BrownHEN / BrownHEN.org

Interview with Chad Billmyer, Director, Nelnet, Inc.

BrownHEN interviewed Chad Billmyer, Brown '01, Director of Peterson’s High School Solutions, Nelnet, Inc., Lincoln, NE

1. Chad, your startup Foresite Solutions has merged with a much larger organization, Nelnet. Do you feel you can still be entrepreneurial in the context of a larger organization, and if so, how?

Absolutely. Part of the attraction to Nelnet—the company that acquired our startup—was their entrepreneurial culture. In fact, we were merged into a division that has a charge to develop new products and businesses. Not all companies embrace entrepreneurial spirit or have the risk tolerance to innovate from within as Nelnet does. For every business opportunity, we analyze whether to build, buy, or align. I have had ample opportunities to pitch new business from within the walls of our new parent company.

2. What advice would you like to share with aspiring entrepreneurs?

You will need partners to support you. Daily obligations and needs grow quickly. A good set of partners can balance the enviable tensions that exist in every decision that the start-up will need to make. For some decisions, emotional influences may lead to a non-optimal decision. A good partner can offer objective decision-making when one partner gets too emotionally invested in a particular decision.

You should also sign a founders’ agreement early. From the first date of inception, each day that passes the company will inevitably get more and more successful and more dollars will be involved. With each day that passes, it will become harder and harder to agree to and sign a founders’ agreement. A simple founders’ agreement can cover basics such as whether inventions belong to the company and when and how a founder may exit the company. The agreement can always be amended, but far too often, the absence of an agreement does more harm than good.

3. When you were at Brown you were a leader in campus activities. How did that experience relate to your entrepreneurial success? Do you recommend people wishing to be entrepreneurs be active on campus?

I highly recommend active campus activity involvement for prospective entrepreneurs. I would argue that there isn’t a class at Brown that can teach you how to get the people around you to perform at their highest potential. In many ways, this is what leadership is about: setting up your peers for success. Leadership skills grow from experience, and a campus activity—the Brown Daily Herald in my case—is a great laboratory to develop leadership skills that will be critical for the business to succeed.

4. What areas of software look promising for entrepreneurial ventures now?

I like to read the blog techcrunch.com on a daily basis to track some of the newest and most innovative Web-based software ventures. I am often inspired by start-ups I read about and try to find ways to apply bits and pieces of their business models to a business issue I might be working on. I also get a daily Venturewire.com e-mail each morning to track what is getting funded.

5. What are the top five qualities you would ascribe to an entrepreneur?

I can’t help but reference a few of the qualities found in a great document on this topic authored by Fred Beste at Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds. The document is titled, “The Twelve (Almost) Sure-Fire Secrets to Entrepreneurial Success.” Fred includes qualities like: “they have a sound knowledge of their marketplace, they’ve got fire in their bellies, they hire smart, and they have a sound knowledge of the financial dynamic of their companies.” I’ll add one of my own: they know when not to reinvent the wheel. 

6. Would you speak about fear as a motivation or hindrance toward accomplishment? How has that played a factor in your path, if any?

In general I see fear as more of a hindrance than a motivator with one exception. I sometimes find that I am motivated by the fear of failure. I am not coming up with an example of how fear has played a factor in my path. I presume that means that fear doesn’t play a major motivating or hindering role for me.

7. What is the latest insight (about life, work, play) that you picked up and would like to share with BrownHEN?

A recent boss would often say, “I see it as my role to set you up for success.” To date I have led a few teams of a decent size. I find this motto to be a wonderfully concise way to describe how to make choices as a people leader. 

8. What are the biggest differences between life on the East Coast and the West coast?

I grew up and obviously went to Brown on the east coast. I moved to the west coast three years ago. In a business sense, it feels like the west coast business day is shifted forward. It starts later and ends later. This doesn’t apply to me since I work with many people on the east coast and often join calls at 6 or 7 AM. Life runs a few beats more slowly on the west coast than the east coast. People walk a few beats more slowly and have a slightly less urgent sense about life.    

9. Do you still drive a Hybrid?  Is it the same one?

Yes, I still drive a hybrid car. Back in 2001, I was the first person I knew with a hybrid. It was a two-seater Honda Insight. I now drive a Honda Civic Hybrid. I found I needed a back seat on occasion. I bought the hybrid more for the engineering than for the environment, not that there’s anything wrong with lower CO2 emissions.

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© BrownHEN.org – 2007

Interview with Naeem Zafar, Partner at Concordia Ventures

BrownHEN interviewed Naeem Zafar, Brown '81, Faculty at Haas Business School, University of California Berkeley, and Partner at Concordia Ventures, Cupertino, CA.

1. Naeem, you have had a highly respected career as a serial entrepreneur. You were CEO of six different companies, I believe. How are you finding being CEO of a consulting company, Concordia Ventures?

I worked at six startups and I was CEO of three of them. One went public and others went through various traumas and exits. Concordia is aimed at transferring my life experiences to other entrepreneurs. I am trying to bring several accomplished entrepreneurs from various disciplines to join me at Concordia where we can advice advise other entrepreneurs who are at the early stage of their learning curves. My work at Berkeley feeds directly into what I do at Concordia. It is liberating to be running Concordia. It is much less stressful than being the CEO of a venture-backed company, yet it is even more exciting and engaging. It is a tremendous learning opportunity as I meet the best and the brightest from all new technology areas. 

2. How can an entrepreneur gain the most benefit from a consultant?

Each consultant offers some area of expertise. As an entrepreneur you need to be able to listen to advice from various sources but you must have enough conviction of your own so that you can evaluate and select what works for you. All of us have our own life experiences. That is why entrepreneurship is not a cookie cutter recipe. It is our own journey but a consultant, once carefully selected, can accelerate our learning and reduce our risk in this journey.

3. The United States has a reputation for being especially entrepreneurial. Is this reputation deserved? If it is deserved, how can it be maintained? If it is not deserved, what should be done?

It is well deserved. There are four key factors that contribute to this and if we maintain these factors we will continue to have the edge and the well-deserved reputation.

a) No stigma of failure. Unlike most places in the world there is very little stigma associated with failure, In Silicon Valley there is no stigma. A failed entrepreneur is more valuable as she/he is not likely to make the same mistakes again – someone else has paid the tuition for his/her learning.

b) Access to capital. It is much easier to raise venture or angel capital in the U.S. than anyplace else. Partly because sharing risk as an investor is in the American psyche. This is how we grew this country ahead of Europe in the 20th century. There are many entrepreneurs who made it big and now are willing to invest to help see new technologies take hold. They understand technology and risk. They help with capital and advice. Our venture industry is the most evolved in the world.

c) The eco-system. The process to start a venture is much easier in America and especially in Silicon Valley. At a well-attended party any Saturday night you probably have all the people you need to start a company. From techies to experienced CEOs, to marketing experts to lawyers and accountants—all have strong networks; and within two degrees of separation one can assemble a team in no time. We take this for granted but it is very unique to us. The systems are set up to make it easy to start companies. The way we can grant stock options attracts a lot of talent.

d) Excellent Brain trust and access to markets. We are lucky that we have an excellent higher education system. Not only do we pour well-trained people into the workforce each year, we attract the best and brightest from all over the world. The U.S. also have the homogenous market of 300M people that is unlike anyplace in the world. If you can sell a product here it gives you the scale to be able to sell it anywhere in the world.

Obviously our immigration policies can put the kibosh on some of these factors. That can hamper our future growth. Changes in taxation can impact our venture capital activity and our ability to grant stock options. These stock options are the essential currency that drives millions to work 70 to 80 hours per week for years and break all the rules needed to achieve new breakthroughs.

4. I believe you arrived at Brown three days after coming to the United States. What was your biggest surprise about life in the United States?

We all grew up watching American TV and movies in Pakistan so much of what we see in the States does not shock us. Nevertheless it was surprising to see that America was not like NYC or the Wild West. People were simpler, happier, unpretentious, and welcoming. People were warm and willing to help. But perhaps the biggest surprise was to get used to people smiling and saying hello in the street for no reason at all. This was not normal to see for me. I was always trying to draw a deeper meaning into each hello and sometimes giving a more complete answer to each “hello, how are you” then was expected!

