Real Is Mandatory

by mbmccall

Real Is Mandatory

“Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.”  — Bob Dylan

The venture markets are a-changin’ with investors and public markets demanding rational business models, visibility to profitable growth and inherently sound economics. Companies like Homejoy and Sidecar have gone under while stars like Uber have raised capital at flat valuations from a year ago. Companies going public are now being valued off of EBITDA multiples (what is this?). The old is new again as greed has swung to concern, heading to fear in the venture business as the IPO markets and multiples have compressed.

Historically, this has been when the true breakout companies shine. They are maniacally focused on customer needs, efficient capital use and culture as their less disciplined brethren are swept away in the tides. Trial by fire as they say. Real is mandatory in Darwin’s eyes.

An example of this has been our company, SMS, who crossed a major milestone this week, raising $150m from Goldman Sachs and continues to grow at 50–100% a year while having been increasingly profitable for each of the past 7 years. Few companies have pipelines like theirs approaching several billion dollars. Our journey with SMS Assist has been exceptionally rewarding as we’ve rolled up our sleeves next to an extraordinary team and founder. They have built one of the fastest growing enterprise companies in the country, in one of the grittiest industries through technology…facilities management. SMS’s story is both inspirational and instructional in a world of increasing headwinds and fading unicorns.

The power of the SMS platform is simple. The ONE platform controls over 500,000 sub-contractor technicians performing over 1 million services across 46 services like HVAC repair, landscaping, floor strip & wax to over 100,000 locations. Store managers and home owners simply drop a service request into their residential or corporate portal and ONE’s cloud systems pre-qualifies (e.g. for HVAC, did the circuit breaker trip or is it a real problem), identifies the most qualified sub-contractor based on over 420 tracked metrics, dispatches, manages the service, confirms & rates the service, pays the provider and delivers reporting for over 70 levels at the corporation…all automated without a man in the loop other than an occasional escalation to the call center. While traditional firms or in-sourced solutions rely on call centers and owned/operated fleets with few people on their tech teams, SMS delivers most of this on an automated basis with a 140+ person global technology team. The company has been profitable almost since inception. They run weekly scrums to codify best practices and process learnings into their business logic in the cloud.

One of the greatest barrier to entry/competitive advantage in venture is that rare entrepreneur who has exceptionally deep domain knowledge and strong technology chops going after a gritty industry with a technology and elegance. They are rare. Flawed competitors fall into two major categories. One is the star technology team which doesn’t appreciate the traditions, relationships or behaviors of the industry. The other is the industry team with deep domain expertise that simply automates existing processes with complex, uncompelling technology. Mike Rothman is a true “unicorn” and visionary along with his star lieutenant, Marc Shiffman. Mike has a brilliance to see things that others simply can’t. They are exceptionally detailed oriented, highly complimentary to each other and able to translate complex business needs to technical requirement with tenacious speed while also seeing a larger strategic vision for the future. They also have a palpable sense of inevitability in their belief and have fused talent from industry, the Valley and the Midwest.

While SMS has a lot of hard work ahead of it to realize its full potential, it has done a number of things right:

  • conviction…when you talk with Mike Rothman, he has a Steve Jobs like inevitability about him. When there is setback, he figures out alternative plans A, B & C. He redefines tenacity. Jim Clark (founder WebMD, Netscape, etc) used to say “Great companies are built. They are willed into existence”
  • know your core advantage…early on, they realized their “tip of the spear” was technology and focused heavy resources on it, ramping the tech team from 10 to 140+. They are continuously automating and building business logic into the cloud which allows them to handle more locations & services with existing infrastructure. More locations/services gives greater density and lower operating costs, leading to lower pricing with strong profitability.
  • hire strong…Mike has hired strong management around him. Many founders under-hire, feeling intimidated. Mike has brought on stars like Shiffman from Ron Perlman, Matt Renner (top Oracle sales head), Mike Travalini (top RE ops manager from Starwood) and others.
  • focus…while the SMS platform could expand into Industrial or other sectors, they have stayed focused on where they can compound advantage/density in retail and now residential. Too often, firms grab opportunity wherever they can and do nothing well.
  • rapid execution…this team moves from concept/opportunity to implementation and test with significant speed. They rolled out a corporate portal for retail store managers to trigger/manage services in only 6 weeks. Many would over design this and take 6–8 months. Simplicity is king.

