Jay Baydala

I’ve started 4 companies and helped build 5 more.

The 1st was ChristmasFuture, which became UEnd:Poverty — a nonprofit that moved roughly $1MM to 160 projects across 22 developing countries. Then Goodpin, a SaaS platform that put companies’ charitable budgets in the hands of their customers. Then Evrywork, a collaboration and workflow platform for distributed teams. I’m on the 4th now: DECODER.

The other 5 were other people’s companies. Sometimes that meant product, sometimes it meant the job nobody else wanted to own. Early-stage work rarely respects a title.

What I’ve learned across all 9 is that the idea is the cheap part. The work is spinning plates. Product, money, team, customers, whatever broke this morning — nothing gets your full attention and nothing can be allowed to drop. The skill is getting each plate to good enough and moving to the next one, instead of polishing one while the rest wobble.

I still love the part where nothing exists yet.