{"id":44735,"date":"2023-10-20T15:38:16","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/how-global-startup-pioneer-wil-schroter-found-his-true-calling-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:38:16","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:38:16","slug":"how-global-startup-pioneer-wil-schroter-found-his-true-calling-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/how-global-startup-pioneer-wil-schroter-found-his-true-calling-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"How global startup pioneer Wil Schroter found his true calling – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Startups.co<\/div>\n

It was a frank chat with his wife that helped a pioneering tech entrepreneur and the founder of several million-dollar global startups find his true calling.<\/p>\n

Wil Schroter has founded seven companies since 1995, including the world\u2019s largest business crowdfunding platform Fundable and giant startup launchpad startups.co.<\/p>\n

But it was in 2010 when confronted by his wife that Schroter finally discovered the area he was most passionate about.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said, \u2018you keep doing things because you can, not because you should. You\u2019re not as happy as you used to be\u2019,\u201d Schroter tells StartupSmart.<\/em><\/p>\n

A new direction<\/h3>\n

He says this was a life-changing moment, one that led Schroter to step back and really consider what he was working for and where he wants to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote down everything that I ever cared about \u2013 the simple things,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish everyone had someone who could force them through this catharsis as early as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

After this lengthy exercise, Schroter finally discovered what he wanted to do: He wanted to focus all his energy on helping to empower, educate and guide fellow startup founders in their journeys.<\/p>\n

\u201cI literally felt like I retired that day,\u201d Schroter says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realised I never want to work with people I don\u2019t like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using his knowledge across more than 15 years of building successful startups, he launched startups.co, a platform that now boasts more than 900,000 registered startups, and Schroter says one is backed, followed or invested in every nine seconds.<\/p>\n

The platform, which is the world\u2019s biggest startup launchpad, has now facilitated more than $200 million in funding for its startups.<\/p>\n

From the dawn of the web<\/h3>\n

Schroter began his own entrepreneurial journey when he founded web development company Blue Diesel in 1995 when he was only 19.<\/p>\n

While most at the time were still asking what the internet was, Schroter was already building businesses on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking about literally the dawn of the web,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

But he says his age often played against him in the corporate world, especially in boardrooms.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could only say something important if you had grey hair,\u201d Schroter says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I looked like I was 12.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was often laughed at when he walked into potential clients\u2019 offices, and some even joked that they had letterheads older than him.<\/p>\n

But everything changed when \u201cteenage whiz kid\u201d Marc Andreessen was featured on the front cover of TIME Magainze.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI watched it change my career in real-time,\u201d Schroter says.<\/p>\n

Several global successes<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Schroter successfully navigated the dot com crash and turned Blue Diesel into a $700 million company before achieving an exit.<\/p>\n

The company is now called inventive Health and is a $2 billion global organisation.<\/p>\n

Following on from that, he went on to work on several more high growth ventures through self-created incubator Virtucon Ventures, founded initially for his own ideas ranging from financial services to entertainment software.<\/p>\n

In-line with his newfound desire to pass on his wisdom and assist budding entrepreneurs, Schroter went on to found crowdfunding site Fundable and customer acquisition generator Launchrock.<\/p>\n

He has also acquired entrepreneur university Zana and is planning to launch an online magazine for founders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entrepreneurial path is very broken,\u201d Schroter says.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody just took the time to define how you do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of Schroter\u2019s recent projects have a common theme: A push to educate, connect, celebrate and inform startup communities around the world.<\/p>\n

Currently touring Austrlaia with the Investors Org, Schroter says he wants to share the lessons he has learnt with investors as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to help people on that journey,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter,<\/em> LinkedIn<\/em> and<\/em> Soundcloud.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a frank chat with his wife that helped a pioneering tech entrepreneur and the founder of several million-dollar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44735"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}