5. You teach entrepreneurship in the MBA program at Berkeley. A common piece of conventional wisdom is that entrepreneurs are born, not made. What aspects of entrepreneurship can be taught?

Many traits of what makes an entrepreneur are innate. But the method still needs to be learned. We teach about the method (the process) of starting businesses. We teach how to reduce your risk by doing your essential homework. How does an entrepreneur approach various aspects of business versus a professional in a corporation? The to-dos include a long list that starts with doing basic research on your idea, developing a scalable business model, hiring, financial planning, and thinking about exits. We arm the entrepreneur with this knowledge and our own experiences to help him/her be more successful with fewer hiccups.

6. Your companies have been in several different high technology fields and you have written scholarly articles about starting small businesses. You seem to have time to be involved in professional activities. What is your secret about learning new ideas quickly?

Asking a lot of insightful questions and listening well are essential to fast learning. You must also be very good about time management and selective consumption of information. If you are not careful you can drown in too much information. You must develop a technique to quickly compartmentalize and index information in order to be able to access the information that you gathered.

7. Do entrepreneurial opportunities still exist in electrical engineering / computer science fields?

Is this a trick question? Of course, we have not even scratched the surface yet. We are now in the field of EE and CS where we were in 1920 about automotives and aviation. You have seen nothing yet. We still think of computers as things like we looked at internal combustion engines in 1920s. Today we don’t talk much about engines but we deal with myriad things that use engines. The same thing will be true about computers. There will be hardly a discussion about computers. There will be convenience appliances, highly connected and consumers of information that will make our life easier, more connected and our work processes automated.

8. What are the top five qualities you would ascribe to an entrepreneur?

• Perseverance
• Clarity of objective
• Resourcefulness
• Strong desire to bend rules or make your own rules,
• Salesmanship at all levels.

I describe an entrepreneur as a person who is willing to pursue an opportunity with the resources that he/she does not currently control. This definition says a lot. It is about being persistent and finding ways to go around the walls that will come in front of you. Salesmanship comes in various ways. It is about selling your vision to other employees and team members, to selling your ideas to investors to selling your value proposition to customers.

9. Would you speak about fear as a motivation or hindrance toward accomplishment? How has that played a factor in your path, if any?

Fear can be a motivator or a hindrance – sometimes both, depending on your personality and the situation. My biggest fear is usually letting my investors down or the people whose livelihood depends on my decisions. The families of employees all depend on your actions and results of your decisions. But you must get over your fear, otherwise you will be paralyzed. This is when I seek out my mentors and get advice from people that I trust. You always get through it.

10. As you know, the entrepreneur’s path is filled with trials and errors, and also failures. What’s a valuable insight for entrepreneurs to keep in mind when they’re experiencing setbacks?

Analyze the situation. Post mortem is key. Figure out what did you do wrong or what you could have done differently. Talk to others and your mentors. Improve thyself. Stop feeling bad and get back in the game. Remember getting a gym membership is not enough to get fit or lose weight – you must participate in the game.

11. What is the latest insight (about life, work, play) that you picked up and would like to share with BrownHEN?

The latest insight is about getting intensely productive with your time. This is your most important asset. Constant email is a terrible thing to distract you and Instant Messaging (IM) is even worse. I want to automate things in my life and get control of my time so that I can use it to do things that excite me and are rewarding. Limiting distractions, limiting meaningless television, unnecessary meetings and conversations that are pointless must be limited and eventually eliminated. I am reading this book, Four Hour Work Week, which speaks to me and what I had been trying to do for the last couple of years.

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© BrownHEN.org – 2008

Interview with Danny Warshay, Managing Director at Dew Ventures, LLC

BrownHEN interviewed Danny Warshay, Brown '87, Managing Director at Dew Ventures, LLC, Providence, RI.

1. Danny, when you were an undergraduate, you co-founded a software company that became part of Apple. Looking back on that experience, what do you believe undergraduate entrepreneurs need to know most?

I’m often asked about that experience and about whether it makes sense to start something as an undergrad or soon after or get some “experience” first. My answer is that it depends mostly on whether you have an idea that is a legitimate opportunity. If you do or think you do, in many ways, there’s no better time to pursue it than when you are young–free from other responsibilities like a family, a mortgage or something else that make you much more conservative later in life.

