Startup to Exit & Financial Modeling Advice with Mike Lingle

Mike Lingle is a software developer and entrepreneur who currently mentors founders and has build tools to help build better financial projections for startups. Mike co-founded SlideRocket, which at the time of launch was a revolutionary cloud-based presentation software. SlideRocket was acquired by VMWare within 30 months of the company’s initial VC funding.

Mike studied at the University of Pennsylvania and is currently an Entrepreneur in Residence at Babson College, where he teaches classes on startup financials. Mike has mentored over 1,000 startup founders and shares his wisdom for increasing a founder’s chances of success. We discuss SlideRocket’s launch and eventual exit, how engineers can become successful entrepreneurs, how to build and create better financial models and the future of business education.  

Discussion Topics:

(2:00) Pausing to pursue a dream passion project post-exit.

(6:30) Start-up to exit with SlideRocket.

(24:12) Advice for engineer entrepreneurs.

(27:40) Recruiting technical founders.

(29:56) Guidance for building better financial models.

(45:08) The future of business school education.

(50:50) Common mistakes made by young founders.

(53:21) Rapid fire questions.