The Hidden Art of Entrepreneurship
Many people in the tech world (myself included) probably wouldn’t consider themselves “artists,” but there’s more creativity in entrepreneurship than you might realize.
I’ve never thought of myself as a visionary or a creative — I was good at math and science. In fact, I vividly remember struggling so badly in my high school “intro to art” class that I convinced my school principal to let me take a second Computer Graphics class instead of Art 101 (even though such a class didn’t exist yet.) My mad hacking skills, combined with some great online tutorials, won me a spot in a newly created Computer Graphics II class and the necessary “fine arts” credits for graduation.
Oh, I even made my first company logo in that class. Check it out! :)
Fortunately, I squeaked by without having to take a “real” art class. I clearly wasn’t destined to become the next Picasso, but I always wondered if I’d be able to hone in on some artistic skills. I went on to study engineering, math, and computer science in college.
Fast Forward: An “Artrepreneurship” Discovery
It wasn’t until this year that my musings about discovering hidden artistic skills were answered. I was reading an article from Steve Blank that explained how entrepreneurship (and being a founder) is actually a form of art and self-expression. That really got me thinking. As a founder, we’re designing brands, business models, and visions for our companies. We can be as creative as we’d like and very few things are “off-limits.” This concept was very foreign to me, but for the first time in my life, I felt a little more like an artist — minus the paint brush, of course.
After Steve’s post, I started thinking that maybe there really is some “art” to what I do every day as a CEO. However, I still couldn’t get my engineering-y self to pull out the metaphorical paint brush and come up with a vision. Inherently, I knew it was important, but I just lacked the creativity muscles necessary to think about our business beyond the team, the processes, and the numbers.
A Reminder: Maybe This Vision Stuff IS Important…
The importance of a company vision resurfaced again in my CEO roundtable group, Arizona Growth Advisors. There, I’ve spent a lot of time learning the Gazelles Framework to build our company. In the framework, they really push things like values, purpose, vision, and (my favorite) BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals). Eventually, it clicked: if they’re using this stuff to build billion dollar companies, I need to start taking it more seriously and figure it out for Coplex.
A Vision Taking Shape Amidst Catastrophe
It was a crisp winter day (okay, like 65 degrees) in 2015 at our old Tempe office when I was walking to grab a coffee with our one and only, Matt G (know to Coplexers as “G”). We’ve been in business together since college back in 2009, and he was one of my first team members. We’ve always been pretty honest with each other.
On the way back from getting coffee (in all transparency), I told G that I was getting bored with Coplex. We had a nice little profitable company, a great team, and some good customers; however, we were trying to be everything for everyone and, therefore, we were not the best at anything. We mused about what pathways we had to be “the best” at something. The best Drupal development shop? The best full-service product development shop? The best corporate innovation software shop? The best at building software for startups? Something was intriguing to me about the last one, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
Why did building software for startups appeal to me? Well, I started my first startup in high school and have been part of building probably over 1,000 startups in my time. It’s such an interesting process to me, and it’s fun working with sharp entrepreneurs. Not to mention, most of our best work at Coplex up to that point was, in fact, with startups. At the time — I don’t even think we knew this then — we had built well over 100 startups inside of Coplex. Unknowingly, some would go on and do some really big things (i.e. Pluto TV series B).
Meanwhile, the company was dealing with a near-death experience. Because of this event and the repercussions that followed, I had to raise some capital into Coplex for the first time. So began the “pitching investors” phase.
I pitched Coplex and didn’t get much excitement. EBITDA multiples, years of doing business, profitability, solid team, and all our ducks were in a row. Yet, nobody gave a f&%k. We didn’t have a vision. We didn’t have a big plan to make a difference in the world, so when I fired off emails asking for commitments, all I got was crickets…
The Turning Point
I vividly remember standing outside on my patio on a fall day having a conversation with a potential investor in Phoenix. He was pretty blunt with me and basically said,
“You’re young. You need a bigger vision. Aim higher and do something bigger. You’re too smart to build a lifestyle services company.”
He challenged me to put together a bigger vision and send it over to him the next morning. Yeah, you got that right. The next morning. But, for whatever reason, this time constraint was EXACTLY the thing that let me flex my creativity muscles and put to paper the vision of what I wanted to Coplex to be. With my metaphorical “paintbrush” in hand, I finished the Coplex vision in a couple of hours.
I very quickly realized the incongruence between the previous “version” of Coplex and my personal vision. Herein lied the answer. We came up with our BHAG, purpose, and vision in a 2-page Google Doc, and it only took a couple of hours of focused concentration.
Victory At Last!
A couple of weeks after coming up with the vision, we successfully closed our $1.5M transaction to buy the company. Over a year later, our vision has become a (quick) reality. Not without its challenges, of course, but it’s been an awesome process.
And the best part? Despite thinking I might never grasp the artistic talents of my peers, I finally discovered my form of creative expression: entrepreneurship. It’s really cool to know that a 2-page Google Doc and a year of (really) hard work can turn a mere idea into a very real thing that impacts the lives of many. That’s the beauty of entrepreneurship and the subtle, but significant, forms of art intertwined within it.
