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Key Takeaways Graham sold BuildASign, the startup he co-founded, to VistaPrint, now Cimpress, in 2018.
After the sale, Graham became an investor and advisor, helping early-stage companies grow.
Here’s what he thinks young entrepreneurs should know as AI continues to change the landscape.
This as-told-to story is based on a conversation with Austin, Texas-based entrepreneur and investor Dan Graham. Since selling his business, BuildASign, to VistaPrint in 2018 in a $280 million cash transaction, Graham has continued to launch and play a role at multiple other firms. He has been a partner at Notley since 2015, general partner at Springdale Ventures, general partner at Geyser Group and board member at CiviTech, among others. Additionally, Graham gives back to the Austin community through participation on the board of directors for numerous philanthropic organizations, including Austin Community Foundation, Austin Monitor, the 4ATX Foundation and others.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Springdale Ventures. Dan Graham.
Growing up, I always gravitated towards entrepreneurship. But I didn’t necessarily think of it as a career path. When I was 12, I started this little business doing door-to-door magic tricks, where I’d do the magic for free, then ask for money to reveal how I’d done it. I also sold candy at school.
I went to school for a computer science degree. Then, I went to law school to study intellectual property and patent law. But I always enjoyed the entrepreneurial side of things as well. So, when I was a second-year law student, a couple of friends that I had grown up with partnered to do web development work to earn some extra money.
Pitching websites and a Web 2.0-type solution
We would meet with different small- to medium-sized businesses and pitch basic websites. But we’d also look at their workflows and the way they were selling products. We’d try to upsell them into a more robust Web 2.0-type solution. We often had ideas that we thought were really good that the client would turn down for whatever reason, price, or something else. Then, we would occasionally spin those ideas out into their own brands to try to run them or sell them as a separate small entity.
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