BrownHEN interviewed Scott Meyer, Brown '91, Entrepreneur In Residence, Warburg Pincus LLC, New York, NY.
I work with the Internet investment team here at Warburg to identify new investments. I have a specific business thesis that I'm working on with them. The goal is to create a business plan for a new company that I'll run as CEO and Warburg will back me to build. There are several EIRs across the firm at any one time.
Warburg Pincus is a leading global private equity firm. Its active portfolio of more than 100 companies is highly diversified by stage, sector and geography. Warburg Pincus is a growth investor and an experienced partner to management teams seeking to build durable companies with sustainable value. Founded in 1966, Warburg Pincus has raised 12 private equity funds, which have invested more than $29 billion in approximately 600 companies in 30 countries.
2. Are you able now to pursue entrepreneurial ventures? If not, do you miss doing them? If you are pursuing such, why are you spending the time and effort?
I came to Warburg precisely to be able to focus 100% on my next entrepreneurial venture. After eight years working for The New York Times Company, which is a public company, it was very important for the next step of my career to be in a private, earlier stage company. I started my digital media career at a venture-capital backed growth company, Multex.com. This is a unique time in my career to use all that I've learned in the past to be successful leading an entrepreneurial effort.
In addition, since leaving The Times Company, I've had the time to advise and invest in a number of early stage companies. I'm a Director of Go2Media, and an advisor to Kosmix Corporation and Bestcovery.com.
3. Please tell us about the startup experience of About.com. Was your experience creating the New York Times on the Web helpful to you?
My experience at About.com was after the start-up phase. I came on board right after the Times Company bought About.com in 2005. My tenure was a period of hyper-growth. We grew from $34 million in revenue to $100 million in three years. The experience there was as much about preserving the entrepreneurial roots that make About.com such a special place as it was building the business for the long term. We achieved this success by staying very focused on our strategy to increase our audience reach, enhance the user experience, and grow revenues.
We grew both by developing our own products and making new acquisitions. For instance, we launched About.com in China, building an entirely new team and business. We also acquired three early stage companies. In each case, we were able to incorporate the management teams into About.com while preserving their own entrepreneurial drive.
The Times experience was instructive in many ways. NYTimes.com was very much an early stage business when I joined as General Manager in 2000. We learned the hard way how to thrive in an evolving industry, how to establish ourselves as a leader. Furthermore, learning how to engage with the rest of The New York Times Company was key to the success of NYTimes.com.
Knowing how to navigate the multiple needs and agendas of the parent company certainly made a difference in how I led About.com. Growing new businesses inside of an established company, which is often called "intra-preneurship" isn't always as well-respected or well-understood as growing an independent business. But, it's just as challenging in its own unique way.
4. Do you see entrepreneurial opportunities in journalism right now? Of course, we are not asking you to divulge your BIG idea.
Now is arguably the most confusing time in journalism in this country's history. The business model of many newspapers looks not to be sustainable in the face of the efficiency of Internet advertising.
There will always be opportunities in journalism, but the model is going to be very different in the future. It's important to set realistic expectations. Newspapers had a 150-year head start on the Internet, TV had almost 50 years. There will be new opportunities in journalism, but I'm sadly doubtful that those innovations will be able to save the newspaper industry as we know it.
5. How did a Public Policy concentrator at Brown get into the entrepreneurial world? What advice would you give an undergraduate who wants to be an entrepreneur and is about to pick a concentration?
Being close to 20 years out of Brown, I've come to believe that there are three types of business leaders. The first are purebred entrepreneurs. They need to work for themselves, disrupt existing business models and take big risks from get go. If these folks ever worked for a large company, they didn't make it very long and probably hated it. The second are folks like me, who have been able to enjoy both the entrepreneurial and more established environments. As their careers and lives change, one environment typically becomes more appealing for a period of time, and then it changes again. The third group is always more comfortable in a stable and structured environment.
Brown alums are in all three groups, and this influences one's career choice. If you are a purebred entrepreneur, you probably already know what field you want to pursue, and Brown will let you tailor your education do so.
If you're like me, I'd recommend simply finding a concentration that makes you happy intellectually. You'll naturally find yourself gravitating towards ways of learning and thinking that will serve you well later in life. The commercial Internet didn't exist when I was at Brown, so there wasn't a lot I could have studied. But, classes like Engine 9, and some of the data analysis classes I took as a Public Policy concentrator definitely helped refine my quantitative skills.
I would recommend that if you are thinking about a business career, getting some basic familiarity with computer science and with basic finance and accounting concepts will be helpful. No matter what you end up doing, basic math really matters.
6. Conventional wisdom is that entrepreneurs are undergraduates or just out of college but your career seems different. Please comment on becoming an entrepreneur after another career.
As I mentioned above, I think there are many types of business leaders. While a lot of the most famous entrepreneurs came right out of college, or even dropped out, I'd argue that the majority of entrepreneurs spent years working for someone else to learn the ropes and build up their contacts. For instance, Andy Grove worked at Fairchild Semiconductor for years before helping found Intel. Steve Case and Meg Whitman both worked at Proctor and Gamble before going on to entrepreneurial success.
Deciding you want to strike out on your own is a feeling that can hit you at any point in your career, and for varying circumstances. The key is knowing when the time is right and acting on it. I'm in mid-stream of acting on it, and I sure plan on it working out great. I'll keep you posted.
7. You have spent much of your career in an industry demanding clear writing. What advice can you offer on how to write a compelling business plan?
Keep it simple. Avoid jargon and buzzwords. The best ideas can be explained in a very small number of slides. And, beyond the concept, the best plans I've seen have a realistic view of how the company is going to generate revenue and profits.
8. Do you have a mentor who has helped you in your career path/ personal development?
I have a lot of mentors. I've been fortunate to work with, for and otherwise get to know some wonderful people who have taken an interest in my career and have helped me out greatly.
I've also made use of career coaches at different key decision points. Especially if you are considering a change from a corporate job to a more entrepreneurial one, I'd recommend working with a coach to help you think through the various issues.
9. Who are three other individuals who have influenced you?
There are three of many that come to mind:
The late Professor Tom Anton, who was the founding Chairman of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown. Professor Anton had a significant influence on me. He helped me recognize that my undergraduate education was more than just a collection of classes that led to a degree. He created an environment at the Taubman Center where I could work directly for professors doing research and secure internships in DC and in Providence. He encouraged me to enter my seminar paper into the Rouse Prize for Economics competition, of which I was one of three winners.
My parents, obviously. Hard to put it into words, but I'm very fortunate to have had two wonderful and supportive parents who supported me every step of the way.
I really look up to my friend Jeanette Sarkisian Wagner, who is the Vice Chairman Emerita and former CEO, International of the Estee Lauder Company. She's a true entrepreneur who succeeded inside of a large and complex corporation. She's unafraid to speak her mind, and I love her motto, “Nulli Secundus,” which means, “Second to none.”
10. What is the latest insight (about life, work, play) that you picked up and would like to share with BrownHEN?
Never miss out on the
chance to be with your family and friends. Find time to be away from work and
decompress. Especially as you progress into leadership roles, the stamina and
specific project completions that demonstrated your success earlier become less
important. When you're leading a company, you need to be clear in your decision
making and understand nuances to help keep people motivated. It's really hard
to do that if you are overly-stressed and if you don't have a good balance in
your life. I'm not saying that it's easy or that I'm perfect at it. Just keep it in mind.
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© BrownHEN.org – 2009
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Posted by: Scott Meyer | December 11, 2009 at 02:10 PM