About Mike Smerklo
Mike Smerklo is an experienced entrepreneur, investor, and business leader driven by the desire to turn ideas into reality. Having bought and scaled a small business into a publicly-traded company worth nearly a billion dollars in value, he has a deep understanding of the hard work, dedication, and grit that truly powers successful entrepreneurship.
Today, as the co-founder and managing director of Next Coast Ventures, Smerklo is a champion for a new generation of entrepreneurs building disruptive companies in big markets. His new book, Mr. Monkey and Me, is a “real talk” guide for entrepreneurs who want to cut through the noise to cultivate a mindset that supports greatness.
Mike Smerklo grew up in a blue-collar family outside of Toledo, Ohio, with dreams of achieving something more with his life. After working his way through college to earn an accounting degree and moving to Chicago to launch his CPA career, he eventually talked his way into a junior analyst gig with the Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers. While he hated the job, surviving two years of hellish 100-hour workweeks and countless spreadsheets (so many spreadsheets) gave Mike Smerklo a solid understanding of finance and company building. He went on to earn an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and experienced the Silicon Valley dot-com boom as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley.
Mike Smerklo was recruited by legendary entrepreneurs Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz as one of the first employees of their new startup, Loudcloud. Here, he learned from the very best about what it takes to grow a company from an idea through an initial public offering.
Mike Smerklo began his own entrepreneurship journey in 2003, purchasing ServiceSource, a 30-person technology services startup in San Francisco. As CEO over the next 12 years, he grew the business into a successful 3,000-person publicly-traded company with close to $300M in revenue.
He has developed a new perspective on entrepreneurship at the helm of the Austin-based firm Next Coast Ventures, which has backed more than 40 companies across two funds to help startup founders achieve their goals. Mike and his wife spend the bulk of their free time chasing their four children.
Mr. Monkey and Me: A Real Survival Guide for Entrepreneurs
What if the secret to being a successful entrepreneur had nothing to do with your business plan, resources, market size, or strategy? If your success or failure weren’t dependent on how much money you have, where you grew up, or the level of education you received?
Here’s the truth: the difference between success and failure is right between your ears.
A big, hairy beast stands between you and success. Your fears, your doubts, and every negative thought you have about yourself manifest as Mr. Monkey—and he’ll exploit them ruthlessly to sabotage you and destroy your dreams.
In Mr. Monkey and Me, business leader, Mike Smerklo, lays bare his broad range of experiences and mistakes, as well as lessons he’s learned from renowned entrepreneurs. Using the SHAPE formula—Self, Help, Authenticity, Persistence, and Expectations—this smart and irreverent anti-memoir gives readers an actionable approach to mental toughness that will help any entrepreneur start, grow, and run a successful business.
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