The Hidden Formula: Why Some Startups Soar and Others Fail
As a co-founding partner of Floodgate, Mike Maples’ journey as an investor is filled with remarkable success stories, including early bets on Twitter, Twitch.tv, Okta, and Chegg. But it was a puzzling pattern in these successes that led Mike to challenge everything he thought he knew about startups.
According to Mike’s research, startups like Twitter, Twitch, and Lyft achieved remarkable success despite ignoring conventional "best practices," while other promising startups often failed despite following them. In fact, more than 80% of Floodgate's exit profits had come from pivots. This paradox spurred Mike to investigate what makes some startups outperform expectations, even when they defy traditional startup wisdom.
In a webinar for Founders Network on November 5, Mike will share his findings on why some startups soar while others fail, providing insights on how to achieve success when launching a startup or creating a new product.
He'll discuss:
The power of inflections and how to leverage them
The importance of deep, contrarian insights
The concept of founder-future fit
The role of movements and disagreeableness in entrepreneurship
About the Speaker:
Mike Maples is a co-founding Partner at Floodgate. He has been on the Forbes Midas List eight times in the last decade and was also named a “Rising Star” by FORTUNE and profiled by Harvard Business School for his lifetime contributions to entrepreneurship.
Before becoming a full-time investor, Mike was involved as a founder and operating executive at back-to-back startup IPOs, including Tivoli Systems (IPO TIVS, acquired by IBM) and Motive (IPO MOTV, acquired by Alcatel-Lucent.)
Some of Mike’s investments include Twitter, Twitch.tv, Clover Health, Okta, Outreach, Chegg, Demandforce, and Applied Intuition.
Mike is known for coining the term “Thunder Lizards,” which is a metaphor derived from Godzilla that describes the tiny number of truly exceptional companies that are wildly disruptive capitalist mutations. Mike likes to think of himself as a hunter of the “atomic eggs” that beget these companies.
Mike is the author of the National Bestselling book Pattern Breakers and host of the Pattern Breakers podcast, which shares startup lessons from the super performers.
Confidentiality Policy:
All information shared within Founders Network is strictly confidential. We are built on a foundation of trust, and the community takes confidentiality seriously. Investors, members, and staff all share experiences and opinions off the record. In this roundtable forum, we continue to model our fnValues of Reciprocity, Humility, Authenticity and Inclusivity.