Brandon: What are your "5 things I wish someone told me before I launched my Start-Up" and why.
1. Perseverance and grit will get you far.
2. Don't pay attention to resumes!
3. Surround yourself with a few individuals who have "been there, done that."
4. Take a vacation.
5. Get out of the office more often.
Brandon: Thank you so much for doing this with us! What is your "backstory"?
Blake: I've been an angel investor and startup operator for my career. I love technology that truly helps people. The idea of Divvy Pay came to me out of personal frustration. I don't think that's dissimilar to many new companies. I had a pain I was experiencing, I looked at solutions that were on the market and none of them came close to filling my needs. I felt very confident that I could build that company and that it would be a far reaching and impactful company.
Brandon: What do you think makes your company stand out?
Blake: Very little innovation has occurred in our space for the past 10-15 years. The expense management space has been satisfied with providing customers with marginal improvements over incumbent technology without providing real, innovative solutions to the core problems. In my opinion, one of the core problems is that companies are forced to live in a reactive environment. They try to figure out who spent what, where, and when but 30-60 days after it happened. Think of the great consumer apps we use on a daily basis and the strong business platforms. Software is better than merely looking into the past. It can control the present and predict the future. We give businesses the ability to manage who spends what, where, and when in real time while completely automating expense reports.
Brandon: None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?
Blake: My co-founder, Alex Bean, has been an incredible example of positivity and grit. Anyone who has started a company or owned a business knows it's no joke. The sheer amount of variables that can derail you are endless! Through it all he continues to lean forward with a mantra of, "we'll figure it out." That was critical for us early on as we dealt with top banks, Fortune 500 companies, and deep integrated partners, which push you and require a lot of you. Ultimately we did figure "it" out.
Brandon: How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
Blake: Being an active member of our Utah tech (we call it Silicon Slopes) community is important to us. It's a tight knit group that really looks out for each other and tries to lend a hand whenever possible. We heard that an important member of the Qualtrics' team was diagnosed with a serious illness. Qualtrics has been an incredible advocate for cancer research through their initiative called Five for the Fight. As a show of support our employees each individually contributed to their foundation and made a video in solidarity with their employee.
Brandon: Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why?
Blake: If I had lived during his era, I would have loved to have met John Steinbeck. Storytelling is such a lost art and he's an absolute master. You have to be a strong story teller to scale a startup; from selling the product, creating partnerships and recruiting. It's an integral part of growth and in my opinion, he was the absolute best. I get lost in his novels and I would have loved to learn from him.
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