Having launched Runkeeper in 2008 with the help of “moonlighting engineers” before closing a $10 million Series B round in late 2011, RunKeeper’s co-founder, Jason Jacobs speaks from experience when describing the whiplash entrepreneurs face when stepping out on their own.
In episode II of his Founder Stories conversation with host Chris Dixon, Jacobs characterizes the adventure this way. “The day you leave your job and the hourglass starts turning upside down in your savings that is a really scary, awful, stressful, exhilarating, tremendously exciting feeling. And then that basically doesn’t stop.”
Emotions expressed, Jacobs describes his vision for RunKeeper.
“There needs to be this kind of central console that ties all this [health] stuff together … the way that Facebook did that in social networking.” Aiming to be this central console, Jacobs adds “we opened up our API six months ago and … we have seen 50 completed integrations so far, and several hundred others in development.”
Before the interview wraps, Jacobs extends this piece of advice to the next generation of founders. “Figure out what you really want because following the decision path to build a big game changing next billion dollar company is totally different than building a highly successful small company that either gets acquired quickly or can see you to a sustaining pace.”
Make sure to watch the entire video to hear additional insights.
Past Founder Stories episodes featuring ZocDoc, Reddit, Tumblr, TripAdvisor, Birchbox, Warby Parker and many other startups are here.
Episode I of this interview is here.
