Author and four-time founder/CEO Dan Shapiro tells the stories of dozens of startups whose companies lived and died by the advice in these pages. From inception to destruction and triumph to despair, this rollercoaster read takes aspiring entrepreneurs from the highs of billion-dollar payouts and market-smashing success to the depths of impostor syndrome and bankruptcy.
Hot Seat is divided into the five phases of the startup CEO experience:
Dan Shapiro is the CEO and cofounder of Glowforge, a startup that's creating the first 3D laser printer. Dan's also the primary turtle wrangler at Robot Turtles, LLC, a company created when he accidentally launched the bestselling boardgame in Kickstarter history. Dan spent the previous two years leading a Google subsidiary that operates comparison shopping products. Shapiro landed at Google when they bought his previous company, comparison shopping website Sparkbuy. Before Sparkbuy, Shapiro was founder and CEO of Photobucket Inc. (formerly Ontela). Dan's been featured on NPR, the Wall Street Journal, and on the front page of the New York Times. His game, Robot Turtles, can be purchased everywhere from Target to MOMA. He is a mentor for the Founder's Institute, 500 Startups, and Techstars. He has been awarded eleven US patents, and received his B.S. in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College.