Startup Meetup Archives

Frank Coates on the Transformative Power of Failure

“When people ask my kids what their Dad does, they tell them, ‘My Dad’s the biggest failure in the world.'”

It’s an arresting first line for a presentation, and it only gets better as Wheelhouse Analytics founder and CEO Frank Coates explains how failure drives him to success. Founded in 2010, Wheelhouse Analytics helps financial services companies analyze data.

Frank shares his story, noting how “in every one of my public failures, something good came out of it.”

“In 1983, I almost flunked out of the electrical engineering program.” His academic near-failure led to success, though, when he eventually earned a computer science degree from Siena College and headed to the Army for 3 years, where he moved up the ranks to first lieutenant.

On Getting Fired. 3 Times. From the Same Guy

“Dick Strong (of Strong Mutual Funds) had been after me for years to come do for him what I did for Dreyfus. Strong had started one of the biggest mutual fund companies in the country. He told me he didn’t want a ‘yes man.’ Well, the first time I told him what he didn’t want to hear he didn’t like it. That was the first time he fired me.”

Frank transferred into Strong’s brokerage business. “One day, I fired everyone in the office for going out to lunch and leaving the office open. I thought I was going to ride into Dick’s office on a chariot, but when I got there, it was just the opposite.” And Frank was out again.

“I learned a ton from being fired. I love the guy and he taught me a million things that I took to my companies.”

Wheelhouse Analytics

Wheelhouse’s angle is small—not large—data. “We call ourselves ‘the king of analytics,’ but most of the time I feel like the dunce of analytics. I show up at a presentation and say ‘I’m here to talk about little data.’ It’s all about finding small pockets of need in these big financial organizations that other IT companies find underworthy of their investment. A small company like ours can do that.”

Frank says he’s happy to play in the little part of the market, what he calls “the day-to-day analytics.” “In financial services, broadly, generic capabilities won’t win the day,” he shares. “We’re killing it against global companies, because we walk in and know what you should be doing. We know where your messes are. We know when not to use the data.”

“Our approach is to get the data to them, let them learn, and then go back and talk to them. It’s a 6-month process. Within 6 months we might have 100 dashboards for them, and we ask how it’s working. They might say, ‘Well, we’re still not making any good decisions.’ Now they are ready. Now we can go back to the key questions.”

On Picking Good Partners

“The first thing is that I’m a loyalty guy. My second hire was a guy whom I worked with at another company. Your partners should be loyal to you and loyal to the mission.”

Frank also believes in the power of transparency to attract the right people. “Be as transparent as you can up front. I’m not that good at accounting, or paying attention to finances, and you need to know that about me. If someone knows that about you and still wants to join you, then you have the right person.”

The Future

“Right now we’re looking for partners. We don’t want to sell right now, even though we’ve had offers.”

Chasing Small Ball Counts with Alchemy Learning

Henry Blue, Co-Founder of Alchemy Learning

@AlchemyLearning

Henry Blue was restless.

“The cyclical nature of education had started to worry me,” confesses the former teacher. “I didn’t necessarily see a direction to progress in, doing the same thing year in and year out. How do you reconcile that need to impact major change during your day-to-day work?” In need of some wisdom, Henry turned to one of his mentors, who sent him off with a quote that still resonates: “Little by little, small ball counts,” a nod to the game-winning baseball strategy chronicled in the movie Moneyball.

The quote has guided Alchemy Learning’s co-founder along the startup path.

The Classroom Inspiration

After college, Henry traveled abroad teaching ESL before returning to the Boys’ Latin School of Maryland–his alma mater–to teach. “It was great. I got to coach and teach alongside the people who had taught me.”

During this time, Henry’s buddy and fellow Davidson College grad Win Smith was working nearby in Baltimore, and they started chatting about the software education space. Henry was using more technology tools in the classroom, and together they hatched the idea for a web-based curriculum program that would allow teachers to create and deliver e-lessons for students.

