Steve Pollock - Co-founder and President of WetFeet.com
[Originally published 10/25/99]
Whether you're trying to decide what you want to be when you grow up or preparing for an important interview, WetFeet.com can help. After graduating from the Stanford GSB, Steve Pollock and his partner Gary Alpert founded WetFeet.com to serve as an information source for students as they plan their careers and go through the recruiting process.
What led you and your partner to start WetFeet.com?
We started with the idea that we wanted to work together as business partners. We had a high level of respect for each other's integrity, business ethics, and capabilities. We had also enjoyed working with each other at business school. So we started with the idea that we wanted to create a business. We didn't have a specific business in mind so we spent a year researching the feasibility of a variety of different business ideas. At the end of the process, we launched Wet Feet Press - which has become WetFeet.com. We knew from personal experience that there was a great need for information to help people go through recruiting, and we thought that the business required many of the skills and experiences we brought to the table.
Would you recommend going into business with a close friend?
Every person is different. I think you risk jeopardizing a friendship by going into business together. It adds an extra level of stress and introduces different kinds of things that you need to deal with. I've seen a lot of people lose friendships while creating businesses together. For us, I think it has worked really well since we have complementary personalities and skill-sets. That's not to say that there isn't tension sometimes between the two of us, but we started the company with a high level of trust for each other's values and we agreed on how we wanted to run the business. That's been a common denominator for us even when we've had disagreements about strategy.
Beyond the founders, how do you assemble a great team for your company?
Hiring people is the single most difficult aspect of running a business - that's one of the reasons a lot of top employers work with WetFeet.com. Everything is hard about it: deciding which positions to fill, identifying candidates, evaluating them, and convincing them to come work for you and your idea. Once they're on-board, you have to manage them and determine what level of responsibility to give them relative to the things that you want them to accomplish.
Today, you see companies that go from one person with a business plan to fifty people in just three months. It's unbelievable how big a task it is to grow a company that quickly. At the same time that you're trying to recruit people, you're running faster than full-speed to accomplish everything that you've agreed to deliver to your investors. It's really challenging.
Once you recruit the right people to your company, how do you create the corporate culture you desire?
At least at the initial stages, I think most companies are a reflection of the founders. Even if you don't deliberately do a lot of things to create a culture, your behavior and decisions set an example for people to follow. They'll read a set of values and establish cultural norms that reflect that.
Finally, how should students think about trade-offs between risk and reward while starting new companies?
I don't personally feel like the risk of doing something entrepreneurial is necessarily as big as most people think it is. You graduate from business school with a bunch of loans and feel like you need to get a $100,000 salary to be able to pay for everything. The first year after business school, I paid myself something like $25,000. So it is possible to enjoy your work, pay your bills, and survive - even if you don't get paid the big bucks.
On the other hand, I would also say that the rewards aren't as certain as a lot of people seem to think they are these days. Everyone's heard of someone who has become phenomenally wealthy by creating a company at the right time. That's not the case for everybody who goes the entrepreneurial route. Even if you have a great idea and work really hard, you may still end up with nothing to show for it because of some twist of fate, industry shift, or change in the economy. There are lots more people who end up in that position than become fabulously wealthy.
Whether you're trying to decide what you want to be when you grow up or preparing for an important interview, WetFeet.com can help. After graduating from the Stanford GSB, Steve Pollock and his partner Gary Alpert founded WetFeet.com to serve as an information source for students as they plan their careers and go through the recruiting process.
What led you and your partner to start WetFeet.com?
We started with the idea that we wanted to work together as business partners. We had a high level of respect for each other's integrity, business ethics, and capabilities. We had also enjoyed working with each other at business school. So we started with the idea that we wanted to create a business. We didn't have a specific business in mind so we spent a year researching the feasibility of a variety of different business ideas. At the end of the process, we launched Wet Feet Press - which has become WetFeet.com. We knew from personal experience that there was a great need for information to help people go through recruiting, and we thought that the business required many of the skills and experiences we brought to the table.
Would you recommend going into business with a close friend?
Every person is different. I think you risk jeopardizing a friendship by going into business together. It adds an extra level of stress and introduces different kinds of things that you need to deal with. I've seen a lot of people lose friendships while creating businesses together. For us, I think it has worked really well since we have complementary personalities and skill-sets. That's not to say that there isn't tension sometimes between the two of us, but we started the company with a high level of trust for each other's values and we agreed on how we wanted to run the business. That's been a common denominator for us even when we've had disagreements about strategy.
Beyond the founders, how do you assemble a great team for your company?
Hiring people is the single most difficult aspect of running a business - that's one of the reasons a lot of top employers work with WetFeet.com. Everything is hard about it: deciding which positions to fill, identifying candidates, evaluating them, and convincing them to come work for you and your idea. Once they're on-board, you have to manage them and determine what level of responsibility to give them relative to the things that you want them to accomplish.
Today, you see companies that go from one person with a business plan to fifty people in just three months. It's unbelievable how big a task it is to grow a company that quickly. At the same time that you're trying to recruit people, you're running faster than full-speed to accomplish everything that you've agreed to deliver to your investors. It's really challenging.
Once you recruit the right people to your company, how do you create the corporate culture you desire?
At least at the initial stages, I think most companies are a reflection of the founders. Even if you don't deliberately do a lot of things to create a culture, your behavior and decisions set an example for people to follow. They'll read a set of values and establish cultural norms that reflect that.
Finally, how should students think about trade-offs between risk and reward while starting new companies?
I don't personally feel like the risk of doing something entrepreneurial is necessarily as big as most people think it is. You graduate from business school with a bunch of loans and feel like you need to get a $100,000 salary to be able to pay for everything. The first year after business school, I paid myself something like $25,000. So it is possible to enjoy your work, pay your bills, and survive - even if you don't get paid the big bucks.
On the other hand, I would also say that the rewards aren't as certain as a lot of people seem to think they are these days. Everyone's heard of someone who has become phenomenally wealthy by creating a company at the right time. That's not the case for everybody who goes the entrepreneurial route. Even if you have a great idea and work really hard, you may still end up with nothing to show for it because of some twist of fate, industry shift, or change in the economy. There are lots more people who end up in that position than become fabulously wealthy.
posted by gnp at 11:28 AM
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