What was the problem or pain point that you and your team were hoping to solve?
“We noticed how challenging it can be to live sustainably, especially in an urban setting, and we wanted to help people live more sustainably.”
— Jason Cox, CTO of Milkcrate
How does MilkCrate actively approach solving this problem?
“We are a digital hub of data that helps people live sustainably. Right now, this is mostly sustainable businesses in the Philadelphia metro area. Very soon, this will include products, services, tips, events, and news. As we grow we will find more and more ways to help people live sustainably.”
— Jason Cox, CTO of MilkCrate
Whats your vision for the future of MilkCrate?
“I’d love to see us make a marketplace to help small businesses provide services or sell products through MilkCrate. Many of the sustainable companies I do business with track everything through spreadsheets and pdf files. Even the somewhat large companies. We could build something that both makes their lives easier and expands what MilkCrate can offer.”
— Jason Cox, CTO of MilkCrate
Kip Wetzel claims he’s just a “dirty hippie” despite the fact he’s probably the most dapper person in the room.
Fifteen years ago, he abandoned an Andersen Consulting gig to embark on an odyssey, hiking the 2,600 mile Pacific Crest Trail with 2 of his buddies. Lessons he learned on that trek continue to illuminate his work in technology innovation as VP of Social Media Strategy at Capital One. Today, he shares 10 of those lessons.
Lesson 1: Be Bold “We hear that from everyone, for big companies and startups. You have to be willing to blaze a trail.”
He says boldness can be offensive or defensive. “Sometimes you’ll be leaning in to get your ‘thing’ moving forward in an offensive way. Other times, you’ll be on the defensive, selling that thing to a bigger company.”
Lesson 2: Embody Your Vision “If you don’t live what you’re building, it’s going to show through.”
“I left Andersen Consulting, the biggest consulting company in the world. I convinced them this trip was the right thing for me to do, and they gave me a job when I got back.” He even shaved his impressive PCT beard for them.
Somewhere in the thick of seeking out the next water source on their trek, Kip and his pals took a picture of themselves at the 1200 mile mark. “It took me 15 years to realize the enormity of that moment. We were halfway.”
Kip believes it’s important to seek perspective on what you’ve accomplished. “We’ll retweet something at 11 p.m. to make sure people will come the next day to hear you speak. But we don’t celebrate our victories enough.”
Lesson 4: When You Think You’ve Got it Tough, Step Back and Look Around “Maybe someone in the world has it harder than anyone else. But it’s easy to get caught up in our own challenges.”
Kip came across a story about hikers who did the same trail he did. Except they did it in the dead of winter. “They had to walk the same 30 miles to the next water source as we did, but then they had to cut a whole in the ice and extract the water. In a company, there’s always going to be some other organization who’s working harder and relying on you to get your job done.”
Lesson 5: KISS
Sometimes there is value in keeping it simple. “We were prepared. We did our research. Ultimately, though, we walked. For 6 months of my life, I put one foot in front of the other.”
“When your work days are rough, boil down what it is you need to do. Our jobs are hard, but can you boil down the simplicity of what you’re doing to get to the next deliverable. And apply humility to your day.”
Lesson 6: A Bear is Going to Shit in Your Water at Some Point “You have to adjust to adverse circumstances.”
Kip and his buddies reached the location of one of the water sources on their journey. The water was located at the bottom of very steep switchback. “When we got there, we heard sounds. We thought ‘oh, this is going to be fun,’ meeting other people, drinking chamomile tea. When we got down there, though, a black bear was shitting in the water.”
It’s the same in business. “You have to adjust to adverse circumstances. You ration, you evaluate, you think. How will you respond?”
Lesson 7: Plan Spontaneity
Somewhere on their trip, Kip and company stopped to ingest famously enormous pancakes. “Each one is 24 ounces. I ate 2.” It wasn’t a planned stop, but it was an important detour. “It’s like planning when you need to take your team out for a beer because it’s St. Paddy’s Day.”
Lesson 8: Without a Team, You’re Nothing “Avoid a bozo explosion.”
Kip finds it crucial to surround yourself with people smarter than yourself, in order to avoid what Guy Kawasaki calls “the bozo explosion.” “I can’t think of a single instance, except maybe in a decathlon event, where the individual is greater than the sum of its parts.” In his PCT team, Kip was completely inept at map reading. But he had other strengths.
