Dan Daugherty interviews Brett Crosby, a co-founder of Urchin, who sold to Google for half cash and half stock in 2005. Urchin, became Google Analytics, one of the most successful Google products of all time.

Dan Daugherty interviews Josh Dorkin who founded BiggerPockets in his living room with $12 bucks. Josh tells his story of wanting to quit, having 3 nervous breakdowns, and eventually selling to a private equity company. Josh talks about what he did to get to a place of happiness and how big changes in his life became catalysts that helped him, his family, and the business grow. 

Beginning Transcript

Dan Daugherty - Welcome to this episode of The Big Exit. I'm your host, Dan Daugherty. And today I have a good friend, Josh Dorkin who is the founder and former CEO of BiggerPockets. Josh, thank you for coming on the show. 

Josh Dorkin - Excited to be here, man. 

Dan Daugherty - You know, I've got a lot of feedback from the listeners that said, Hey, big exits are great, but I noticed that a lot of the founders that you have interviewed have raised significant amounts of money, and I immediately thought of you because you've bootstrapped BiggerPockets from I remember your Washington Park house where we met to really a multimillion dollar organization. And I'm excited to have you on board to really tell the story of how you went from zero to an exit without ever raising a single dime of outside capital. 

Josh Dorkin - Well, if you put it that way, it sounds pretty good. Yeah, Yeah, I I mean, you know, you want me to just take it from the beginning, or..

Dan Daugherty - Yeah, let's start from the very beginning. I remember you and I met In, must have been, what? When did you found BiggerPockets? 

Josh Dorkin - Yeah. So it must have been 07, maybe that we connected and you and I were talking about, you know, you were thinking about buying different companies, and and we were just chatting about that. That didn't go well for me, but, uh, but yeah, no, it's been, um it's been a very, very long journey. Um, you know, like like any entrepreneurial story, lots of ups, lots of downs. And, um, inevitably, um, you know, really struggled through those those difficult times. But, you know, I think the key was just persevering through those in order to come out at the end. But, um, I I looked at the cycle as a multistage cycle. When I started BiggerPockets, it was I was teaching special Ed. I was teaching high school in Los Angeles. 

The company, by the way, is the largest real estate investing media company and community out there. We're all about trying to help people build wealth, learn how to build wealth through real estate investing. And so back in 04 I was living in Los Angeles, I was teaching special ED at high school, I bought a bunch of property, as a result of my brother encouraging me to do so. And, uh, you know, I thought I was a smart guy, I went to college, you know, all these all these things and bought property thousands of miles away, which would would normally be a challenge. But I didn't really do my homework. And so what happened was little by little, I found myself running into some problems and I didn't quite know how to deal with those problems. There were books, but like, you know, the books were pretty general. They didn't really say, What do you do when your tenant is stealing electricity from the building next door? What do you do when somebody is ripping the copper piping out of your vacant unit? You can't find that. And all that was out there were there were communities forums, but they were all kind of tied to or in cahoots with, I call them the Gurus that get rich quick crowd. Um and you know, the the issue I had with with those which led me to founding BiggerPockets, was I You know, I didn't like the idea of getting caught up in this this funnel where, you know, it's like, hey, come to our free course and the free courses. Just an ad for a free boot camp. You know, some kind of boot camp, which is a nad for a course, which is an ad for, you know, training.

In this episode, Brett Jurgens talks to Dan Daugherty about being a first-time founder and selling his company, Notion to Comcast in early 2020.

Sample Transcript

Dan Daugherty

Welcome to this episode of The Big Exit. Today I have Brett Jurgens, who sold his company to Comcast early this year in February. Brett, thank you for coming on the show. 

Brett Jurgens

Hey, Dan, what's going on? Thanks for having me. 

Dan Daugherty

So I actually wanted to start out with my own little story of how we met. I was looking at old emails all the way back to 2014 and you and I were communicating and you said, "Hey, I want to show you a prototype of what I've been working on. Can I show it to you?" I said, absolutely. Come on in. And I remember you walked in with, was probably almost the size of a brick, but it was close to it for your your sensors for homes. And if you remember that, I wanted you to start the story there of what you guys were working on. What problems you were trying to solve all the way, you know, six years ago and then how that morphed into what you are today, even pre and post acquisition with Comcast? 

Brett Jurgen

Yeah, I'm happy to. It was it was slightly smaller than a Brick. You're right. So good. Good memory on that one. Um, look. So my co founder, Ryan and I are both from town here in Colorado, Longmont and we grew up together. We've known each other since we were four years old. Onda. We had a really unique relationship.

Snippets

"A lot of the time as a founder and a CEO, it's kind of like a taboo subject to bring up that being an entrepreneur is hard, like you're supposed to put on a smiley face every day." - Brett Jurgens 

""My definition of an entrepreneur is: anybody that can creatively solve problems and just doesn't take no for an answer." - Brett Jurgens

What is the definition of an entrepreneur?

Brett Jurgens: Yeah, my definition of an entrepreneur is anybody that can creatively solve problems and just doesn’t take no for an answer. I tell all of my employees, all the time, that they are entrepreneurs. I think some people take that title and say you have to be a founder, you have to be a CEO to qualify as an entrepreneur. And I think a lot of people like, want to be an entrepreneur. It’s kind of like a badge of honor to some people, I think, and to me, you know, it’s anybody who just has a tenacity and a view of the world that can, you know, things can be different. Things can be better and I can go do that. You don’t have to start a company, in my mind, to be an entrepreneur and to have, you know, that just thing in your gut and that thing in your heart and that thing in your head that all tie together to say, I’m going to go, you know, make a difference and, have the guts and have the tenacity to go do it. So that’s my kind of simple definition.

Dan Daugherty: I love that you can actually use that in all facets of your life. Whether it’s just being a CEO, the founder of your X right, of your division.

Brett Jurgens: Absolutely.

Dan Daugherty: Of whatever you’re doing at home or whatever it might be, just take that initiative. I really like your definition.

Brett Jurgens: Awesome. Well, it’s a good question and I think a lot of people should push harder. A lot of people should create more. And a lot of people aren’t willing to sort of jump into starting a company full time. A lot of people can’t afford to not have a salary for 12 months, like I said earlier in the call. But I also think a lot of people can make it work and you can do it in different ways. And so thinking creatively about how to make it happen is what it’s about.