JumpStart: IdeaExchange Blog

I wrote recently about the Warrior Entrepreneurs of the North Coast, and I’m here now to write about the North Coast’s Phenomenal Founders. Initially, I wanted the criteria for Phenomenal Founders to be more about serial founders, that special breed of entrepreneur who has founded multiple wealth creating (for themselves, their employees, and investors) companies. But, I found too many phenomenal one-time (non-serial) founders that I didn’t want to limit it.

So, I expanded the criteria to include people who have founded at least one company (just one will do) that created wealth in the past ten years. Note that I did not do extensive VentureSource/VentureXpert/Dun & Bradstreet data downloads, comb through SEC filings, and conduct Martin Bashir-style in-depth interviews to get this information so I should emphasize that these are companies that seem to have created wealth. Also, you might ask: why the obsession with wealth creating exits specifically? Because it is wealth creation (through IPOs or acquisitions) that changes communities for the better: employees and investors make more money than they dreamed of, and they plough their money and their knowledge back into more early-stage ventures in a proven, well documented process called entrepreneurial spawning (see this article also). This spawning helps to create growing, dynamic communities whose workers enjoy growing average salaries. Think Microsoft, which, basically, turned Seattle/Redmond into something other than a sleepy western outpost because in-the-money employees left Microsoft and created more software startups. Take Mark Woodka at BSK Live in our portfolio. He was at TMW Systems and then Flashline and now he’s leading StaffKnex — a great example of serial entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial spawning all rolled into one.

So, back to those Phenomenal Founders — people who have founded companies that (it seems) created wealth for themselves, employees and shareholders alike. Here is my Phenomenal Founder list:

• Brian Deagan and Bill Landers (600 Monkeys)
• Stu Fishman (All Wound Up)
• Sam Gerace (Be Free)
• Chuck Hallberg (MemberHealth)
• Bruce Harris (Conferon)
• Peter Jacobsen (Dream Waffles)
• Trevor Jones (BioMec)
• Bob Lasser (Management Reports International)
• Carol Latham (Thermagon)
• Tim McCarthy (Workplace Media)
• Kevin McHale (Everstream)
• Dan Moore (Dan T. Moore Company)
• John Osher (Cap Toys/Spinbrush)
• Kenn Ricci (Flight Options)
• Geoff Thrope (NDI Medical)
• Ed Tromczynski (PlanSoft)
• Andrew Vaeth (ExpenseWire)

This is a fun list; I like it; when added to the Warrior Entrepreneurs list, and knowing that both lists are far from complete, it definitely feels like we in the North Coast have a solid entrepreneurial culture. Of course, seeing the extraordinary Carol Latham on the list, my mind naturally ambles to the question of: ladies, hey ladies, where ARE you? Yoo hoo, can some female Phenomenal Founders please stand up, come forward, don’t be shy now, if you got it flaunt it, know what I mean? I know there are many complex variables in the not-enough-female-technology-entrepreneurs issue, trust me I really, really know, but come on now. Won’t you puh-lease tell me about some women who founded high growth, wealth creating companies in the North Coast who are just not being celebrated here?

On a different note, I want to end by mentioning that I failed to include JumpStart’s very own former venture partner, Sam Gerace, in my prior post about warrior entrepreneurs. He co-founded Be Free, Inc., merged it with a public company (ValueClick), and then moved to Cleveland. We were lucky to have him spend a year with us at JumpStart, guiding first-time entrepreneurs. He is an entrepreneur through and through, and so he left us to head up another startup company here in town, Veritix, and my bet is that he will create another success. Sam is a Warrior Entrepreneur and Phenomenal Founder all rolled into one.

Okay, enough said: please let me know who you think should be added to the list of Phenomenal Founders.

Becca Braun is President of JumpStart Ventures. She founded and led a number of early-stage companies and organizations, as well as worked as a private equity investor and management consultant. She received her MBA from Harvard Business School and her BA in Linguistics from Harvard University. She is keenly interested in the intersection of wealth creation and broad-based regional economic growth.

In order to see what kind of robustness we (we = Northeast Ohio) have in the warrior entrepreneur front, I am trying to build a shortlist of the top innovation-oriented entrepreneurs in Northeast Ohio over the past 30 years. Here are my criteria for what constitutes a warrior entrepreneur. He or she needs to have:

• Innovated from scratch through either finding a technology or a new way of doing business. There are many great business people who have grown companies, but I’m talking about that rare breed that finds or develops an innovation at the earliest stages, and
• As CEO, grown this innovation into a company that employed a lot of people (say, 100+ people). Separately, I’m planning to compile a list of serial founders, which is different from this list — it’s people who found a technology and then move on to their next technology and then move on to another one after that. But this list is about people who found a company and grow it to create many jobs, and
• Achieved an exit (IPO, recap, or acquisition) that created significant wealth for investors, employees, and themselves. This does not mean that all investors and employees made a lot of money, since there are all kinds of factors that come into play here, but rather someone in addition to the entrepreneur founder has to have gotten rich enough to retire quite comfortably.

