The late Pat McGovern had been raised in the Seattle area and graduated from Seattle Prep. He later became a colonel in the US Army and served on President Ronald Reagan’s staff in charge of communication systems, working in the same rank as Colonel Oliver North. While his distinguished military career had taken him around the world, he eventually settled in the Washington DC area with his family. After his stint with President Reagan, he joined Oracle in its new mobile division. Yet, he was drawn to our Seattle upstart company that gave him a nostalgic tie back to his home town.

I was a young executive who hired this experienced and distinguished executive. I ended up moving my family to Washington DC and we grew ARIS’ presence within the Eastern Seaboard together.

He was patient with me and always respected my opinions. It was only much later that I realized he had also imparted a lot of wisdom to me. Once when I was frustrated over some employee issues, he calmly told me that after all his years in the military, he had realized that no one can make someone else do anything that the person does not want to do. I still think about his words when trying to lead a team toward a common vision.

It is a leader’s job to assess who will follow a common vision and who will not. A leader must lead by example, not just words nor with some title. A leader, himself, must be committed to the vision. I stopped complaining about what may be going wrong. I became more transparent about what I was thinking. I learned to be clear about my vision and find people who WANTED to be with me.  In the end, a leader’s success is measured NOT by personal achievements, but only by the team’s overall success.

Pat passed away years ago from cancer, but his insights still guide me as I build my teams, and my companies.

Much of my focus here this time is work, but tonight I was going to meet the only person I would ever call mi mate, Hugh Simpson-Wells. Remember I’m American, we don’t really say that.

Back in 1996, I met Hugh, who owned of one of the most reputable technical training companies in the UK (Oxford Computing Group). I had called him out of the blue and showed him how he could get to a liquidity event with his company by joining forces with ARIS (my company at the time). He bought into it and Oxford Computing Group was acquired by ARIS, just prior to our IPO on NASDAQ in 1997.

Hugh is a guy that everyone just wants to be around. He really has the “je ne sais quoi” about him. We stayed close even after ARIS was sold off to Ciber in 2001. Now, he’s got his own new venture and I have mine. When I  had lived in London, we had torn it up together pretty good at times.

Tonight, we agreed to meet at Restaurant Soho Spice because I remembered that my boys loved the place. I arrived in Soho 15 minutes early and felt confident about getting to the restaurant on time. I maneuvered through the Soho streets, happy to hear so many different languages along the way. I walked past restaurants and bars from my past, bringing back loads of memories…

Thirty minutes later, I was still looking for Soho Spice. I thought for sure I knew exactly where it was, but couldn’t find the place. I guess I didn’t remember as much about the city as I had thought.

Knowing that Hugh had ridden in from Oxford, I felt absolutely horrible  for being late.  My US  iPhone was of no use here and I felt completely helpless.

Fifteen minutes later, now a half an hour late, I became desperate, actually asking people if they knew of Soho Spice. No one knew.

An hour into my search, I started looking for an internet cafe so I could find the address and to email his iPhone that I was lost. Eventually, I found a hotel and got the address from the concierge.

As I hurried toward the place, Hugh was walking toward me with a smirk. Apparently, Soho Spice had closed two years ago and I had walked past its old location several times. After many apologies, we found an Indian Restaurant nearby and had some proper curry and a bottle of wine.

We reminisced, as well as talking about our current lives. Time flew. Then, we got our bill to head off to Ronnie Scott Jazz club. We laughed about hanging out at Tiger Tiger and China White during earlier times, and whether we would even be let in now…

It’s 5:30 am and I just got back to my hotel. I probably shouldn’t really be blogging. However, fourteen years of friendship is something that doesn’t come by easily. And it’s something that I certainly don’t take lightly. In the end, as he got out of the cab at Marble Arch, we gave each other a “fist” pump and said, “THAT was an awesome time.” See, he’s become a bit American as well (but don’t tell him).

Dude, really, I’d kick it with you anytime, anywhere in the world. Peace.

