Will Gordon, Co-founder and COO of Latchel

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What were you doing before you quit your job?

I was leading a part of the Amazon Worldwide Last Mile Subject Matter Expert team focused on on-road planning and execution (I.e. Route planning, tracking, and delivery devices and software)

When did you realize you wanted to quit your job?

My family needed help with managing their rental properties. After spending some time helping out I realized the maintenance tracking problem space had surprising parallels with last mile delivery.

What initial hesitations did you have about quitting your job and how did you overcome them?

I really enjoyed working at Amazon, but had always had a goal of building my own company. I felt it was now or never, since my vesting schedule would only make it harder and harder to leave. I figured it was better to bite the bullet and stop vesting before it got too hard to resist.

Can you remember the day you put in your notice? What was it like, what was going through your mind, how did your manager take it?

I don’t remember much other than the conference room had a round table and my manager was disappointed I was leaving but understood the impulse to be an entrepreneur.

What are you doing now?

Latchel offers 24/7 maintenance for property managers. I’m COO and am focused on building better operations processes and transparency.

Looking back on your experience of founding a company, what do you know now that you wish you knew before? Are you happy with your decision?

I wish I knew how important it is to achieve product market fit (and what product market fit really meant) before trying to grow aggressive. It’s hard to grow your customer base when you have significant customer churn. We tried to expand sales too early because we had strong demand, but we didn’t realize our product was a leaky bucket at the time. If we knew this at the beginning we could have extended our runway substantially before fundraising again.

Any other advice you can share for others contemplating a similar path?

Pick a problem space or a customer base you love. The lows get really low so you need something to hold onto to get you through them.

Learn more about Latchel

Learn more about Will Gordon