with core values
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Copyright 2016. All rights reserved. Read our disclaimer here.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Invest Like a Boss podcast. I'm Sam Martz and I'm Johnny FD. We're self-made entrepreneurs who invest our own money and use modern technology to invest like a boss. |
| 0:08.8 | Join us each week for exclusive interviews with our network of modern investors, business owners, and multimillionaires to discover new ways to invest our hard-earned cash. |
| 0:17.1 | Guys, welcome back to another episode of Invest Like a Boss. This is your co-host, Sam Marks. This is episode 26. I'm with my buddy, Johnny F.D. |
| 0:25.4 | Hey, hey. We got this episode coming up with Rob Shaw, who is, he's been a mentor of mine for a long time. Someone I look up to professionally as much as anybody out there and a very successful seasoned entrepreneur. |
| 0:40.5 | Well, I'm really excited to listen to this episode because it's kind of good to kind of know |
| 0:44.9 | who, you know, like, I guess, I think a lot of people would assume that you've always been |
| 0:50.0 | successful, that, you know, that your very first business ever was the one you sold for, you know, tens of |
| 0:56.1 | millions of dollars. But everyone starts from summer. And how did you actually meet Rob? |
| 1:01.7 | So Rob and I met through someone that he had been working with previously. And Rob had just sold his |
| 1:07.7 | business and wanted to start this new business booked. And I was actually starting and never even got off the ground, but I was building what I wanted to be a trip advisor, but much less commercial. |
| 1:19.4 | So I had been building that for about two years. |
| 1:22.1 | I had a business partner in that. |
| 1:24.7 | It never ended up getting off the ground. |
| 1:26.1 | But it was in the |
| 1:27.5 | travel industry and Rob had done a lot of work in real estate, travel, and wanted to build this |
| 1:33.6 | company booked. So I went down to Miami, met him, and this was literally just a concept on paper, |
| 1:39.5 | but I love Rob. He had, you know, such, such incredible experience as a startup founder and then an executive |
| 1:44.8 | at the company that acquired him and, you know, decided to work for him. Yeah, I think that's really |
| 1:49.6 | cool. And so you weren't even getting equity in that first business. You were doing it |
| 1:54.5 | a permanent to learn or? Well, actually, they, I did end up getting equity as part of the deal, |
| 1:59.8 | but when I left the company about three years later, I surrendered the equity. So that is a really good, you know, we talk about a lot, like join a startup. And, you know, I know Rob's a big proponent of joining startups is something that he did, you know, way back in the day. But, but there's always the opportunity when you join startups to get meaningful |
| 2:18.7 | stake of equity. And I had a meaningful stake of equity in that company. And, you know, I was an |
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