Best of Outlier Academy – Infinite Games – Lessons Learned as a Founder, Investor, and Bestselling Author with Scott Belsky

“Great opportunities never have ‘great opportunity’ in the subject line.” – Scott Belsky
In this episode of Outlier Academy, I’m talking with Scott Belsky (@scottbelsky). After starting his career at Goldman Sachs, he left to found Behance which he later sold to Adobe. He’s now the Chief Product Officer at Adobe as well as a Venture Partner at the world-renowned venture capital firm Benchmark. Scott was an early investor in Uber, Pinterest, Carta, Flexport, Airtable, and sweetgreen. And finally, he’s the best-selling author of Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality and The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture.
Scott is a modern polymath. We explore his journey from entrepreneur to investor, how he approaches investing in early-stage technology companies, as well as the lessons he’s learned at Benchmark, Adobe, and Behance.
Chapters in this interview:

00:00:05 – Scott’s learnings from his start at Goldman Sachs

00:05:35 – On co-founding Behance, and attempting to manage the “most disorganized community on the planet”

00:09:15 – Tactics for entrepreneurs and their teams

00:13:26 – The transition from startup (Behance) to large company (Adobe)

00:16:29 – How the desire to buy an education led to Scott’s interest in investing

00:18:59 – Seeing an investment grow from Seed to IPO

00:22:47 – How design can move the needle for a business

00:28:21 – Scott’s foray into venture capital and finding his ideal role melding investing with company-building at Benchmark

00:34:04 – On writing Making Ideas Happen and The Messy Middle

00:39:11 – Startups avoiding the fate of the “one-hit wonder”

00:43:32 – Investment trends that Scott is focusing on

00:47:31 – Scott’s favorite failures

 
Show notes with links, quotes, and a transcript of the episode: https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/scott-belsky-outliers-show-notes 
Sign up here for Outlier Debrief, our weekly newsletter that highlights the latest episode, expands on important business and investing concepts, and contains the best of what we read each week.
Follow Outlier Academy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/outlieracademy.
If you loved this episode, please share a quick review on Apple Podcasts.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Great opportunities never have ‘great opportunity’ in the subject line.” – Scott Belsky

In this episode of Outlier Academy, I’m talking with Scott Belsky (@scottbelsky). After starting his career at Goldman Sachs, he left to found Behance which he later sold to Adobe. He’s now the Chief Product Officer at Adobe as well as a Venture Partner at the world-renowned venture capital firm Benchmark. Scott was an early investor in Uber, Pinterest, Carta, Flexport, Airtable, and sweetgreen. And finally, he’s the best-selling author of Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality and The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture.

Scott is a modern polymath. We explore his journey from entrepreneur to investor, how he approaches investing in early-stage technology companies, as well as the lessons he’s learned at Benchmark, Adobe, and Behance.

Chapters in this interview:

00:00:05 – Scott’s learnings from his start at Goldman Sachs

00:05:35 – On co-founding Behance, and attempting to manage the “most disorganized community on the planet”

00:09:15 – Tactics for entrepreneurs and their teams

00:13:26 – The transition from startup (Behance) to large company (Adobe)

00:16:29 – How the desire to buy an education led to Scott’s interest in investing

00:18:59 – Seeing an investment grow from Seed to IPO

00:22:47 – How design can move the needle for a business

00:28:21 – Scott’s foray into venture capital and finding his ideal role melding investing with company-building at Benchmark

00:34:04 – On writing Making Ideas Happen and The Messy Middle

00:39:11 – Startups avoiding the fate of the “one-hit wonder”

00:43:32 – Investment trends that Scott is focusing on

00:47:31 – Scott’s favorite failures

Show notes with links, quotes, and a transcript of the episode: https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/scott-belsky-outliers-show-notes 

Sign up here for Outlier Debrief, our weekly newsletter that highlights the latest episode, expands on important business and investing concepts, and contains the best of what we read each week.

Follow Outlier Academy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/outlieracademy.

If you loved this episode, please share a quick review on Apple Podcasts.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices