My guest on this episode is Carl Streck, founder and CEO of MountainSeed, a data and software business serving commercial real estate professionals. I was introduced to Carl by Michael Arrieta after asking Michael for the most interesting entrepreneurs in data he knew of, and Carl’s name was the first out of his mouth. Carl started MountainSeed in 2006 to build software serving banks making commercial real estate loans and eventually developed a data product to help banks make more data-driven decisions.

Carl and I talk about bootstrapping a data software company, evolutions in his management style as the company grew, the business models of data companies, and how staying close to customers impacted the development of their data product. Enjoy!

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Links:

Carl Streck on LinkedIn

MountainSeed

EOS

What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith

YPO.org

The Economics of Data Businesses by Abraham Thomas

Craig Fuller on TLAO

Topics:

(2:46) - How has your thought process around raising capital changed over the years?

(5:43) - Does your mindset towards capital change when it comes to accelerating growth vs. starting growth?

(8:03) - What have you learned from peers or your own experience in finding the right investor/company fit?

(10:29) - What was your role and how did it evolve during different stages of team size in the organization?

(14:16) - As companies grow, where do you see CEOs and founders start to struggle?

(17:46) - Is there a way to build a culture that encourages feedback they might not want to share otherwise?

(21:05) - What are some of the most impactful behavioral changes you’ve made to build trust and feedback with the team?

(25:43) - When you study CEOs of larger companies, what is different about how they operate as leaders?

(28:23) - Can you walk us through how you view your product portfolio and how the two work together?

(32:40) -How do you compare SAAS businesses to Data Businesses?

(35:56) - Does your Data Analytics platform work within the platforms or software of customers?

(38:23) - How would you categorize the customers of your product?

(41:02) - Does the Analytics platform license 3rd party data sources?

(43:19) - How are you looking to design and build a data company that lasts?

(46:07) - How do you incorporate customer feedback or determine new features?

(49:09)- What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?

(52:24) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?