Henrik Johansson is a serial tech entrepreneur and expert at scaling startups. He has built 5 venture-backed companies to date, including the promotional products company, Boundless, which he grew into a $100M business before getting acquired by Zazzle.

Now, as the co-founder and CEO of Gembah, he’s leading the world’s first global marketplace for product development that allows anyone to create new products from end-to-end.

Henrik has repeatedly built world-class teams, culture, and scalable processes/infrastructure, so I really wanted to talk to him about his overall experience.

In this episode, he shares the story of how he built Boundless into a 9-figure business—including how he navigated the perils of the 2008 market collapse with no funding.

We dig into the world of VC-funded companies, the power of cultivating strong relationships, major roles/responsibilities of a CEO, and how he turned an internal piece of software into a completely separate entity before getting acquired.

Tweetables

“If you’re running a profitable company, you don’t really have to grow, you can just continue to make money. But in the VC world, growth is the lifeblood.” – Henrik Johansson

“It’s uniquely human to create. We’re the only species on the planet that really can envision something that doesn’t exist and then create it, and bring it into existence.” – Henrik Johansson

“Leaders of companies that go from good to great start not with “where” but with “who.” They start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats. And they stick with that discipline—first the people, then the direction—no matter how dire the circumstances.” – Jim Collins