Phase 3: Romancing The Good Old Days (But Were They?!)
This is a series about getting your life back on track and achieving your goals.
I was certain I needed to get back to my roots. I wanted to recreate what was the most fulfilling experience in my life. I wanted to return to entrepreneurs and startups. That’s where it was all happening. That’s where I was meant to be. That’s where I would be completely and totally fulfilled.For the last decade, I had been working as an operating executive (GM, VP, President) for public companies here and in the UK.
I became a corporate guy.
When I started as a corporate executive, I loved it. I was learning so much. Initially, it was with my mentor, Jim Porter, who taught me how to lead and manage companies as a professional manager. Later, with my mentor, Sterling Williams, who showed me how to build an enterprise. Over time, as the companies I was responsible for grew in size and my responsibilities increased, I became increasingly disenchanted.
Being out of the real action left me disillusioned.
I loved the place where business really happens, in the market. Working shoulder to shoulder with the men and women on the front lines. Executing on strategy rather than setting strategy. I wanted to be back to selling, delivering, supporting customers, and hitting goals as a team.I believed, for me, this could only happen in an early stage company. Being out of the Atlanta startup scene for close to a decade, I had virtually no network. But I knew one guy who knew everyone and they knew him: Richard Brock.While I was doing my corporate thing, my former partner, one of the greatest entrepreneurs I know, was building his own company. He built a company from scratch called Brock Control Systems. It was here Richard coined the phrase “salesforce automation.”In seven years, he grew Brock Control Systems to be the salesforce automation leader and a public company with a $90mm valuation. This was big in 1992.“I know I have been out of touch, but I need your help. Can I come by your office?” I asked Richard.
I sat in his office overlooking the Atlanta skyline.
I said, “Congratulations on building such a great company. What you’ve accomplished is nothing short of amazing.”“Thank you,” he replied, “but I didn’t do it all myself. My partner, Roger Johnson, helped make this into the company it is today. He is a great president and leader. I am so fortunate we found each other.”“I’ve been following you, even though I haven’t been in touch,” I said. “I wanted to confess to you, I’m jealous. You have everything I want. I am not second guessing myself on the path I chose after we sold our company. I met some amazing and talented people and learned a ton and made great money. But I believe I was meant to be in early-stage companies and not big corporations.”“So what are you doing now?” he asked.I told him the story of how I left my corporate job. Then I said, “I want to get back to early-stage companies. I want to come back to working with great entrepreneurs like you. I miss it. Can you help me?”He said, “There is an entrepreneur who came to me for help last week. His name is Mark Bloomfield. He started a company called AudioFax. He might be able to use your help.”
Mark and I met the next day.
When I walked into his office, I felt the startup buzz. It was like breathing fresh air again. I walked in the front door of AudioFax and said to myself, “This is my environment. I need to be here and not in a corporation. I love the electricity of fear and excitement in the air.”Mark and I talked, and then he took me into his R&D lab. He showed me a combination voice and fax circuit board. It was the first of its kind in the market. He held it with such pride. I could see this circuit board was a vision which became a reality. I saw all this just by the way he admired it and handled it with such care. He said, “This is breakthrough technology, and I hold the patent on store and forward fax. AudioFax is going to be a billion dollar company.”This was the first time I ever heard an entrepreneur say “billion dollars.” Mark had that special something. The gift of creating something from nothing. The gift and the ability to cast a big vision combined with the leadership to inspire others to follow him.We moved quickly. I became president of AudioFax. In short order, we had a new strategy which forecasted fast growth. We raised money, reconstituted the board, hired salespeople, created new brochures, and were developing product and selling. We were on our way to a billion dollar company.
In eight months, I resigned.
It wasn’t Mark, the company, or the strategy. It was me again. I wasn’t fulfilled. I thought recapturing what I had with Richard would give me the fulfillment I so desperately desired. But I couldn’t shake the thought of “I’ve already been here and done this.” I was fighting the same problems I found so exciting ten years ago. But now I found them boring.
Now what?
As I was walking out of AudioFax, something Richard had said in our conversation in his office came flooding into my mind. “It will do you good to go without a paycheck for a while.”I was scared.