If Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel, and others have taught us anything in the past few decades, it’s that you don’t need to have gray hair before you can make a huge impact on the world. Jojo Hedaya, co-founder of the email service Unroll.Me, is yet another example of the possibility of achieving fantastic success at a young age. At the age of 24, with his business partner, Josh Rosenwald (who shares the same birthday), Hedaya launched Unroll.Me, which helps users quickly clean up their email inbox by consolidating their subscriptions, in 2011.
The product quickly became popular among people hoping to consolidate and organize their email subscriptions. It wasn’t long before the product attracted over a million users and Hedaya and Rosenwald sold the company to Slice, a subsidiary of Rakuten Intelligence, which is a multinational analytics firm. Maybe you’re not necessarily looking to start your own company, but there’s still a lot you can learn by taking a look at this extraordinary entrepreneur’s young career. Here are 5 takeaways from Hedaya’s career that you can apply to just about any aspect of your life.
1. Don’t Be Afraid to Take a Shot
By all appearances, Hedaya was on track for a solid career as an undergraduate at Brooklyn College where he served as Vice President of student government. In fact, he was just three credits shy of a degree when he left to work on Unroll.Me full time. Hedaya knew full well that the vast majority (95 percent or more) of startups fail. Not to mention, he was going into the tech startup space where things couldn’t be more competitive.
Despite the prospect of a safe career after graduating from college, Hedaya—along with his business partner—chose to take the leap. The two joined forces and bootstrapped their idea into a thriving business. A few years later, they sold their company to Slice and the big risk they both took paid off and then some.
2. Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
If there’s one thing you can take away from observing Hedaya’s career so far it’s that there is real value in simplifying things. When Hedaya and Rosenwald created the first iteration of Unroll.Me, it only took two months for them to launch the alpha product. Hedaya will even openly admit that the first version “didn’t work well at all.” But that didn’t stop them from being featured in some major publications and racing to a million users.
Hedaya realized the importance of simplification when it came to developing Unroll.Me when he watched a similar product, which received lots of funding and press attention, completely flop. What he took away from that observation was that the product was too clunky and complicated, which meant the user experience suffered. From that, he truly understood the importance of simplification, both as a benefit to the user and a benefit to him and his business partner.
Because—although there were and still are comparable products on the market—Unroll.Me remains a dominant force because of how simple and well-executed it is.
3. Don’t Get Complacent
Relatively few people can build a successful business. Even fewer can build a successful business and sell it to a multinational company. And a precious few can do it before they even turn thirty. Jojo Hedaya did all those things, yet he’s not resting on his laurels. When Slice purchased Unroll.Me, Hedaya stayed on as Chief Product and Consumer Officer. In addition to continuing to lead product development, he also guides the operations side of the business, making sure that everything runs smoothly. Even beyond that, Hedaya still attends tech events and speaks, sharing his knowledge with other technology professionals and would-be entrepreneurs.
4. Invest in People
There’s a temptation—especially when you look at tech entrepreneurs—to focus exclusively on the technical and creative side of the innovation. We look at the iPhone and we pour our admiration on Steve Jobs for his vision. To be sure, it takes vision to innovate. But without the right team around them, the most visionary entrepreneurs won’t enjoy sustained success of the type that Jojo Hedaya has.
Hedaya and his business partner, Josh Rosenwald came up with the concept of their idea for Unroll.Me during an email exchange, and it was a truly innovative concept. On the strength of the idea alone, they likely could have built a successful business. But their ability to not just build a business, but grow it, and then sell it to a large, international company came from Hedaya’s ability to build an all-star team. So if you want true success that lasts, follow his example and invest in your people whenever possible.
5. Value Skills Over Education
Hedaya is quick to point out that he wouldn’t necessarily recommend that anyone forgo an education to jump into the startup world. He even modestly suggests that his and Rosenwald’s success at Unroll.Me can be attributed to luck. That said, Hedaya makes it a point to emphasize skill rather than education. In his eyes, this has obvious benefits and not-so-obvious benefits. The obvious benefit is that today’s society simply demands skills; Hedaya says you really only need an education if you don’t have any skills. He adds that if you don’t have any skills, you’re probably not working at a startup.
Playing to Your Strengths and Trusting the Process
Hedaya is quick to point out that despite competitors who have similar products, he’s not worried. He believes in his ability to execute, and it has served him well. And perhaps that’s the main takeaway above all else. Find your strengths, and execute a strategy that maximizes those strengths. Pay attention to the competition to the extent that you need to so you can learn from them but don’t sap your energy worrying about what they might be doing. Trust in yourself and the strengths that you bring to your product, company, or organization and the rest will fall into place.
