About

Back in college, I had the kind of epiphany that you hope tuition buys you. It came thanks to Joseph Campbell, philosopher behind Star Wars, who pointed out that it is only recently in world history that business buildings tower over capitals and churches in the skyline. Business is just starting to shape the world. New myths are being born. This potential captured my undergraduate imagination. So I framed my Slavic Language and Literature diploma, and set out to learn to build businesses. I could help the world by being a business guy.

M5 Networks, Inc.

Fast forward to my most recent venture, which eclipsed a few others. M5 was a full journey through the high-growth lifecycle: six years of bootstrapping to $10 million revenue, five years investing $20 million of venture capital (from Edison, Greycroft, and Milestone) to scale to a recurring $50 million revenue; staffing to 120 employees, retreating to 70, charging ahead in three years to 200; two acquisitions; selling to ShoreTel (SHOR) for about $160MM, a year+ working as a public company officer; a gnarly departure. We won awards for growing fast, like multiple years on Inc’s 500 list; for creating a top-notch customer experience; and for pioneering an industry, like Gartner’s top placement in its first ever Cloud Unified Communications quadrant. I was recognized as a Fortune Mag Best Boss, and got some Top Entrepreneur Awards. Big, big, fun. M5 had three ingredients that I will work with with again:

B2B. One of my favorite parts of my job was getting to know our clients, fellow business leaders that chose us because they were also innovating new ways to work. M5 tore up the phone system model, the heart and bloodstream of the old office. Our clients showed us how to develop our communications technology so they could run their businesses differently, sell more, and service better. This put me right where I wanted to be, helping to reinvent how businesses work. I'm proud of the world-class B2B sales and service teams we built.

Customer Experience. This fueled everyone at M5. It made work fun. It was our identity. And it cut the other way: when we stumbled, it sucked the air out of us. Sometimes, we slowed our growth to get our service mojo back. And when we chose to sell the company, it was to someone that also competed with an outstanding customer experience. The sale was a way to gain new resources to maintain service leadership in an exploding market. Chasing this taught us about technology, reliability, scale, and culture. There are many strategies for winning in business, but I loved working with this one.

Learning. Training revs people up. At M5 I saw this in sales, service, technology, and management jobs. And when we invested in learning to learn in our overall corporate culture with the M5 Rock Battle of the Bands and M5 Roll Jiu-Jitsu programs, our workplace ignited. 10% more discretionary effort? Easily. I've seen arguments that it is much higher. We grew our people, and in turn the company grew. Learning can be a powerful competitive advantage in today’s knowledge economy, and I want to bet even bigger on this exiting frontier. Once my next company proves this point, I picture a TED talk about the power of learning in business performance.

M5 iu-Jitsu Video:

CEO’s Education

So what about my own education? I’m “classically trained” for sure: liberal arts magna cum laude from Harvard, Wharton MBA, a Master’s from the Lauder Institute in International Studies. But some job experiences and other teachers have more directly impacted me as an entrepreneur, manager, and leader.

In the 90's, Russia was wild but I chose tech

My first job was as a management consultant. Then, a client hired me to be a too-young operations manager of a 400-person student-loan service center where I learned management and customer service. When we we sold the loans and closed the center, I tried to re-engage with Russia. But in the mid-90s the technology revolution had grabbed me, and entrepreneurial life in Russia seemed pretty dicey. I joined up with Phil Kim and some other MIT grads that had started Interport, an early and well-regarded Internet Service Provider (ISP). I learned how Internet plumbing worked. We solid it to RCN, a phone company, in 1998.

Ignoring the gathering storm clouds, and turning down traditional MBA jobs, I started what became Asia Online. We spent $144 million of venture capital in about two years rolling up twenty little ISPs across Asia. I learned about culture, scale, operational support systems, VCs, Korean Karaoke nights, and the dark truth about drop bears (Thylarctos plummetus). We failed spectacularly, aborting two IPO attempts and then liquidating in 2000. I settled back into NYC, joined up with the Interport gang again to start M5, and got married.

Interport gang founded M5 in 2000

Zappos office visit inspired me.

During M5, I trained for seven years with www.theajinetwork.com, an innovative program that marries philosophy with business and helped me learn many things including sales, strategy, organizational design, how to figure out what M5 would stand for. I joined www.eonetwork.org, then www.YPO.org, and constantly tapped this community of peer CEOs and experts. Throughout I constantly had one coach or other in a specific area - tech marketing (Richard Currier), mission and core values (Simon Sinek), public speaking (Lynda Spillane), team dynamics and so much more (Fernando Flores). I studied, visited with, and copied companies like Rackspace, Zappos, Fedex, and Salesforce.com. And I soaked up barrels of business books.

She drives!

And Now For Something Completely Different

I left ShoreTel in June, a little over a year after we closed the M5 sale. This summer, Julie, Audrey, Hazel and I were winners in the Saltaire, Fire Island sand castle contest. As the fall rolls in, I’m splitting time according to this pie chart: training in Jiu-Jitsu, which reminds me how to learn; growing WIBO and starting the EO Brooklyn chapter, which means connecting with innovative entrepreneurs and investors; writing, reading and reflecting on the past, for the sake of sharpening my saw for the next venture; and maybe some Board or consulting work. As for the next company, code named Hoffman Industries, I’m developing some ideas and open to others. I expect Hoffman Industries will start to eat up most of my time-pie in 2014. When it does, the next venture will be to take my work in B2B, service and learning to the next level.

Update: Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition

On July 1, 2015 the four of us landed in Barcelona, Spain for what is shaping up to be a two-year family learning adventure. We had many reasons: investing in our family, getting back into the "world" after a decade in the US, and seeing some fresh perspectives. The kids are enjoying the Benjamin Franklin International School. Audrey is winning medals on a local Catalan competitive gymnastics team. We're all learning spanish, and loving this fantastic city. And we've had some amazing road trips throughout Spain (Costa Brava photo on the left), Morocco, France, Italy, Greece, the UK and counting. I love being involved in lots of projects, and learning about learning as I develop my next work project.