22 min

Why Entrepreneurs Need to Focus on Flexibility Innovations and Breakthroughs

    • Management

Stefan Haney is the Strategic Advisor and CTO at Foundry, the Managing Principal at Vantage International LLC, and a business and technology leader who specializes in driving product innovation at scale. He spent more than eight years working at Amazon, where he led the team driving design and development for product shopping pages. As a member of the Amazon consumer shopping leadership team, he contributed to the strategy and innovation of Amazon’s homepage, overall navigation, checkout, and product pages worldwide, all while optimizing for different devices. 
Stefan was a key leader in building Seller Central and the Amazon Marketplace from $9 billion to over $160 billion in sales. Today, he is a Founding Partner of Foundry, where he is involved in acquiring and growing existing e-commerce brands.
In this episode… The process of building a business is both challenging and fun. While this can be a positive, entrepreneurs are sometimes tempted to take on more than they should as a result because they have the skills to do so. As the business grows, this usually means they lose perspective on what drove them to start the business in the first place.  
When a business grows swiftly, entrepreneurs often face an extra challenge: recruiting. They may need to hire many people at once, which can be daunting if you haven’t built up enough experience hiring people — leading to a team of all the wrong members. According to Stefan Haney, this is why entrepreneurs need to be flexible and willing to rewind so they can get back on track. Instead, Stefan says entrepreneurs need to focus on inventing, renovating, and building their businesses.
In this episode of the Innovations and Breakthroughs Podcast, Rich Goldstein is joined by Stefan Haney, a Founding Partner of Foundry, to talk about why entrepreneurs should focus on flexibility. Stefan talks about his reasons for moving to Moscow, Idaho, how the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the growth of the e-commerce industry, and the challenges entrepreneurs face with fast-growing businesses.

Stefan Haney is the Strategic Advisor and CTO at Foundry, the Managing Principal at Vantage International LLC, and a business and technology leader who specializes in driving product innovation at scale. He spent more than eight years working at Amazon, where he led the team driving design and development for product shopping pages. As a member of the Amazon consumer shopping leadership team, he contributed to the strategy and innovation of Amazon’s homepage, overall navigation, checkout, and product pages worldwide, all while optimizing for different devices. 
Stefan was a key leader in building Seller Central and the Amazon Marketplace from $9 billion to over $160 billion in sales. Today, he is a Founding Partner of Foundry, where he is involved in acquiring and growing existing e-commerce brands.
In this episode… The process of building a business is both challenging and fun. While this can be a positive, entrepreneurs are sometimes tempted to take on more than they should as a result because they have the skills to do so. As the business grows, this usually means they lose perspective on what drove them to start the business in the first place.  
When a business grows swiftly, entrepreneurs often face an extra challenge: recruiting. They may need to hire many people at once, which can be daunting if you haven’t built up enough experience hiring people — leading to a team of all the wrong members. According to Stefan Haney, this is why entrepreneurs need to be flexible and willing to rewind so they can get back on track. Instead, Stefan says entrepreneurs need to focus on inventing, renovating, and building their businesses.
In this episode of the Innovations and Breakthroughs Podcast, Rich Goldstein is joined by Stefan Haney, a Founding Partner of Foundry, to talk about why entrepreneurs should focus on flexibility. Stefan talks about his reasons for moving to Moscow, Idaho, how the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the growth of the e-commerce industry, and the challenges entrepreneurs face with fast-growing businesses.

22 min