Andrew Wicklander’s interview with my brother, Lance.

Project Idealism: Podcast Episode #10: Lance Walley of Chargify, Engine Yard, Parallax and more

In my latest podcast episode I interviewed Lance Walley, who has been building businesses for over 20 years. Most recently Lance co-founded Chargify – a recurring billing system, and before that EngineYard – a Rails application hosting company.

Lance spoke candidly with me about launching new ideas, scaling a business, failure, success, investing, and more. It was great talking with him and he shared a ton of great information. You can follow Lance on Twitter at @lancewalley.

Mixergy.com’s Andrew Warner interviews with my brother, Lance Walley, CEO and co-founder of Chargify.com

Lance Walley, the serial entrepreneur behind Chargify and Engine Yard, talks openly about his hits and misses

Business Tips via Mixergy, home of the ambitious upstart!

When I read this line in Lance Walley’s LinkedIn profile about a previous startup, I knew he’d be the kind of frank interviewee you’d need to hear: The system worked very well, but frankly, the world didn’t seem to care :-(

In this interview, you’ll hear the stories behind many of the companies Lance launched, including FaceBridge, the company that inspired that line. You’ll also hear how a 1% ownership difference in his first business made a world of difference.

Today Lance is probably best known for Engine Yard. Some of the world’s biggest Rails websites are on the Engine Yard Platform. Recently, he went on to be the co-founder of Chargify, which simplifies recurring billing for Web 2.0 and SaaS companies.

Lance is currently the CEO and co-founder of Chargify.com. Other companies that Lance has founded and/or co-founded include:

• Engine Yard, Inc.
• Quality Humans, Inc
• FaceBridge Research, Inc.
• PerlUSA
• Hip Tones
• StayTuned
• Parallax, Inc.

Great advice for 2010 from my brother, Lance Walley, a successful entrepreneur (co-founder/former CEO of Engine Yard & current CEO of Chargify):

“Slow Down, Do Less” (and get more done)!

The new year usually makes us think of long-term stuff.

In 2010, I strive to slow down, do less, and focus on what’s important.

I set a similar goal for myself in 2001 and life has been better ever since.

At the time, I decided not to be in a hurry and not to be late for things. Some friends chuckled at the idea of deciding not to be hurried. But it’s actually very doable if you just make the decision and change a few things in life.

I don’t mean being a slacker. Doing stuff feels good, especially if it’s some sort of accomplishment, and dilly-dallying gets boring pretty quickly.

Read the full article: http://lancewalley.wordpress.com/2010/01/02/slow-down-do-less/

My brother, Lance Walley, is a very smart businessman. He is the co-founder and CEO of Engine Yard, based in San Francisco, which provides fully-managed Ruby and Rails hosting and deployment.

Lance recently mentioned the reason for Engine Yard’s success was due to every employee’s efforts: “I want to note that we wouldn’t be in this strong position without the efforts of everyone at Engine Yard!  Every time you add value to a customer’s life, you add value to Engine Yard. That means everything from restarting a slice to interacting at conferences to answering customer calls to making better software for our platform. There are so many facets on which we’ve all done very well. It speaks to the value we’ve created and to the potential offered by our leadership in the Ruby & Rails communities.”

Lance’s “adding value to the customer = adding value to Engine Yard” creed is especially helpful in this current economic down-turn. Customer service, at all levels of the business, is the only real differentiating factor that continues to elevate Engine Yard’s position and leadership.