He shoveled snow. He also sold briefcases from a warehouse on a corner in New York at the age of 13. He was hustling and making money. That’s where entrepreneurship started with him.
He also served in the U.S. Air Force. When he got out, he ended up training greyhounds in Corpus Christi. He later opened up a coffeehouse with money borrowed from his wife, a nurse. He ended up adding Internet access to the coffeehouse and he created one of the first Internet cafes in the country. He also started developing websites and eventually he launched Coffeecup Software, which sold an HTML editor to create business websites. He later sold it and joined Rackspace. In late 2011, Longo and Rackspace Chairman Graham Weston created Geekdom, a co-working space in downtown San Antonio which nurtures high-tech startups.
This summer, Longo had just come back from running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain – twice. He said he mitigated the risks of running the course. He had researched the entire course. He found out the best place to start is at the beginning of the course. All of the injuries took place at the end of the course, Longo said.
A lot of people told him to start at the end of the course. But his research told him different. That’s kind of the double-edged sword of mentoring in entrepreneurship.
“You should get advice from as many people as you can,” Longo said. Then sort through it and make your own decisions.
Geekdom is a sponsor of Silicon Hills News
Leave a Reply