Building the Wrong Thing - Insights from Josh Barker

In this episode, we talk to Josh Barker, an engineer turned entrepreneur who shares his journey from programming on an Atari in his basement to co-founding a venture studio in Silicon Valley. Josh discusses the importance of building the right thing versus building things right, the value of learning from past failures, and the benefits of starting with low-fidelity solutions. We explore his experiences at KPMG, his unexpected plunge into startup life, and the lessons he’s learned from launching and iterating on multiple tech products.

Links mentioned in this episode:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuabarker/ https://cityinnovations.com/

(0:00) Introduction and guest background (1:15) Journey from KPMG to Silicon Valley and starting a venture studio (2:44) Building the right thing vs building the thing right (4:29) Common mistakes of builders and engineers (6:22) Learning from failed startup attempts and unexpected successes (9:38) How successful businesses like Uber and Airbnb seemed like terrible ideas at first (11:25) Importance of learning from past attempts and failures (13:44) Starting small and simple: the case of Uber and other startups (15:41) Identifying early market signals and adapting accordingly (16:25) Wrap up and future conversations (17:04) Sponsor: Vala AI