1. It’s about the TEAM: No matter if you are MIT smart like Paul Song, it’s the collective ability of the leadership team, not one individual. You cannot scale without having a cohesive team. So, a great leader surrounds himself with not only capable, but also a cohesive management team.
2. Be FRUGAL: I applaud Paul for setting a very fiscally conservative tone from the outset. At times, we complained about him for being too “cheap”. But in hindsight, his tight fiscal management allowed ARIS to grow from a basement operation to a 1,000 employees in seven years without any outside capital.
3. OUTSIDE Perspective: If you are experiencing exponential growth, bring experienced outside executives to test the leadership’s perspectives. Make sure to have a board that constructively challenges the management team.
4. Make Promises that you CAN KEEP: It’s easy to get caught up in your own success and over-promise to employees, investors and all stakeholders. Be careful what you promise directly or even indirectly.
5. Remember the PASSION: Many growing companies going public become too focused on the numbers. During difficult times, this focus can become myopic. Remember the passion behind the company — the Vision.
6. Don’t believe all the HYPE: People have a pack mentality. They tend to exaggerate the positives when things are going well, and exaggerate the negative when things are going bad. You know how you are doing inside. Listen to that inner voice.
7. Beware of GREED: It can sneak up on you. Keep in perspective your initial personal goals. Adjust them accordingly to changing situations but beware of becoming greedy and making the wrong decisions for the wrong reasons.  If you are fortunate enough to take a company public, start moving the eggs to other baskets — diversify.
8. Give LUCK its due: Without question, luck or karma or fate have a tremendous influence on your success. Don’t kid yourself. Acknowledge that and you may find more graces of luck. If not, be ready to fall on the sword of arrogance.

Looking back, we were so young and so naive. Success visited the three of us early in life, but life had a lot of lessons yet to teach us. I guess I’m still learning.

In terms of IQ, Paul and Kendall were phenomial. We lacked experience, however, and were too arrogant to bring on experienced outside executives. Investment bankers, industry analysts, partners, friends all told us we were “awesome” — and we believed the hype. It was an easy seduction.

We overcame a lot of obstacles with sheer perseverance and hard work. In the process, we learned a lot about building a company, managing layers of people and running a public company. Much of that experience was humbling. We made our share of mistakes. I guess our saving grace was our ability to learn quickly and continuously — and to rely on each other. We gained a lot of experience.

Eventually, the economic downturn of the dot bomb hurt ARIS as well. The company was later sold to Ciber in September, 2001. 

My memories of the ARIS days are some of the best in my lifetime. Kendall and others from ARIS remain as dear life-long friends. When I sit down with Kendall and reminisce about those days, time just flies by. It’s a blink of two hours, just like that! We finish each other’s stories. 

Since ARIS, we’ve both had additional successes and failures as entrepreneurs. The blood still boils hot for us “old guys”. You’ll continue to see us around the Seattle technology community, sometimes dishing out advice from our experience from the ARIS days.

For his students, Jeff brings more than just his academic experience and background. He had a long and prosperous career in the corporate world prior to landing on Seattle University’s campus. In fact, it was his job at Oracle that moved him and his family to Seattle from Iowa 22 years ago.

Later, Jeff turned into an entrepreneur by starting his own technology-based training company, Clarity, in 1992. Three years later, Clarity was acquired by ARIS and Jeff and I ended up working together.

Jeff joined ARIS as Vice President of Education and played various strategic executive roles leading up to the company’s IPO in 1997. “The whole growth thing was fun,” he said. “Having a part in helping new offices grow in New York, Washington DC, Denver, Dallas and others was very satisfying.”

Jeff left ARIS in 2000 and enjoyed retirement for a little less than year. Apparently, his wife, Glenda, didn’t enjoy his retirement quite as much and asked him to get a job. Having solidified his golf swing during his mini-retirement, he looked for a job that would keep him in the tech field but would not be a huge time commitment — like ARIS had been. The opportunity from Seattle University in 2001 seemed perfect.

“The students today are much more web and technology-savvy than even a decade ago when we were at ARIS,” he said, explaining that this allows him and his students to focus more on interesting applications of computer science rather than just the rudimentary elements.

Jeff has especially worked hard with the senior projects, which involve a group of students working with a local sponsoring company on a defined project. At first, the students are really confident that they can do what the projects require, he said. Then, as the project moves on, the complexity of working together and solving business requirements become somewhat overwhelming for them. Inevitably, the students pull it together and come up with interesting and effective solutions. “That’s been the most gratifying part for me,” Jeff said of working at Seattle University.

Local companies, such as Boeing, Areva, Mckinistry, among many others, participate in this program to help young students gain useful experience, as well as a way of recruiting new graduates.

Recently, my company, ZeroDash1, hired two of the recent graduates from his program. So far, we’ve been impressed with their knowledge as well as work ethics. I can see why nurturing such blossoming young minds could be so rewarding to this former corporate executive.

Looking forward, however, Jeff is pondering retirement again. But Glenda needn’t worry, he plans to stay out of the house playing music and golf. Jeff currently plays guitar in a 9-piece Swing Jazz band, Easy Street. The band will be playing at Tulas on August 31st from 3:00 TO 7:00PM. He promises fun times for all those who attend.

Jeff has always had a passion for music since his glory days in a high school rock band. He plans to get involved in a couple of other “duet projects” later this year.

