88: How 5x Founder David Cancel Builds & Sells Companies at Record Speeds - Founder of Drift

The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan

As the son of hardworking immigrants, David Cancel saw his parents working seven days a week to support their family. As an adult, he realized that not all people worked the way his parents did, which sparked in him a desire to make a living without getting a “job.”

Cancel always knew that he wanted to be an entrepreneur, even if he wasn’t quite sure what that meant. As a kid, he found that flipping through the pages of Inc. Magazine and other early entrepreneurial publications didn’t offer much insight. He saw ads for get-rich-quick schemes and stories of businessmen who had reached amazing heights. Although he wasn’t quite sure what it meant to be an entrepreneur, he knew he wanted in.

The term “serial entrepreneur” gets thrown around a lot, but few have lived a life that defines it as well as David Cancel. Building and selling companies has become a way of life; his obsessions around ideas or problems quickly snowball into companies. He has started and exited five companies in the past 16 years and is currently an advisor, investor, and/or consultant to several more, including BigCommerce, HelpScout, Rapportive, and Yieldbot.

In this interview you will learn:

• What it takes to create a successful product
• How to listen to your customer and what you can learn from it
• What kind of feedback you should listen to and what you should ignore
• The secret to iterating effectively and how you can start improving your own products
• Where to find the right audience and what it means to serve them
• & much more!