I live in Columbus, OH with my wife, Kate. I have cartoon tattoos, strong opinions about science fiction, and I believe it's up to people to give meaning to their lives.
I'm an executive coach to startup founders and CEOs, and I'm building Management Craft, a platform that teaches founders how to become great managers. If you're here to learn about my coaching, that's over here.
I started my career the way a lot of founders do: no idea what I was doing.
My first real company was Mattermark, where I was COO. It was one of the most fun and stressful periods of my life. We discovered we could sell investors insights into which startups had momentum using publicly available data and machine learning. We went from $0 to $5M in ARR in three and a half years and built a newsletter with over 100,000 subscribers. But we mistook what First Round Capital would now call "developing" product-market fit for the real thing, over-invested in a sales motion we couldn't afford, and ultimately sold the company. Harvard Business School teaches a case study about Mattermark.
Before Mattermark, I was in college at Ohio State when I talked my way into an internship at a three-person web dev shop. The CEO showed me a bit about how companies get built. When I told him I wanted to fly to San Francisco for a YC interview, he fired me. My friends and I didn't get into YC, but we got into 500 Startups with LaunchGram, a sort of proto-ProductHunt. I still miss it, but we were in over our heads and ran out of money fast.
After Mattermark, I co-founded Holloway, a digital book publishing company. We started with one question: what if you could ask a book a question? With custom GPTs, that's now entirely possible. We were early, but unfocused, and we couldn't figure out who our customer was. I'm proud of our work there, but this one taught me a lot.
Then the pandemic hit, and I realized I'd rather help founders think clearly than be the one making the calls. I became a coach in 2020 and haven't looked back.
I also wrote The Holloway Guide to Raising Venture Capital.
You can find past interviews and media appearances here. If you'd like me on your podcast or at your event, reach out.
Media bio:
Andy Sparks is an executive coach to startup founders and CEOs. Previously, he was Co-founder and CEO at Holloway, a digital book publishing company, and Co-founder and COO at Mattermark, a business data and analytics company. He's the author of The Holloway Guide to Raising Venture Capital and is building Management Craft, a platform that teaches founders how to become great managers. Andy designed his own degree and graduated from The Ohio State University. He lives in Columbus, OH with his wife, Kate.
I was born in Denver and moved to the suburbs of Philadelphia when I was eleven. I loved to draw, hated math, and spent a lot of time helping my dad with projects he refused to hire a contractor for.
I ended up at Ohio State because my high school girlfriend picked an art school in Columbus. It took a year or two to warm up to it, but I loved my time there and still call many of the people I met there my best friends.
Kate is the Founder & CEO of Keystone Bio, a startup on a mission to make accelerate how fast great science turns into stuff we take for granted. She's rad.
I'm a humanist. That means I believe it's up to people to give meaning to their lives, and we don't need to invent a god to do that for us.
Friendship is huge for me. Everyone knows "it takes a village," and I believe a village full of friendships with real depth is the real stuff of life.
I love reading. My office is surrounded by books. When it comes to fiction, epic science fiction and fantasy are my thing: The Expanse, Stormlight Archive, and I'm still waiting on Patrick Rothfuss's third book. Latest favorite: Callahan's Crosstime Saloon.
I love video games, mostly RPGs and strategy. I can't wait for Crimson Desert.
I have two cartoon tattoos: Calvin and Hobbes, and Merlin from The Sword in the Stone. Both are reminders not to take myself too seriously.
If any of that sounds like someone you'd want to grab a beer with, get in touch.