Manny Cerniglia of Flyhound: Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Launched My Business or Startup
An Interview With Doug Noll
Force yourself to take a break. This goes back to what I mentioned earlier about the antithesis to building a business. You’ve probably heard from all sorts of people from startup founders to Fortune 100 CEOs that you’ve got to put in the hours to succeed. That’s true, but that doesn’t mean you have to put in twenty-four hours every single day. Being a startup founder means you’re flexible. I’ve been on late night calls with Japan, early mornings with Europe, and everything in between. But no matter what you’re building, you have to remember that you are a person with important people and interests outside of building a business. Take an hour, take a day, set your status as “offline,” and don’t lose sight of who you are. If you believe what you’re building will make an impact in the world, taking a break to refresh won’t slow you down.
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 Manny Cerniglia.
Manny Cerniglia is the Co-Founder and CEO of public safety startup Flyhound. His background in telecommunications, technology, and travel led him down the path to developing a solution to help public safety agencies rapidly locate missing persons in emergency situations wherever their journeys take them. Outside of his office or working with customers, you’ll find Manny appreciating good music, different cultures, and beautiful scenery.
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?
Technology and travel have always been two of my passions. The majority of my background has been in the telecommunications industry, and early in my career I was encouraging the adoption of smartphones long before everyone had them. It seems silly now, but I was there when the important part of a mobile phone plan was how many minutes were included each month. Smartphones became a powerful tool in everyone’s lives, giving them information on just about everything at their fingertips. I used my phone extensively whilst travelling and it gave me the courage to navigate into the unknown all around the world knowing that I could find my way back using it. I’d read stories online about people getting lost, missing, and even perishing. It got me thinking how — in the age of the smartphone, GPS, and navigation apps — could this happen? There are over 600,000 missing persons reports every year in the U.S. alone and I’d imagine that almost every one of those people had a mobile phone with them when they went missing. It’s one of those things that everyone always carries with them. For better or worse, we spend more time with our phones than almost anything else in our lives. Whether it’s in our pocket, purse, or in our hands, it’s always with us. So we set down the path of figuring out if someone couldn’t find their way out of a challenging situation by themselves, how could we use that phone they’re already carrying to bring help to them.
Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?
If there’s one thing I can say about the beginning of my journey is that everything was hard. You start with an idea, you share it with friends and family, and everyone tells you it’s great. But you start actually getting down to the important stuff — like finding the product-market fit — and learn that it’s wrong. You pivot, you adjust, you rethink. You spend hours convincing potential customers to meet with you, and then spend hours listening to the problems and challenges they face in their job. One of the key things I learned along the way was to fall in love with the problem, not the solution. You have to take everything you learn from your customers and help them solve those problems in order to be successful.
Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?
I would like to think that everyone — at some level — aspires to help other people. Most jobs that people have help people in one way or another. Working with phones, I helped people get the information they wanted faster. To help them connect with friends and loved ones easier. To keep entertained with the stories they wanted to read, the movies they wanted to watch, and the music they wanted to hear. But, I never helped save lives. The people who do that — the police officers, firefighters, EMTs, nurses, and doctors — they are heroes. I knew that the technology we built would help them save lives — directly — and that is what kept me going and keeps me going to this day.
So, how are things going today? How did grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?
Flyhound just graduated from NEC X’s Venture Studio Program with a product and patent to bring to market. Flyhound’s localization technology helps to find missing people 100x faster than traditional search and rescue methods.
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?
My co-founder, Antonio Albanese, is brilliant and he’s just about to finish his doctoral degree. Part of how Flyhound’s technology works is understanding how a cellular network communicates with the mobile phone and one of those things are called “priorities.” These priorities are ranked 1 to 7, but Antonio and I each had our own assumption as to which number was the highest and lowest and we were building our prototype around those assumptions. Let’s just say I was the one that was wrong! But, even in the areas that Antonio excels in, I have challenged him in thinking outside of the box and ended up being correct. We both learned to go at things with an open mind, be ready to accept your mistakes — be open to learn, and leave your ego at the door.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
I certainly would like to say that Flyhound’s mission and key values make us stand out, but I believe this should be the answer of every startup. I think what makes us stand out the most is our ability to do something with technology that can directly save lives. And it’s something that I’m very proud of.
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
My advice here is almost the antithesis of what you hear in business — whether building a startup or traversing the corporate world — you need a work-life balance; you need to be able to take a pause. And it’s equally important to take a pause during the day to clear your mind as well as over a weekend or even — gasp — a proper holiday. You should live and breathe bringing the best version of your solution to market and iterating it to continue to improve it forever thereafter, but don’t forget that you’re a human being. You have people in your orbit that aren’t in your work world. Spend time with friends, family, loved ones — take a day to enjoy your favorite hobby, or just to do nothing at all.
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?
I would say I’m indebted in gratitude to Ryo Kaneko, Director of Innovations and our program manager at NEC X’s Venture Studio. Ryo believed in what we were doing every step of the way and selflessly offered so much of his time to make sure we stayed focused and on the right track.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
One of the most heartbreaking things to hear on a call with a customer is “if we had your technology, this person would not have died.” Our vision is to ensure that public safety agencies are able to find missing people before that ever happens.
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 . Fall in love with the problem, not the solution. I am grateful this is one of the first things I learned working with NEC X and that’s at the core of everything Flyhound does. It’s easy to get caught up in how we believe our solution should work or what we think is important, but to build something truly great, it has to be great for the people that use it. Multiple times we adjusted our use case, roadmap, and feature set based on feedback we received from multiple agencies that we had never considered before when we started.
2 . Trust yourself, but always listen and learn from others. I can’t emphasize the importance of this to every founder out there. No matter if you’re building your first company or you’ve built multiple companies before with successful exits, no one person knows everything. You might understand your vision or what you’re building better than anyone, but you are not an expert at absolutely everything. One of the most important traits a founder can have is a willingness to learn, pivot, and be coached. Every interaction you have is a chance to learn.
At the very beginning of working with NEC X — I mean the very first call — we were asked to introduce ourselves, explain what we’re building, and share what we wanted to get from the program. I eagerly volunteered to go first and ended my introduction by saying “I was here to learn.” The other companies in the cohort shared their goals for revenue, specific KPIs, or fundraising goals and I instantly felt silly for answering the way I did. But as time went on, I came to realize that my answer was authentic to my goals. I knew that even if Flyhound didn’t succeed in the program, I would have come out knowing a lot more than I did at the beginning and that made it worth it — regardless of the outcome. The amount of knowledge and experience I’ve gained in the past year is exponential.
3 . Don’t go it alone. And I mean this from the perspective of having a co-founder. If you have a great idea but don’t yet have a partner to bring this to market, find one. There are a lot of resources out there to help you find the right person. Not only is it important from a fundraising standpoint, finding someone who complements you in areas you may not have the experience or bandwidth to succeed in makes it that much easier — and more fun — to work every day. Antonio and I each have unique skillsets that we bring to Flyhound every day and it’s the two of us together that drive the success of our business.
4 . Force yourself to take a break. This goes back to what I mentioned earlier about the antithesis to building a business. You’ve probably heard from all sorts of people from startup founders to Fortune 100 CEOs that you’ve got to put in the hours to succeed. That’s true, but that doesn’t mean you have to put in twenty-four hours every single day. Being a startup founder means you’re flexible. I’ve been on late night calls with Japan, early mornings with Europe, and everything in between. But no matter what you’re building, you have to remember that you are a person with important people and interests outside of building a business. Take an hour, take a day, set your status as “offline,” and don’t lose sight of who you are. If you believe what you’re building will make an impact in the world, taking a break to refresh won’t slow you down.
5 . You can get 90% of the way there with 10% of the effort, but it’s that last 10% to cross the finish line that requires 90% of the effort. Now this one might not be everyone’s experience, but I consider this one of the important learnings in building Flyhound. Early on, it seemed we were unstoppable. We seemed to validate a lot of our hypotheses early on and built our minimum viable product (MVP) in record time. It made me wonder how someone didn’t do all of it sooner. But as soon as we got 90% there, getting that last 10% seemed to take up all of our effort. I wouldn’t change it for a minute and that’s the life of building a business — know that there will be roadblocks, challenges, and difficulties — at times you least expect it.
Can you share a few ideas or stories from your experience about how to successfully ride the emotional highs & lows of being a founder”?
You only have to look at the statistics to ride the emotional highs and lows of being a founder: 90% of startups fail. And there are endless reasons why a startup could fail. Product, team, and funding are some of the top reasons. I always think about a quote from a movie that says “The end comes no matter what… I bring that lesson to this job. I act, knowing that someday this job will end, no matter what.” The end for a founder could come from a failure or an exit among others. If you can remember as a founder to act as a steward for your customers, your employees, and your investors — and can go to sleep at night knowing you’re doing the best you can for your stakeholders — then you can get through it.
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. :-)
Flyhound’s business is predicated on people getting lost. It’s a terrible thing especially when it can result in injury or death. Being prepared is one of the easiest ways to protect you and your loved ones. We built Flyhound to help save lives, but the only way I would be happy to fail would be if there was no longer a market to help find victims. Make a plan for your home and family at ready.gov.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Readers can follow Flyhound by visiting www.flyhound.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.
