249: Bridging the Gap | Connor Murphy | One Problem, Two Ventures and Bridging Networks
This week’s guest is Connor Murphy, the CEO of Bridge. I met Connor at a Techstars event in Dublin in 2019 as he was just getting his latest venture off the ground in Bridge, and I started using the Bridge app within seconds of meeting him to help me bridge my network.
Connor Murphy is an all-around good guy, and in every conversation I have with with him, I end up connecting way more dots than I ever could have expected. Connor has a background in computer science, startups, venture capital, and management consulting. He was previously the Managing Director of the Techstars SAP.iO program in Berlin and he has invested in 30 pre-seed technology ventures that have an enterprise value greater than $1bn. The undercurrent for all of this was Connor’s founding of DataHug back in 2009, a collaborative forecasting and pipeline management solution that he sold to Callidus Cloud (now owned by SAP) back in 2013.
In this episode, Connor and I riff on his DataHug founder experience, investing through Techstars and beyond, his journey as CEO of Bridge, and how all of these experiences are linked by the common threads of building relationships, trust as a currency, and kicking your network into hyperdrive. We also talk through some of his time-tested lessons learned from his time as a startup founder and investor that guide his path and that of the founders he’s invested in as well.
BOOK REFERENCES:
‘The Four Steps to the Epiphany’ by Steve Blank
‘The Mom Test’ by Rob Fitzpatrick
LINKS:
Learn more about Bridge and see here for a quick insight into the power of Bridge
Follow Connor Murphy on LinkedIn, X/(Twitter) and check out his blog
Episode title inspired by ‘Bridging the Gap’ by Nas
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