Bill Wolfe: Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Launched My Business or Startup

An Interview With Doug Noll

Understand that your first investors are looking for a reason to say “no” so they can move on to the next opportunity. When I’ve been on the other side of the table in my stints in M&A, it was not uncommon for my small team and I to look at eight or more deals a week. Time was precious. We often said no very quickly and moved on. Engage in a process where you are carefully understanding the investor’s needs and focus. That builds a mutual commitment that results not only in an early investment but also in the foundation of a long-term pact for mutual success.

Taking the risk to start a company is a feat few are fully equipped for. Any business owner knows that the first few years in business are anything but glamorous. Building a successful business takes time, lessons learned, and most importantly, enormous growth as a business owner. What works and what doesn’t when one starts a new business? What are the valuable lessons learned from the “University of Adversity”? As part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bill Wolfe.

Bill Wolfe is a senior executive with experience in both large corporations such as Cisco, Verisign, and Openwave, and startups including Hawk Systems, ISOCOR (IPO), Clickatell, and now YourHealth. He has held positions including CTO, CSO, Senior Vice President with P&L responsibility, and a variety of VP/General Management positions, with versatile experience including sales, product management, engineering, and M&A. With a passion for motivating talent through clear objectives and accountability, he has consistently delivered growth-oriented profitable operations on a global scale.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Let’s focus on YourHealth, the startup that I cofounded where I am currently COO. After a long career in tech, I was doing some consulting, including screening and analysis for an angel investment group. Taking a bit of breather as it were. One day I got a phone call from an old business friend of mine, Jennifer Devening, who I knew from my days at VeriSign. I have always had a lot of respect for Jennifer’s energy and capabilities, so my first question was what she was up to. “I have this great idea for a startup, and I want to do it with you,” was her reply. Intrigued, I asked her more about the idea. After an hour of back and forth I was totally sold. YourHealth ticked all my boxes — large market, great insertion against traditional competitors, ability to attract users and build a profitable business. And, most significantly, the opportunity to provide real value to the consumer in managing their health and wellness. I was no longer just intrigued, I was in.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

When I joined the Computer Software Division of Xerox Corporation, I did not have a background in large ticket sales or experience with the intricacies of complex manufacturing, distribution, and financial systems. The Software Division was very competitive, not only within our company but in the marketplace at large. As a salesperson I was expected to produce quality, profitable business while at the same time I was learning about technology, industry standards, sales techniques — all of which, starting out, I knew almost nothing about.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

First and foremost, from the guidance I received from my father (more on that later). Second, I had a burning desire to succeed. I felt that the company had given me a unique opportunity, given my limited qualifications for my job. I wanted to show myself and them that they had made the right decision. That drive and desire to go the extra mile led to me setting a sales record in my first full year on quota and establishing myself as the #1 salesperson in the company.

So, how are things going today? How did grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

The real question is how one measures success. I feel successful because I have made a positive difference to those who worked with me, and I’ve nurtured some very talented individuals into higher positions with far greater responsibility. I have been successful in the financial sense, of course. But going back to my father, he said if all you want to do is make a lot of money and nothing else, it really isn’t that hard. The hard part is balancing the other parts of your life that are important and essential with the day-to-day pressures of business. This may be old school, but being able to reflect and feel that you maintained your ethics as you grew your financial success is, for me, at least as important as the bottom line.

One example: I was a new executive at a company that experienced a major outage that massively impacted one of our best customers. As we gathered in the conference room to contact the customer, the main question was around what we would tell them. I said, “we are going to tell them the truth of what is going on.” To which another executive replied that they may leave. I said yes, they may, but they surely will not stay if they discover that we lied to them. I took the call, explained the situation, told them what we were doing and that until they asked me to stop, I would call them every day until the problem was ameliorated. They did not leave.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

