Show up: meet Mike Trotzke, serial entrepreneur and tech fanatic
Mike Trotzke has lived a life of passion and impact. Since he left IU 20 years ago, his passion for technology has led him to found several companies of his own and build applications for dozens of other companies. Keep reading to learn about his successes, failures, and advice to the StartupIU community.
What is your “Twitter bio” or elevator pitch?
Founder of: Cheddar. SproutBox. Resite. Visible. WorldView Multimedia.
Something I’m a fan of is board games. I host a monthly board game night on the second Monday of the month at Cardinal Spirits. I go to GenCon every year and hang out with the nerdiest of the nerds. I am also into IU basketball. I’m also, of course, a fan of my wife.
I came to Bloomington for school in 1994 and never left. While at IU, I founded WorldView Multimedia, a consultancy firm. My original goal was to write software to build theatre halls. At the time, the internet was just birthing and then that became my focus. I put together an individualized major through the Individualized Major Program in Multimedia Production, which combined audio recording, computer science, education, and telecommunications. I eventually dropped out to pursue my interests on my own.
How did you get the idea for Cheddar? Where are you now?
Actually, I didn’t. Cheddar was kind of an internal project for a long time. We sold Resite and worked together on our own individual projects in the same office. We had three home “sprouts” and my partner Marc’s project was Cheddar. We built an application for a new business every three months in exchange for equity for about 6 years. We used Cheddar to bill the companies. It was really the secret sauce of SproutBox that made us successful. We recently closed a round of financing and I came on as CEO and we’ve been hiring, growing, and trying to situate ourselves to be a rocket ship from this point forward.
Of all your experiences in the last 20 years, what would you describe as your favorite failure?
Well the best failures are always the ones that you learn something from. Once, there was a company that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop a mobile application and then no one downloaded the app. The lesson was that they easily could have known that up front by understanding and validating the market side of what they trying to do before trying to build any product at all. It’s amazing how far you can go developing a business plan with no product and really have an understanding of what it’s going to be like when you build your product.
I appreciate that I went through that because a technical person like me can become so focused on the product that you want to build. I call that falling in love with the solution. A person who does this thinks they have the perfect, revolutionary solution. This is especially true with students, I did the same thing. However, their emphasis is in the wrong place. What they should be doing is falling in love with the problem, because their solution is probably not going to be a perfect fit to the problem. As soon as you put all of your heart, soul, and life into the solution and it doesn’t work, you get disheartened and you quit. But when what you’re obsessed with and what you love is trying to solve whatever particular problem you’re trying to solve, and you put forward your solution and it doesn’t work, you’re still super motivated. A lot of it is emotionally placing yourself in the right position so that you’re focused on the right thing and you’re measuring your success or failure on the right thing.
“What they should be doing is falling in love with the problem, because their solution is probably not going to be a perfect fit to the problem.”
What problem have you fallen in love with?
An overarching lifetime problem for me is that Bloomington is a really creative place with all the right ingredients to have a 10X more active tech community. I’m trying to solve the disparity between the strength of our tech ecosystem and the cultural amenities of our town.
If IU students wanted to get more involved in the tech community in Bloomington, what should they do?
Well, I always tell students to go to Startup Mic Nite. It is 18+ at the Bishop. It’s an easy way to meet the tech community here. Another opportunity is Collide, if you’re a morning person, which is a similar networking driven event. B-Start is also a great resource for getting involved in the tech community. Come to the Combine on April 6th and 7th. Student tickets are only $25 using the code “startupiu” at checkout.
If you actually want to get involved, the best way is just to show up and then show up again. You’ll find that it will happen.
If you’re interested in getting involved with startups, your GPA is going to matter less. I’m not saying don’t get a good GPA, but if I had to trade it in with someone who had built some things or worked for a startup, I would in a heartbeat. What is important to people in the startup world is different from what is important to people in the corporate world or academic world. If you know your destination is startups, be hands on.
Once Dimension Mill opens this fall, there will be a real sense of connectivity between the new hospital, Hodge Hall, Luddy Hall, and the startup community in Bloomington along 10th street.
What’s one piece of advice you would give to student or future entrepreneurs?
Awkwardly showing up and standing in the back of things will change your life. That is one thing I did really well as a student. There were so many things to go to. It was just transformative. That’s how I met people. Yes, there’s learning, but I can learn most of what I want to learn on my own now. What I can’t get anywhere else is another time to be around like-minded people that you can build life-long relationships with. When I think about my life now, I think about my wife, Brad, Mark, and all of them came from IU in some way, shape, or form. Yes, you’re getting an education, but getting to meet people and experience new things happens here. Don’t let it pass you by. It’s easy to do. Take this opportunity to connect.
“Awkwardly showing up and standing in the back of things will change your life.”
What is the greatest piece of advice that you have been given?
An investor told me that when you’re having a really hard time making an either/or decision between two things, the answer is probably both. I run into all these false dichotomies where it’s like either I have to do this or I have to do this. Obviously everyone has a limited amount of time, but if it’s something you’re passionate about there’s many more times that you can both situations.
Where can people find you?
I’m at the Alley Bar every Thursday at 6pm for office hours. You can also email me at mike@getcheddar.com.
This post is a part of StartupIU Entrepreneur Spotlight, a series of Medium posts written by the Shoemaker Scholars to feature entrepreneurial and innovative students and alumni. Want to nominate someone (or yourself) to be featured? Email us at sscholar@indiana.edu.
