Pierre Valade is Co-Founder and CEO @ Sunrise, the beautiful calendar app, acquired by Microsoft for $100m in February 2015, where he now works on Outlook Mobile for Microsoft. Prior to Sunrise, Pierre worked as a UX designer @ Foursquare following a successful hackathon in which he built an app in 6 hours, called Agora. Agora impressed Foursquare Founder, Dennis Crowley to the extent that Pierre was hired in the same month. As a result of Pierre's success he was named on the Innovators Under 35.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
How Pierre came up with the idea for Sunrise?
What made Sunrise standout above all calendar apps as the best calendar?
What features are most requested by Sunrise users?
How was the design process in altering the design from a iPhone to a Apple Watch?
What was Pierre and Sunrise approach to testing and iterating products?
Having raised VC funding prior to acquisition, how did Pierre meet his initial investors, what was his fundraising experience like? Were there any surprises or challenges?
How did the Microsoft Acquisition come about? How has Pierre's role and Sunrise changed since the acquisition?
Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:
Pierre's Fave Book: Zero To One: Peter Thiel
Pierre Most Impactful Purchase: iPhone 6
Pierre's Fave Newsletter or Blog: Stratechery by Ben Thompson
FF 08: Pierre Valade, CEO @ Sunrise on Being Acquired By Microsoft for $100m and Building Beautiful Products