When we started Clearview, I had nothing to lose, and could afford to live on no salary and eat a lot of macaroni and cheese. My wife and kids these days would get sick of macaroni real fast. The other benefit to pursuing something early is that in some ways, knowing too much can be a hindrance.

When I was graduating from Harvard Business School, I began to realize that I had learned a ton of ways to find fault with businesses and ideas, and had been trained over those prior two years to be critical of the thousands of cases we had studied. One of the voices that I paid the most attention to at that time was that of my entrepreneurship professor, Jeff Timmons, who reminded us to ask, “What can go right.”

When we were starting Clearview, I had virtually no business experience and could barely turn on a Macintosh. A couple years later, I think partly because of our naiveté, we had developed a successful Macintosh applications business whose acquisition by Apple I was helping to negotiate. I hesitate to say this too strongly, especially because I am teaching entrepreneurship at Brown these days, but I sometimes do wonder whether knowing or at least thinking too much can cloud your judgment.

The bottom line about whether to start something when you’re young, though, is that the decision is not like a typical career decision and question, "Should I take a job at McKinsey or start a software company?" The alternatives, a normal job or doing a startup, are much different. If you have a passion for creating a business and a compelling idea for a product, go for it. If you don’t have both the passion and the idea, then the decision is made for you until you do.

2. Please tell us more about your website RoundOne.com and what it intends to accomplish. Will it meet some of the needs you described in Question 1?

RoundOne is a platform that empowers aspiring entrepreneurs to take a few key first steps. Its content (now well over 3000 blog articles by entrepreneurial experts and supportive RoundOne community members) covers a wide range of critical topics, in easy-to-read, practical bite-sized pieces. To avoid the information overload and analysis paralysis I referred to in the previous question, the pieces are not a dissertation on the subtle distinctions between an LLC and an S-Corp, but the practical “dummies” version.

The networking platform enables you to meet fellow aspiring entrepreneurs from all over the world. We have members from dozens of countries–even places I had never heard of—and I cannot imagine how they would have connected with each other without an online platform like this. Finally, we have a suite of collaborative project management tools that enable a newly formed team to take a few substantive steps together (e.g., develop a business plan, upload and store documents, schedule team meetings and even conduct them online). We conceived all of this functionality with a focus on aspiring entrepreneurs, people who for the first time are looking to start a business but have never done so before. According to Capital One and Consumer Action, over 54% of Americans are interested in starting their own business but “don't know where to begin.” Our mission is to help them do so.

3. Most of your professional life you have been associated, successfully, with startups. However, you did spend a few years at Procter and Gamble. Were they valuable years for your present career? Do you recommend aspiring entrepreneurs work at a large company for a time?

I learned a lot in a short time at P&G. As my wife, Deb, smartly reminds me from time to time, the most important thing I learned was that a place like P&G is not for me. And that is a valuable life lesson—to figure out what is for you by experiencing what is not. Even beyond that, I learned a lot about how to build and run consumer businesses on very large scales, and about how to sweat the details. In subtle ways, I find those lessons expressing themselves in my entrepreneurial work more often than I might have expected. So for me, P&G was valuable, and while I would not want to prescribe any one type of experience for everyone, I do think that in general, especially if you go into the experience being clear about what you want out of it, that employment at a big company can teach you a lot.

4. You were a leader in creating the magnificent new Hillel Center at Brown. What are your aspirations for that building?

That it inspires the next generations of Jewish community leaders.

5. You have taught entrepreneurship in Israel. How did the students there differ from Brown students?

In ways that surprised me. Since they were Executive MBA students, I expected them to catch on to the HBS case method quickly, and to my surprise that approach threw many of them at first. I am still not exactly sure why, but I think one reason is cultural. At the risk of generalizing too much, my Israeli students tended to be very professionally focused and tended to think black and white. Many of them initially wanted to dispense with the ambiguous process of a case discussion and cut to the chase. “Just tell us the answers” was literally what many of them said to me in the first couple of classes. I resisted and by the end of even the condensed course, most had caught on and appreciated the “no right answer” approach.

