MEET Garrett Kellner
What is the name of your business?
ShowUp
how long have you been a 1909 member?
11 Months
in a nutshell, what is IT that you do for a living?
I’m the Co-Founder and CEO of an early stage technology startup
What is your why? How did you get to where you are today?
My career started in a normal entry-level job. I started specifically in sales, in which I had zero experience. I was initially terrified of cold calling and attempting to sell people things I knew nothing about. I quickly learned that you don’t necessarily have to be a technical expert on what you’re selling. You have to genuinely care about the customer and their business. Once the relationship reaches a level of trust between salesperson and customer you become their go-to resource for all their needs. My goal was to put myself in a position where I could sell them because they trusted me and knew I cared about their business. They would consistently return, and I was helping them grow their business and in return, they were helping me achieve my quotas. I was promoted through that organization to Managing Director of Operations all while having the dream of running my own company someday but never knew exactly what.
Top Row from left: Cody Maxwell (Co-Founder of ShowUp) and his Fiancé Elizabeth Lee, Andres Espinoza, Valentina Ibaceta – Bottom Row: Michelle & Garrett Kellner (Co-Founder of ShowUp)
Then about four years ago I experienced friction with event discovery and sat on it for a few years asking myself how it could be solved. It got to the point where I couldn’t get it out of my head. I left the company I was working at and restarted my career at a software startup where I hoped to learn how a startup operated. I fell in love with the whole thing! I got consumed in the startup world, reading, and living what it's like to be a part of a rapidly growing company. Creating something unique and acquiring new users every day was so exciting to me. I could capitalize on what I learned in sales to develop relationships with our customers and ask them about their pain points to improve our platform. It was then I decided I needed to start my own startup!
I had a couple of problems, however. I had no technical background and no capital. I couldn’t hire a team or build a product myself. So, I went on the search for a technical Co-Founder and through the power of 1909, I was introduced to our now Co-Founder, Cody. My wife made the connection as she remembered Cody from the very first 1909 accelerator program. She suggested I reach out to Cody because he was “nice and could code”. I looked Cody up and discovered his personal website that had some of his past projects posted. Low and behold there was a platform very similar to what I wanted to build. I immediately reached out to him as I had to find out what happened with it!
It turns out, it was the very first project he worked on while learning how to code. We met, shared our stories, passion, and vision of how this could be turned into a company. We decided the coincidence of us having almost the same idea was too unique to let go. So, together we founded ShowUp, an app that helps event organizers increase awareness, attendance, and recognition at their events.
What are some challenges you've had to overcome while running (or starting) your business?
Patience and prioritization. When you’re starting something, everything relies on you. Prioritizing what you do on a day-to-day basis to move the company forward is extremely important and if not done, you can feel very lost. In addition, patience is a challenge, for the same point, it’s only you. You have no one you can delegate work to and most tasks you’ll need to learn on the fly.
What is one piece of advice you'd give to someone starting out on this Business Owner path?
“People have two ears and one mouth for a reason, listen twice as much as you talk”. This piece of advice was something I learned very early in my sales career and have used in every job I’ve had since. It’s incredible how much you can learn from other people and how much free advice is out there when you let others do most of the talking. I leaned on this advice even more in management roles. Your employees will tell you exactly what they want and how they can do their job better when you listen to them.
What is your favorite life lesson?
Go for it! If it's something you find yourself thinking about every day, it will not go away. You owe it to yourself to try. Commit and execute and you can succeed.
Why is 1909 important to you?
1909 is important to me because it emboldens creativity and motivation. 1909 is full of warm, kind, and friendly people working hard on a wide variety of projects and the single thing that holds everyone together is 1909. I wouldn’t know anyone from here because I don’t think our paths would ever pass. But I’m grateful to be a part of 1909 and to have the opportunity to have met the people I have.
You're grabbing lunch in Downtown WPB - Where are you going and what are you getting?
Bodega Taqueria. Their taco Tuesday deal is great!
If you could change one thing about West Palm Beach - what would it be? why?
I don't live downtown nor spend that much time in West Palm Beach. So anything that brought more local people to the city would be nice. It's a beautiful city but offers very little for people that need to commute.