Special thanks to Laura Gramann for this interview of me!

Spotlight on Matthew Moore & CrowdMob
 By Laura Gramann (@misslg34)

Matthew Moore served as sales engineer at Google from 2005 to 2007 working with the product, engineering, and business development teams. These days, Matthew spends his time working on, and developing CrowdMob, a payments company he co-founded in 2010. We spoke to Matthew about the challenges and rewards of his work, his experiences at Google, and much more!

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What have you been up to since you left Google in 2006?

I bootstrapped a company called ThriveSmart in 2007 that made a SaaS (software as a service) product that was conceptually similar to OpenTable. Luckily, Apple wanted a customized version of our product for their retail store reservations, so we began to work with them regularly. I was also reading The 4 Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss, and I ended up just subcontracting out all Apple work, which continues today.

In 2010 I was getting antsy to start a product company again, and learn how to raise money from Venture Capital. I met my co-founders a year before (they were neighbors), and we started CrowdMob, and raised from a lot of Angel Investors as well as from Andreessen Horowitz.

How did you and your cofounders come up with the idea for CrowdMob?

Damon (my co-founder) and I knew that there was going to be something big if the concepts of Foursquare and Groupon could be combined together. We also both were ready to do something really big, having had medium startups under our belt.

We’ve come to the realization that the the best user experience for payment methods are great perks and social prestige associated with it. If you look at the best possible user experience in payments today, it’s the Amex black card at the top. We’re focused on democratizing such perks, prestige, and convenience, and bringing them to mobile. It’s quite exciting.

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What is tough about your job? What do you find rewarding?

Constantly pushing myself to be outside of my comfort zone has been the hardest thing; but that’s the only way to learn. At the beginning of CrowdMob, I was really shy about pitching the theory that we could become really huge to people I really looked up to, like Marc Andreessen. As an engineer, I grew up to only say things that could be backed up by the data at hand, rather than painting a picture of what I believed the future would be. I was forced to get over that discomfort, and don’t have that trouble anymore.

What is toughest now is pulling myself away from developing product. We’ve hired a very capable team, and my time is better spent building a public image for our company (via press and advertising). Since I’m not experienced at any of those, I don’t feel like the smartest one in the room anymore ;)

Of course, the journey is the reward. I’ve grown faster than I ever have before, and have access to a lot of really smart, influential people.

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What aspects of your experiences at Google have been helpful in your current role?

In 2005, Google was still much smaller; something like 2,000 or 3,000 people. In 2007 when I left, it was more like 10,000 or 12,000 people. I learned a lot about how to organize and run teams of very smart people; and also what strategies don’t work as well.

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What/Who do you miss most at Google?

I purely miss the people. You can get better food working in SF, and massages are pretty good too :) However, having so many amazing people all in one place is something that’s hard to re-create!

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When you’re not working, what do you do in your spare time?

The funny thing about being an entrepreneur is that there is really no division between work and spare time – there’s almost always some connection back to work ;-). My new wife and I really enjoy wine and traveling, though.