Dennis Mortensen – One Signature Away From Riches but Wanted Just a Bit More

<p><a href= "https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennismortensen/"><strong>Dennis Mortensen</strong></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">is an expert in leveraging data to deliver business insights. A serial entrepreneur, Dennis built and successfully exited several companies before founding</span> <a href= "https://x.ai/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">x.ai</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">in 2014, a company that is solving a painful problem—scheduling meetings—through a sophisticated AI platform that saves people time and effort.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dennis is a recognized leader, author, and university instructor in the field of digital data and analytics. Originally from Denmark, Dennis lives in New York with his family.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></p> <p><strong>“Any startup is just the class of bad decisions. And the danger is that one of them might just be so bad that it kills the company. You just don’t know which one it is; you’ll know when it’s done.”</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dennis Mortensen</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></p> <h2><strong>Worst investment ever</strong></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dennis ventured into his first successful venture in 1996 when he started an internet company. He was the sole investor financing the startup on cashflow. He ran the startup for four years, and in 2000 he sold it for $11 million. At 27 years of age, $11 million was undoubtedly quite a kill.</span></p> <h3><strong>Moving onto the next successful venture</strong></h3> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Excited to have hit huge success with his first venture, Dennis took all the money he got from selling the company and invested it in another startup, a food delivery service this time around.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">From his projections, this was going to be an excellent investment. So Dennis jumped in the deep end, money in both hands, and started to build up the team. Soon enoug