Maren Kate Donovan on Zirtual's Meteoric Rise to Overnight Failure

Maren Kate Donovan is an entrepreneur and writer. Her first venture-backed startup, Zirtual, grew to over 400 employees before she turned 30, but then, due to the perfect storm of missteps, was forced to shut down overnight. She now uses her unique experiences as Managing Partner at AVRA, a firm dedicated to creating a world where good help isn’t hard to find. In the show, Maren and I discuss: How a haunted cane launched Maren’s entrepreneurial career Why she decided to start her own virtual assistant company and how she overcame the mental hurdles in making that leap How she grew Zirtual to 400 employees and $1 million/month in revenue Why the company failed overnight and the lessons that this public and painful failure taught Maren What strategies Maren used in coping with the fallout from the company’s demise Why she decided to become a founder again by starting a new company called AVRA Talent Partners How Maren used the lessons learned from Zirtual’s failure in starting AVRA You can sign up for Maren's newsletter, We Love Work, at the bottom of this link and receive all the news that's fit to email, from the world of work. Resources mentioned: The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich - Get your FREE copy of my e-book. Text OZAN to 345345 or navigate to weeklycontrarian.com to download a free copy of my e-book, The Contrarian Handbook: 8 Principles for Innovating Your Thinking. Along with your free e-book, you’ll get the Weekly Contrarian — a newsletter that challenges conventional wisdom and changes the way we look at the world (plus access to exclusive content for subscribers only). Don’t want to miss future episodes? Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on iTunes or Google Play. As always, thanks for listening.