The truth of the matter is that if you were an entrepreneur in the Seattle area during the late 1990’s and early 2000s, you probably met Brad or heard him speak at one of the many “how to raise private equity” or “emerging growth company” seminars and events he chaired or sponsored. From its inception in late 1995 until its merger into a national law firm in 2002, Van Valkenberg Furber Law Group was involved with many of the region’s most successful start-up and emerging growth companies. Brad’s clients included Classmates Online, Digimine, Jones Soda, CallVision, Elf Technologies, VenCore Solutions and many others. He estimates that at one point he had an equity interest in more than 50 start-up and emerging growth companies. Of those, approximately a dozen have achieved some form of liquidity event, many ceased operations or liquidated assets in firesales during the dotcom bust, and some are still out there, fighting the good fight, trying to spin straw into gold.

Now, like so many attorneys, Brad has moved over to the business side. Why not? He is now getting paid to manage a business, but not expected to keep detailed records of his time billing hours to clients, recruiting and herding lawyers, and doing after hours client development. As an equity partner, he was expected to do all these things, and more. Those demands were straining Brad’s ability to spend time with his wife and kids. Those demands also did not give him as much time to exercise his creative interests and talents, in business and otherwise. On his 41st Birthday three years ago, Brad announced to the shock and surprise of many in his family that he was resigning as the executive partner of the Seattle office of a major national law firm to become the eighth employee of a small software company located in Sammamish, Washington.

For the last three years, Brad has served as President of Xeriton Corporation. Xeriton is a private company focused on bringing cutting edge consumer software and web services to market. The company now has almost thirty employees, and has achieved profitability each of the last three years. Xeriton has created a constellation of brands, including Sammsoft, ByteCrusher and Zoombli (the latter of which has in the last six months rocketed into the top 1,250 most visited Internet sites as ranked by Quantcast). Brad and his team are launching and building new brands (with associated products and services) with a view towards creating a synergistic network. To leverage its network, Xeriton has been releasing and plans to continue to roll out a number of new products and services.

Last week, the company launched a live computer support service called Zoombli LiveHelp (http://www.zoomblilivehelp.com/; toll free 1-888-660-4850). LiveHelp Experts, all of whom are certified resolution experts, are available around the clock to ensure its customers computer problems are completely resolved – satisfaction guaranteed. With permission from its customers, LiveHelp Experts connect remotely to fix up to three PCs or Macs, including hardware, software and connections to peripherals such as printers, WiFi routers and iPods. For a limited time, LiveHelp is offering one free support incident (a $50 value). For “all you can eat LiveHelp”, Zoombli is offering these services at $24.95 per month, or $199.95 for a full year. To date, 100% of LiveHelp customers surveyed have said they would recommend the service to their friends. My wife is a new customer.

This week, Xeriton is also coming out of Beta on its Web 2.0 social media website: Wiki Talk. The site offers a split screen view of top news stories and their associated comments by WikiTalk members. Right now, there is an interesting thread going around “Client 9: Her Myspace Page” (this is Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the woman that Gov. Spitzer allegedly transported from NYC to his hotel in DC). The split screen view makes it possible to view both an underlying site (e.g., the URL hosting the article, video or website) and associated WikiTalk user comments, thereby creating an easy to use framework for the WikiTalk community to engage in online discussions. WikiTalk will be partnering with a number of old media companies in the coming months to help them “extend the conversation” with their users online.

Xeriton is growing and profitable, which is not an easy feat in the startup world. Brad has learned a lot about running a successful Internet company the past three years. “We basically spend $0 on marketing campaigns that are not measured,” he says. Yet, the company has a very significant online advertising budget. As more and more marketing goes online, other executives will be as demanding as Brad on measuring the ROI on its marketing and advertising expenditures.

Ironically, Brad’s focus on online marketing has put him face-to-face with developing legal issues. “This is a rapidly growing legal field with privacy issues (around tracking visitors) and trademark issues around search,” he says. “Sometimes it is not clear who is wearing the white hat or black hat. The past few years have been a bit like the Wild West, although things are becoming clearer month by month and year by year as regulators and legislators catch up, weigh in and provide guidance and comfort on the hot and dynamic legal issues of the Internet age.” No one knows exactly how all these things will play out, but lawyers will definitely have a huge influence on the eventual outcome, which will impact and guide Brad’s business.

Brad has no regrets about leaving the law to pursue a career as a business executive. He really enjoys the creativity of his work. Also, he is coaching the basketball team for both his son, Bradley, 11, and his daughter, Isabella, 9. That would have been difficult to do had Brad continued to remain an equity partner in a major national law firm.

