Dennis Crowley is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Foursquare, the location technology company that powers products used by more than 50 million people every month across 100 countries.
Previously, he founded Dodgeball, one of the first mobile social services, which was acquired by Google in 2005. Dennis is also the Chairman of the Kingston Stockade Football Club, a semi-professional soccer team out of Hudson Valley, NY that competes in the 4th division of the US Soccer Pyramid.
What does entrepreneurship mean to you?
Dennis: Alexis Ohanian from Reddit once said that entrepreneur is just French for "has ideas, does them." While I am almost certain that is not the literal translation, that interpretation of entrepreneurship really resonates with me. I was deeply interested in exploring the intersection of location data and mobile, so much that I kept pursuing it and eventually Foursquare became what it is today.
How did Foursquare come to be?
Dennis: Before Foursquare, we built a company called Dodgeball, which aimed to connect people in our community to friends and interesting venues nearby. In 2007, we sold Dodgeball to Google, but when the project didn't take off as we had thought it would, we left after two years and started Foursquare with a similar mission to connect people. We kept building out features that our users liked, and after lots of trial and error, we eventually started monetizing the data that our tools generated. How we'd monetize wasn't obvious to us 8 years ago.
In 2016, Foursquare was named one of the "Best Places to Work" by Ad Age, and one of the most innovative companies in data science by Fast Company, which are honors that we're extremely proud of and is a testament to how far we've come as a company.
In the midst of evolving products and uncertainty, how do you keep your employees engaged and excited?
Dennis: All startups come with a certain degree of uncertainty, but you need to give people something to grab onto and sink their teeth in. That comes from articulating and reinforcing a shared vision and company culture that everyone can rally behind. All of us at Foursquare want to change the world by connecting people and building meaningful consumer experiences. We all fundamentally believe in this vision and are committed to it. We’ve built a strong company culture and defined clear core values that we can all work towards together.
Tell us about a time when you went against the flow to make something happen.
Dennis: Nothing has come easy to us. In hindsight, things are obvious, but in the moment, it's not always clear.
For example, the jewel of Foursquare is a technology called Pilgrim that we built from scratch. Pilgrim figures out where you’re going, where you’ve stopped to hang out, and what you might be interested in nearby. When we started building Pilgrim, there were doubts about it ever working. We trusted our gut and kept tinkering, and eventually it worked.
The first time we put this technology to use was to predict how many iPhone 6 devices would be sold on launch weekend. Apple hadn't released any numbers, and we knew it was going to be hard, but we trusted our product so much that we bet that we would make the most accurate prediction, and we did. We were more accurate than even Wall Street predictions!
You stepped down as the CEO last year. How do you currently spend your time? What are your priorities?
Dennis: I'm no longer the CEO but I am still at Foursquare everyday. I'm the executive chairman and I run the consumer side and help build cool things. My wife and I had a daughter a little more than a year ago and we're expecting another baby in December, so not being the CEO certainly gives me the headspace to spend more time with my family. Beyond Foursquare and my family, I have started a semi-professional soccer team in Hudson Valley. I'm putting my skills as an operator to use and building out this team, which in many ways feels like what building out Foursquare felt like 8 years ago. It's helping the Kingston community and it's a lot of fun for me! We draw a thousand fans a game.
What advice would you give to your 22 year old self? What do you know now that you wish you knew then?
Dennis: Well, I used to think that I will someday find an engineer who will help me build all these ideas that I had dreamt of. What got me anywhere was learning to code and build my prototype myself. Now I don't wait for anyone to come along. I drive my ideas and execution. You just got to start. That's the hardest step. Now when I look back, I can't believe that we built Foursquare. I'm really glad I took a deep breath nd took that firsts step.
Follow Dennis at @dens, check out the other interviews in Going Against the Flow series at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charu-sharma/ and join this movement to empower 1 million female entrepreneurs on goagainsttheflow.com.