Tracy Young’s remarkable journey from the daughter of Vietnamese refugees to a Silicon Valley icon culminated in the successful sale of her 7-year-old startup for $875 million. Here’s a glimpse into her incredible story:
Tracy Young’s parents fled war-torn Vietnam on a fishing boat, eventually finding refuge in California through the sponsorship of a Lutheran priest after a brief stay in Malaysia. Despite language barriers, her parents worked various jobs and later established a wholesale food supply business, putting all three of their children through college.
In 2011, Tracy, now a construction engineer, identified a business opportunity arising from Apple’s latest innovation, the iPad. The construction industry heavily relied on paper-based building plans, causing inefficiencies and significant costs. Recognizing this gap, Young founded PlanGrid, offering a suite of mobile-optimized, cloud-based tools for digital construction blueprints.
During PlanGrid’s early days, Tracy demonstrated remarkable determination and resourcefulness. To get their product to customers, the team donned disguises to circumvent Apple’s tablet purchase limits, maxing out credit cards to acquire enough iPads. They also adopted an unconventional approach at construction conferences, buying inexpensive tickets to engage potential customers in impromptu demonstrations, ultimately securing two of their top ten customers.
Young’s strategic leadership and adherence to a few key principles became the Silicon Valley playbook for disrupting established industries. Some of these principles include personally calling every lead, prioritizing predictable growth, ensuring all staff can demo the product, and focusing on getting the product into customers’ hands.
In 2018, PlanGrid achieved a monumental success with its acquisition by AutoDesk for $875 million. Tracy Young now leads TigerEye, a software tracking and predicting the future performance of sales teams. Tracy’s journey exemplifies resilience, innovation, and the power of breaking barriers in the tech industry.