hi I’m Evan Carmichael welcome to
another edition of modeling the masters
I believe that the fastest and most
effective way to grow a business is sum
all of the strategies of people who have
already done what you’re trying to do so
today we’re gonna look at how a man who
started a website as a part-time hobby
and had no formal business plan went on
to create one of the top ten websites in
the world this is a story of Craigslist
founder Craig Newmark and the top three
lessons you can learn from his success
Craig Newmark is an American
entrepreneur that started with an idea
to inform people to turn in the
Craigslist a multi-million dollar
internet business Newmark grew up in
Morristown New Jersey his father a
salesman who peddled everything from
food to insurance died of lung cancer
shortly after Newmark’s Bar Mitzvah his
mother worked as a bookkeeper and
struggled to make ends meet after her
husband passed away Newmark went to
Marston High School where he became
co-captain of the debate team and also
an active member of the forensics Club
he also started his own Club which might
regularly the play the game go a few
years after graduating college Newmark
worked at IBM in Florida then for
Charles Schwab in San Francisco Newark
then began working as an independent
consultant taking on contracts with Bank
of America Sun Microsystems and more
after several years of observing people
on the internet and how they used online
tools to help each other out new Merck
decided to start his own email service
to notify people about cool arts and
technology events in San Francisco when
you mark simple email listing reached
over two hundred and forty subscribers
he could no longer carry on as he was
even his CC field would not accept any
more email addresses instead of shutting
down new mark decided to move his list
to a public server for all to access he
wanted to call his new website SF events
for San Francisco events but some of his
closest friend suggested cullinan
Craigslist to emphasize the personal and
down the earth nature of the list in his
first few years new mark ran the site as
a part-time hobby in continuing his
consulting work full-time during the day
he tried to bring on some volunteers but
they didn’t pan out as Newmark expected
this is when he had an epiphany he hired
the right CEO and Craigslist took off
practices earning over ten million
dollars in revenues for 2004 then in
2005 for price tag of 15 million dollars
eBay purchased a 25% stake in a company
from a former shareholder as of 2010
Craigslist was generating more than one
hundred and twenty-two million dollars
annually by following his passion and
recognizing that he couldn’t do
everything himself Craig Newmark was
able to turn his business from a
part-time hobby into a globally
recognized brand to help you explode
your business here are three action
items and you can learn from Craig
Newmark actually not a number one get
out of the way a huge challenge for many
entrepreneurs is recognizing what you
should and should not be doing in your
business focus your time and energy on
the tasks that you bring the most amount
of value to and delegate or outsource
the rest if you hang on the control of
every task you’ll always be limited in
how much your business can grow because
you won’t have enough time one of the
reasons why Craigslist has become such a
success story is because Newmark has
understood the importance of getting out
of the way where and when it mattered
from content to the overall management
of the site he knew that it was not
going to be him who always had the best
answers and when it counted he was
willing to step back and hand over the
reins even though he was getting a lot
of interest from IT venture capitalist
Newmark awaited the amongst refusal to
bring on a partner was not a power grab
he would hand over the reins where and
when it felt right and that time came in
2000 when he decided to promote
entrepreneur Jim buck master as CEO
that’s when the company really began to
take off he knew he needed someone
better than himself and decided to get
out of the way according to new mark
frankly as a manager I kind of suck
but fortunately Jim didn’t he’s a much
better manager than I am and because the
guy who started a company is not always
the right guy to lead it into the future
people that start companies and lack
management skills they fail getting
another way is really important we
didn’t care that the site wasn’t being
used how we had a match
the Internet is about inclusion on the
net no one should feel left out action
item number to do things better to reach
success as an entrepreneur you need to
do things differently and better than
your competition you don’t need to be
better at everything pick something you
can be really good at and be the best at
it
customers who care about that feature
will come to you being average at
everything is a recipe for failure being
good at a few things that your customers
really care about or rocking your
success forward the good thing about not
having an adventure capitalist backing
him meant that Newmark was free to do
what he wanted with his company he was
free to innovate or to step back and let
his user to innovate for him one of his
inventions came in the form of the best
of Craigslist blog
ideally rounded with the craziest most
hilarious postings that are left by
users on the site knew mark who enjoys
sifting through the online discussions
on a daily basis pulls out the funniest
and most ludicrous posting some across
the Craigslist network and compiles him
into a daily blog by letting users post
this kind of stuff new mark was able to
build readership and loyalty to the site
having the ability to innovate a lot of
trick less to do things better Gordon
and Newmark were innovative in many
small ways when we see something that
could be done better we do it this is
the notion of Kaizen the Japanese
practice of continuous business process
re-engineering people can see that when
they report a problem to us
we take it seriously we want life to be
fair even though it’s not sometimes you
got to be fast so you don’t waste the
time of others action of them number
three listen no matter how great a