That experience made me even prouder of my Brown students who tend generally to catch on to the case approach quite well. I think one significant reason is that Brown students are used to dealing with ambiguity in a liberal arts environment. I also saw some of what I discussed in question one above (thinking about what could go wrong) although in some ways the Israelis were able to apply their years of professional experience to the cases. For many, that experience inhibited their creativity, while the inexperience of my Brown students sometimes enables them to think more freely.

6. You are well known for the effort you put into teaching at Brown. What makes teaching rewarding for you?

First of all, I owe all of this experience to Barrett who knew me better than I knew myself, and detected a latent passion for teaching. Simply put, I love everything about it. I love motivating and inspiring my students to work their tails off and grapple with challenging problems. I love using the Socratic method, which feels a little like tight rope walking without a net. Although I have a general sense for the issues I want to cover, I never know exactly how the discussion is going to flow, what issues students are going to find worthy of interest.

In their course evaluations, some of my students have referred to me more as a coach than a professor and I can see that. I work hard on their behalf to make sure their experience in the classroom is worthy of Brown, and I advocate for them far beyond the classroom (e.g., finding them internships while they are still students, finding them jobs when they graduate, helping them with startup ideas, writing them recommendations). My core, advanced COE course, “The Entrepreneurial Process: Innovation in Practice,” is demanding, rigorous, and challenging. And those students see how much effort I put into it on their behalf and they respond accordingly. By the end of the semester, we have been through a lot together, and we all feel a sense of accomplishment. Finally, I am sure I learn from the students as much as they learn from me. It’s an honor to be able to teach them.

7. What are the top five qualities you would ascribe to an entrepreneur?

Mostly I think of qualities relating to execution more than breakthrough thinking:
• Ability to prioritize
• Ability to get things done
• Persistence: not accepting setbacks or failures, and
• The classic quality from Howard Stevenson who is an entrepreneurship guru at Harvard Business School: ability to pursue an opportunity without regard to the resources one currently controls.

8. As you know, the entrepreneur’s path is filled with trials and errors, and also failures. What’s a valuable insight for entrepreneurs to keep in mind when they’re experiencing setbacks?

I guess I’ve adopted more of a Zen-like approach to success and failure, as I have gotten older. Sometimes, what at the time I thought was a supreme success later paled compared to other more important things and even seemed like a detriment. And in contrast, what at one time seemed like a horrible failure later seemed like nothing or even a valuable experience. Perhaps it’s all the yoga I’ve been doing, but I try to have a more balanced opinion of what may seem like success or failure.

9. What is the latest insight (about life, work, play) that you picked up and would like to share with BrownHEN? If not, do you have a motto that you would like to share with BrownHEN?

I think we can all learn a lot from Curly, Jack Palance’s character in City Slickers. He says that the most important thing in life is for each of us to find our "one thing"—our passion. For some that’s their family, for some that’s intellectual achievement, and for some that’s about inventing new things. I guess like Curly, what I’ve found over the course of my career is that everything else falls much more easily into place once I have figured it out and can focus on that “one thing.”

10. How did the name "Danny" come to be?

Short for Daniel.  I’m definitely not a Daniel or a Dan – just Danny.

Note: Danny is currently in Cairo, teaching a condensed version of his Brown entrepreneurship course to a group of Egyptian executives, heads of NGOs and entrepreneurs.

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© BrownHEN.org – 2008

 

Interview with Katherine Cohen, CEO & Founder of IvyWise and ApplyWise

BrownHen interviewed Katherine Cohen, ‘Brown ‘89 – CEO & Founder of IvyWise and ApplyWise, New York, NY.

1. Katherine, how did you get into writing books? Was that part of your plan from the beginning?

No, it was not. I entered the profession of college admissions and I wanted to organize my thoughts for myself and high school students. So I created a manual, which ended up as my first book, The Truth About Getting In.

2. Did you have to raise funds to start IvyWise? If so, please describe your strategy?

No, I started out in my apartment, with $5K saved. My business had the barebone basics. I am still the sole owner of IvyWise. In late 2007, Liz Hamburg (Brown ’86) and I launched a sister company, ApplyWise.com, an online college counseling and management tool, which is affordable and accessible to more families globally. We did bring outside investors into ApplyWise

3. What percentage of your time can you now spend advising individual high school students?  Would you like to spend more?

