Founder Origin Stories: Ryan Smith, Qualtrics
Founders have uncommon drive and ambition. At Accel, we’re fortunate to back many impressive founders who are building marquee technology companies — so we understand that much of the entrepreneurial journey is about hanging onto inspiration to overcome adversity. We recently filmed some accomplished founders sharing their unique origin story and the purpose that fuels them on their journey. We hope this perspective is useful for people on a journey of their own.
This is the origin story for Ryan Smith. Ryan is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Qualtrics. Qualtrics is a rapidly growing software-as-a-service company and the leader in experience management. More than 8,500 enterprises worldwide, including over 75 percent of the Fortune 100 and 99 of the top 100 U.S. business schools, rely on Qualtrics. The company is headquartered in Provo, Utah.
In the film, Ryan Smith alludes to the idea that a lot of people think that to make it big as a tech entrepreneur, there’s a mandatory formula to follow. Like come up with a mission that aspires to be epic and timeless. And if the mission isn’t to change the world then it’s not good enough.
After 15 years in the tech community, Ryan has seen so many of his peers get sucked down this blind alley of becoming an entrepreneur by assuming the trappings of an entrepreneur identity. And to him, they’re missing the entire point of starting a company.
Being an entrepreneur is the chance to write your own story.
So what does this mean? From Ryan’s perspective: there are no rules. There is no playbook. So don’t create a brand or a profile that follows the formula of what you think you should be. That’s the path of having your identity subsumed by the company and the myths built around it.
It’s perfectly possible to be a great leader by just being yourself.
