The “Important Shit”

A few weeks ago I was at dinner and the question was posed:

Would Kabam have joined an accelerator if they had the chance to do it all over again?

We started in 2006, with a few years of work experience. YCombinator had just started on the east coast the year before in 2005 aimed towards students. Thus, we don’t know what it’s like to go through an accelerator — we don’t know what is taught or more importantly what people learn. We did it the old fashioned way — going up and down Sandhill Road.

I answered if they taught the “important shit” like how to hire people, how to fire people, defining values/culture and making the tough decisions — I would be all for it (assuming we could even get in!). It has been a lot of trial by fire and one of the most important things to building an enduring company.

It’s been about 10 years since we started Kabam . We’ve had a lot of challenges, opportunities and amazing milestones on our way to building a billion dollar company. And still learning “the important shit”.

So I hope this will be the first of many “important shit” articles. This is what this publication is about. Things that really only experience can teach someone when founding and building an enduring company. My hope is that folks can learn from our experience.

Smart people learn from their own mistakes, successful people learn from other people’s mistakes.

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I am the co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Kabam, these perspectives are my own and do not necessarily represent Kabam.