INSTACART and THE TALE of TWENTY FAILURES

Instacart is an online grocery-delivery service. It was founded in 2012 in San Francisco and has grown today to over 300 full-time employees and millions of dollars in revenue. (Forbes, LA Times) Instacart has been vastly successful over its nearly five-year lifespan, and is still growing. But how did Instacart do it? Does the founder, Apoorva Mehta, have the golden touch? Hardly. In fact, before starting Instacart, the former Amazon supply chain engineer and University of Waterloo graduate (with a degree in electrical engineering) had tried and failed to start an estimated twenty businesses, ranging from advertising networks to a social media platform for lawyers. (LA Times)

When interviewed about his past failures, Mr. Mehta said, “Going through all these failures, releasing feature after feature, I realized it wasn’t that I couldn’t find a product that worked, I just didn’t care about the product.” This is where he learned that the key to a successful startup was to find something he cared about to work on. Out of that realization sprang Instacart. While the idea for ordering groceries online for delivery was not new (LA Times), Mr. Mehta decided that the previous attempt, Webvan, failed because of poor timing rather than a poor concept. Fast forward to 2017, and Instacart has become a large, successful company. And all of that because one man refused to give up and chose to learn from his mistakes!

Gerard Adams and FOWNDERS

Gerard Adams

Gerard Adams is an entrepreneur and philanthropist whose current project is the organization he founded called FOWNDERS. FOWNDERS is a progressive social education enterprise which teaches entrepreneurs the tools they will need to develop their projects. The members mentor and teach new entrepreneurs. The members include executives, investors, and other prominent figures who take a personal interest in new businesses and invest in them.

Gerard Adams’ career includes co-founding the National Inflation Association, which is dedicated to helping Americans prepare for the threat of hyperinflation and the potential collapse of the U.S. dollar. He co-founded Elite Daily, a news source for and by Millennials, which sold for $50 million to Daily Mail. His current effort, as mentioned above, is called FOWNDERS, which he founded in 2015. He currently holds the positions of President of both the NIA and Elite Daily and CEO of FOWNDERS.

Mr. Adams has invested, co-founded or otherwise backed nine separate companies in the past decade or so. He writes on the About page of his personal website that he feels a, “drive and vision to share what I’ve learned with others.” (gerardadams/about) Mr. Adams says that one of his basic inspirations was his interaction with Tony Robbins, another speaker and mentor. He learned that a materially successful life was useless without fulfilment.

Mr. Adams intends to drive his vision of community, collaboration, and courage to the entire next generation of entrepreneurs. He hopes to help other entrepreneurs overcome the self-doubt he once struggled with, and create a vibrant group of socially-minded business leaders for the future.

Sources:

inc.com

FOWNDERS.com

gerardadams.com

Hair Bears

Haircuts for the Challenged

In 2014, Jessica Leach started a company called Hair Bears. She had gone to the hairdressers with her aunt, who suffers from both physical and mental disabilities. Ms. Leach realized that a process as personal as getting your hair cut can be very stressful for children with disabilities. In what other industry do you regularly go somewhere to have them cut off part of your body?

In Hair Bears, which caters to children with social, physical, or learning disorders, the hairdresser (Ms. Leach’s mother) uses techniques that are designed to put the children at ease, such as sensory therapy and other distraction methods. From the initial realization of a basic challenge which many people experience, Jessica Leach developed a business which not only makes money, but helps people all at the same time.

Ms. Leach plans to expand her brand by training other hairdressers in the area to use similar techniques, and certify them to have followed her strategy and standards. She hopes to eventually have certified salons all over the country!