The First Version

They needed help with development, and turned to outsourcing as a solution. “Outsourcing development is kind of risky, though,” Henry advises. “We had trouble getting work done. Suddenly, we were being assigned the junior folks just cycling through.” In the end, Henry and Win were victorious, getting a minimum viable product out of the process.

They released the free tool for teachers. “Bloggers loved it, the industry loved it. It got some awards. There was a good pace of onboarding new teacher users, which allowed us to raise a little more money to build it out beyond just a free tool.”

On the Digital Revolution

Henry was encouraged by the technology buzz going on at the time. “We saw iPads trending in schools. The White House was pushing for 95 percent connectivity of schools in a 5-year period.” He pauses. “Well, we’re still waiting for that to happen. It’ll happen…we just thought it would happen faster.”

The Competition

“We weren’t backed by a foundation or major corporation, so we started worrying about competitors. Unlike other industries, our SaaS numbers didn’t mean anything in the education industry.”

Google Classroom, another free tool, provided an alternative for teachers to manage lessons and grades. Additionally, Khan Academy and Guru offered similar features. At the same time, “We saw some other startups running similar things and folding up shop.”

Henry and Win needed to shift gears. “We looked at our user base on the free version. Users tended to be high energy, tech-adapting teachers. Our assumption is that excitement matters for adoption when you’re talking software. And another assumption is that it’s useful for learning outcomes, but also for creating learning engagement, especially for learners who have trouble with traditional textbook learning.”

The New Reality

Enter virtual reality. “We found that cultural institutions, museums, nature centers, and the like wanted a tool for their learning and outreach portions.” Henry and Win decided to use virtual reality in K-12 classrooms to connect those institutions.

They got funding for a first pass of the project, where students wear Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets and “float” down the Amazon. Students take photographs and get information on the things they photograph, culminating with a trip over a waterfall.

“We took this basic prototype to education camps to see if anyone wanted it. And we saw there was a lot of excitement. Now, it’s a matter of proving the use case and seeing that people will actually use it in the classroom.”

It’s an interesting challenge. “How do you build both ends of a network?” Henry asks. “You need both schools and network providers. So we’re thinking through niche angles. This is a tool for more technical development. We’re putting students in situations they wouldn’t get in.”

Henry knows the future won’t wait. “Right now, we have the early mover advantage. We want to do everything for the school so they don’t have to do anything.”

The Brutally Honest Entrepreneur: SEER Interactive’s Wil Reynolds

Wil Reynolds, Founder of SEER Interactive

@wilreynolds
@Seerinteractive

“I am really brutally honest about how tough the entrepreneurship journey has been.”

Normally, brutal honesty might be off putting to an audience, but it’s hard not to be dazzled by SEER Interactive founder Wil Reynold’s infectious charisma and fearless self disclosure. He notes, “I fired myself as the CEO from my own company…twice.”

Wil started his professional life on the teaching path, loving the kids in his high school economics classes, but not the red tape and overbearing parents. It didn’t take long for him to strike out in a new direction.

Changing Gears

“I wasn’t a big fan of resumes—I liked to put on a suit and go visit the place in person.”

Wil suited up and hit the streets in Philly. He scored a job offer at NetMarketing, the first place he visited, provided he could build web sites. So he went home and built his very first project, a Geocities site all about his Jeep Wrangler. “I was proud of it, but when I rolled in the next day, all my images were x’s because I had not FTPed them.”

His new employer wasn’t worried. “They told me, ‘you’re our first employee. We don’t need somebody who knows everything. We need someone who wants to learn. We like that you took the initiative to learn what you need on your own.’”

The company was growing, and soon a shower was installed in the office. “Because that’s how many all nighters we pulled. My girlfriend at the time dumped me,” Wil says. “And then one day, I got the call that it was over—the company was done.”

Striking Out

Out of a job, he did what had worked before. “I put on a suit and started going to all the Philly companies I wanted to work at.” During that same period, he started volunteering at CHOP, an experience that shaped his approach to professional life. “I started a company because no one would hire me and because I wanted to continue my volunteer efforts too. I’m an accidental entrepreneur. I never wanted to start a company.”

