Chris McCullough is the co-founder and executive director of product at Rotageek, a workforce management software provider that allows for streamlined and digital staff scheduling.
In this week’s Founder in Five Q&A, McCullogh discusses professional resilience, why conviction to solve real problems is more important than quick wins and why you should be building for your customers, not your investors.
What advice would you give to a first-time founder?
Your first idea is probably wrong, and that’s fine. What matters is whether you’re solving a real problem for people who will pay to have it solved. I started Rotageek with a conviction that hospital rostering was broken and it was.
But the people with the budget and urgency to fix it were in retail, not healthcare. The skill is staying close enough to the problem to recognise when the market is telling you to adjust, without abandoning the core insight that got you started. Also, raise less money than you think you need, because constraints force creativity. And get a co-founder you can argue with....