Fabrice Grinda

  • Playing with
    Unicorns
  • Featured
  • Categories
  • Portfolio
  • About Me
  • Newsletter
  • AI
    • Pitch me your startup!
    • Fabrice AI
  • ES
    • EN
    • FR
    • AR
    • BN
    • DA
    • DE
    • FA
    • HI
    • ID
    • IT
    • JA
    • KO
    • NL
    • PL
    • PT-BR
    • PT-PT
    • RO
    • RU
    • TH
    • UK
    • UR
    • VI
    • ZH-HANS
    • ZH-HANT
× Image Description

Subscribe to Fabrice's Newsletter

Tech Entrepreneurship, Economics, Life Philosophy and much more!

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Menu

  • ES
    • EN
    • FR
    • AR
    • BN
    • DA
    • DE
    • FA
    • HI
    • ID
    • IT
    • JA
    • KO
    • NL
    • PL
    • PT-BR
    • PT-PT
    • RO
    • RU
    • TH
    • UK
    • UR
    • VI
    • ZH-HANS
    • ZH-HANT
  • Home
  • Playing with Unicorns
  • Featured
  • Categories
  • Portfolio
  • About Me
  • Newsletter
  • Privacy Policy
Ir al contenido
Fabrice Grinda

Internet entrepreneurs and investors

× Image Description

Subscribe to Fabrice's Newsletter

Tech Entrepreneurship, Economics, Life Philosophy and much more!

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Fabrice Grinda

Internet entrepreneurs and investors

Mes: abril 2015

Fun Discussion with Dave McClure at PreMONEY Miami

Fun Discussion with Dave McClure at PreMONEY Miami

Autor FabricePublicado el abril 15, 2015agosto 24, 2023Formato VídeoCategorías Iniciativa empresarial, Entrevistas y tertulias3 comentarios en Fun Discussion with Dave McClure at PreMONEY Miami

I failed my way to success!

I failed my way to success!

I wanted to share a fun interview I gave to JobSpotting. They kindly allowed me to reproduce it on my blog.

Fabrice Grinda likes building things. He also happens to be very, very good at it. Since starting his first company at age 23, Grinda has become one of the world’s most successful Internet entrepreneurs and investors.

Originally from France, Grinda has built his career in the USA, having moved there at age 17 to attend university, founding his first startup just 6 years later. Now, with over $300m in exits and 150 investments under his belt, startups globally vie for his attention, but Fabrice will only entertain a potential investment if they tick each of his
9 business selection criteria
.

Talking to Fabrice, you get the sense that he doesn’t do anything by halves, whether it’s answering emails, or embarking on a project to reconnect with his friends. He very kindly took some time out of his schedule to answer some of my questions about success, failure and what startups need to do to catch his eye. So here’s Fabrice Grinda on…

… Why Risk is Over-Estimated

“Failure is a lot less risky than people suspect. The reality is my first startup failed, the second one was in the process of failing and you know… what’s the worst that can happen? I know I’m a valuable individual who many companies would be delighted to have me [working] with them, so I didn’t see there was risk.

So where other people saw risk, I saw opportunity because the worst that could happen was that I’d land on my feet […] I never saw what I was doing as risky and I was willing to go and take more risk than most people think is reasonable.

At the same time, I don’t mind rejection. If you’re going to succeed as an entrepreneur you need to deal with both failure and rejection on a permanent basis […] but I realised at the end of the day that I only needed one yes. So I already had the no, I just needed to convert it into a yes.”

… Getting Over Introversion

“If you’re CEO of a company, you have to be a public person. You’re speaking to the press, you’re speaking to investors, you’re speaking to employees, you’re the public face of the company and so kind of naturally you become more extroverted, more outwards facing.

So it goes with the job and you get good at it as part of the process. And in my case I think I was kind of like that originally, I just didn’t know it. I was like an extrovert hidden in the body of a shy introvert. My fundamental personality was extroverted, I just wasn’t aware of it.”

… Failing Your Way to Success

“As an entrepreneur you keep trying things, and I try everything. I try business ideas, on our website we test everything, iterate, iterate, iterate. Is the button white or orange or green or yellow? Does it say ‘sell’, or ‘sell now’, or ‘on sale’ or ‘for sale’? You test, you test, you test and most of the ideas you try fail and so I would argue I failed my way to success. It’s the sum total of all these little tests and if you do enough little 1% improvements, the sum total of them leads to disruptive product change.