Meaningful relationships with people in the company were paramount to Wil. “I wanted to deeply know the people I work with. For the first 2 years, we turned away over 80% of our leads because I wanted to cap the company at 10 people. I wanted to be able to make those people super rich.”

The Epiphany

“I love my job, and there’s only been one day I didn’t want to go into work.”

It was the day after bonuses were given out, a day to share the bounty of a good year. Wil’s unsolicited offer of a partial bonus to an employee who had left 4 months earlier stung him unexpectedly when the former employee decided she warranted a full bonus. “That took a chink out of my armor that couldn’t just be filled. If that happened in a company with only 10 people, what could happen in a bigger company? I realized that being in a tight-knit family environment is only one part of what keeps people at a company.”

“When you’re CEO, everyone brings you their bad day. And it’s your job to deal with those bad days,” he offers. “So the bigger your company, it’s more and more dealing with everybody’s bad day. How do you deal with that? For me, it meant I stopped running my company.”

(Read Wil’s blogpost about the experience here.)

Evolution

Wil flew to Seattle for a weeklong “job swap” with Moz CEO Rand Fishkin, a story they chronicled in a YouTube video and which was compelling enough to capture the attention of Wired magazine. “It’s very exposing to run someone else’s company for a week. Within 6 months, we both stepped down as CEO of our respective companies. We both realized that we liked experimenting and playing around with stuff.”

He put SEER in capable hands to focus on his passion. “I’m a maker. I like to make stuff. As your company grows and scales, you watch yourself grasping for that thing you started out doing.”

Over the past 6 years, SEER has grown from 10 to 106 employees.

Putting it Out There

Volunteering is critical in both Wil’s and SEER’s missions. He walks the talk and encourages employees to do the same. “I don’t want to work with someone who doesn’t volunteer. We started building volunteer opportunities into the company. If I don’t have something else going on, I’ll go on a volunteer assignment with my employees.”

Giving back applies to ideas, too. “Being open about my ideas makes me go back into the lab and learn some new shit when no one else is looking. I’m doing that right now, in fact. I’ll be talking about it in July, which means I don’t know what I’m going to be doing in August.”

The Future

“Vision doesn’t guarantee success. Vision plus operations is how you become successful.”

“I want SEER to be a great company to be from. People don’t have to be here forever, but they should be really proud of their time here.”

Insuring a Successful Startup Strategy with iPipeline’s Bill Atlee

Bill Atlee is Founder and Chief Strategy Officer for iPipeline. @iPipeline

“Get your idea on the court. A friend of mine told me once ‘you can sit on the bench and tie your shoelaces all day, or you can get on the court and figure it out.”

For Bill Atlee of iPipeline, that court is the insurance business. After starting out at Fidelity Mutual Life, he founded iPipeline in 1996. Today, he is also Chief Strategy Officer for the Exton-based company, which has 500 employees and 9 offices throughout the world. The iPipeline platform streamlines the way that life insurance carriers, distributors, and agents sell and process insurance. “Hundreds of thousands of insurance agents use our software. But it took us 20 years to get to that point.”

Bill shares some of his tips for being a successful entrepreneur.

It All Starts with an Idea
“Everything starts with an idea. It doesn’t have to be yours–find someone with a great idea you can add to. Then, validate your idea by talking to the people who have the problem you’re trying to solve. For us, it was finding insurance agents experiencing that same problem.”

Hone Your Idea
Bill advocates making sure people get what you’re talking about. “Look at people’s faces to see if you’re explaining it right. If they’re confused, your message is too complicated.”

Good storytelling is essential to your message, and less is generally more. “People are more successful when they take words out rather than put words in,” Bill says. “Write out the whole story. I’ll pick out the words I want to use, write them down and practice so I can say them over the phone, over Webex, or any medium.”

