Biography Wil Schroter, Founder & CEO of Startups.com Wil founded his first company, Blue Diesel, as a 19-year-old student at the Ohio State University. Three years later, he merged Blue Diesel with inChord Communications where, as CEO and Board Member, he helped grow the company to over $700 million in capitalized billings within 5 years. In 2003, the company was purchased and renamed inVentiv, which now generates over $2.5 billion in annual revenue and employs 15,000 professionals worldwide. The company was most recently valued at $3.8 billion. Following the sale of Blue Diesel, Wil founded Virtucon Ventures, an idea-stage incubator for Web startups. There he helped conceive and launch a number of well known companies including Swapalease.com, Unsubscribe.com (sold to TrustedID), Startups.co, and Fundable.com. Virtucon's portfolio of companies has attracted more than a dozen prominent venture funds, including Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Founders Fund, Bessemer Ventures, and Charles River Ventures. In 2012, Wil founded Startups.co, now .com, the world's largest startup launch platform. It has since been used by over 1 million startup companies globally. Since then, Startups.co has helped startups raise over $500 million in funding commitments, attracts 20 million early customers, has hosted over 500,000 product launches, and attracted over 10 million visitors per year. The company is based in Columbus, Ohio and employs over 150 full-time staff. The Startups.com platform consists of 6 related products that help entrepreneurs through the entire startup journey Startups.com (education) features lessons from founders including Elon Musk (Tesla), Brian Chesky (AirBnB), and Daniel Ek (Spotify). Fundable.com (equity fundraising) has helped startups raise over $500 million in capital commitments. Launchrock.com (early customer acquisition) has assisted startups in adding 20 million early customers. Clarity.fm (export mentorship) provides startups with access to 10,000 mentors, including Mark Cuban. Bizplan.com (business planning) is used for compiling and presenting business plans. Zirtual.com (virtual staff) adds a virtual team member to startup companies. Interview Notes: Wil got into this journey because he loves teaching others how to navigate  the startup journey. The founders journey is also filled with sleepless nights. Wil wanted to create something that offered guide posts along the startup path to guide other founders to success. The perception is different from the reality when you start a business as a founder, there is execution paralysis on how to deliver.  Wil and his team found there are three categories of being a successful startup and those things are: Education Bring Smart People to the Table Provide startups with the tools they need to succeed  Following that formula Startups.com has brought over 1.2M people to the platform. Fast forward to COVID-19 and the new challenges that brings, Wil is no stranger to challenging times.  He was able to navigate the 2000 dot.com bubble, then shortly there after the September 11, 2001 tragedy, then only to see the 2008 financial market bubbles burst. Startups.com was created to help two different segments. The first is the startup journey and the second is the founder's journey.  Finally Wil created a podcast called Startup Therapy, that really digs deep into the founder's journey. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ceocrossing/message