Here are some people who I think fit all three criteria and therefore are warrior entrepreneurs:

• Monte Ahuja (Tran star Industries)
• Ray Dalton (OneSource Services, National MD)
• Tom Embrescia (Independent Group)
• Michael Feuer (Office Max)
• Bruce Harris (Conferon)
• Jim Hummer (Whole Health)
• AJ Hyland (Hyland Software)
• Jack Kahl (Manco)
• Mike Kennedy (LDI)
• Peter B. Lewis (Progressive)
• Steve Lindseth (Complient)
• Sydell & Arnold Miller (Matrix Essentials)
• Mal Mixon (Invacare)
• Bill Sanford (Steris)
• Charlie Stack (Flashline)
• Gil Van Bokkelyn (Athersys), and
• Tom Weisz (TMW Systems).

These are the “who” of entrepreneurship in Northeast Ohio and as we build our entrepreneurial culture, they are well worth celebrating. Indeed, I’d like to dedicate a wall (similar to what existed at the old EDI here in town) in our building to having their names and companies on it (I know, a website is the new “wall”, but I also like the concept of having a physical wall). This wall could use a few more people, though, so please tell me whom I have missed (I am sure there are many). By the way, there are about 15 additional people who I originally had on this list but a close look at the criteria didn’t quite put them on the list; they’re extraordinary entrepreneurs, but don’t quite fit the criteria for this specific list because either they did not start the company from scratch, they sold the company and created wealth before it reached 100 employees, they have not yet exited, or their success was not within the past 30 years. In any case, I am curious as to who else in Northeast Ohio should be on this “warrior entrepreneurs” wall. 

My goal is to have a wall of nearly 60 names within 10 years. Why? I don’t exactly know (this is a blog, not a whitepaper, ok people?) But, I suppose my calculation is this: with maybe 25 people on the list today (if you include a bunch of people I forgot), 50 equates to the addition of two to three warrior entrepreneurs per year that the pipeline is building. In Northeast Ohio over the past 10 years, an average of about four technology/innovative companies per year have reported exits, and maybe about half of those are significant wealth-creating exits. So, say two per year historically, which leads to 20 new on top of the 25 that are already there, if we remained in steady state with the past 10 years. Since the capital and innovation pipeline has shown itself to be building nicely over the past five years, then it makes sense that we should be able to increase the number of new warrior entrepreneurs with great exits over the next 10 years to, say, three per year, or 30 total. Twenty-five existing plus 30 new = 55, plus a little more stretch to reach round numbers = 60 (a very whitepaper-type calculation indeed…). 

What specific new additions will be made to this wall over the next ten years? Well, we (Northeast Ohio) have a crop of potential warrior entrepreneurs in people like:

• Rahul Aras (Juventas Therapeutics)
• Laura Bennett (Embrace Pet Insurance)
• Kevin Berner (Logos Energy)
• Mike Broderick (Turning Technologies)
• Don Brown (Arteriocyte)
• Bill Nemeth (Mirifex), and
• Mark Woodka (StaffKnex).

They bring their own unique signature styles to what they do at their technology companies – with some consumed by developing technologies that might change the world, others laser focused on the blocking-and-tackling of growing a small business, and others obsessed with fulfilling clear and compelling customer needs all day, every day. It is hard to tell who among these, and many more, will become the warrior entrepreneurs of 2019, but it is fun working with them as they grow their companies.

So, with a pipeline building and a goal in mind, imagine the list being 60 true warrior entrepreneurs strong (and hundreds more extraordinary entrepreneurs, to boot) by 2019. Imagine the wall full of familiar and new names, all having achieved actual, real successes in growing companies and changing the world. (When I’m particularly ambitious, I even dream that it has some more immigrants, women, Hispanics, African Americans and the like, but, well, that’s a whole different topic, ain’t it?). Regardless, the companies these warriors grow do and will employ many among us, including our children and grandchildren. The companies they grow will be our shared future. This warrior-wall-in-my-mind belongs to all of us.   

Next time:  I will write about a Phenomenal Founders wall that celebrates those people who founded a company that created wealth for employees and Northeast Ohioans, but for various reasons achieved great exits before they got to the 100 employee mark.  

Note: Thanks to my colleague Lynn-Ann Gries for her very lengthy and well thought out list of warrior entrepreneurs. She knows entrepreneurship in this town like the back of her hand!

Becca Braun is President of JumpStart Ventures. She founded and led a number of early-stage companies and organizations, as well as worked as a private equity investor and management consultant. She received her MBA from Harvard Business School and her BA in Linguistics from Harvard University. She is keenly interested in the intersection of wealth creation and broad-based regional economic growth.