product or service you have you’ll
always have to make changes based on
what your prospects and customers say
encourage their feedback
better yet start talking to them before
you even have a product or service ready
to sell build it around their needs
there’s nothing like creating the
business around paying customers to
ensure that you get past the survival
stage and go on to build a highly
successful company from its onset
Craigslist was born from the ideas and
suggestions of his users when Newmark
began sending on his email list in 1995
to a small group of interested
subscribers almost immediately he began
receiving emails back with suggestions
for job and apartment listing
they hope Newmark would add to his list
recognizing importance of a feedback
loop has been crucial for the success of
the small company in fact that has come
to represent one of its founding
corporate values and one of the reasons
why millions of people the world over
continue to turn to their local
Craigslist for help and making many of
their most important life decisions to
this day Newmark spends six hours of
every working day on customer service
responding to the needs and requests of
his users according to new mark from the
very beginning I was involved in talking
to people listening to people and it
hasn’t stopped the idea that people send
me information I’d asked him about it
listen try to do something about it and
then ask for more feedback community
people let me know that the volunteer
operation was failing and help me get
out of denial 90% of the function of our
site is based on suggestions from users
so remember get out of the way do things
better and listen to finish up this
video I wanted to share what my favorite
true stories about Craig Newmark and
some of his best quotes
despite his professional successes
Newmark struggled personally he enrolled
in ballet and jazz dance classes in
order to meet women willing to wind up
in the hospital with a hernia no matter
what most people say one of the biggest
reasons Newmark started Craigslist was
because of his struggling personal life
he is a self-admitted nerd which really
turned off women he thought it was a
good idea to start helping people by
starting an email service for others
like himself after finally getting too
many people using his email service
Newmark started Craigslist according to
him it’s the reason he has the
girlfriend he has today he likes to say
that Craigslist has prevented hurting
himself just to meet women out of this
struggle for personal contact Newmark
built one of the top 10 websites in the
world according to recent stats more
than 5 million people use a site every
month and more than 1 billion pages of
Craigslist are looked at every month
thank you for joining me for another
edition of mauling the Masters if you
liked the video and you want to see more
please give it a thumbs up it helps let
me know that you guys like the videos
and I also love to hear what you have to
think if you want to leave a comment
under the video and thank you and we’ll
see you on the next episode
you
another edition of modeling the masters
I believe that the fastest and most
effective way to grow a business is sum
all of the strategies of people who have
already done what you’re trying to do so
today we’re gonna look at how a man who
started a website as a part-time hobby
and had no formal business plan went on
to create one of the top ten websites in
the world this is a story of Craigslist
founder Craig Newmark and the top three
lessons you can learn from his success
Craig Newmark is an American
entrepreneur that started with an idea
to inform people to turn in the
Craigslist a multi-million dollar
internet business Newmark grew up in
Morristown New Jersey his father a
salesman who peddled everything from
food to insurance died of lung cancer
shortly after Newmark’s Bar Mitzvah his
mother worked as a bookkeeper and
struggled to make ends meet after her
husband passed away Newmark went to
Marston High School where he became
co-captain of the debate team and also
an active member of the forensics Club
he also started his own Club which might
regularly the play the game go a few
years after graduating college Newmark
worked at IBM in Florida then for
Charles Schwab in San Francisco Newark
then began working as an independent
consultant taking on contracts with Bank
of America Sun Microsystems and more
after several years of observing people
on the internet and how they used online
tools to help each other out new Merck
decided to start his own email service
to notify people about cool arts and
technology events in San Francisco when
you mark simple email listing reached
over two hundred and forty subscribers
he could no longer carry on as he was
even his CC field would not accept any
more email addresses instead of shutting
down new mark decided to move his list
to a public server for all to access he
wanted to call his new website SF events
for San Francisco events but some of his
closest friend suggested cullinan
Craigslist to emphasize the personal and
down the earth nature of the list in his
first few years new mark ran the site as
a part-time hobby in continuing his
consulting work full-time during the day
he tried to bring on some volunteers but
they didn’t pan out as Newmark expected
this is when he had an epiphany he hired
the right CEO and Craigslist took off
practices earning over ten million
dollars in revenues for 2004 then in
2005 for price tag of 15 million dollars
eBay purchased a 25% stake in a company
from a former shareholder as of 2010
Craigslist was generating more than one
hundred and twenty-two million dollars
annually by following his passion and
recognizing that he couldn’t do
everything himself Craig Newmark was
able to turn his business from a
part-time hobby into a globally
recognized brand to help you explode
your business here are three action
items and you can learn from Craig
Newmark actually not a number one get
out of the way a huge challenge for many
entrepreneurs is recognizing what you
should and should not be doing in your
business focus your time and energy on
the tasks that you bring the most amount
