How to Create, Build, Scale, & Sell
Lessons Learned from the Frontlines of Entrepreneurship
Charles Anderson
Co-Founder / CEO
Arrow
Talk Overview
This Master Talk will explore the myriad lessons learned from my years in the industry and illustrate the importance of leading with transparency, clear and simple communication, and qualitative (vs quantitative) goals. Your highest goal as a leader should be to build and deliver on your mission.
Why Select this Talk?
This Talk will explore the myriad lessons learned from my years in the industry. Areas will include: capital structure impact on strategy, how to initially scale with short-term milestones and how to oscillate from the edges of what the business can do in order to evolve the strategic plan.
How You Learn
I will draw on my industry experience (the positive and the negative) to share my personal lessons learned. Discussion of others’ observations will be encouraged!
Takeaways
Lead, don’t teach. Direct, don’t manage. Be clear on the Core Purpose.
Charles Anderson
Originally from the Bay Area, growing up with a single parent entrepreneur mother, taught Charles the importance of creating value for others.
Charles started his first business at eight years old with his brother, Owens Brother’s Odd Jobs. From odd jobs, he moved on to door-to-door sales offering car washes for $0.25.
Building on that experience, in 4th grade, Charles sold over 100 wrapping paper items door-to-door for his school to earn a CD player.
This passion for building and helping has carried Charles to this day. During his undergraduate years, he attended 8 different academic institutions (Biola University, Fullerton College, Cypress College, Sacramento City College, Solano Community College, Grossmont College, San Diego State University, Cal State Fullerton) but still graduated in 3.5 years. He was chasing a dream to play professional baseball but understood the importance to a degree.
After a few different personal training business in college, Charles started a mortgage company in 2007, right before the Great Recession.
He married his college sweetheart in 2009 right before joining Stanford to earn his MBA.
After Stanford, he helped to build and sell a few businesses, most notably Currency, a point-of-sale platform for buying and selling heavy equipment.
3 years after Currency was sold to a private equity investor, Charles cofounded Arrow, a CRM built for sales people.
He also manages a nonprofit platform, The Blue Whale, focused on helping underprivileged people to get access to better jobs.
He lives in Los Angeles, CA with his wife Tisha, 8 year old identical twin boys and a 7 year old girl.