It’s perhaps not a mistake but rather a great learning experience. In my earliest days as a salesperson, I uncovered an unusual and large opportunity. Excited, I took it to management. They chuckled and sent me back to ask a list of challenging qualifying questions, expecting it would lead to nothing. Naively, I drilled down, got the answers, and took them back to management. “Ah,” they said, “this is real. Sit back and we will take it from here.” Disappointed, I thought I was being relegated to the back. But instead, I was gradually brought back in, and we ultimately closed the deal. My key lesson was that there are often wiser and more experienced people around you; bring them in and help them succeed. If you do, you will be successful and wiser in the long run.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

In every company I’ve been involved with, I’ve strived to make a difference to both those who worked with me and the customers/industry at large. YourHealth is exciting and fundamentally different. We are truly touching people’s lives in a fundamental way. Our members, with the capabilities YourHealth provides, can be in control of their health and wellness, especially in difficult or emergency situations. To have a member come to us and say “this will save my life” is qualitatively different than a customer saying “this capability saved us money.”

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

I feel that burnout is not the result of the number of hours spent, but rather the experiences during those hours that lead to frustration and poor results. The one nonfungible thing in our lives is time. We cannot get more of it, and in the long run we don’t even know how much we have. Therefore, treat time as your most precious commodity. Each day, select the three most important things to accomplish in work, family, and your personal life. Make sure that you know what gives you personal satisfaction and pleasure and don’t make any of them “number four” on that list.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

My father. As a young man I was a bit of drifter until my position at Xerox. As I said earlier, I was very successful. However, each time my sales performance broke through one accelerator level, executive management raised the quota to reach the next, thus making it more challenging to increase my earnings. Being young and a bit naive, I was ready to get a lawyer because I thought this was very unfair.

Fortunately, before doing that, I called my dad and spewed out my frustration and plan to him. Calmly he asked the following questions: Are you making money? (Yes, more money than ever before by long shot.); Are you learning anything? (Yes, more than I could ever learn at the university. So many smart experienced people that were willing to share their knowledge.); Are you having fun? (I was having a blast.) He said, “Sounds like a pretty good situation. If you still want to hire that lawyer, my only question is where are you going to work next?”

Needless to say, I didn’t hire a lawyer. But I did learn that growth and success come with reflection and consideration of the opportunity in front of you.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

First, you must decide what success means to you personally. For me, I have been able to use my success — financially and in business achievement — to have time and space to give back to my community at large. I am a court appointed special advocate (CASA) for three “kiddos” in the foster system. As a CASA, I mentor, support their aspirations, and have fun with them. I am also a mentor with a new CASA reporting to me, assisting them to make some dreams come alive for their kids. My kiddos were surprised when I first started spending time with them that my efforts are 100% volunteer, no pay. I am also a supporter of the Boys and Girls Club. In the past I have worked on a suicide prevention line and been a co-counselor for group therapy for street youth.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first launched my business,” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

1. Value and evaluate the people around you. If you are the smartest person in the room at every meeting, you have the wrong people around you. If people are taking leadership in their roles, make their jobs easier by removing impediments to their success. Under my direction, a company I was with acquired a smaller company. In leading the integration, I became aware that the founder did not want to continue to lead the unit after integration. He was one of the major reasons we made the acquisition. He was, to put it mildly, not just valuable. He was essential. We have the value down; now comes the evaluation. I asked him why he did not want to become the general manager of this acquired entity. He responded that he was happy about the acquisition, thought the two companies together could do great things but didn’t want to have the political headaches of being a general manager in a large corporation. My suggestion was that I would take on all the GM responsibilities if he would be my right-hand man and technical guidepost. He said he couldn’t ask for anything better than that arrangement. We were wildly successful.

2. Know your business audience. Early in my career at Xerox Software, I took over responsibility for a failing software development project for manufacturing. Because the eventual capability was to be implemented corporate wide, I had to present my turnaround strategy to executive management at corporate headquarters. No matter what I said or did, all I got was blank stares. I called in a favor and gave my presentation to the individual responsible for the corporation’s UI/UX. He was very impressed and said we were doing great work. I asked why I could not “sell” this at corporate headquarters. His reply? “You can’t tell them how many pages per minute your software will do.” I needed to know my business audience so I could speak the language they — in this case executive management — both understood and could relate to.

