The BB Blog: Building a Start-Up at Hyper-speed, Experienced in Slow Motion
By: Matt Wasserlauf, CEO and Founder of BLOCKBOARD
Welcome to Blockboard Week!
At 3-and-a-half years old, my little company Blockboard, which was born in a pandemic, has grown enough that it requires its own week. In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined a more perilous and circuitous path to this place, but here we are.
The most important thing I’m doing as founder now, after a 20 year tour in entrepreneurship is slowing everything down. I’m enjoying every second. This was impossible for me to do back in my BBE days. Almost 20 years ago, I was young, inexperienced and everything moved too fast. Now as an older and wiser entrepreneur, I’m taking time to stop and enjoy moments like this one: Blockboard Week. I am appreciating the small stuff. I am appreciating the people. The new people building their careers. The older ones doing new things. Seeing new relationships blossom. Watching a new team come together.
My career has been in the epicenter of the convergence of TV and digital video. Twenty-five years ago I sold the biggest shows in TV, like 'Friends' and 'Survivor,' and served the first video ads in MLB baseball games on the MLB At Bat app, and across Facebook and YouTube. Now I enjoy watching my colleagues from all these places converge at Blockboard and form a team - a unit - that will deliver the future of video on the blockchain. We’re endeavoring on some incredibly big and powerful challenges that will impact how the fast growing $50 billion dollar video industry runs and will run. We’re changing the game.
Last Tuesday, I had the fortune of presenting to our team in our Manhattan offices and looking into the eyes of the future leaders of this wonderful industry.
I asked everyone to appreciate this moment, this team and the awesome opportunity that lays in front of us. I said to them that the future will move fast, will be hard and will take everything we’ve got to win. But as I spoke, I slowed it down, took a mental picture and enjoyed the moment.
For that one second, I took the hyper speed growth and pace of our company and slowed it down. This is the the fun stuff. The very best.
