Mark Volchek, founder of Higher One: $600 million IPO

Mark Volchek is an entrepreneur turned VC. While a student at Yale, Mark set out to disrupt academia by making student payments electronic. Higher One grew to a thousand employees and hundreds of millions in revenue, went public on the NYSE with a valuation of $600 million, then went back private as 3 entities that were all sold for hundreds of millions each. What a ride! On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Mark about: • The power of connections in B2B enterprise sales • How to measure product/market fit for a B2B company • Distributed workforce at scale: hundreds of employees in many locations • What’s needed for a startup to IPO? • Running a public company vs a private company • Going back private after being a public company • Fundraising advice from a founder turned VC • Finding great startups in non-obvious places • How to approach investors as a startup founder Mark now invests in “extraordinary people who are building the future in non-obvious places” via Las Olas, an early-stage VC firm. Startup Exits is brought to you by StartupSoft. New episodes every month, subscribe for more.