Mark Hendrickson had worn many hats working for TechCrunch but after he had learned all that he could, he felt the need to move on and build something of his own. Fueled by a passion to create something meaningful, Mark wasn’t immediately sure where he wanted to funnel his energy, but it didn’t take him long to find his co-founder, Jay Marcyes on Twitter and dream up Plancast, the exciting social calendar site where friends can post and share their upcoming plans. Mark knew that Plancast was the perfect way to connect people locally and help them stay in touch online and in person. Click here to read more about Plancast: Move Over Evite; Mark Hendrickson’s Got the Hot Dates

Silencing his doubts about leaving behind secure employment, Mark has weathered the highs and lows that shape the risky startup process and has come out on top with a sense of fulfillment that can only be earned by taking a leap and doing it. Mark admits that it was a long road, and the ride wasn’t always smooth, but the rush of those highs has made the experience incredibly rewarding. “It’s all about trudging through it,” according to Mark, and his story proves that staying positive and confident in your own abilities will pull you through to your ideal destination.

A Short Clip of My Conversation with Mark Hendrickson
Trouble Viewing? Visit: IntimateMath on YouTube

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

---

---

PROFILE

STATS
Companies Founded:
1. Worldly Developments (makers of Plancast) – 2009
Title: Co-Founder
Total Funding: Bootstrapped
Highest Number of Employees: 2

PERSONAL INFORMATION
Hometown: Menlo Park, CA
Resides: San Francisco, CA
Education: Bowdoin College
Age: 24
Hobbies/Interests: Tennis, philosophy, running, working, hiking, and the outdoors
Biggest Fear: Fear is a strong word. I think if I were going to be afraid of anything, it would be if the startup fails.
Role Models: Several teachers and mentors throughout college and high school.

Mark Hendrickson’s: Plancast | HomePage | Twitter | Linkedin

---

---

THE INTERVIEW – (Full Interview Transcription)

Kim Ngo: Thank you for meeting with IntimateMath today, Mark. Tell us about Plancast. And why would I love it?

Mark Hendrickson: Plancast is a service you can use to share your upcoming plans with friends and to find out what others in the community are doing. As of right now, there is really no other site or service that connects you with people for activities you want to do in real life. Plancast makes it extremely easy for you to keep track of what your friends are doing, whether they’re going to a concert or just going out for drinks.

All these small, often improvised activities, which are very important to us, are not easily sharable right now. In general, online services haven’t reached their potential in bridging the gap between the virtual world and the real world. You can chat with people on Twitter or post pictures on Facebook, but those aren’t terribly meaningful activities in reality. We are trying to connect people for real experiences by helping them figure out what their friends are up to.

Kim Ngo: How did you come up with the idea?

Mark Hendrickson: When I started, I wanted to work on something to help connect people locally. There was a lot of brainstorming before the concept of Plancast came about, and it seemed that the most powerful way to connect people is to help them share information about what they plan to do. But the general goal was, “How do I help users meet new people in their area? How do I help people learn about new places and new activities?” I want to help them get more out of their lives, wherever they are.

Kim Ngo: Has Plancast been a success so far? Has Plancast impacted the number of attendees at recent events?

Mark Hendrickson: Yeah, we’ve already seen a lot of activity on the site. People have been referring to it as the reason they found out about events.

We just recently launched, but you can see the kinds of events people are posting and how they are interacting on the site. People are having discussions about the things they are doing. They are also joining each other for things like carpooling.

Kim Ngo: What is your business plan?

Mark Hendrickson: We want to have all different types of users on Plancast. Right now, Plancast’s main users are friends sharing with friends. We would like to have business and organizations posting upcoming events and opportunities. So if you’re a band, we want you to post your upcoming show. Plancast could also be used to post sports teams’ games or local organizations’ meeting times. Plancast is not just for individuals to use for recreational events; it’s a tool that any kind of organization or business can use as a vehicle to promote events.

Kim Ngo: Can users create private events?

Mark Hendrickson: They can’t yet, but they will be able to in the future. Right now all events are public, but we have plenty of users that want to have more privacy.

Kim Ngo: Does Plancast have plans to offer pay services?

Mark Hendrickson: We have to figure that out. We want to provide premium services at a fee to businesses to market events. Also, we would like to charge event promoters for targeted advertising on the site. There are a lot of different opportunities to make money from Plancast.

Kim Ngo: How confident are you about the future of Plancast?

Mark Hendrickson: Very confident. Everything is an experiment. Am I confident that I have a viable idea that I’m excited about? Yes!

Am I confident that two years from now it’s going to sell for a billion dollars? I don’t know. It’s impossible to know for sure whether Plancast will be successful or not. But I do feel good about where I’m going with it.

Kim Ngo: How did you get started? Tell us about the first 6 months.

Mark Hendrickson: I worked at TechCrunch for a year and a half, and towards the end, I wanted to start my own company, but I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do. When I left, I spent the first few months trying to get used to the idea of doing something totally new. The next few months were spent honing out ideas. It was a very exploratory type of process with lots of false starts and ideas that didn’t pan out. But in the end, it was about honing my plans into a successful product.

Kim Ngo: How did you find the courage to leave a great job and start Plancast?

Mark Hendrickson: I wouldn’t call it courage. I had an overwhelming desire to do something like this, something that was sort of harebrained; I didn’t want to go into a normal job. And I can’t say I didn’t have any doubts. There were plenty of times when I woke up and asked myself, “What am I doing? I’m trying to build something from nothing, and there’s such a long road ahead. Why did I think I could do this?” It took me a lot of strength to push through those moments.

