Sean Gorman: Startups, Coding Isn't for Everyone, Finding What (& with whom) to work on - MBM#53

Minds Behind Maps

Sean Gorman is currently on his 4th start-up, Zephr, working on improving smartphone location. Previously he worked on 3D mapping (acquired by Snap), mapping fibre optics infrastructure (and caught the NAS's attention as a grad student). I was recently in Colorado and got to spend a few days with Sean, at the end of which we recorded a conversation about building great teams, finding what to work on and building businesses around maps

Sponsor: Felt
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About Sean

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Shownotes

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• We recorded this conversation right after SatCamp, that we mentioned a few times
• Matthew Ball Essays
• Zephr
• Book & Podcast Recommendations
  • Radiolab
  • Hard Fork
  • New York Times Daily
  • Malazan Book of the Fallen 01: Garden of the Moon by Steven Erikson (Affiliate Link)
  • Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (Affiliate Link)

Timestamps

(00:00) - Introduction

(00:48) - Sponsor: Felt

(01:53) - Sean Describes Himself

(05:22) - Accidentally becoming an entrepreneur

(11:36) - Ending up in front of the NSA as a grad student

(25:33) - Propelled into starting a company as a grad student

(30:45) - Not Everybody has to code

(35:40) - Base, Hits or Bunts: A Baseball Analogy to start-up exits

(41:15) - VC vs Angel investing

(45:02) - Deciding what to work on

(59:25) - Building a library of ideas

(01:02:35) - Sean's current project: Zephr

(01:11:05) - Smartphone location information isn't that good

(01:18:51) - How do you solve the trust problem

(01:26:33) - Advice for people wanting to build things

(01:29:39) - Building a Good Team

(01:33:35) - Gravitating towards small teams

(01:37:37) - Predictions on the AR market

(01:40:15) - Podcast/book recommendation

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- Website
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- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work