“Show and Tell” your Idea with a Believable Prototype
“Create a visual workflow that fakes your idea so well people don’t know it’s a mockup. It needs to look like they can buy it today. Make sure you refine your idea using the feedback you receive. Don’t give up on it, but improve it.”

Re-pitch Your Idea
“Decide what you want and ask for it. Go for the close–do you need an office or to borrow a computer? Remember that if no one wants to pay for your idea, it’s not a good idea.”

Fail Fast, Fail Cheap
“Move your ideas quickly and don’t spend a lot of money of them. Be careful what you borrow. Venture capital is different than getting a loan at a bank or from your family. Avoid doing things like using your house as collateral.”

Create a Business Plan
“Business plans are a way to weed out all the riff raff. Nobody likes to make them, but you can’t get anybody to listen to you without a business plan.”

Don’t Quit Your Day Job
Bill worked for 4 years at iPipeline with no salary, selling insurance by day and working on iPipeline in his free time. At the same time, he advocates knowing when you need to commit. “Sometimes you need to ‘burn the ships.’ Retreat is easy when you have that option. It makes you not fight very hard.”

Ted Mann Clips Away at Startup Success with his Coupon App

Ted Mann, Founder of SnipSnap

@snipsnapapp

“Coupons are not the most sexy thing to work on in the tech business,” says Ted Mann, founder of mobile couponing app SnipSnap. “But the truth is that they are huge part of the retail economy. Eight-five percent of Americans use them every month.”

SnipSnap grew out of that familiar struggle to remember to bring the coupons to the store. One day, as Ted was staring at the “bowl of shame” of unused and expiring coupons on his dining room table, he couldn’t take it anymore. And SnipSnap was born.

Fast forward three years, and today SnipSnap serves 4 1/2 million users who have saved over 200 million dollars. It even spent time as one of the App Store’s Top 50 Apps.

Inspiration
“To me, coupons are a giant pain in the butt,” laments Ted. “If you forget it, you’ll wait to make the purchase or go back later. I figured there had to be a better way.”

“I don’t carry a purse, but I always have my iPhone with me.” Ted started taking pictures of all of his coupons to use in the store, pulling out his phone at the cash register instead of paper. “It worked, but was awkward. I’d go to the store and the cashiers would be just as surprised as I was that it worked.” He used his system for six months. “At the time, it was a way to keep my wife happy. I had no idea to make it a business.”

Critical Mass
“I was filling up my photo roll with coupons instead of baby pictures. I started using EverNote, which let me now search my coupons. I could see them in grid or list form. That got me thinking about UI. I called that version 0.02.”

Ted and UI designer Kyle Martin launched the initial version at startup accelerator DreamIt Ventures in Philly. “It was a great experience. That initial version barely worked, but it worked well enough to see that people would use it like crazy.”

Using It
SnipSnap focuses on retailer-issued coupons, such as those ubiquitous 20% off coupons from Bed Bath and Beyond. “We focus on retailer-issued coupons, because there are already lots of businesses working on manufacturer-issued ones.”

Today, 55 retailers pay to advertise with SnipSnap. And it’s a partnership that is beneficial on many levels. “If you buy steaks,” says Ted, “you get offers from advertisers who send you a coupon for steak, like Omaha Steaks.”

“We can target coupons based on the coupons you ‘snip’ with the app. When you snip a coupon, an event is created. If you’re in the market for baby stuff, for instance, the next time you snip a baby coupon, you’ll see other related coupons. You’ll get recommended offers from Babies-R-Us.”

SnipSnap also uses your location. “We draw a virtual radius around each store location or shopping center. As soon as you enter that geofence, you get a push notification for those stores.”

Validation
SnipSnap entered the battlefield at TechCrunch. “Although we didn’t win our battlefield, we won our division. But the best thing was having MC Hammer as a judge. He told us we were his favorite startup.”

Going forward, Ted just wants people to save money. “I want to convince everyone here today to download SnipSnap and save a few bucks.”

UI designer Kyle adds, “Stay tuned, because in the next months we’re going to be bringing out some cool new features.”

« Older Entries

Next Entries »