Identify What Works Then Tune Out Everything Else

Brad Hargreaves has built his career and several businesses on learning how to act on feedback about what's working while tuning out everything else. The lessons that helped him make thousands of dollars at a time selling furniture as part of a side hustle when he was an undergrad at Yale also helped him build a company that eventually sold for $412 million.

There have been big losses along the way too. Entrepreneurship is a rollercoaster. If it looks like Brad is having fun, and it definitely does, it may be because he's learned to not lose his head during any of the twists and turns.

1:00 Brad is a serial entrepreneur

3:31 Discovering Yale’s surplus card catalogs and turning a $50 purchase into a $3,000 eBay sale

8:43 Founding General Assembly. Graduating into the global financial crisis led Brad to identify a gap between overeducated workers and unmet digital skills demand.

11:25 Explosive growth and a lucrative exit

13:38 Brad explains that success comes less from perfect foresight and more from fast iteration and learning from early signals.

17:25 Founding Common: how housing challenges for students and employees inspired the idea behind co-living

19:20 Intense investor interest in co-living during the WeWork era and the rapid influx of capital.

21:10 The 2022 sale of Common and its eventual bankruptcy

25:15 What it’s like operating at the red-hot center of intense venture capital attention

29:00 Venture capital is jet fuel. If used incorrectly, you can blow yourself up.

35:15 Major successes and failures can affect your sense of identity.

38:32 How writing and publishing led organically to founding Thesis Driven.

40:20 Thesis Driven’s model: audience-first product development across data, education, and capital markets.

44:30 Surpassing $2 million in annual recurring revenue

46:10 How “building in public”, in plain view of potential customers, builds trust and engagement