3. Don’t run out of cash. Invest in your business wisely. Falsely assuming that a company’s “hockey stick” growth will happen can lead to layoffs, loss of investor confidence, etc., when even a slight trough in engagement happens. I won’t go into details here, but one of the least desirable statements you can hear in business is, “I’m from the IRS and you are not returning our phone calls.” I heard that, and it was as unpleasant as you imagine.

4. Understand that your first investors are looking for a reason to say “no” so they can move on to the next opportunity. When I’ve been on the other side of the table in my stints in M&A, it was not uncommon for my small team and I to look at eight or more deals a week. Time was precious. We often said no very quickly and moved on. Engage in a process where you are carefully understanding the investor’s needs and focus. That builds a mutual commitment that results not only in an early investment but also in the foundation of a long-term pact for mutual success.

5. Mike Tyson was right: Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. The lesson here is that one’s well thought out plan can be wrong. Sticking to the original plan rather than adjusting in response to new and unfortunate turns of events leads to disaster. I was consulting for a large business unit that was being eroded by new entrants operating at the edge of its core business, thus diminishing the available dollars that the market could spend for their offering. (Never assume your customers’ budgets are elastic.) When analyzing the current engineering plan, I was told that there were no engineering resources to do something to combat these new competitors. Upon further examination, I discovered that resources were focused on releases that the customer base had not asked for. I quickly halted that effort, realigned the resources, and in six months created a competitive offering and secured the business unit’s position in the market.

Can you share a few ideas or stories from your experience about how to successfully ride the emotional highs & lows of being a founder”?

Highs are the easy part. Just realize that you may be unprepared for the unknown issues ahead while you are celebrating those highs. Andy Grove wisely said only the paranoid survive. On the low side, keep your team close, both those within the business and your supporters on the outside. Sharing what to do next in a trough is essential for focusing your own capabilities and encouraging those around you. This is the time to lead from the front, but make sure that you are bringing along everyone you need.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I would institute a two-year national service for everyone in the US beginning at age 18, no exceptions. Certain endeavors such as military service would have additional benefits. Why do this? Because we need to commit to the concept of national purpose and commonality rather than the current tribal posture. Disparate individuals working toward a common goal can build appreciation and understanding of others. The in-person networks that we used to have in this country have largely disappeared. This is not to suggest that I am advocating some return to a “better” time in the past. What I’m proposing is an effort to move an upcoming generation to be better and more cohesive than we are today.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

I’m happy to have a dialogue with anyone who’s interested, but I’m not someone who does a lot of personal social media. They can follow YourHealth on Facebook (@yourhealthincontrol), LinkedIn (@yourhealthincontrol) and Instagram (@yourhealthincontrol) or on our website (1yourhealth.com).

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

About the Interviewer: Douglas E. Noll, JD, MA was born nearly blind, crippled with club feet, partially deaf, and left-handed. He overcame all of these obstacles to become a successful civil trial lawyer. In 2000, he abandoned his law practice to become a peacemaker. His calling is to serve humanity, and he executes his calling at many levels. He is an award-winning author, teacher, and trainer. He is a highly experienced mediator. Doug’s work carries him from international work to helping people resolve deep interpersonal and ideological conflicts. Doug teaches his innovative de-escalation skill that calms any angry person in 90 seconds or less. With Laurel Kaufer, Doug founded Prison of Peace in 2009. The Prison of Peace project trains life and long terms incarcerated people to be powerful peacemakers and mediators. He has been deeply moved by inmates who have learned and applied deep, empathic listening skills, leadership skills, and problem-solving skills to reduce violence in their prison communities. Their dedication to learning, improving, and serving their communities motivates him to expand the principles of Prison of Peace so that every human wanting to learn the skills of peace may do so. Doug’s awards include California Lawyer Magazine Lawyer of the Year, Best Lawyers in America Lawyer of the Year, Purpose Prize Fellow, International Academy of Mediators Syd Leezak Award of Excellence, National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals Neutral of the Year. His four books have won a number of awards and commendations. Doug’s podcast, Listen With Leaders, is now accepting guests. Click on this link to learn more and apply.