They picked up a guy named Hersh in the Sierras who ended up hiking with them for awhile. “The face of your team will change. Based on the growth and maturity of the product, you team will—and should—change.”
Lesson 9: Balance the Journey with the Destination “We are in an era of where we talk a lot about the journey.”
“We talk a lot about the journey, but we might lose focus on the destination if we get too caught up in the journey. It’s a balance.”
Lesson 10: Hike Your Own Hike “Be inspired by people around you, but ultimately, you have to do it in the way that you need to do to be successful.”
“There are a million opinions, about hiking the trail or running a company. You have to do it in a way that you know you can be successful.”
Seven months ago, the New York City-based entrepreneur bought Orth Cleaners, a dry cleaning business with locations in Coatesville and West Chester, Pennsylvania. As he delved into the industry, he found that traditional dry cleaners struggle with making the connection between customer and service.
“I want to disrupt the laundry model,” he says. “I should come to your house, pick up your laundry, clean it, and drop it back off. And the process should be enjoyable.”
He didn’t start out with the intention of cleaning up the laundry business, though.
Origins “I’ve always been able to find passion in whatever I’m doing.”
Kyle’s entrepreneurial spirit first unfolded at Safeway, where he ended up after high school. “I’ve always been able to find passion in whatever I’m doing, even if it was chucking bananas out on the floor. I worked hard and was gung ho about it.” His enthusiasm quickly moved him up the ranks, managing stores and moving out to Seattle along the way. “I learned how to manage within a big corporation. I learned to delegate and to follow up.”
Safeway wasn’t enough, and after 3 years Kyle went back to school, completing a degree at Columbia University and then getting a job on Wall Street. “I hated it immediately,” he laughs.
Next Steps “Joynture has allowed us to see a lot of cool ideas coming through the door.”
Kyle didn’t give up on New York City, getting a job with EWS, which had been an early investor in his very first startup venture, Advisoray. EWS focuses on helping clients become more effective by strategically using technology-based tools and processes.
His EWS team started seeking out some startups in which to invest. “We wanted to find a few that we thought had a good idea with a product we could get behind.”
Kyle and his team founded Joynture, a coworking space on Wall Street. “So far, the companies in the space have raised about 15 million dollars. With 30 private offices and extensive conference space, Joynture has allowed us to see a lot of cool ideas coming through the door.”
Cleaning Up “One thing I found is that everyone has had at least one bad experience with dry cleaning.”
Kyle’s latest endeavor is reinvigorating Orth Cleaners through technology. Feeling that the traditional dry cleaning model was not very focused on customer service, he started asking around. “One thing I found is that everyone has had at least one bad experience with dry cleaning. I realized that being successful at it means you make as few mistakes as possible.”
One of his buddies from out of town told him about the text messages he receives from his dry cleaner when his clothes are ready. “I can schedule a delivery and they bring them to my work. It’s not memorable; it’s just easy. The dry cleaner is making a killing on me because I use it a lot more now.”
The lightbulb went off, and Kyle sought out a mentor, which he found in fish-purveyor-turned-dry-cleaning-entrepreneur Bill Albert. Bill had built an elaborate tech solution for his fish business, whose customers included big retailers like Costco. After he sold the fishing business, he applied the technology to his dry cleaning enterprise.
Bill flew his development crew out from San Francisco to help Kyle build Orth’s system. “Bill’s developers stayed on my couch in Brooklyn and drove to Pennsylvania with me,” Kyle recalls.
How it Works
Orth’s Android-based platform relies on heat-sealed barcodes applied to every garment to provide tracking information throughout the cleaning, packaging, and delivery process. Once a dry cleaning order is flagged as complete, the customer receives a text message with the option for delivery. Everything is handled through the system, including payment.
“New customers sign up with a few steps, but existing customers could, in theory, just leave a bag of their clothes outside my door and we’ll take care of it. That’s how easy it is.” Of course, they can also schedule their service through Orth’s web site.
For the future, Kyle plans keep building Orth, recently hiring a former Marine who is a fellow Columbia grad. Down the road, though? “I might tackle the parking problem in New York City.”
What was the Problem that you planned to solve with FaceCrunch?
“There wasn’t a problem per se so much as new research that we found extremely intriguing. A/B advertising has been around for a long time but optimizing an ad based on people’s innate responses to the models seems less common and using that information to come up with formulaic answer to ‘will this image work for me’ was even more exciting. So if I were to frame a problem, I’d say a lack of understanding to how people naturally associate facial structures with industries.” –Jonathon Beshchen, Founder of FaceCrunch
How does FaceCrunch hope to solve this problem?
