How to fail, and do it gracefully. Stefan Fountain knows.
Stefan Fountain has worked on a great variety of things, from building furniture, to founding and eventually successfully selling startups.
Stefan believes (and we as well) that there is no success without failure, Stefan teached you how to fail gracefully.
Stefan started his career in 2001 as CTO at a digital web agency called Eight Media. CTO during the day, and touring with his band Little Things that Kill in the evenings and weekends. Within Eight Media, a side project was born, and the company quickly realized there was demand for it in the market. They decided to split the company in two — resulting in Stefan founding a startup called Soocial.
We’re happy to announce Stefan Fountain as another locally represented speaker at our last AMSxTech conference in March 2017!
Not too long after conception, Soocial raised €1M+ of in funding to provide a world-class address book syncing service. Eventually, Soocial was sold to a French LinkedIn competitor (Viadeo). That was a ‘heck of a ride’, with great successes and — like any other startup — some painful failures.
In 2012, Stefan joined Viadeo as product director. Stayed for two years, and after that decided he was so fed up with everything internet, that he started making furniture.
Shortly after his drastic career switch, Stefan was contacted by TNW and asked whether he was interested in running pr.co. In December 2014 furniture builder entered the Internet world once again, with some valuable knowledge — Stefan learned how to fail, and do it gracefully.
Every company has a story
“I believe every company has a unique story to tell. It’s why the company was founded; it’s the core of their existence. Unfortunately, along the road, we tend to forget that story.” — Stefan Fountain
After more than two years, Stefan is still running pr.co, who recently got some room to grow by getting funded by industry giant Woodwing. Pr.co’s mission is clear: equipping companies with the right tools to get their unique story told.
Stefan explained why failure is a crucial element of startup life, and will teach the crowd how to cope with it and fail gracefully like we do in ❌❌❌ You can’t a ticket for an event in the past but you can join our community.
