Interview with an Entrepreneur: Hooman Radfar of Clearspring - Part 2

Hooman Radfar and Austin Fath founded Clearspring Technologies Inc. in 2004 after finishing graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University.

I recently completed this interview before the deal went public and posted part 1 yesterday the following is part 2:

On Building a Team…
How many employees do you have at Clearspring now? Is it important that they all share your entrepreneurial spirit and drive? How do you find that in new hires and keep that entrepreneurial energy alive?

Honestly, if I give you a number, it will probably be out of date right away. We are rapidly hiring a rock star team to execute on a pretty audacious plan. That being said, it is absolutely essential that all of our current and incoming team keep the entrepreneurial spirit. I think the way that you achieve that aim is by giving everyone real ownership, keeping them in the loop on developments and trying to get input to the extent that is possible. Our developers have really taken their ideas and run with them – resulting in some tremendous innovation.

What are the most important elements for a successful startup company?

I think the two most important things are to have a great team and the management discipline to focus. It is a bit clichéd, but I would rather have an A team with a B idea than a B team with an A idea. As the market changes, an A team will be able to adjust. The B team on the other hand, will get left in the dust. Having an A team goes hand-in-hand with the ability to focus. If you try to do everything, you can quickly end up doing absolutely nothing. In a rapidly growing market, saying no is just as important as seizing emerging opportunities.

On Raising “Smart” Money…
You received funding from Novak Biddle and various AOL veterans (including Ted Leonsis). Can you give us a bit of detail on the process of finding funding, and what importance you put in picking the right funding partner?

I guess the first thing I would do is really take a hard look at the stage of my company. As an entrepreneur, it is essential to align yourself with financing partners that not only understand your current stage, but have the expertise and network to help you get to the next stage in your evolution. Building a company is not about a single round of financing. And the guy that helps you bootstrap may not be the guy that helps you become the next Google.

On Beating the Competition…
Is there room in the online widget market for more competitors? Have you seen any recently that seem interesting?

For sure. Clearspring has swiftly become the leading widget platform with folks like NBA, Maxim, Time, and CBS leveraging our service. We plan to continue to cultivate that position. But there is way more to this space then a platform. There are so many unsolved problems. The new distributed content and service model has opened up a new world of monetization opportunities.

One project that I am watching is Animoto. They are pretty hush-hush, but they have a great team so it will be cool to see what they come up with.

As an aside, now that Facebook is open it is going to really going to change the game. There will be companies that become household names by creating widget that leverage the capabilities exposed by Facebook. I am confident that VCs are going to back a couple smart plays that piggy-back the Facebook and lead toward a larger opportunity.

On Marketing and Promotion…
What approach to marketing plays a significant role in promoting and attracting traffic to Clearspring?
Our customers are the best platform for promotion. The success and endorsement of our partners have really spurred developer interest. We have thousands of requests from developers that want to join our network and have spent pretty much nothing on marketing. At the end of the day, the web is the great equalizer – if you have a product that fills a need, the community is often the best advocate.

On The Future…
If you want people to remember one thing when they think about Clearspring, what is it?
If you want to launch your widget syndication program with the most proven and scalable solution online, check out Clearspring. We would love to hear from you.

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