Steve Shank founded Capella Education, one of the first online universities, in 1992 when the Internet was not yet well-understood or widely embraced. With traditional educators questioning the entire concept of online teaching, Capella had a lot to prove. In this interview, Steve talks about bootstrapping the company to build a disruptive innovation, which he defines as a fundamental change in the marketplace. Patience was key for his success as it took seven years to demonstrate viability in the market. Today Capella has 34,000 students from across the US and 53 countries.
Steve Shank is one of the ten founders featured in the Nightingale Conant audio program How They Did It: Real World Advice From Today’s Most Successful Entrepreneurs.Listen to audio samples at here or order the program for a 20% discounted price for friends of Bob
My friend Patrick Spain sat down with me to talk about the process of launching, growing and selling HighBeam to Gale/Cengage all in the span of 6 years. (Full disclosure – I was on the board of directors at HighBeam). Patrick’s first CEO job was at Hoover’s, which was a fledgling publishing company at the time he moved to Texas to join. Ten years later Patrick had grown the company to an IPO with a multi-hundred million dollar market cap. After leaving Hoover’s and moving back to Chicago, he bought the assets of Infonautics, which became the kernel from which HighBeam grew. Highbeam is one of the biggest article and research sites online.
While at HighBeam, Patrick created Newser along with Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff. In this interview Patrick shares how he ran both public companies (which he says has its downsides) and private. He also gives his thoughts on the mistakes entrepreneurs make in addition to the best quality an entrepreneur can have: patience.
On November 17, 2011, business leaders and entrepreneurs from around the heartland of America attended the Great Lakes Entrepreneurial Bash, a featured event of the Kauffman Foundation’s Global Entrepreneurship Week. The Bash featured a panel of world class company founders who started from scratch and blazed a trail to success at $250 million and more. The founders, Mike Domek (TicketsNow), Ron Galowich (Initiate Systems Inc. & First Health Group Corp.), Jim Gray (optionsXpress), and Dane Miller (Biomet), shared key insights and ingredients that made their companies extraordinarily successful – as well as the challenges they faced along the way. Over 30 co-hosting organizations, including ACG Chicago, Built In Chicago, Tech America, MIT Enterprise Forum Chicago, TiE Midwest, and many more, came together in the spirit of entrepreneurship to help make the Great Lakes Entrepreneurial Bash a success. With the help of all of the co-hosts, over 250 entrepreneurs, company owners and executives attended.
Throughout the panel discussion, many attendees tweeted comments and quotes from the panel. “‘Don’t listen to most of the stereotypes…Make mistakes and learn from them’ –Mike Domek |#entrepbash #startup #entrepreneurship,” tweeted @rrpichardo, Richard Pichardo. Following the panel, hundreds attended a reception where they could network and meet the panel. Denise Siegel, President of deniseSiegelbronze, attended the event saying “[I] really enjoyed the panel, and came away with a couple thoughts that I’ll carry with me, probably always… These were cool guys and SO interesting and I could have listened to them for a lot longer.” The Great Lakes Entrepreneurial Bash will be back in 2012 during Global Entrepreneurship Week. For more information or to stay up-to-date on the latest news from the Great Lakes Entrepreneurial Bash 2012 visit www.EntrepBash.com
Newsweek called Grand Rapids, Michigan, a dying town. Rob Bliss, local entrepreneur and event planner, was not pleased. Nor was the town of Grand Rapids. What he did in response went viral and was far more powerful than Newsweek‘s criticism. Rob led production of this 10 minute video, done in one take, thanks to the whole town of Grand Rapids. Yep, the whole town!
What can entrepreneurs learn from Rob’s daring, ambitious video response to Newsweek?
1. Get in the Game. Get active, get mad, whatever it takes, but get going. That’s what Rob did. Rob wasn’t afraid of failing – and that’s how he launched a massive project.
2. Tell Your Friends. Rob had the support and creativity of his partners, and that led to 3,000 volunteers ready to help out. Tell other people your idea, enlist their help, and be willing to share credit.
3. Delegate. You cannot do it all yourself. Rob was not the athletic cameraman who did the Grand Rapids shoot in ONE take! You have to see the camerawork to believe it, from standing on a rolling platform to trotting in front of a moving crowd to a smooth transition to a helicopter liftoff at the end. Likewise in business, the biggest mistake rookie entrepreneurs make is attempting to do it all alone, being that lone cowboy or cowgirl out on the range, handling all problems, stoic to the end.
4. Choose Your Ground. Rob couldn’t dispute Michigan’s high unemployment. He didn’t engage in an academic debate. He focused on Grand Rapids taking action and creating a powerful emotional response that is meant to move people to further action.
5. Use the Tools at Hand. Rob did not start a magazine to take on Newsweek, he didn’t write a letter to the editor, and he certainly didn’t do what most of us do, which is to uselessly bitch and complain about how unfair things are. He got on YouTube, and look at the results! 4.3 million views so far.
Did Rob’s effort really change anything? I don’t know. But now I know who he is – and so do you. Next up comes…you! Show us the parade you are going to lead.
On October 17, 2011 top business leaders, executives, company owners, and aspiring entrepreneurs attended the Mid-Atlantic Entrepreneurial Bash at the Comcast Center at the University of Maryland to celebrate outstanding entrepreneurship.
A panel of world class company founders spoke including: Troy Henikoff (SurePayroll, Excelerate Labs), Howard Tullman (Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy), Ted Leonsis (Monumental Sports & Entertainment, AOL), Ara H. Bagdasarian (Omnilert), and Mark Walsh (Genius Rocket). The event was made possible by 17 co-hosts and sponsors including CBIZ, Cbeyond, and Maryland Entrepreneur Quarterly.