I think it’s a very deliberate approach. Tonnes of hard work and intelligence, grit, tenacity, passion and good fortune. I mean I was also lucky multiple times. In all of these, the most important I would say is grit tenacity, passion, willingness to go the extra mile, willingness to never back down … the hard work probably trumps everything else.”

… Productivity and Being Present

“Whatever I’m doing, I’m doing just that task at that one moment, whether it’s emails – which I batch process – or calls etc … in a way they all work together because the ideas are related.

My key productivity tip is have all notifications off so […] you should not be distracted – focus on the present and batch process everything and decrease transaction costs.”

 … How Entrepreneurship Has Changed

“It’s a lot easier than ever before. When I started my first company, you needed to build your own servers, you needed data centres, you needed Oracle or Microsoft licenses so … it cost hundreds of thousands upon millions just to get started. Today, with all the open source tools … it’s much easier and also marketing now with tracking tools etc. it’s easier and cheaper than ever before to build a startup. If anything, at that time, at 23 I was the exception. Today I’m not the exception. Today a lot of entrepreneurs are very young when they start their first company because it’s easier and cheaper than ever before.”

… Some Predictions for the Future

“I see that all of the major segments of the economy are going to be revolutionised be they in education with things like the MOOCs like Coursera and, Codecademy… and also gamified learning on iPad, and iPhones that in general are playing a big role.

We’re going to have a revolution in medicine, especially on the diagnostics side […] all the diagnostics will happen for free or at a marginal cost of 0, so you’ll have like a 5 or 10 minute HIV test for free and basic diagnostics and it’s going to be especially powerful in emerging markets where the number of doctors is very small.

And manufacturing, you’re going to see a revolution in 3D printing where we’re seeing more and more bespoke additions to product runs and also the output from 3D printers will become more and more integrated in traditional manufacturing processes. And I think also you’ll start seeing 3D printers being used in medicine.

I think robotics is going to be more and more revolutionised. Not just with things like the Roomba but more effective robots, so robots will move out of the factory and into the home. I’m extremely optimistic.”

… His Number One Tip for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

“Learn computer science. It’s extraordinarily helpful. I like recommending learning economics as well so they think in terms of business, they have rational frameworks for looking at the world, but yeah, computer science is an amazing way to get into, even if you want to be CEO, having a tech background is helpful.”

Featured image by Kmeron

Autor FabricePublicado el abril 6, 2015septiembre 8, 2023Categorías Iniciativa empresarial, Entrevistas y tertulias2 comentarios en I failed my way to success!

Search

Recent Posts

  • El sentido de la vida
  • Actualización FJ Labs Q2 2025
  • Conversación sobre el mundo del DaaS con Auren Hoffman: carteras diversificadas, ventas secundarias y cenas de gala
  • Episodio 50: Tendencias del mercado de riesgo
  • Descifrando el futuro: IA, Mercado de Riesgos y Mercados