In the last year and a half, due to family priorities, I have only spent half of my time on advising individuals. I have hired other counselors to work with the growing market of students coming to IvyWise and have been spending more of my time with the launch of ApplyWise.

4. Please compare working with high school juniors and seniors to working with college sophomores.  How do you adjust your advising strategies?

When I was working with college sophomores at Yale, I was counseling students on course selection, personal and academic problems, and wrote recommendations for students seeking summer employment or social service experiences. 

IvyWise now works with students of all ages and stages.  However our core business is counseling high school students and students as young as eighth graders for the college admissions process. We help them make an impact in their classrooms, campus and community.  We help them focus on the soft factors: we help them develop mature responses to setbacks, work better with their teachers, and find joy in what they are learning in school.  If students are making the most of their high school experience, this makes them become better college applicants. We help them tap into their potential and empower them with skills to contribute to their school / community.

5. You have contributed strongly to the Entrepreneurship Program at Brown. What do you think can be done further to support Brown undergraduate entrepreneurs?

Brown EP is doing a great job; it is nice to see its growth. The Board members are exploring more ways to get involved and to get more mentorship.

6. What is your vision of the future of IvyWise? How can it be structured to reflect your ideals as it grows?

Our mission focuses on empowering students to achieve their academic and personal goals; we are adhering to this everyday.

We envision growing it slowly and steadily to maintain quality control. We do not want to dilute our services. I have hired and trained only a handful of new counselors, all who have great experience in admissions. Our approach reflects my vision, which is that while each student works one on one with an individual counselor (and each counselor is limited to 20 students); behind the scenes IvyWise counselors work together collaboratively as a team.  This way, each student gets the entire team’s expertise and feedback and several sets of eyes on each essay and application. We interact like a real admissions committee, which sets us apart from most independent counseling services.  I am very excited about the growth opportunities for ApplyWise, which can reach a broader group of families around the world.

7. What are the top qualities you would ascribe to an entrepreneur?

• Know what you know and what you don’t know.
• Do not do it all; delegate.
• Be a great leader.
• Be a great listener.
• Recognize that you are not always right; listen to clients/customers and colleagues.
• Be flexible; business changes and grows according to customer needs.
• Be a multi-tasker who can wear different hats.

8. Would you speak about fear as a motivation or hindrance toward accomplishment? How has that played a factor in your path, if any?

Fear is a underlining motivator: not being successful, not making enough money, not leaving a legacy behind. Fear may play a part in many of the things that I do, but it is certainly not the driving factor.

I also don’t think fear is necessarily all bad, but I try not to let fear overcome me. If there is one bad article written about my company, if I lost a big sale, it’s time for me to step back and look at the big picture, regroup, and find the best path forward.

10. What is the latest insight / book(s) (about life, work, play) that you picked up and would like to share with BrownHEN?

I believe you need to have passion for what you are doing; you must absolutely LOVE what you do everyday. I am lucky because I love my work.  I had a baby about a year ago and it has been a challenge finding the balance between work and family.  It is easy for entrepreneurs to be workaholics. Work should not be about money because in one hundred years, no one is going to know about your business or care how much you had made; this gives me perspective. I have been practicing yoga since high school; it is a constant in my life and it teaches me to focus on the present. I make time for myself, and time for reflection (in fact, that is where my greatest business ideas come from!), which is crucial to my wellbeing and growth.

11. Who are the top three individuals / sources that have influenced your development?

One is my uncle, a corporate lawyer and my life mentor. He helped me set up my business, go through work-related trials and tribulations, taught me the art of negotiation and has helped me see many business situations from different perspectives. 

Second is my husband, who is my best friend and perfect mate. He is very grounded; he is a calming force who thinks before he acts. He helps me in my relationship with work, reminds me what is important in life, and brings me a lot of joy.

Third is my daughter, who teaches me that I can’t control things all the time.  She showed me the infinite capacity for love.  Now a new motivation for my work is to provide her with a good life.

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© BrownHEN.org – 2008