Plenary sessions
Saturday, 11/14, 8:30 am - Entrepreneurial Discussion
Moderator: Deborah Norville, Emmy Award-winning journalist and host of “Inside Edition”
Panelists:
- Mary Ellen Sheets, Founder and CEO, TWO MEN AND A TRUCK ®/INTERNATIONAL, Inc.
- Matthew Szulik, Chairman, Red Hat, Inc
- Charlie Vogt, President and CEO, GENBAND
- David Liu, CEO, The Knot Inc.
“Are entrepreneurs made or born?” That was the topic of a discussion with leading entrepreneurs hosted by Deborah Norville at the Ernst & Young Strategic Growth Forum on Saturday. Whatever the answer, they had interesting stories to tell.
Mary Ellen Sheets, a single mother in Michigan, founded the Two Men and a Truck moving company when her two teenage sons asked her for spending money.
A woman she met suggested that she franchise her company and put her in touch with an attorney. “I didn't even understand what he was talking about,” she said. She also lacked business knowledge. “I never had an accounting course. I called our bills ‘the Ins and the Outs.' I didn't know anything about franchising, or about trucking.” It all worked out, however, and today the company has worldwide revenues of US $193 million. Still, Sheets teaches franchisees to abide by The Grandma Rule: “Treat every customer as if they were your grandma.”
Chief executives often take heat when the company stock price drops.
Matthew Szulik, Chairman of Red Hat Inc., actually received death threats. “That's when we decided to listen to our customers and give them what they wanted: free software.” Today Red Hat is sitting on US $1 billion in cash and is the largest publicly traded provider of open-source software.
Szulik pointed out that branding starts with a company's employees. “Galvanizing your workforce to believe in your mission helps define you in the minds of your customers, and ultimately shapes your brand.” He points out that the tech sector has posted good earnings in recent months, a positive sign that the markets expect economic growth. But sales cycles have gotten longer, and competition is still brutal. “Free is good right now,” he says.
Charlie Vogt has grown GENBAND's revenue from US$5 million to US$150 million. A supplier of next-generation IP gateways, session border controllers and fixed-mobile convergence security solutions, GENBAND now serves eight of the world's 10 largest telecommunications equipment manufacturers. His advice to entrepreneurs: “Follow your dreams. If you don't love what you're doing, you're going to struggle.” Perseverance is also a critical ingredient for success. “When you think you've hit rock bottom, you haven't,” he says. “Embrace the will to win.”
David Liu graduated from New York University Film School and decided he didn't want to direct films – “which basically made me unemployable,” he says. Liu had to create his own job. He decided to found The Knot.com, a one-stop website for all things wedding-related. “The wedding space was so fragmented that no one was addressing all customers' needs at once,” he observed.” Today, eight out of 10 couples getting married in America visit The Knot.
Liu says The Knot has been relatively insulated from the recession. “Despite the economic woes, people still get married.” But advertisers are less sanguine and are trimming budgets. Everyone's still tentative because they fear consumer spending won't recover. Even so, Liu plans to pursue market share aggressively, even as others are pulling back. “You have to tack against the common behavior,” he says. “That's when the opportunities reveal themselves.”
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