1 hr 9 min
Starter Stories Episode 24: Ben Congleton - Founder of Olark Starter Stories
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- Education
In just a moment, you’ll meet Ben Congleton — Founder of Olark, a live chat software and data tool that serves colleges and universities of all shapes and sizes.
Growing up, Ben wanted to be a professor like his father before him. And while he completed both a bachelors and masters degree from Virginia Tech and started his PhD at the University of Michigan, Ben ultimately realized that he was a bit more interested in business than in higher education.
So he decided to pursue one of the many business ideals he had noodled on for a few years. After starting a webhosting company, Ben realized that there was a dearth of great website chat tools – and he had this vision of making chat software that was as easily to install on a website as Google Analytics.
And it was this idea that granted access to Olark (which was called Habla at the time) to Y Combinator, the most famous and prestigious of startup accelerators.
So, he and his founding team moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and that’s where things really started to take off. Tune in to hear the story of how Ben ended up living in Elon Musk’s house next door to an apartment that Mark Zuckerburg had rented and ultimately bootstrapped the company to success.
In just a moment, you’ll meet Ben Congleton — Founder of Olark, a live chat software and data tool that serves colleges and universities of all shapes and sizes.
Growing up, Ben wanted to be a professor like his father before him. And while he completed both a bachelors and masters degree from Virginia Tech and started his PhD at the University of Michigan, Ben ultimately realized that he was a bit more interested in business than in higher education.
So he decided to pursue one of the many business ideals he had noodled on for a few years. After starting a webhosting company, Ben realized that there was a dearth of great website chat tools – and he had this vision of making chat software that was as easily to install on a website as Google Analytics.
And it was this idea that granted access to Olark (which was called Habla at the time) to Y Combinator, the most famous and prestigious of startup accelerators.
So, he and his founding team moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and that’s where things really started to take off. Tune in to hear the story of how Ben ended up living in Elon Musk’s house next door to an apartment that Mark Zuckerburg had rented and ultimately bootstrapped the company to success.
1 hr 9 min