Imagine walking into a business meeting and realizing that, because of a time crunch, you know little about the company executives with whom you are about to speak. Chang may have a background in analytics, but she understands the importance of a company built around human needs. She shared with me her top five tips on successfully launching a tech startup built on people-centered relationships. I’d sit in the meeting and think: I work at Google, how do I not know this stuff?” She would have just enough info to know she was painfully uninformed, but didn’t have the time to do the research on each person beforehand. It’s totally normal to be afraid, but you cannot let that stop you from trying.” “Trust your gut instinct,” Chang advised. If there’s an idea you can’t stop thinking about, don’t ignore it, but don’t rush it either. Let your mind work over the idea and figure out what it is that you find so compelling. Learn from the big guys, then build your dream. Tech should enhance human interaction. “You-centric” tech is a major trend.
Imagine walking into a business meeting and realizing that, because of a time crunch, you know little about the company executives with whom you are about to speak.
Amy Chang, who once led Google’s Advertiser Measurement & Reporting efforts, including Google Analytics, has experienced this challenge over and over. She finally decided to seek her own solution. Recently, she launched Accompany, a startup that seeks to be your “virtual chief of staff.”
Accompany picks up information from the emails, calendars, social media and professional feeds of the people with whom you are meeting in order to give you the most important information about them.
What makes the app unique is that, while it is built on data, it is decidedly human-centric.
Chang may have a background in analytics, but she understands the importance of a company built around human needs.
She shared with me her top five tips on successfully launching a tech startup built on people-centered relationships.
1. Find a way to fix a problem you see firsthand.
Chang first came up with the idea for Accompany when she was charged with trying to sell Google Analytics Premium to high-level company executives. Chang often felt overwhelmed trying to keep up with all the people she encountered.
“I was walking into a room of 20 Intel execs and trying to sell them a $150,000 piece of software,” Chang said.
“Here I was madly scrambling to do my homework and research as many of the key people in that meeting as possible, but I had 10 of those meetings a day. I’d sit in the meeting and think: I work at Google, how do I not know this stuff?”
She would have just enough info to know she was painfully uninformed, but didn’t have the time to do the research on each person beforehand.
After being caught flatfooted by major changes within the organizations that she was dealing with, Chang decided to look into creating a service that would help people like her who needed a mobile “chief of staff.”
“I so wished someone had been there to help prep me and tell me these things,” Chang explained. “When I left Google, I decided to build it!”
2. Don’t let fear of failure stop you.
No matter how good their idea is, or how much they…
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