Episode
#7 - The Hippie With A Billion Dollars
58:58
Published: Wed Aug 07 2019
Description
Michael Birch sold his social networking site to AOL for $850M....and then bought it back for $1M years later. (buy low, sell high. boys and girls). His business portfolio is impressive. He's an early investor in companies like Calm and Pinterest, owns two giant hotels, and bought a private island off of Richard Branson. Despite all that success, he's a down to earth guy, and in this podcast he talks through his early struggles and failed ideas before he had his billion dollar breakthrough and reminisces his days being head to head with Zuckerberg. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Chapters
HubSpot CRM provides businesses an all in one tool to automate tasks, keep track of contacts and deals, collaborate within the team, and efficiently provide quality customer service without breaking the budget.
00:00 - 00:55 (00:55)
Summary
HubSpot CRM provides businesses an all in one tool to automate tasks, keep track of contacts and deals, collaborate within the team, and efficiently provide quality customer service without breaking the budget.
Episode#7 - The Hippie With A Billion Dollars
PodcastMy First Million
A successful entrepreneur shares his journey from quitting his job as a programmer to building a company that pioneered viral marketing and was eventually sold for 850 million dollars.
00:55 - 05:41 (04:46)
Summary
A successful entrepreneur shares his journey from quitting his job as a programmer to building a company that pioneered viral marketing and was eventually sold for 850 million dollars. He talks about his humble beginnings, lack of sales skills, and the leap of faith he took to become an entrepreneur.
Episode#7 - The Hippie With A Billion Dollars
PodcastMy First Million
After working at PBI in the UK, the speaker moved on to programming, preferring to learn new languages and work on programming instead of staying in a company where unless you were at the very top, it wasn't very interesting.
05:41 - 08:57 (03:15)
Summary
After working at PBI in the UK, the speaker moved on to programming, preferring to learn new languages and work on programming instead of staying in a company where unless you were at the very top, it wasn't very interesting.
Episode#7 - The Hippie With A Billion Dollars
PodcastMy First Million
The speaker recounts his normal suburban upbringing and college education before entering the workforce.
08:57 - 11:57 (03:00)
Summary
The speaker recounts his normal suburban upbringing and college education before entering the workforce. He describes his initial work environment and the day he left that job.
Episode#7 - The Hippie With A Billion Dollars
PodcastMy First Million
The concept of "a million dollars" has been a long-held fantasy for many people, as seen in the early days of internet startups when the focus was on the first million users rather than the first million dollars.
11:57 - 15:15 (03:18)
Summary
The concept of "a million dollars" has been a long-held fantasy for many people, as seen in the early days of internet startups when the focus was on the first million users rather than the first million dollars. This podcast explores the allure of the concept of having a million dollars.
Episode#7 - The Hippie With A Billion Dollars
PodcastMy First Million
The co-founder discusses the misconceptions they had while building their startup and how it wasn't always evident what obstacles lay ahead.
15:15 - 21:49 (06:33)
Summary
The co-founder discusses the misconceptions they had while building their startup and how it wasn't always evident what obstacles lay ahead.
Episode#7 - The Hippie With A Billion Dollars
PodcastMy First Million
The idea of creating inherently viral websites was not a popular concept when birthday reminder site, BirthdayAlarm.com started.
21:49 - 24:34 (02:45)
Summary
The idea of creating inherently viral websites was not a popular concept when birthday reminder site, BirthdayAlarm.com started. However, by asking users for their friends' birthdays and creating reminders, the site gained popularity by virally spreading through email requests.
Episode#7 - The Hippie With A Billion Dollars
PodcastMy First Million
A founder discusses the excitement of waking up to 10,000 users utilizing their product and the hard work that went into achieving it.
24:34 - 27:00 (02:25)
Summary
A founder discusses the excitement of waking up to 10,000 users utilizing their product and the hard work that went into achieving it.
Episode#7 - The Hippie With A Billion Dollars
PodcastMy First Million
The founders of birthday alarm, who had been using Tribal Fusion ad network to cover their business costs and living costs, share how they grew their revenue from $10k a month to $10k a day by focusing on wishing people happy birthday through the platform.
27:00 - 30:29 (03:29)
Summary
The founders of birthday alarm, who had been using Tribal Fusion ad network to cover their business costs and living costs, share how they grew their revenue from $10k a month to $10k a day by focusing on wishing people happy birthday through the platform.
Episode#7 - The Hippie With A Billion Dollars
PodcastMy First Million
Birthday Alarm founder, Michael R. Mercer, shares how a friend introduced him to Friendster which inspired and helped his startup, Birthday Alarm.
30:29 - 33:54 (03:24)
Summary
Birthday Alarm founder, Michael R. Mercer, shares how a friend introduced him to Friendster which inspired and helped his startup, Birthday Alarm.
Episode#7 - The Hippie With A Billion Dollars
PodcastMy First Million
The founder of Birthday Alarm shares how they took the opportunity to make money from greeting cards and the risk they took on by putting it live on their website.
33:54 - 39:33 (05:39)
Summary
The founder of Birthday Alarm shares how they took the opportunity to make money from greeting cards and the risk they took on by putting it live on their website.
Episode#7 - The Hippie With A Billion Dollars
PodcastMy First Million
Self-updating address books don't work because people only enter a small percentage of their contacts, rendering the address book useless.
39:33 - 47:11 (07:37)
Summary
Self-updating address books don't work because people only enter a small percentage of their contacts, rendering the address book useless. Despite six months of development, even a social network built around this concept proved to be unsuccessful.
Episode#7 - The Hippie With A Billion Dollars
PodcastMy First Million
The co-founder of Bebo, Michael Birch, describes the experience of selling the social media platform for $700 million and the relief that came after an intense six-month sale cycle.
47:11 - 52:13 (05:01)
Summary
The co-founder of Bebo, Michael Birch, describes the experience of selling the social media platform for $700 million and the relief that came after an intense six-month sale cycle.
Episode#7 - The Hippie With A Billion Dollars
PodcastMy First Million
Michael Tavani, co-founder of the tech company One, discusses their efforts to revolutionize the hospitality industry by creating a comprehensive software system to replace the current multiple-pieces-of-software status quo.
52:13 - 57:55 (05:42)
Summary
Michael Tavani, co-founder of the tech company One, discusses their efforts to revolutionize the hospitality industry by creating a comprehensive software system to replace the current multiple-pieces-of-software status quo.
Episode#7 - The Hippie With A Billion Dollars
PodcastMy First Million
Michael, the guest speaker, emphasizes the importance of pursuing a career that more than generating income, provides a sense of fulfillment.
57:55 - 59:01 (01:06)
Summary
Michael, the guest speaker, emphasizes the importance of pursuing a career that more than generating income, provides a sense of fulfillment. He shares his own story, leaving his stressful job that lacked passion, to pursue his interest in podcasting.