Eric Simone of ClearBlade: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A Founder

An Interview With Doug Noll

Be Humble and Build Teams: When I look back at what gives me the most joy about my career, it isn’t the money I have made. It’s about the people who have joined me on this journey and have gone on to build amazing careers. I feel pride knowing I had a small part in their success. Focusing on the team and remaining humble fosters real connections. The power of those connections fosters a culture that provides the foundation for a growing company to achieve greatness.

As part of our interview series called “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A Founder”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Eric Simone.

Eric Simone is the Founder and CEO of ClearBlade Inc., an award-winning Internet of Things (IoT), Edge computing, and digital twin AI software company. Under his visionary leadership, ClearBlade has developed award-winning products, including Intelligent Assets, IoT Enterprise, Edge AI, and IoT Core, which are available on any cloud, edge gateway, or on-premises server. Eric earned a degree in Computer Science from Purdue University and is a recognized Distinguished Alumni, known for his expertise and contributions to the software industry.

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?

I started my career at IBM as a programmer and then moved into software sales during the client-server software revolution in the early 90s. After three years in sales, I realized I had a drive that went way beyond what a typical corporate job could provide me. I got up in the middle of the night in 1994 and wrote an email to two of my IBM colleagues with an idea to start a company. A few months later I left Chicago for San Francisco to start my first business; Compete, Inc. I still have that email from 1994 and there is one sentence that continues to drive me to this day: “I don’t want to look back five years from now and say ‘I should have…’”

Being in San Francisco from 1994 to 2000 was a magical experience. Compete grew fast during the .com boom and we sold it to a public company called Perficient in Austin, Texas in May of 2000. I left Perficient in 2003 to pursue other interests in venture capital, film, retail, non-profits, and even improvisational comedy. I scratched a lot of itches over those years.

In 2007, executives at IBM asked me to launch a similar startup, ClearBlade, the business I am leading today. I have been an entrepreneur for 30 years and am so grateful I took that leap all those years ago.

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

There have been so many over the years, but I am going to highlight the extreme pivot ClearBlade made in 2013. ClearBlade started as a services business, but after five years I saw an opportunity I could not ignore. With the emergence of cloud computing and the rapid expansion of smartphones, I recognized a familiar pattern to the one I experienced in the early 90s during the client-server movement.

Then on April 26, 2013, a news story hit me like a lightning bolt, Facebook acquired Parse to accelerate its movement into mobile apps. This was the sign I needed. The future is going to be dominated by connected devices (not just mobile phones) and edge computing, moving processing to distributed physical devices. This is what ClearBlade was going to build!

I had always wished I had started a software company back in 1994, here was my chance. What I didn’t realize was how painful it would be to completely reconfigure ClearBlade from a services company into a nimble software company that would go on to compete with companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon.

From 2013 to 2019 the Internet of Things (IoT) “revolution” was more like a slow, painful evolution with hundreds of companies pouring billions of dollars into IoT with very little success. And ClearBlade was small and lightly funded. How were we going to survive? And just when things started to really open up for us we got hit with a pandemic and had to carefully navigate through that storm as well.

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

I grew up watching boxing with my dad, he was a huge Muhammed Ali fan and so was I. Ali’s dedication to what he called “the grind” is what always impressed me. I have his image on my office wall with the word “GRIND” on the front. It’s one of ClearBlade’s core Values: “Enjoy the grind and celebrate the success.”

Life is a journey of experiences, and the harder the challenges the more you evolve. I strive to never be bored. At 57 I’m still getting better because I’m continuing to learn from the challenges I face every day.

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

Things are going fantastic right now at ClearBlade. Most of the companies that were competing with us in the IoT and Edge space have moved on to other initiatives like AI. Turns out that building IoT and Edge software is extremely difficult and only the strongest have survived. I am extremely proud of what we have been able to accomplish over the years. We have over six million devices on our platform and that number is growing daily. We are recognized as an industry leader across several verticals including transportation, energy, and critical infrastructure. And we are just getting started on our exponential growth. We are in the right place, at the right time, with the right software (finally)!

I could have compromised my vision back in 2015 when Amazon (AWS) jumped into the IoT arena, then Microsoft, and Google… but I didn’t. Every venture capital company I talked to tried to convince me to narrow my focus to specific industries, like rail. Turns out that having a bold, broad vision is very risky, and obviously, it is. But sticking to our vision and keeping our incredible team together for over a decade has put us in this position… and it is just now starting to get really fun so we are going to enjoy our successes!

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?

I am going to go back to my first startup, Compete. Back in 1994, I knew virtually nothing about starting a business. I joke that back then “startup” wasn’t even a word, people I talked to about it just called it “stupid.” I was 27 and impulsive so I just fired without aiming. I incorporated, did a handshake deal with my two partners, found my first customer, moved to San Francisco and it was GAME ON! The freedom of it all was intoxicating because it all happened so fast.

So the funniest mistake was how I was managing the finances. I opened a bank account and put every check from my customer into the bank and drew a monthly salary from that. After the initial six months of running a business that way, my second partner joined and noticed that I hadn’t filed any of the appropriate federal and state documents. Needless to say, operations were not my forte. He took over that part of the business and got everything filed and running properly.

I should also mention that my apartment in San Francisco had no dishes because I ate out all the time. When I did need a dish for something like cereal in the morning I would use frisbees. When my girlfriend (now my wife) noticed this along with my piles of dirty laundry she also stepped in to clean up my mess of an existence. Not quite CEO-type behavior. I look back now and laugh at how clueless I was!

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

Our vision from the beginning was extremely bold. Build software to connect millions of devices, over any network, running on any cloud, or running locally at the Edge. We were extremely early innovators in the IoT and Edge software spaces. Too early. So what makes ClearBlade stand out? Perseverance and resilience. There were about 400 companies that “looked like” ClearBlade back in 2015. Most of those companies pivoted or sold over the last several years. We stuck to our vision and focused on building software that was different.

We also kept our team together over that time. I am extremely proud of our retention rate. Dedicated, loyal employees motivated by excellence and a common vision. In an industry where engineers typically change jobs every few years, that speaks volumes.

Finally, in 2022 we took advantage of a massive opportunity to grow our customer base. ClearBlade was one of over a dozen companies selected by Google to take over its IoT Core business. This was our chance to prove ourselves and our superior engineering and service. Between 2022 and 2023 we gained over 250 new customers across 39 countries. Today, we have over six million devices running on ClearBlade, solidifying us as a leader in the global IoT market.

It’s been a wild ride so far, and we are just getting started!

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

Recharge your battery so you can give that energy to others. However you recharge and relax, exercise, music, improv comedy, or time with friends. Just make sure you take some time for yourself. For me it’s exercise and spending time with my family, watching my kids play music or play sports.

The one trick I use that helps me to keep that youthful spirit is to stay curious and stay hungry. Putting myself into the same mindset that I had at 27 when I started this entrepreneurial journey helps me to stay optimistic and avoid burnout. I also really enjoy talking to the people on my team. Their enthusiasm and energy recharges me because it reminds me of my time as a young developer and salesperson.

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 wife Toni. She’s an absolute rock and I would never have been able to accomplish all I have without her. We met in San Francisco in 1996 just as my first company was beginning to scale. After only a few months of dating, I needed to move back to Chicago because we opened our first office. I think we may have had a five-minute discussion about it and she decided she would drop everything and move with me. Now, 28 years later, after several start-ups, moves between San Francisco, Austin, and Chicago, and raising two boys, she’s still my rock. It’s a team effort here at the Simone Family and I am extremely lucky to have her as my partner in crime.

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

Building companies whose foundations are built on a bedrock of integrity and a desire to build something truly great is how I bring goodness to the world. Business is personal, it goes way beyond profit and loss, it’s about helping people build their careers and their lives. From that comes strong communities, people who give back to their communities and the causes they care about. It’s about growing families as the company grows. We have an interesting mix of older and younger professionals here at ClearBlade, all in different phases of life. We have had an explosion of marriages and babies as our folks have progressed on their life journeys while others have kids graduating college and starting their own careers. It’s really wonderful to see.

On a personal note, I always say my #1 job in the world is to raise two non “assh*ole adults.” So besides the charities that I donate to, the most direct way I can bring goodness to the world is to do my best to raise two thoughtful, well-adjusted humans. Xander (19) and Dexter (16) are amazing people so we are almost “done.” I am very proud of them both.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started leading my company” and why.

1. Have Confidence to Stick to Your Vision: While my first business was a success I feel like I missed an opportunity. My original idea was to create fantasy sports software which is why I named the company Compete. I was talked out of that vision by others who thought it was too risky. That was 1994 and I’m positive if I had stuck with my vision we would have achieved massive success as a software company. At ClearBlade I had the confidence to pivot into a vision and stick to it.
2. Remain Passionate: Passion is what drove me to become an entrepreneur. The harder trick is to remain passionate over time. Entrepreneurship is a marathon, not a sprint. You must find ways to refuel and replenish yourself to remain passionate and committed to your vision. Without passion and energy, you cannot effectively lead others to greatness.
3. Don’t Focus on the Big Picture: Conventional wisdom says to think big and focus on the “big picture”. But focusing on the big picture all the time is extremely draining and ultimately unproductive. I love this quote from Ali, “It isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you down. It’s the pebble in your shoe.” It reminds me to stay patient and persistent. Over my 30 years as an entrepreneur, everything has worked out in the end. Put the work in and trust in the process.
4. Remain Naive: With experience comes caution. Over time you tend to play it safer because you are more aware of the dangers and you have more to lose. To be a great entrepreneur it’s essential to stay naive and curious. I try to ignore all the potential pitfalls and focus on the power of “YES AND,” something I learned during my time in improv comedy. This helps put me into the mindset of my 27-year-old self who started this incredible journey.
5. Be Humble and Build Teams: When I look back at what gives me the most joy about my career, it isn’t the money I have made. It’s about the people who have joined me on this journey and have gone on to build amazing careers. I feel pride knowing I had a small part in their success. Focusing on the team and remaining humble fosters real connections. The power of those connections fosters a culture that provides the foundation for a growing company to achieve greatness.

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

First, you must be an optimist to be a successful entrepreneur. No matter what obstacles get thrown your way, there is always a path forward. Believe in yourself and believe in the team around you. To do otherwise puts you on a path to failure.

Second, surround yourself with excellence. Find people who are just as motivated and exceptional at what they do because those are the people who will get you through the tough times. We’ve survived a very crowded market, competing with large corporations, AND a pandemic. The only way you make it through all that is to work with people just as dedicated to the mission as you are.

I enjoy surrounding myself with brilliant people and giving them the motivation and space they need to truly be brilliant. It’s the people here at ClearBlade who motivate me to get up every day and face whatever challenges come my way. Business is a team sport, and when you build exceptional teams you have the confidence to get up and go toe-to-toe with the biggest companies in the world.

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. :-)

Let’s change the way we celebrate leadership in the world. Too often the leaders with the biggest egos are the ones who get the most praise. The best leaders say “we” more than “I”. They distribute praise to their teams and absorb criticism for the company. Some of the best leaders in the world are the ones that most people have not heard about… and maybe that’s a function of their humility. This is how great companies are built, companies that produce happy employees produce thoughtful citizens who end up doing wonderful and amazing things in and for the world. We could really use more of that positivity today.

I take the way I lead very seriously by making sure my team knows how important they are to the success of ClearBlade. I remember being a 27-year-old who wasn’t given the freedom to be all that I could be in my corporate environment, and I made a promise to myself then, that if I was ever in a position of power, I would not crush that spirit in anyone else.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericsimone/

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.