Chapter One

Can you tell us a bit about yourself? Educational background, work experience, etc.

I grew up in San Diego, went to school in New York (Columbia), and worked all four years at many jobs and internships in the music business. My senior year I started a record label, which I then ran for 12 years.

I then went to business school at Columbia on nights and weekends and launched Devpost (originally called ChallengePost), which is a platform for software developers to find fulfilling work.

Developers use Devpost to find full-time jobs and to discover hackathons where they can improve their skills

How did you start getting involved with the tech space? What motivated you to become an entrepreneur during college?

Since as long as I can remember I've wanted to be an entrepreneur. It's the only thing that makes me happy professionally. I've always wanted to be fully responsible for my successes and failures. I'm also a big optimist who believes there are so many great new things to build, so why work on something that already exists?

I moved from the music business to the tech business because that's where I saw all of the creativity going, and because I love technology and believe it can help solve problems and improve lives.

You and your co-founder are one of the first people to enter this niche market (marketing hackathons and entering project submissions) and become mainstream within the community. Did you foresee that it would be this successful? How do you make sure you're always on top of your competitors?

I'm the sole founder. Actually we've pivoted quite a bit since we launched. At first you could find software competitions and non-software competitions on our platform. Over the years we narrowed to focus on software. I'm a believer that software is transforming nearly every element of society, so to me I don't consider this area to be niche.

When it comes to competitors, it's wise to be aware of them but unwise to focus too much on them. A company should have a mission, and follow it, changing tactics when necessary but not losing site of its true north.

We're seeing a lot of cool new features of Devpost such as video podcasts and job opportunities - in what direction are you planning to scale your company towards other than primarily focusing on hackathons?

Our mission is to help developers find fulfilling work, and we do that via hackathons and full-time jobs. We plan to invest heavily in our jobs platform, which allows software developers to get inside looks at engineering teams, so that they can find the best place for them. Company careers pages and job listings are generally terrible, and we're focusing on helping developers get much better insight so that they find great jobs.

What is a typical day like as a CEO for Devpost?

My job is to hire the best people, point them in the right direction (with our mission and product vision), and give employees freedom and support. So it's mostly communicating: with employees, prospective employees, customers, prospective customers, board members, and investors.

What are some of the biggest challenges you have encountered while running Devpost?

Do you want me to filter by day, week, month, or all time? Haha. There are non-stop challenges and frankly that's the biggest challenge; prioritizing and knowing what's important and what isn't. That comes from experience and making a lot of mistakes.

Any advice you'd like to share to our aspiring entrepreneurs and hackers?

Sure: do what you love, find great people, and work hard.

If you want your startup to be interviewed, please reach out to me at taehong.min18@outlook.com. Thanks!