Serial Advice from a Serial Entrepreneur: RightNow CEO Greg Gianforte holds forth on the secrets of starting and growing a company

The headline in this entry is a fantasy title for a column that I think Greg Gianforte, CEO of RightNow Technologies, http://www.rightnow.com/ could do very well. That’s because he loves to give advice on how to build startups. His book on how to bootstrap startups is coming out soon, and he’s been a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School.

I recently spoke with Greg at the SD Forum conference on Software as a Service (SaaS). As we talked outside the conference room about bootstrapping and how startups change in different phases of their growth, he soon attracted attention from several local entrepreneurs who heard him speaking on these topics and were eager to have his answer on a range of issues they were facing.

Greg was there to promote his enterprise SaaS company, RightNow, but he spent at least an hour chatting with entrepreneurs about his management methods and approach. So, instead of standard report on “my chat with Greg,” we’ll let Greg dole out his advice for startups in a Dear Abby format. The questions were asked by people at the SD Forum conference running small startups.

Look for more of these “serial advice from a serial entrepreneur” segments. If you like them, I can go get more! In fact, send me some questions, I’ve no idea if Greg would answer them but he might. He has a book to promote after all, so that might tempt him, not that he needs an excuse. He loves to dole out advice on startups and it’s been working for him very well.

By Tom Foremski

Full Story: http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2005/03/advice_column_t.php