of value to and delegate or outsource
the rest if you hang on the control of
every task you’ll always be limited in
how much your business can grow because
you won’t have enough time one of the
reasons why Craigslist has become such a
success story is because Newmark has
understood the importance of getting out
of the way where and when it mattered
from content to the overall management
of the site he knew that it was not
going to be him who always had the best
answers and when it counted he was
willing to step back and hand over the
reins even though he was getting a lot
of interest from IT venture capitalist
Newmark awaited the amongst refusal to
bring on a partner was not a power grab
he would hand over the reins where and
when it felt right and that time came in
2000 when he decided to promote
entrepreneur Jim buck master as CEO
that’s when the company really began to
take off he knew he needed someone
better than himself and decided to get
out of the way according to new mark
frankly as a manager I kind of suck
but fortunately Jim didn’t he’s a much
better manager than I am and because the
guy who started a company is not always
the right guy to lead it into the future
people that start companies and lack
management skills they fail getting
another way is really important we
didn’t care that the site wasn’t being
used how we had a match
the Internet is about inclusion on the
net no one should feel left out action
item number to do things better to reach
success as an entrepreneur you need to
do things differently and better than
your competition you don’t need to be
better at everything pick something you
can be really good at and be the best at
it
customers who care about that feature
will come to you being average at
everything is a recipe for failure being
good at a few things that your customers
really care about or rocking your
success forward the good thing about not
having an adventure capitalist backing
him meant that Newmark was free to do
what he wanted with his company he was
free to innovate or to step back and let
his user to innovate for him one of his
inventions came in the form of the best
of Craigslist blog
ideally rounded with the craziest most
hilarious postings that are left by
users on the site knew mark who enjoys
sifting through the online discussions
on a daily basis pulls out the funniest
and most ludicrous posting some across
the Craigslist network and compiles him
into a daily blog by letting users post
this kind of stuff new mark was able to
build readership and loyalty to the site
having the ability to innovate a lot of
trick less to do things better Gordon
and Newmark were innovative in many
small ways when we see something that
could be done better we do it this is
the notion of Kaizen the Japanese
practice of continuous business process
re-engineering people can see that when
they report a problem to us
we take it seriously we want life to be
fair even though it’s not sometimes you
got to be fast so you don’t waste the
time of others action of them number
three listen no matter how great a
product or service you have you’ll
always have to make changes based on
what your prospects and customers say
encourage their feedback
better yet start talking to them before
you even have a product or service ready
to sell build it around their needs
there’s nothing like creating the
business around paying customers to
ensure that you get past the survival
stage and go on to build a highly
successful company from its onset
Craigslist was born from the ideas and
suggestions of his users when Newmark
began sending on his email list in 1995
to a small group of interested
subscribers almost immediately he began
receiving emails back with suggestions
for job and apartment listing
they hope Newmark would add to his list
recognizing importance of a feedback
loop has been crucial for the success of
the small company in fact that has come
to represent one of its founding
corporate values and one of the reasons
why millions of people the world over
continue to turn to their local
Craigslist for help and making many of
their most important life decisions to
this day Newmark spends six hours of
every working day on customer service
responding to the needs and requests of
his users according to new mark from the
very beginning I was involved in talking
to people listening to people and it
hasn’t stopped the idea that people send
me information I’d asked him about it
listen try to do something about it and
then ask for more feedback community
people let me know that the volunteer
operation was failing and help me get
out of denial 90% of the function of our
site is based on suggestions from users
so remember get out of the way do things
better and listen to finish up this
video I wanted to share what my favorite
true stories about Craig Newmark and
some of his best quotes
despite his professional successes
Newmark struggled personally he enrolled
in ballet and jazz dance classes in
order to meet women willing to wind up
in the hospital with a hernia no matter
what most people say one of the biggest
reasons Newmark started Craigslist was
because of his struggling personal life
he is a self-admitted nerd which really
turned off women he thought it was a
good idea to start helping people by
starting an email service for others
like himself after finally getting too
many people using his email service
Newmark started Craigslist according to
him it’s the reason he has the
girlfriend he has today he likes to say
that Craigslist has prevented hurting
himself just to meet women out of this
struggle for personal contact Newmark
built one of the top 10 websites in the
world according to recent stats more
than 5 million people use a site every
month and more than 1 billion pages of
Craigslist are looked at every month
thank you for joining me for another
edition of mauling the Masters if you
liked the video and you want to see more
please give it a thumbs up it helps let
me know that you guys like the videos
and I also love to hear what you have to
think if you want to leave a comment
under the video and thank you and we’ll
see you on the next episode
you
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