“FC solves this problem by doing a full eigenface analysis on every image that passes through our system and cross compares it to every other face in the system. It then scores its ‘similarity’ and then those are associated with industry successes through A/B tests.” –Jonathon Beshchen, Founder of FaceCrunch
What’s next for FaceCrunch?
“Next up is a massive open beta where we let in the masses to try our app, and increase the number of industries we support.” –Jonathon Beshchen, Founder of FaceCrunch
“If we don’t engage women and underrepresented groups, the U.S. is going to be in trouble. By 2020, there is going to be a job deficit of 1 million workers in the tech industry.”
Tracey Welson-Rossman is working hard to change those stats. She founded TechGirlz.org and chairs the Women’s Tech Summit in Philly, and is also the Chief Marketing Officer at Chariot Solutions, an IT consulting firm. She wasn’t always passionate about tech, though. “My path in my career has been highly curved. If you’d asked me what I wanted to be when I graduated, I’d have said an executive at a high-level women’s clothing store, married to my high school sweetheart. None of that happened.”
First Steps “I’m a type A, sometimes a type A+.”
Her first job was for Philly clothing maven Strawbridge and Clothier, where she loved the excitement but not the striation of the corporate ladder. “If you were innovating, it didn’t matter. I’m a type A, sometimes a type A+. I’ve always been rewarded for doing good work. What I was being told here, though, was that I had to wait my turn. And that didn’t sit well with me.”
She moved on, joining QVC when the company was in the beginning stages of building its empire. It didn’t take her long to realize it wasn’t a good fit. “I was seen as a maverick. Which was not a compliment there.”
On the Road to Entrepreneurship “The people you work with are really important to your overall happiness, whether you realize it or not.”
ValPak Tracey reconnected with one of her old profs at Drexel, which led her to her first foray into entrepreneurship, working in sales for ValPak. She applied her work ethic to the new industry. “I’m a planner. I planned my first birth to be between sales deadlines.” Within a year, she was making more money than she had in retail. And yet ValPak left her restless, too, which taught her the lesson of making sure you understand what drives your employees.
KangaKab Her next move was to buy KangaKab, a NJ-based transportation system for kids, in 1996. “At the time, running the company was the most challenging thing I’d ever done.” But Tracey was a bit lonely. Although she liked the people she worked with, she felt she couldn’t share with them. The feeling was a harbinger for her transition to the next phase of her career, and her life.
She sold KangaKab in 2000. “If I hadn’t bought KangaKab, I would’ve just rolled through my career being ordinary.”
You Can’t Do It on Your Own “In the team, there is power. Vision will only get you so far. Execution is where you fall down.”
Something clicked when she walked into the offices of Skylight Systems, an accounting software firm just down the street from her house. “I felt like I’d known most of the people in a prior life.” The move led to her latest venture, Chariot. “We had an incredible team there but not a business. So we decided to build one. The company needed Java development, and we had some developers who were getting really good at it.”
Chariot started out when the economy was terrible. “Starting at the bottom, you have nowhere to go but up.”
This July, Chariot will celebrate its 13th anniversary. “It’s a team effort. We have a focused mission and message, a strong culture. It’s not all been perfect. We’ve made mistakes, we’ve gotten lucky, and we’re still here.”
Activism and the Philly Tech Community “This is Philly. We don’t flip companies here. We build them.”
Always passionate about Philly, Tracey is a founder and board member of Philly Startup Leaders, as well as chair of the Women in Tech Summit. She also started TechGirlz, a nonprofit that supports 11 to 14 year-old girls learning about careers in tech.
“We’re creating a community of women and girls to change the conversation about what’s going on. At Chariot, we see this parade of men coming in, but not women. TechGirlz gives us a way to talk about that, and to solve the gender disparity in tech.”
The program has been growing. At their first event this year, they had a 50-person waitlist. “We have some of the girls who started with us in middle school teaching for us now that they’re in high school. Girls want to be there, even if it’s their parents making them come.”
Tracey’s measure of success for TechGirlz is eventual obsolescence. “My goal is that TechGirlz won’t exist in 5 years. That there won’t be a gender issue. We’re creating this culture where girls belong here.”
