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My mission is to meet and brainstorm some of the most successful and innovative leaders in business. In this episode of The CEO Series, we went to the headquarters of G2 in Chicago, a software marketplace and review platform that has raised $257 million at a valuation of over a billion dollars, making them a unicorn .
Godard Abel, co-founder and CEO of G2, sat down with me to share his perspective and philosophy on leadership: what it takes to manage company health, employee engagement, stakeholder expectations and much more .
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Abel has already built CPQ cloud pioneers BigMachines (which was acquired by Oracle) and SteelBrick (which was acquired by Salesforce), so his insights are invaluable for anyone hoping to launch and go big. Below are some highlights from our conversation, which have been edited for length and clarity. Watch the full video above.
The realities of achieving unicorn status
“It was an amazing achievement. We threw an amazing party. I loved becoming a unicorn. But then you wake up the next day and commit to returning at least three times that amount to your investors. We raised $157 million first round, so we really have to give them back about $500 million. So it’s a big commitment as a founder and CEO. It’s really the beginning of your next journey which hopefully ends in a successful public offering that gives those investors at least three times their money back, hopefully a lot more. But it takes many years of work to get to that next peak. It’s great, but it’s also a commitment to get to that next peak.”
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His entrepreneurial beginnings
“My first business was in high school. I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was called Ultimate Car Care and I started with my best friend at the time, Joe. His dad had a nice red Corvette. We had prom year coming up, so we took a photo in cute tuxedos in front of this Corvette. We wanted to do luxury car detailing, so we used the photo to create flyers with our phone number on it and that’s how we launched. I was born in Germany in a family of entrepreneurs. My father took over the family business from my grandfather, whom I always admired. My grandfather started the company in Germany in 1947, two years after World War II. He did it in the area industrialist in northwestern Germany, who had been bombed into rubble. And I always think about that when I face difficulties. I think wow, there’s nothing like those struggles.”
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What drives him
“I think almost every entrepreneur goes through a period of failure. Usually, it struggles for years. For almost every successful entrepreneur I meet, the question is this: don’t give up, keep going. And this is true even after you start finding success. Let’s talk about our “peak culture” at G2. I think, as human beings, we are destined to scale the heights. And so in this sense I never want to stop climbing. I’ve had some nice breaks and could probably retire and just sit on the beach. But I don’t think I would feel gratified. And frankly, I don’t think any human being would do that. I think we should strive, we should climb, we should have a purpose. And I think entrepreneurship really gives me that.”
Discover more profiles of innovative and impactful leaders by visiting the CEO Series archives.