When I interviewed the 45 founders featured in How They Did It: Billion Dollar Insights from the Heart of America, I tried to total up the amount of value each had brought to the world. They all started from zero. I am not sure of the exact number for their company valuations, but I can tell you that on publication day the number one name on the list was Dane Miller. He had just taken Biomet private for about $12 billion.
Dane founded his company in tiny Warsaw, IN, where Biomet still continues to produce things like artificial hips and knees sold worldwide.
I’m thrilled that we were able to sit down with Dane and catch up. I had to ask him more about the amazing story about implanting titanium in his arm to prove a point. The world thought stainless steel was the safest material for the human body, but Dane knew better. So he tested it out on his own body, by having a surgeon friend implant a small piece of titanium in his arm.
Would you do that? How far will you go to prove yourself?
Dane left the titanium in his arm for ten years to prove the point. Today, thirty years later, what’s the material used worldwide by everyone in the industry? Titanium.
Watch this video where Dane briefly talks about titanium, how to keep good people, and how to keep humble.
Better yet – join us in Chicago on November 17 at the Great Lakes Entrepreneurial Bash to hear Dane and four other amazing entrepreneurs live and in person.
On October 3, 2011 top business leaders, executives, company owners, and aspiring entrepreneurs attended the New York Entrepreneurial Bash at the NYSE to celebrate outstanding entrepreneurship. Watch this two minute video with event highlights from five amazing company founders: Bonnie Baskin (AppTec Labs), Glen Tullman (co-founder, ECIN; now CEO, Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX)), Jim Dolan (The Dolan Company, NYSE: DM), Mark Tebbe (Lante Corp; Answers.com), and Al Berning (co-founder, Pemstar; now CEO, Hardcore Computer).
A lot of how-to business books have high praise for, well, praise. But is there a place in your company, and mine, for some brutal—and very public—criticism?
Fair warning, you won’t find this technique in namby-pamby guides like The One Minute Manager, which recommends: “Help people reach their full potential…catch them doing something right.” I’m not saying to give up on praise. And I’m definitely not recommending you try this at home. My wife and teenage daughters might have certain negative feedback for me. And that’s not public enough for this approach.
Some CEOs are sure that criticism is an under-appreciated educational tool. So are you robbing your employees of an opportunity to reach greater productivity by favoring the softer, more polite touch when it comes to feedback on a job not so well done?
What I learned from Allscripts CEO Glen Tullman is that public feedback is necessary and sometimes vital. Consider this specific tactic he shared with me: “When somebody does something wrong, you correct him or her individually and then one person learns that lesson. Or you can send an email to the whole company and the whole company learns that lesson.”
The advantage for both manager and employee, says Glen, is that “to survive in that environment, you have to develop a soft shell but a very hard core. You have to be able to take those hits…If you make it through, you’re unbelievably strong.”
Glen and his older brother Howard Tullman, both champion entrepreneurs interviewed in How They Did It: Billion Dollar Insights from the Heart of America, had a leg up with blunt feedback from an early age. They both acknowledge growing up in a hyper-competitive house. As Glen said, “My mother always promoted high standards and was honest when you didn’t achieve them.”
I was brought up with the wuss style, praise in public and criticize in private, but I think Glen has a point. Better for all employees to learn from one mistake, he told me, rather than to wait for it to be repeated.
Worried about what your employees will think? Will it create an environment of fear? If the corporate culture embraces learning and truth seeking, then you get collective improvement. Another useful by-product of that approach, according to Glen, is skin thickening, if you will, that bodes well for future communication and survival in the competitive environment that lurks outside your company doors. Finally, the act of taking criticism and the expectation that you need to bounce back creates a resilient body of employees who can change course on a dime.
This idea has been adopted by other managers as well, most notably superstar CEO Andrew Grove. Intel uses an aggressive approach with a formal name: constructive confrontation. No holding back, whether you’re the CEO or a new rookie engineer. The approach was designed to motivate people to solve problems through highly assertive exchanges.
Would you—could you—do this as a manager? It’s definitely food for thought. Public criticism, if delivered in the spirit of creating greater good for all, may be a management tool that’s underused.
Glen Tullman shared his thoughts on management and entrepreneurship at the New York Entrepreneurial Bash on Oct. 3. Visit www.entrepbash.com for more information.
I recently interviewed HTDI founder, Bonnie Baskin, who will also be speaking at the New York Entrepreneurial Bash on Oct. 3. Bonnie gave a sneak peak at some great lessons for women everywhere who are launching or running companies:
-Hire Women, Especially Steel Magnolias
-Be Flexible with Employee Needs
-Design Your Company the Way YOU Want
-Good Service Triumphs
-Pay It Forward
My good friend Gerald “Solutionman” Haman of SolutionPeople.com recently sat down with me at the Thinkubator here in Chicago to share how he is taking over the world one brainstorming session at a time. I don’t know anyone who can say that they are:
(1) The world record holder for leading the biggest brainstorming session. Gerald brought together 8,000 great minds in a Singapore stadium, generating 454,000 ideas in one hour.
(2) The 7th Most connected person on LinkedIn with over 30,000 contacts.
(3) Got stuck in an airport for two days and put up a sign for “free ideas”, holding mini 5-15 minute brainstorming sessions with a line of people.
Gerald is fascinating and I think that there is something to learn from his many experiences. Take a look.
Robert Jordan is an Inc. 500 CEO and founded Online Access, the first Internet-coverage magazine in the world. After the sale of Online Access, Jordan launched two companies: RedFlash, an interim management team; and interimCEO/interimCFO, a worldwide network for interim, contract, and project executives. 
