Meet the Founder: Guy Vincent
During this year’s Amsterdam Capital Week, two of Amsterdam’s favorite startup accelerators joined forces - proving that there is always room for collaboration in the startup ecosystem.
Startupbootcamp and Rockstart invited their alumni to pitch for a room full of investors for “The Pitch Off.” Luckily for us, one alumni founder was chosen to share their story with us!
Meet Guy Vincent, founder of Publishizer & alumni of Rockstart. Guy came all the way from the land down under, tested out New York, and is now with us in Amsterdam.
TLDR; If there is one thing every entrepreneur should take away from this, it’s the appreciation of the journey. Success is not built overnight and it continually changes over time. Enjoying the moments along the way is crucial. Even more so, learning from ‘failure’ and separating it from your perception of self-worth and ego is something that founders need to (always) work on personally. More on this below!
Thank you, Guy, for opening up and sharing your vision, journey and challenges with us.
— MEET PUBLISHIZER —
Publishizer connects indie authors directly with readers and publishers. It’s built on the concept of a book proposal, which is like a publishing plan. If approved, authors are offered rewards with the goal of pre-selling at least 1000 copies, to get their proposal sent to as many potential publishers as possible .
If a publisher signals they are interested, a chat is initiated, with the intention of creating as many publishing options as possible for the author. We call this crowd-publishing — it’s the most efficient way to get published.
More about Publishizer here.
— THE INTERVIEW —
Hey Guy, thanks for taking the time to speak to us. Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hey, thanks for the opportunity. I grew up on a farm in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia — a far cry from the tech hubs I’ve been living in these past few years.
After graduating with a degree in urban planning from the University of Melbourne, I found myself struggling to land a job. It was 2008, and the job market sucked.
My housemate had just raised a million or so dollars for a startup, and he invited me to work for him. I jumped at the chance, and I’ve been hooked on tech since then.
What led you to founding Publishizer? How did you go about starting the company?
After working at the startup in Melbourne for several years, I wanted to fulfill my dream of backpacking the world for a year. In the process, I met my partner of 9 years, who helped me land a job working at a book printing factory in Singapore.
At the book printing factory, I was running a new digital division producing book apps, interactive ebooks, and even a bilingual Chinese-English comic book app about dim sum warriors fighting in space.
The downside of the job was my limited freedom to help authors with cool ideas to get published. I was constantly turning them down, especially when they couldn’t afford to pay for an app or a print run of books. So the idea came to start a crowdfunding platform for books.
You started Publishizer in 2014 and are already running in both Amsterdam and New York! What are your next steps for the company?
Publishizer has been through ups and downs, and the company has evolved several times since 2014. We started out thinking self publishing was going to be the future, and discovered this to be a disappointing experience 99% of the time. So we started matching authors with publishers, and learned this was a far more positive (and successful) experience for authors.
Myself and my co-founder, Lee, took a blind leap of faith and moved Publishizer to Brooklyn in New York in 2017. Honestly, the high costs of living in New York almost killed the company. We loved the energy of Brooklyn, and made many valuable connections in New York, although ultimately we couldn’t stand the financial stress and I was unsuccessful at fundraising there.
It was a pretty dark period in my life, and I had to learn to disentangle my sense of self-worth from my startup. I learned that if my startup fails, then I am not a failure. I wish more founders would learn to separate their egos from their companies.
In early 2018, even though good things were happening at Publishizer, such as authors landing publishing deals, we were still struggling financially and it’s hard to stay motivated after so many years of living off of fumes. I reached out to an old mentor to ask for advice, and he pointed me towards Rockstart.
What challenges did the Rockstart Web & Mobile accelerator program help you overcome?
When we entered Rockstart, we set ourselves a clear goal: to grow from $20,000/month to $100,000/month. We hit that goal in our third month at Rockstart. It all came down to structure.
The Rockstart program was clearly structured, and so we created a plan to achieve our goals. In the daily turmoil of running a startup, it can be hard to stay focused on long-term strategies. However, Rockstart gave us the structure and accountability we needed to get there.
I started sending out weekly emails to my team, advisors, and potential investors. We implemented Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), to keep ourselves focused on quarterly goals.
This accountability and reporting has helped us overcome some of our growth challenges. We’re still learning, and we’ve still got a bunch of challenges ahead of us.
What tips would you give Dutch startups who are looking to expand to the US?
The US is clearly a huge and important market, and it’s attractive to startups seeking to find new customers. I’m not sure I can offer valuable tips here, since every market and industry is different.
My experience in dealing with US customers is that they’re open-minded, often willing to try new things, and create amazing products as a results.
If you’re trying to enter the US market, you’re going to need a fitting product that solves a painful problem. If you’re solving pain for someone that hasn’t been solved in the US market, then get over there and start selling to customers!
Hire a US sales person on a contract, give them everything they need to succeed, and if it works out well, then hire more US sales people. If it’s not working out, then you must re-think your strategy.
We’re pretty sales-focused at Publishizer, although this approach might not work for every startup at every stage. Still, it would make sense to achieve signs of product-market fit in the Dutch market first, and then expand to the US with hiring when you’re ready.
Who are the key people that have influenced your entrepreneurial journey? Did you have any role models or mentors along the way?
My gosh, there are so many people.
The obvious one is Steve Jobs. I had a scheduled meeting at Apple in London the day after he died in 2011. I remember heading in there and witnessing the impact he made on so many lives. His relentless focus on creating amazing products continues to inspire me.
I’m inspired by Lee Kuan Yew, who built Singapore up from a fishing village into one of the most prosperous societies in modern history. While he treated Singapore basically like a company, his results speak for themselves.
Another role model would be Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan geographer and adventurer from the 13th century. His travels brought him to the farthest known corners of the medieval Islamic world, and far into Central Asia, China, Vietnam, India, and Africa. It’s an incredibly story.
On a personal level, so many people who influenced my entrepreneurial journey, there are too many to mention here. I would certainly give a shout-out to Elizabeth Yin, a former venture partner at 500 Startups. She introduced me to my co-founder, Lee, and she shares her thoughts on venture capital with incredible openness and transparency.
Last but not least, what’s your personal mission for the upcoming years?
Currently, I’m thinking about how to build a great company. How do you define great? Well, I would start with taking care of the team financially, and helping them realise their goals within and beyond work.
If I’m able to grow Publishizer into a team of 100 people who feel both financially and emotionally supported, then I’m on the way to building a great company.
We’re expanding our team in Amsterdam and New York next year, and I’m writing a culture document to assist with the hiring process. It’s amazing to reflect on how much we’ve achieved over the past few years, and how much farther we have to go before we make a true dent on the publishing industry.
Publishizer has helped hundreds of authors achieve their dream of getting published, and I try to remember this when things are not going according to plan. Next year, we’ll help over a thousand authors get published, while helping them reach new readers in foreign languages and new markets.
My personal mission is to enjoy that journey, moment to moment.
