Mark Volchek, founder of Higher One: $600 million IPO
Episode description
Mark Volchek is an entrepreneur turned VC. While a student at Yale, Mark set out to disrupt academia by making student payments electronic. Higher One grew to a thousand employees and hundreds of millions in revenue, went public on the NYSE with a valuation of $600 million, then went back private as 3 entities that were all sold for hundreds of millions each. What a ride!
On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Mark about:
• The power of connections in B2B enterprise sales
• How to measure product/market fit for a B2B company
• Distributed workforce at scale: hundreds of employees in many locations
• What’s needed for a startup to IPO?
• Running a public company vs a private company
• Going back private after being a public company
• Fundraising advice from a founder turned VC
• Finding great startups in non-obvious places
• How to approach investors as a startup founder
Mark now invests in “extraordinary people who are building the future in non-obvious places” via Las Olas, an early-stage VC firm.
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