This story is part of CNBC Make It’s The Moment series, where highly successful people reveal the critical moment that changed the trajectory of their lives and careers, discussing what drove them to make the leap into the unknown.
Before Steve Sonnenberg was the founder of a billion-dollar company, he suffered the “traumatic experience” of shutting down a business and filing for bankruptcy protection as a father of four young kids, he says.
Sonnenberg is the co-founder and CEO of Awardco, a Lindon, Utah-based employee rewards platform. Companies register for access, and then their employees can dish out rewards points to each other every quarter — redeemable for millions of items on Amazon Business’ marketplace.
Founded in 2011, Awardco serves six million users at companies including AT&T and Hertz. It was most recently valued at $1 billion following a $165 million funding round in May.
But two decades ago, Sonnenberg led a different company — WholesaleMatch, which sold e-commerce tools to online businesses. He launched WholesaleMatch as a college student in 2003 and bootstrapped it into a “multimillion-dollar business” with roughly 200 employees, he says.
