#86 Mike Montero - Co-Founder and CTO at Resy

Today we are talking to Mike Montero, the Co-Founder and CTO of Resy. And we discuss how a company’s culture reflects that of it's leadership, the benefits of in house development,, and how developers aren’t paid to write code, they are paid to ship code.

All of this, right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast

Mike was always interested in computers, but never thought anything would come of it. By age 13, he was already hacking away on his Commodore 64. Much later at college orientation, he hastily and anxiously declared his major as Computer Science, not realizing that he still had plenty of time to decide. Yet, this was not a decision he grew to regret; after his first class, he knew he was in for the long haul.

Shortly after college, Mike founded Community Connect, one of the first social
networks on the internet and the largest at the time. However, he didn’t do it alone. Day in and out, Mike built Community Connect alongside Pete, his former high school rival on the volleyball court, later college teammate, and much later after that, brother-in-law. The two started Community Connect as a way for ethnic communities to interact online. The problem was simple: Asian Americans were already regularly holding parties and cultural events, but they needed a way to unite people online. The concept that had never been tested on an online medium flourished as it grew to a team of 120 members and ultimately sold for $38 million.

Towards the end of Community Connect, Mike itched to expand his interests in new technical challenges. Next came Fotolog, co-founded with Scott Hieferman, who later went on to co-found Meetup. The photoblogging site started as a side-project run on his home DSL-line and went on to sell for $90M in 2007. Later, he spent stints as CTO at CityRealty. com and CrowdTwist.

After many years of creating and innovating, Mike was ready for a break and to catch up on time with his family and travel. Ultimately winding up in the Bahamas, Mike found himself sending emails to 5 or 6 friends to set up meetings for when he returned to find out what was next. 3 weeks and 21 meetings later, Mike was on his way to working with Gary Vaynerchuk on what would soon be the fund that the two of them would build together.

Show Notes: