Introduction
Welcome to Episode 18 of the Seven Eighths. In this episode, I sit down with David Fano, Founder and CEO of Teal, for a conversation. David Fano is a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience building products & services. As the founder and CEO of his latest venture, Teal, Dave is focusing on building technology tools that can empower people to grow their careers. In under 1 year, Teal has grown to be loved and used by over 20,000 users to power boost their careers.
Prior to Teal, Dave co-founded CASE, a technology consulting firm, while serving as adjunct faculty at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture. CASE worked with clients such as Google, Disney & Apple and went on to be the first acquisition made by WeWork in 2015. At WeWork David held several executive roles and eventually became the Chief Growth Officer. In a span of just 4 years, Dave built and led a global growth team that transacted over 2 million square feet of space per month.
In this episode, Dave talks about his journey from humble beginnings to CASE and then WeWork to now founding and managing TEAL. Dave is raw and real about pivoting his first start up, the turmoil with transition from CASE to WeWork, his struggles with his identity as he walked away from the role that almost defined him. He is honest and says it as it is. Let’s listen in. #normalizefailures
You can find David Fano on
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidfano/
Twitter: @davidfano
To learn more about Dave's latest venture visit: Teal:https://www.tealhq.com/
Summary
And that’s how the cookie crumbles. It was surprising to hear that someone as successful as Dave too had questions of self doubt at every step of the way. I liked Dave’s point of view on success: He framed success as not one event in itself but a series of failures coming together to give success as failures gives one a chance to iterate and refine. The big aha that I learnt from Dave was the fact that in life, many of us think of ourselves, our role as much bigger than what it truly is. We tend to think of our impact as more important than any other in the company. In Dave’s words: Companies are self healing organisms. They will find a way to continue to carryon with or without you. And lastly, giving up the perception that you are what you do. Dave shared how once he decoupled his identity from his work, he was a better place to make tough decisions.
Thank you for listening to the Seven Eighths. Do share your thoughts. I am on twitter @femmenectar. Until the next conversation. Cheers Everyone!