Kim Ngo: Is it tough to stay positive?

Mark Hendrickson: Over time you build courage, and you keep going. It’s all about trudging through it. Starting a company is all about silencing the self-doubt you have and persevering. But you do take hits from time to time. People say doing a startup is like a roller coaster, and it is. You have days where you feel on top of the world because you’re creating something that’s going to be of huge value to people. It’s the best feeling in the world. But an hour later, you can feel like the cards are stacked against you, and that your product isn’t valuable. You have to be able to ride the highs and the lows and not let either of them steer you off course.

Another thing is that after a while, people are actually more enthusiastic about what you’re working on than you are. And you think, “Wow, that’s cool, but let’s stay real about this.” Ultimately you have to learn to trust your instincts. I know that sounds cliché, but it’s a very individualistic sort of process where you can’t let anyone else be the authority to what you’ve chosen to do.

Kim Ngo: Why does someone start a company from scratch?

Mark Hendrickson: There are lots of reasons for starting a company. Maybe you want to prove to yourself that you can succeed at it or you think you can make a difference. When it comes down to it, I think all entrepreneurs have the desire to create something from nothing.

Starting a business isn’t done with the expectation that you are going to make a lot of money. For me, I felt compelled to do it on a very basic level. I didn’t want to let my life go by without going out on a limb and trying something like this. I also wanted to do it at a very early age so I would have a higher chance of success, a minimal cost associated with it, and a chance to do it again if I didn’t succeed the first time.

Kim Ngo: Is the startup world similar to Hollywood?

Mark Hendrickson: In a way, it is. But ours is also a very different dream than you find in Hollywood. Hollywood actors are trying to become the next big thing. People in the tech industry are often trying to create the next big thing. As individuals, they may want to be the next Steve Jobs. But overall, I don’t think people are as focused on fame as in Hollywood. Though, there is certainly a good dose of that desire. In Silicon Valley, people look to their peers and they want to impress them. They want to show that they can be something. To that extent, I think it’s very similar.

Kim Ngo: Does a good business model make for a successful startup?

Mark Hendrickson: Starting a company, in my experience, is not about any one aspect of the company. It’s about the whole thing. You don’t start off thinking: I want to find a business model for something, that’s just part of what you have to do. My job is to get people enthusiastic about whatever I am doing, to get the attention of people who might want to work with your company, invest in it, or help promote it. As the owner, my main process is assembling of all those pieces. The rest is just details; all business is business when it comes down to it. You face the same sort of problems and tasks.

Kim Ngo: Do you think in the last 6 months you’ve grown the most than you have ever in the 24 years of your life?

Mark Hendrickson: Yeah. In the last 6 to 8 months, I’ve probably developed at a much faster rate than in the past 6 month span. I was sort of forced into a situation where I had to be on my toes all the time, absorbing new ways of looking at situations. I picked up skills at a much faster rate than I would have otherwise.

Kim Ngo: Can you tell us your most painful moment in the last six months?

Mark Hendrickson: Probably early on when I had a lot of self-doubt. There were moments where I thought my ideas weren’t good or I talked to people who weren’t excited about what I was doing. There were also times where I researched markets which I thought I wanted to go into but found twenty other people who tried what I was thinking about doing. Seeing others with the same ideas that I had fail was tough.

Kim Ngo: It’s timing too, though.

Mark Hendrickson: It’s mainly execution. Timing is important, but chances are, whatever you’re going to do, people have already done it or tried to do it. But on the other hand, they haven’t done exactly what you’re thinking, because whatever idea you have, you’re going to at least try to do it a little differently. You’re going to do it quite differently, if not better, because you’ve learned what mistakes they have made.

One thing I’ve learned is that you shouldn’t worry about competition or the other players in the market as much as you think you should. You should just worry about your own ability to execute. You need to take your vision and actually make it happen.

If you’re working very hard and you’re being smart about your work, you’re going to build something that’s competitive. It’s going to be harder than you think, but it’s also going to be hard for other people as well. Don’t discount your own abilities to do it better than someone else.

Kim Ngo: What are you passionate about?

Mark Hendrickson: I’m passionate about product design and the “interwebz.” I can’t answer that question with a straight face! I’m passionate about the good life: being healthy, having people you care about, and doing something you love. The good life is pretty simple, but it’s hard to get.

Kim Ngo: And you’re motivated by?

Mark Hendrickson: I used to have a desire to do the best that I could; now, I think I’m mostly motivated by trying to prove myself things. I’m also motivated by money to some extent. I could run a startup and if it was success and I benefited from it monetarily, it would still be worth doing as long I wasn’t starving.

Kim Ngo: If you can tell future founders one thing, one piece of advice, what would it be?

Mark Hendrickson: Always be willing to adapt. Learn from your situation. Trust your instincts on one hand and question them with the other. Surround yourself with good people, and always seek help.

Treat it as an experiment. You’re going to fail at certain things, and you’re going to learn from others. Your mindset needs to be, “I’m going to try something. I have no idea if I’m going to be successful, but I’m going to give it my best shot and I’m going to learn along the way. And if it fails, then it fails.”

At the end of the day, we’re all idiots. So stay humble, don’t take what other people say too seriously, and don’t take yourself too seriously.