Matt Mickiewicz: Today’s Notable Young Entrepreneur

Matt Mickiewicz is a serial entrepreneur who launched his first business at just 14 years old and has since built some of the most forward-thinking companies of our time, including SitePoint, Flippa, 99designs, and Hired. We caught up with him to find out where he finds inspiration and what it means to establish a fulfilling work environment…

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WORK

1. Describe what you do in less than 140 characters. Go.
I’m the co-founder and Chief Product Office for Hired, a company on a mission to help everyone get a job they love.

2. What was the inspiration for your career route?
I’ve always been passionate about building things and solving big problems. I started my first company, SitePoint, when I was 14 and I’ve never looked back. I love being an entrepreneur and have since started three additional companies: Flippa, 99designs, and Hired. The inspiration for my current company, Hired, came from the frustration I had with trying to hire great people. All of the options available to me at the time – job boards, recruiting agencies, etc. – were either expensive, frustrating, inefficient or all three. Hired solves that problem by bringing pre-vetted candidates together with the awesome companies who want to hire them in a marketplace environment.

3. What is the most memorable milestone in your career so far?
Visiting the White House to receive an Empact100 award alongside other notable entrepreneurs under 30 was definitely an incredible experience that will stay with me forever.

4. Where do you see yourself in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years?
Building Hired feels like the culmination of all my other experiences as an entrepreneur and our mission is one that I’m so passionate about. I see this company as my life’s work.

5. Do you have any advice for other young professionals?
Never stop learning. It doesn’t have to be in a classroom setting – seeking out and reading books on strategy and business can give you a huge leg up. Get used to change and learn to adapt quickly. Know that you will hit bumps in the road. Instead of giving up, channel all of your energy into overcoming them.

6. Do you support any charities? If so, which one(s) and why is it (or they) important to you?
Doctors Without Borders. Their work is unassailable.

7. What is one major challenge that you’ve had to overcome in your career? How did you overcome it?
My first company, SitePoint, was originally monetized through on-site advertising and sponsorship, but when the NASDAQ crashed in March of 2000 and ad money started to dry up, we had to get creative to keep the company afloat. My business partner and I decided to see whether people would pay for a printed version of our most popular tutorial, which was about PHP & MySQL. We used a print-on-demand company to limit our risk and started marketing the book online – and it went on to sell nearly 20,000 copies.

8. What does the word notable mean to you?
Distinctive.

PLAY

1. Where is your favourite place to wine/ dine in your city and why?
Miku. Best sushi in Vancouver.

2. What’s the most visited website on your Internet browser? The most played song on your phone?
Probably my Google Calendar… on my phone, I actually listen to a lot more podcasts than I do music. Planet Money, This Week in Startups, and Freakonomics are three of my favourites.

3. What’s your favourite country to visit and why? And what’s the next one you plan on travelling to?
I don’t have a single favourite, but I’ve enjoyed jaunts through France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Netherlands, Poland, Thailand, Indonesia, Botswana, Tanzania, and Kenya among others. Africa is definitely the most life-changing experience that really imprints itself on your mind.

Next up on the list, I’m thinking of going to Croatia.

4. What gives you the greatest FOMO?
I have an “optimizer” tendency, meaning I sometimes overthink all my options. Even after making a decision, I wonder what “could have been” if I had picked something else (a different vacation, a different hotel, a different restaurant).

5. What’s your guiltiest pleasure?
Travel and food. In general, investing in experiences has had the biggest personal payoff. I also have a decent wine collection at home.

6.  What’s something you wish you didn’t spend so much money on? What’s something you wish you spent more on?
Nothing. I think I’ve got the balance right.

7. And finally, what does success look like to you? Work, play, or otherwise…
I get a lot of satisfaction from hiring talented, motivated, bright people into our company and then seeing them succeed and grow professionally. Success to me means that people looking back onto their experience with Hired will reflect and say, “I had awesome co-workers and I learned a lot. Those were some of the best years of my life.”

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