mapquest

Chris Heivly is the Co-founder of MapQuest, a pioneering online mapping service that has refashioned how we experience navigation and geographic information systems. He has rich experience in entrepreneurship, including company-building experience, startup expertise, and venture capital investment as an early-stage investor.

Chris is a best-selling author of the Build the Fort series — a renowned guide for startup community builders. He is also a prolific blogger on his website — www.heivly.com, a contributing writer for INC.com, and a sought-after public speaker on startups, startup communities, corporate innovation, and entrepreneurial ecosystem development.

In this episode…

Launching and nurturing a successful entrepreneurial venture takes effort. Whether you are a seasoned entrepreneur or embarking on your entrepreneurial journey for the first time, building a thriving business requires constantly learning new ropes and evolving your processes. 

Chris Heivly, a seasoned entrepreneur and renowned “startup whisperer,” emphasizes the importance of creativity in entrepreneurship. Fearless idea-sharing and unshackling from self-doubt are critical drivers of entrepreneurial success. In addition, finding valuable collaborators, nurturing connections, and building a supportive network is also an art that amplifies your chances of growth.

In this episode of Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with Chris Heivly, the Co-founder of MapQuest, to discuss his entrepreneurial journey and successful startup building. Chris delves into the five key lessons in his book Build the Fort. He emphasizes the importance of sharing ideas without fear, finding collaborators, utilizing existing assets, keeping the scope small, and taking the first action.

Chris Heivly is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and the Managing Director at Build The Fort, an umbrella entity that serves entrepreneurs, and startup companies. He is one of the nation's leading experts on launching startups and has been dubbed The Startup Whisperer. 

Chris co-founded MapQuest, which was sold to AOL for $1.2 billion. He is also a public speaker and the author of Build The Fort: Why 5 Simple Lessons You Learned as a 10 year-old Can Set You Up for Startup Success as well as Build the Fort: The Startup Community Builder's Field Guide.

In this episode…

Entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, and without a supportive community, managing a business can be a burdensome challenge. To keep growing, it is important to seek help from other entrepreneurs who have faced similar struggles.

Your lack of expertise in a given area can hinder your business. Chris Heivly’s advice is to identify your strengths and weaknesses while leaning on your community for support. This includes your industry peers, employees, and business partners as an essential part of reaching the next level. 

Chris Heivly, the Managing Director at Build The Fort, joins Rich Goldstein in this episode of the Innovations and Breakthroughs Podcast to talk about the need for a supportive community for entrepreneurs. They also discuss the history of MapQuest, the value of giving back, and common mistakes people make when starting a business.

As the original chief architect of the lifesaving and the most widely used telematics platform in the world (OnStar), and the CTO for several of the most widely used navigation (and marketing insight) platforms that likely guided you on your most recent appointment, Ty Beltramo understands technological driven disruption. He walks us through his journey as a transformation leader and shares the lessons his mentors taught him during his professional career. He sheds light on how technology itself is being disrupted, what you need to do as a progressive tech leadership, how speed has over taken scale as a differentiator in industry, and the importance of remaining human-centric.  Through the discussion Ty sheds his wisdom for both the top technology leaders, and those that must work with them in order to unlock the value in technological investments.

Ty Beltramo is a hands-on technical leader with proven expertise in connected solutions and large enterprise integration projects. He has over 20 years of experience as the senior technology leader of large firms, including Fortune 50 companies, overseeing the design and development of complex enterprise systems. Ty is also a critical member of the CGS Advisors Fellows Network.

As the CTO of MapQuest, he was the head of a team of 60 and successfully completed a 3-year turnaround plan to modernize all aspects of infrastructure, core data, and products. As a partner and iOS application developer at Portable Hole Productions, he was the sole developer for General Motors OnStar MyLink application, which won the Popular Mechanics Editor’s Choice Award. And as Chief Architect at General Motors OnStar, Ty led the evolution of OnStar’s enterprise architecture to grow from 1 to 4 lines of business and support over 3-million subscribers, one-hundred-fold the amount of subscribers since he started.

Segment 1: Introduction and Background

1:23         What makes Ty unique?

3:28          Why was it important to Ty to stay close to the technology?

Segment 2: Disruption in Industry & Needed Capabilities

6:40         Technology: An industry or a craft?

10:26       What force is disrupting technology?

13:38       How can leaders use technology to differentiate their business?

15:00      How is architecture and, more importantly, “Good architecture” defined?

16:25      The two-sided business model: What is the process of monetizing a product that is free?

Segment 3: Firm Transformation

19:48      How can leaders make their company faster when it comes to technology?

21:50      What role do people play in the success of technology and architecture?

23:08       In the professional sense, what makes someone a risk taker?

25:04       Whose job is it to set the culture of the company?

26:14       What is a CTO?

27:58      How do you differentiate the CTO from the CIO role?

32:36       Stories of transformation: Successes, Failure, and Lessons learned

Segment 4: Brave Leadership & the “Top Three”

36:38      Who played a key role in Ty’s success…his bosses!

• Boss 1
  • Helped Ty learn and understand how technology can be applied to solve business problems.
  • Introduced Ty to the importance of building a “fear-free environment” that encourages the company to possess no fear of failure – invoking a “move on” attitude.
• Boss 2
  • Helped Ty understand the culture of people: why and how to motivate, encourage and invest in people.
• Boss 3
  • Helped Ty understand the importance of grace in the hiring process. Whether you are hiring the best people or letting go of the wrong people, the key is always doing so with grace and dignity.

44:37      What one piece of advice does Ty give to others?

46:31      If you could select an advisor, who would be your fourth?

• Robert “Uncle Bob” Martin (LinkedIn. Twitter. Books. Website. Blog.)
• Neil Ford (Twitter. Books. Website. Blog.)

48:23      Does Ty ever think through the amount of lives he’s helped to save through his work with OnStar?

Wrapping Up

51:54     What advice does Ty have for architects?

53:19     What advice does Ty have for CTOs or progressive CIOs?

54:08      What advice does Ty have for leaders?

Contact Ty:

• Ty’s LinkedIn
• Ty’s Email
• Ty’s Bio

Contact Gregg:

• Gregg’s LinkedIn
• Gregg’s Twitter
• Gregg’s Bio

CGS Advisors:

• Website
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Today we talk about Twitter turning 9, Yahoo turns 20, AOL owns a bunch of sites, Huffington Post, AtariFit, Launcher, Gigaom, Friendfeed, Internet Explorer Dies, Blonde Salad, Sally LePage, TechCrunch and Mapquest. All the tech, social media and blog headlines that Bloggers love, need and use everyday.