Interview the founder of a relatively new, non-journalism startup? I knew just whom I wanted to reach out to --- an old University of Maryland undergrad classmate who's been innovative and successful.
Paul Mandell is a Yale-trained lawyer who in 2005 left a well-paid job at a powerful firm to start his own company, a temp legal staffing agency to service big law firms. In 2007, he sold the business to a company that outsourced to India and he saved enough money to start a new venture last year, a company called Consero, which sets up high-end, invitation-only professional conferences. He's already getting lots of buzz, including in the Washington Post and Bloomberg.
Mandell was kind enough to take a few minutes out of a very busy day (we did the interview via mobile phone while he was en route to a meeting) to talk to me about launching a startup. I'll talk more about it in class on Saturday. In a sense, Mandell's business is counterintuitive as a Web business --- after all, his whole aim is to get elite groups of people in an actual room together, face to face. But the Internet, his Web site, social networking and mobile technology all are key to the company. He started with a staff of two and now has a staff of 20. He drew his inspiration and initial client base from what he knew best: the legal community. All applicable lessons for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment