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CEO of EnticeLabs Ryan Caldwell On Startups - How Entrepreneurs Can Bring America Back
I had the opportunity to sit down with Ryan Caldwell last week. He's the CEO of Entice Labs, a startup based in Provo, UT that is changing the way companies recruit and attract talented people in technology. Using cutting-edge, patent-pending technology, Entice Labs allows employers to reach five times as many job candidates at a fraction of the price. Caldwell, a graduate of an earlier iteration of the Information Systems program at the Marriott School, is no stranger to startups and entrepreneurship. His first company was MadKey, an internet company that specialized in high-speed networks. He discovered an innovative way to get speedy internet to customers for less than what any of his competitors were charging. He described his competitors as being "a little miffed" as they would be out-bid nearly every time they went up against MadKey. Caldwell's team could service an entire apartment complex with high-quality service and only charge a fraction of their competitors’ fees. Needless to say, they had no problem getting new customers. Even more impressive though, was that they managed to maintain a profit margin of 80% even with such low prices.
A few weeks before his graduation from the Marriott School, he sold MadKey for $2.9 million. Not receiving the typical graduation present, he celebrated by doing what everybody who sells their company for a few million dollars before graduation from college does -- he kept working. Caldwell valued his startup experience, but wanted to see the corporate and international side of things. He worked in the corporate world for about 9 months in San Francisco (my hometown, and one of Caldwell's favorite places), where he traveled as far as London and Singapore for corporations like Microsoft and Visa. After getting a good feel for the corporate world, he then came back to Utah to help a few friends with their startups. He ended up at Entice Labs after being introduced to the team through colleagues in the area. The company had some big challenges ahead of it when he picked up the reins as CEO, and he and his team have been sprinting and sweating ever since to get the startup to its current level. "It's been one of the hardest things I've done," said Caldwell as we discussed his time at Entice Labs over Pita Pit sandwiches.
Rare VC Internship Opportunity for the Right Student(s)
Location:
Salt Lake City, UtahIndustry:
Finance/Banking - Venture CapitalJob Function:
Finance, Human Resources, Marketing, Product Management, Project Management, Supply Chain Management/LogisticsDescription
Internship:
Looking for 8-12 interns to work with successful start-up companies in Utah.Project Description:
vSpring Capital, the most recognized venture capital firm in Mountain West Region, is now accepting applications for summer internships. Several of vSpring's portfolio companies have expressed interest in adding a summer intern to their start-up team. Interns have previously worked on projects such as implementing software platforms, establishing financial controls, creating strategic road-maps, researching competitive landscapes, and leading entire marketing strategies.Job Description:
We are looking for 8-12 MBA or undergraduate business students to serve as full-time interns. Interns are placed in vSpring portfolio companies to provide the company a means of accomplishing projects that might be difficult given the company's limited resources. Therefore, intern assignments represent significant value-add projects and tasks that help the portfolio companies to secure their competitive advantage. Intern assignments are strategic in nature, and may involve market research and quantification, competitor analysis, marketing, product and project management, R&D, or finance. Only after individual job descriptions are developed are candidates screened and interviewed. These descriptions are then matched to the intern possessing the best combination of skills and background. Interns achieve the highest levels of quality and performance in their internships, and produce deliverables that are consistent with vSpring's recognized standard of excellence.Benefits and Opportunities:
Work with premier and highly-active venture capital firm and gain invaluable experience with a successful start-up organization. Establish a network of business professionals that can assist in career development. Specifically looking for those interested in Finance, Marketing, and Operations. The portfolio companies of vSpring are in the technology & life sciences fields.HOW TO APPLY:
Send resume and cover letter to [Update] Adam Chavez at adam@vspring.com (Mobile: 801-687-1401)BYU Entrepreneur Raises $200,000 Builds Factory in Phillipines Pays Double Avg Wage
GarbGameDayWear.com started out simply enough. Steven Rosenbeck, the Founder and CEO (and future winner of the BYU Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award - 2008 see photos), had just returned from a 2-year long service and teaching mission in the Phillippine islands. He had envisioned a plan to manufacture uniforms on the islands, then sell them to schools in the US.
After talking to several local sporting teams in the states, he found a buyer. After getting the order he went to work. There was only one problem. How do you make uniforms in a different country and then have them delivered to the US? And how do you pay for them when you're a broke-as-a-joke returned missionary?
He borrowed $400, and found a way to send it the money to a friend on the island. The friend (who would become his manager) knew of several clothing factories in the area. After receiving the money, his contact in the Phillipines had the uniforms made, and then sent them back to the states. First deal, a success! He was paid $800 for the finished product, a nice 100% profit on his first sale. His second deal was just around the corner, but this one wouldn't quite be the same. "You what?" said the surprised customer. "You have a manager in the Phillipines who will go to 1 of 7 different factories and make the clothes, and then send them to the states? Wait a minute, how old are you?"
Followed by a question, "How would you like me to give you $40,000 and you go and build your own factory, and we go into business together?" "Sure!!" came Rosenbeck's confident, yet somewhat surprised answer. And off Rosenbeck went, (with $40,000 in cash in a duffel bag) on his way to the Philippines. After sitting through a painfully long 12-hour bus ride from the airport to the city (right after a trans-Pacific flight), he went to the house of his manager.
A couple of other factories were going out of business, so they figured that'd be a good place to start. They bought up all their equipment for pennies on the dollar. Then land. A family he knew was selling land, but liked Rosenbeck, and said, "Aah, we like you. Here, take our land for cheap." He did, and bought 2 acres worth.
Then to build it. Construction workers in the area had been so impressed with Rosenbeck as a missionary that they worked practically for free and built a beautiful new factory. And then Rosenbeck set off for the USA, with exactly $5 to his name (and in his pocket). Rosenbeck recounted at the last BYU CEO meeting, "I had forgotten that when you get to customs they take $5 from you if you're leaving the country. I said 'Shoot!' how am I going to eat on the 24-hour flight home?" Eat he did not. But have a story to tell he certainly did. And tell it he did, with a lot of humor and a perfect balance of adventure and a reflection of his business savvy.
Now his company is on track to do nearly $200,000 in revenue (2008). His workers work in a state-of-the-art factory (air-conditioned, he likes to point out), make double the local wage for similar jobs, have a college scholarship for all their children, and a retirement plan. This all thanks to the hard work, business know-how (and good fortune) of Steven Rosenbeck.
He's the inspiration for a lot of entrepreneurs on campus, and the winner of the recent BYU Student Entrepreneur of the Year Competition. I'd say he deserves it. Watch out for this guy, if he can do this at 23, imagine what he can accomplish after going around the block a few times. Standing at about 5'6", with short blonde hair, and with the unassuming appearance of somebody who had just graduated high school, he ended by saying, "If I can do this, anybody can. That's my message to you. If you want to make something happen the hardest part is starting. Just start."
"Blackboard killer" Instructure.com Closes Initial Funding Round - BYU Founders Close to Deals with Universities
Devlin Daley and Brian Whitmer seem to have hit a vein; local investors agree, and have funded Instructure.com to the tune of $50,000. This will take them through 1 year from now, and into near-complete product development and launch. The team has a meeting with several venture capital firms (vSpring among them) this week, so more deals are likely forthcoming.
After years of dealing with the holes and problems with Blackboard, the software that helps universities around the country manage their students, classrooms, grades, etc., the 2 Computer Science PhD's from Brigham Young University in Provo, UT decided to do something about it. They founded Instructure.com.
Many startups make the mistake of spending too much time developing a product before talking to customers to make sure they're making something that will sell. Instructure.com has done the reverse. They've spent the bulk of their time talking to universities before developing it so that they are sure they are building the right thing. The team just finished a nation-wide tour. As they criss-crossed the country's universities, their strategy was simple. "We just asked the school's CTO's what their frustrations with Blackboard were," Devlin told me in an informal chat on campus. They told us, "If you can fix problems x through y, you've got a deal. We'll try your software."
I'm excited to see what comes of this (and so should the millions of students who use Blackboard). I'll keep you posted on any developments on the story.
Edited for clarity.
Want Quality News re: Startups and Venture Capital? Try this.
EnticeLabs.com is Hiring BizDev Interns
Ryan directs EnticeLabs' strategic vision and leads its talent team towards ever increasing levels of performance for its customers, partners, and shareholders. While still in college, Ryan founded and developed multiple Internet and tech businesses and drove them to multi-million dollar exits. Additionally, Ryan has spearheaded acquisitions and mergers for several startups he has directed. Ryan has worked for the smallest hot startups and the largest Fortune 500 companies. He has consulted in the US, Singapore and London for large corporations including Visa and Microsoft.emphasis added EnticeLabs is a startup to watch. They're hiring exceptional people for part-time work in business development. I have a friend that works there, and he loves the people, the challenge, and the product. If you're interested, go here. Reading this from a feed? Go to the original article to make a comment.
Startup Business Idea That I'd Like to See #1
My Friend Rich, and How He Turned a Hobby Into 500,000 Monthly Page Views and $50k
So, I think that a common mistake that entrepreneurs make is they only think, "What's in it for me? How can I make a quick buck? What will people pay me for today?" There is the rare person that asks these questions but also has the intuition to understand that you must ask these questions in conjunction with, "What do people really need? What do I love doing and am passionate about? What will benefit the people around me?"
The best entrepreneur is this latter, unselfish kind, (but who also understands the importance of a real business model, as "Art of the Start" author Guy Kawasaki put it once, "How do I get the user's money in my pocket?"). Sometimes, though, it's not even entrepreneurship. It's the other kind of creation. The kind where you do it just because you love creating something, and you would do it for free all day long if you could.
"Maybe you can't make money doing what you love" is a thought-provoking Seth Godin piece that explores this a bit. I recommend taking a look at it. My friend Rich has been building something just because he's passionate about it, everyday now, for the last 8 months or so. He built a site called MintyWhite.com, all about Windows Tools. He didn't start it because he wanted to make money -- and actually, not even because he thought it would turn into anything big.
He did it, in his own words, because he "thought it would be fun." And it has been. If you ask him about it, he lights up. He loves talking about it, about how it's grown to almost 2,000 feedburner subscribers, about how many people have personally thanked him for the cool tools he's shown them, for the satisfaction in building something worthwhile. And, as the title said, somebody offered him $50k to buy it outright.
So, needless to say, he's hit a nerve, and he just recently hit a big growth curve in terms of traffic. Now, this kind of "creating" doesn't work if you're a VC- or angel-backed Silicon Valley company, and it doesn't work if your creation is your living. But I do think that it's important to always keep in mind, "Am I doing something that I really love? Am I passionate about it? Am I creating something valuable for others?" That's my two cents. What do you all think?
Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum was great - Dennis Wood from vSpring came
The Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum was excellent, as usual. Dennis Wood from vSpring spoke about the process of hiring the right people at the right times in a startup's life. It confirmed some of the things I already knew (in a tech startup, at the beginning all you need is a couple of awesome technical founders and a visionary CEO who's not afraid to go out and make connections, sales, etc.)
Dennis Wood's story is pretty cool. He moved out from CA to SLC to work on an executive search firm startup with his friend. After landing a few major deals (a Coca-Cola executive and a few other big companies' executives), he started to get more attention in the press, etc. He knew some people from the venture capital firm, vSpring, and after hearing them talk over and over again about how important human capital is (ie solid management), he called them up and said, "If you think human capital is so important, why don't you have somebody in the firm who's sole role is to hire management for the companies in your portfolio?" They liked his pitch, and hired him. The rest is history - he's a really nice guy.
He and I sat at lunch together at the UVEF before he gave the keynote address. Before the meeting started, we all go around the room and talk about why we're there and what we're working on. When time came for me to stand up, I said, "I'm with the CEO club at BYU and I'm spearheading an effort to reach out to software entrepreneurs and connect them with the resources/tools/contacts they need to start and build great companies." After the meeting ended, several people came up to me to express their interest in what I was doing.
Business cards from investors and entrepreneurs flooded my wallet. I think I've hit a nerve - and it's really exciting. Today I went out to give my first announcement to a CS class (looking for software entrepreneurs). 5 people responded! In just my first announcement! If I can get the info for 5 software entrepreneurs or future-entrepreneurs every time I make an in-class announcement, we can find some great talent on campus, and help them build some awesome companies. Facebook came out of Harvard, Google out of Stanford. Some awesome software/tech/web companies have come out of BYU also - Omniture for example. I'd like to see the next big thing come out of BYU, and I know the ideas and the people are here. I just have to look hard enough, and I'll find them.
