Former MN Serial Entrepreneur Lief Larson Has Yet Another New Venture

Many of my readers remember Lief Larson. He was known and respected widely in the startup community here in our state as a longtime entrepreneur. He had a successful exit with an interactive kiosk company before going whole hog into a software startup. A few years ago, he moved to Seattle after handing over the CEO reins at that VC-backed software company, Workface Inc. I miss him, and I’m sure others do, too. Not only was he a ball of energy, a smart developer and product guy, and a helluva salesman, but a really fun guy, too. He began life in Seattle living on a boat with his wife in the trendy Fremont section. And he’s definitely loving life out there in the Pacific Northwest.

But his entrepreneurial endeavors hardly stopped. Soon, he’d launched Engage.co, and not long after a sideline called Sportzy, a leisure sports and activity site. Always one to spot a new opportunity, Lief recently told me he and a colleague launched a new site called Planning to Retire.

“My buddy and I both have parents entering retirement and they keep asking us all these questions, so we decided to build a site to help them,” said Lief.  “We’re trying to capture 1,000 members in 30 days.”  So, friends, tell all your parents and relatives who are approaching that magical age about this great new site. It’s a really helpful resource for them!

Gettin’ old? Sign up now!

My Background With Lief

A little history: I was lucky enough to do some consulting work for Lief back in his Workface days — including traveling with him twice to big events in California. I really enjoyed the experience and found myself writing about him several times on this blog. Those posts go back more than five years, covering his journey with Workface (which he founded in 2006), his ties to Marissa Mayer (they grew up together in Wisconsin), and how he took on an educational effort for entrepreneurs all by himself here in Minneapolis called “SaaS Camp,” which I attended. Here are all those posts.

In one of them, I told the following story, which still makes me laugh today every time I think of it. Not only is Lief an amazing, hard-working entrepreneur, but the man knows how to have some fun!

Lief and I traveled to Palo Alto a couple years ago for a conference where Lief was pitching to the Silicon Valley VC community, along with a bunch of other hot startups, and sharing the stage with speakers like the founders of Salesforce and SuccessFactors. We stayed in a funky old, ’60s-vintage Travelodge motel — about as low-priced as we could find in Palo Alto. After we checked in to our respective rooms, we both went online to work. First thing I see is an email from Lief with a photo attached of this gorgeous, expansive hotel room, saying, “Wow, I hope your room is as nice as mine.” I never laughed so hard, because I could hardly turn around in my dinky little room, and I knew he couldn’t either… :-).

I haven’t had an opportunity to get out to Seattle since Lief moved there, but you can bet I’ll be meeting up with him the next time I do. Go, Lief!