Welcome to “Failing to Success”, hosted by Chad Kaleky, the podcast that’s all about turning failures into successes. Join us as we sit down with Justin Schmidt, the Vice President of Marketing at Compt, a software startup. Justin shares some of the lessons he has learned throughout his career in working in technology and some AI companies. He talks about his experience at Announce Media, a B2C media and publishing company, which had a big exit in 2009. However, shortly after that, Google and Facebook made some policy and algorithm changes that negatively impacted the business, and they had to go through a chapter 11. Justin stayed on through the sale and got to see the highs and lows of the company's life cycle.

One of the biggest takeaways from the experience was that when a company faces real adversity, you learn what is valuable in stack ranking or levers to pull and understand where you can make the most impact with the smallest adjustment. It taught him how to optimize efficiently and make decisions based on first principles. When your back is against the wall, you have to think outside the box and come up with innovative solutions to survive.

In summary, the interview sheds light on the importance of learning from real adversity and facing challenges head-on. It also highlights the need for a flexible approach to optimization and decision-making, especially when a company is experiencing difficult times.