David Cummings on Startups

5 Lessons Learned from Appcelerator

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David Cummings

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Jeff Haynie, co-founder and CEO of Appcelerator, just published a great post titled Five things I will do different for my next startup. Less than a month ago Jeff and his board sold Appcelerator to Axway (see Axway Acquires Mobile App Development Platform Appcelerator) after raising almost $90 million in capital. I got the chance to know Jeff when he first started Appcelerator almost 10 years ago. Early on, Appcelerator was like an AngularJS/EmberJS JavaScript platform and eventually pivoted into a cross-platform mobile app development platform (e.g. write code once and have an iPhone and Android app produced).

Here are Jeff’s five lessons learned:

  • Monetize earlier
  • Scale slower
  • Burn less
  • Automate and outsource everything
  • Measure everything

Go read Jeff’s Five things I will do different for my next startup post and learn from his experiences.

Comments

5 responses to “5 Lessons Learned from Appcelerator”

  1. Dave Williams Avatar
    Dave Williams

    And, he started the company in the ATL and moved to Silicon Valley which was the focus of multiple stories at the time. http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2008/08/04/story4.html

    Congrats to Jeff as he has done a lot for the ATL tech scene having launched one of the first incubators in the city back in the Dot Com boom!

    https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ehatchery#/entity

    Reply
    1. teknasutra Avatar
      teknasutra

      I enjoyed working with Jeff at e-Hatchery. The position I held, was that of senior network architect. Jeff was our CTO and our CEO Jeff Levy, another brilliant fellow. Jeff Levy had sold MediaMetrix, an organisation which focused on measuring everything related to an organization’s media efficacy. Jeff Hanie made things work. He was more head down back then. Now he has mastered the art of delegation and has greatly expanded his view and C level interpersonL skills. In the past we seldom had time to discuss the paths of our mutual futures, aside from moments during evenings evening at the Hatch. Jeff Hanie has applied himself with great focus and intensity. He is highly deserving of every good thing.

      Keep it up Jeff and always, as in the past Balance,

      John W. Ketchersid

      Reply
  2. Dan McFall Avatar
    Dan McFall

    Great stuff here, David! More of a general comment, but this seems to follow my recent observation that a lot of startups have gotten RAISING money confused with MAKING money.

    I also think we saw that in the market correction (possibly over-correction) on public SaaS businesses recently.

    Reply
  3. Jeff Haynie (@jhaynie) Avatar
    Jeff Haynie (@jhaynie)

    Thanks guys. You both have also really stepped up as leaders in the Atlanta startup community and things have really changed so much since I’ve left. I’m proud of how Atlanta has continued to improve and very happy to still call it my home.

    Reply
    1. teknasutra Avatar
      teknasutra

      When are you coming ? 🙂

      Reply

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