Common, General Assembly, Yale—sounds like a pretty fancy background?
“What a lot of people don’t know is that I actually grew up in rural South Arkansas—90 miles from the nearest mall or movie theater… It’s safe to say there weren’t a lot of entrepreneurs around to teach me; I just wanted to learn.”

So, how did you keep your mind stimulated?
“I participated in anything I could get my hands on: academic competitions, clubs, whatever… And I did not go to a very good school. Everything was self-directed and I worked really, really hard. I taught myself enough to qualify for trips, which were the only way I got out and saw a little bit more of the world.”

And one of those trips brought you to Yale, right?
“I first visited Yale when I was 14 and from that moment forward, I was on a mission… Fortunately, I had wonderful parents who told me there were things beyond the town I grew up in—something I think a lot of people in that part of the country are lacking.”

I’m going to be honest: We’re kind of starting to hate you (in a totally jealous way).
“[Laughs] Well, if it makes you feel any better my second venture was an ill-fated game development studio. I’d always built games for fun, so, after our furniture business I thought, ‘Why not do this professionally?’ At one point we had a couple hundred thousand players.”

Why did it go belly up?
“I didn’t know what I was doing. Which was fine in 2006, when I had no employees and was still in college, but wasn’t in 2009 when I ran out of money, had a team to look after and the country was in the middle of a recession. Shutting that company was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

But surely it taught you something?
“It taught me to be rigorous about business fundamentals. I was so focused on the number of users that I didn’t have a clear strategy for making money. If I had spent more time on monetization, creating an actual business, we might have been successful.”

Monetization? Is that where young entrepreneurs should focus?
“I think part of the reason GA and Common have been successful is because we considered business basics: What are our unit economics? Are we making money on everything we sell? Do we have strong financial fundamentals? And it’s tough, because you have to separate monetization from profitability. Your startup might not be profitable from the start, but you need a plan for how to make money and you need it on Day One.”