Recent Comments

    Archives

    • julio 2025
    • junio 2025
    • mayo 2025
    • abril 2025
    • marzo 2025
    • febrero 2025
    • enero 2025
    • diciembre 2024
    • noviembre 2024
    • octubre 2024
    • septiembre 2024
    • agosto 2024
    • julio 2024
    • junio 2024
    • mayo 2024
    • abril 2024
    • marzo 2024
    • febrero 2024
    • enero 2024
    • diciembre 2023
    • noviembre 2023
    • octubre 2023
    • septiembre 2023
    • agosto 2023
    • junio 2023
    • mayo 2023
    • abril 2023
    • marzo 2023
    • febrero 2023
    • enero 2023
    • diciembre 2022
    • noviembre 2022
    • octubre 2022
    • septiembre 2022
    • agosto 2022
    • junio 2022
    • mayo 2022
    • abril 2022
    • marzo 2022
    • febrero 2022
    • enero 2022
    • noviembre 2021
    • octubre 2021
    • septiembre 2021
    • agosto 2021
    • julio 2021
    • junio 2021
    • abril 2021
    • marzo 2021
    • febrero 2021
    • enero 2021
    • diciembre 2020
    • noviembre 2020
    • octubre 2020
    • septiembre 2020
    • agosto 2020
    • julio 2020
    • junio 2020
    • mayo 2020
    • abril 2020
    • marzo 2020
    • febrero 2020
    • enero 2020
    • noviembre 2019
    • octubre 2019
    • septiembre 2019
    • agosto 2019
    • julio 2019
    • junio 2019
    • abril 2019
    • marzo 2019
    • febrero 2019
    • enero 2019
    • diciembre 2018
    • noviembre 2018
    • octubre 2018
    • agosto 2018
    • junio 2018
    • mayo 2018
    • marzo 2018
    • febrero 2018
    • enero 2018
    • diciembre 2017
    • noviembre 2017
    • octubre 2017
    • septiembre 2017
    • agosto 2017
    • julio 2017
    • junio 2017
    • mayo 2017
    • abril 2017
    • marzo 2017
    • febrero 2017
    • enero 2017
    • diciembre 2016
    • noviembre 2016
    • octubre 2016
    • septiembre 2016
    • agosto 2016
    • julio 2016
    • junio 2016
    • mayo 2016
    • abril 2016
    • marzo 2016
    • febrero 2016
    • enero 2016
    • diciembre 2015
    • noviembre 2015
    • septiembre 2015
    • agosto 2015
    • julio 2015
    • junio 2015
    • mayo 2015
    • abril 2015
    • marzo 2015
    • febrero 2015
    • enero 2015
    • diciembre 2014
    • noviembre 2014
    • octubre 2014
    • septiembre 2014
    • agosto 2014
    • julio 2014
    • junio 2014
    • mayo 2014
    • abril 2014
    • febrero 2014
    • enero 2014
    • diciembre 2013
    • noviembre 2013
    • octubre 2013
    • septiembre 2013
    • agosto 2013
    • julio 2013
    • junio 2013
    • mayo 2013
    • abril 2013
    • marzo 2013
    • febrero 2013
    • enero 2013
    • diciembre 2012
    • noviembre 2012
    • octubre 2012
    • septiembre 2012
    • agosto 2012
    • julio 2012
    • junio 2012
    • mayo 2012
    • abril 2012
    • marzo 2012
    • febrero 2012
    • enero 2012
    • diciembre 2011
    • noviembre 2011
    • octubre 2011
    • septiembre 2011
    • agosto 2011
    • julio 2011
    • junio 2011
    • mayo 2011
    • abril 2011
    • marzo 2011
    • febrero 2011
    • enero 2011
    • diciembre 2010
    • noviembre 2010
    • octubre 2010
    • septiembre 2010
    • agosto 2010
    • julio 2010
    • junio 2010
    • mayo 2010
    • abril 2010
    • marzo 2010
    • febrero 2010
    • enero 2010
    • diciembre 2009
    • noviembre 2009
    • octubre 2009
    • septiembre 2009
    • agosto 2009
    • julio 2009
    • junio 2009
    • mayo 2009
    • abril 2009
    • marzo 2009
    • febrero 2009
    • enero 2009
    • diciembre 2008
    • noviembre 2008
    • octubre 2008
    • septiembre 2008
    • agosto 2008
    • julio 2008
    • junio 2008
    • mayo 2008
    • abril 2008
    • marzo 2008
    • febrero 2008
    • enero 2008
    • diciembre 2007
    • noviembre 2007
    • octubre 2007
    • septiembre 2007
    • agosto 2007
    • julio 2007
    • junio 2007
    • mayo 2007
    • abril 2007
    • marzo 2007
    • febrero 2007
    • enero 2007
    • diciembre 2006
    • noviembre 2006
    • octubre 2006
    • septiembre 2006
    • agosto 2006
    • julio 2006
    • junio 2006
    • mayo 2006
    • abril 2006
    • marzo 2006
    • febrero 2006
    • enero 2006
    • diciembre 2005
    • noviembre 2005

    Categories

    • Entradas destacadas
    • Nueva York
    • Resumen del año
    • Reproduce
    • Iniciativa empresarial
    • Felicidad
    • Discursos
    • OLX
    • Jugar con unicornios
    • Laboratorios FJ
    • Entrevistas y tertulias
    • Películas y programas de TV
    • Reflexiones personales
    • Libros
    • Reflexiones empresariales
    • Cripto/Web3
    • Videojuegos
    • Economía
    • Mercados
    • Gadgets tecnológicos
    • Viajes
    • Resumen del año
    • Optimización de la vida
    • Laboratorios FJ
    • Toma de decisiones
    • Economía
    • Activo Vida Ligera
    • Reflexiones
    • Optimismo y felicidad
    • Perros

    Meta

    • Acceder
    • Feed de entradas
    • Feed de comentarios
    • WordPress.org
    Pitch me your startup!
    • Home
    • Playing with Unicorns
    • Featured
    • Categories
    • Portfolio
    • About Me
    • Newsletter
    • Privacy Policy
    × Image Description

    Subscribe to Fabrice's Newsletter

    Tech Entrepreneurship, Economics, Life Philosophy and much more!

    Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

    >
    This site is registered on wpml.org as a development site. Switch to a production site key to remove this banner.