This brings us to how I met Brad. The boutique corporate finance and securities law firm Brad co-founded back in 1995, Van Valkenberg Furber Law Group, was hired by ARIS to serve as company counsel in connection with ARIS’ 1997 initial public offering. During some of the drafting sessions with the investment bankers, accountants, lawyers and senior business executives, ARIS CEO, Paul Song, would break up the stressful work by challenging the bankers to a basketball game. Those were spirited games and Brad won a lot of respect from Paul by pounding the boards and hitting key shots against the bankers. “Paul was very competitive and a good shooter, and we all found that it made good business sense to get the ball to Paul early and often”, Brad says with a grin.

Brad thinks one of the reasons his boutique firm won the law firm IPO bake off against a who’s who list of law firms much older and bigger was because he challenged Paul to a two-on-two basketball game for the corporate counsel IPO mandate – Paul and any ARIS executive of his choice against Brad and his fellow lawyer, Jeffrey (aka Hoopmaker) Heutmaker. Paul wouldn’t agree to the stakes, but the challenge did make an impression. Unlike most of the other deal toys now packed securely away in boxes somewhere, Brad still displays the ARIS IPO deal toy, an engraved leather basketball, on his home office shelf.

Brad recollects fondly his deal-making days as a lawyer from 1990 through 2005. That said, he says he is satisfied with his career choice to switch over to the operations side, helping to lead an emerging growth Internet company. In addition to the challenge of climbing a steep new learning curve, Brad says he values and enjoys being able to have more control over his own schedule which, in turn, enables him to spend more time with his wife of thirteen years, Sabina, and their two kids.

Today, he’s more fashionable, still in good shape, more outgoing, and some say he hasn’t aged a bit (maybe the reverse). What’s his secret fountain of youth? Maybe it’s hanging out with his 23-year-old son, Aaron. In fact, they started a business together in Vietnam called Met Vuong (means square meter), a real estate information company based in Ho Chi Minh City.

After graduating from Pepperdine University, Aaron asked his father to go to Asia with him to look for business opportunities. He knew that no one would otherwise take a 22-year-old seriously in that part of the world. Aaron had run a very successful internet company, PresalePassword.net, while studying at Pepperdine and knew he could continue that and peripheral ventures from anywhere in world.

Paul, at the time, was retired, and jumped at the chance of working with his son. First, they went to Shanghai in 2006. They soon discovered that Shanghai already was well on its way in economic development. “There’s enough money and people there that things were already being tried and funded,” Paul says.

As a former member of Asia-Pacific Business Advisory Council (a business advisory group for the governments of APEC), he visited Vietnam in November, 2006, and was coaxed by local business leaders to relocate there. They moved in mid-April, 2007 and had a difficult time finding appropriate housing: No central database of real estate listings; no internet listings. A-ha!

Paul knew that it would be critical to solicit influential real estate companies as partners. He not only signed up partners but allowed some of them to invest in Met Vuong, further solidifying the relationships. The coding on the site started in June with Aaron in charge of the website and its developers, while Paul worked his relationships and managed the business plan.

In September, the website launched with content from such partners as CB Richard Ellis and Savills, as well as a host of Vietnamese real estate companies. Next month, Met Vuong will launch its first magazine publication. Paul and Aaron believe this will be a vital component in becoming the de facto real estate information company in Vietnam. The business plan calls for both online and offline reach in the developing country.

So, what’s it like working with your 23-year-old son after having run a public company? Overall, it’s been great, says Paul, but “we’ve had to work out some issues.” Aaron had never worked in a corporate environment, but had become a successful entrepreneur at a very young age. So, he would challenge some business protocols, which weren’t necessarily bad, but time consuming to work out.

“Overall though, it’s been a great experience for both of us,” Paul emphasizes. For others contemplating doing the same thing, Paul advises to make sure NOT to lose perspective that family relationships are more important than the business itself. It’s easy to get too wrapped up on the business, but Paul’s main reason for moving to Vietnam was to have this experience with his son Aaron.

So Paul, ethnically Korean who grew up in the US, lives in Ho Chi Minh City with his son. They are very similar in many ways. They both have steely laser focus, extreme ambition, and a propensity for technology.

They also are very different. Paul’s more apt to be found at a night club in Ho Chi Minh City, while Aaron is more likely to be at home spending alone time with his finance, Aileen. Paul enjoys fine wine and designer jeans, while Aaron doesn’t drink and would rather be in shorts. Nonetheless, together this father-and-son team is making their mark – in Vietnam of all places.

Oh, so is it more difficult working with your brother or working with your son? “The son,” Paul says, “We’re way too much alike.” Right answer.