SMS has been a great partnership with Pritzker. They quickly follow-up on resources and opportunities we bring them (or promptly say “no thanks”). We introduced a top technologist and operator to them and they engaged him, pivoted their platform to the cloud, rolled out mobile and expanded their team. We introduced a major institutional REIT to them (SMS was only in retail at the time) and they rolled out a major residential offering, staffed up a residential team and ramped business to nine figures in less than a year. We introduced a top enterprise sales advisor to them and they re-engineered their sales organization, hired a top SRO from Oracle and brought on 10 “chairman club” calibre sales people from industry and the Valley. This is how culture, vision, execution and responsiveness all meet.

We love our companies that bring next generation solutions with real business models to real customers. Whether it is companies bringing new technology to old industries like Fleetmatics (NYSE: FLTX), TicketsNow (acquired by Ticketmaster), Eved or technology firms bringing innovation to emerging fields (Viv and x.ai in AI; Mapbox and Airmap in GeoSpatial/Drones; Augury in IoT; SpaceX in transport or Facebook in Social). Real is Mandatory and Substance is King.

These times are a-changin’. Business models and fundamentals will increasingly be tested. Many in this market have not been through a down turn nor can fully appreciate the magnitude of its implications. Whether you have a month or two years, take this time to pressure test your business and assess if you’ll be the benefactor or the victim in the coming cycle. Also, look around and see if you have the people around you (team, advisors, investors, board members, partners, etc) that will help you thrive during these times. As Warren Buffett always says, “when the tide pulls out, you see who is wearing a bathing suit”.

The 15 Year Tech Cycle: Reloading for Another Tour

by mbmccall

“If you can see it, it isn’t the revolution.” — Steve Jurvetson

I wrote the following post in Nov, 2008. It demonstrated two things. 1) Tech and the stock market have a little dance they do…tech has roughly a 15 year cycle and the stock market has roughly a 7-8 year one and 2) tech is non-linear…just as FB/social was about to take off, many thought cleantech was going to be the next bellweather sector. If you can see it, it isn’t the revolution. It is possible that we are going to skip through this current cycle into a second one that goes to 2021 or 2022 due to the continuing decline in interest rates.

The markets in 2008 were very different. The banks were overexposed with bad real estate debt. Their current balance sheets are relatively clean. It is only when the banks get into trouble that the economy truly contracts as they pull in credit.  I wrote in June 2008 that I thought the venture/market cycle was coming to an end and this one in Nov 2008. Today, lot of people are going to cash and getting nervous about the market this year. Fortune 500’s are cutting ad spending for Q1 (some significantly) and I recently spoke to two elder ladies in a hotel lobby who were “short the market”. Also, more VC money was invested in 2014 than any year since 2000. So, while I believe in the 15 year tech cycle (e.g. things go boom in the night in the coming year), with this many people looking for it, it seldom hits. That said, probably not a good time to aggressively put money out and a good time to get your house in order. I’ll revisit as the year progresses…the IPO market vs. last private round valuations is a key metric to monitor.

From Nov, 2008:

“As the bad news keeps pouring in, a lot of people are wondering what we can expect in the coming years. Additionally, everyone is trying to figure out what hope exists. Well, I’ll give two thoughts on this (briefly).

First, the world of technology is driven by two factors: the laws of exponentials and the Black Swan. Progress does not occur linearly but exponentially. We can expect to see changes the magnitude of the past 100 years in just the next 20 years. This means a lot of people are going to a) be really busy and b) be dramatically better off. These changes will come from places you can’t predict (Black Swans). Market crashes and negative developments are not the only unexpected six sigma events.

Second, markets run in roughly 7 years cycles and technology in 15 year waves. Vacuum tubes to main frames to mini-computers (DEC) to PC’s (Apple/Microsoft) to the Internet. The next wave, then, should start in 2010-11 and hit full force in 2015-16. Many in the business (us, Kleiner, etc) feel this will be in Cleantech. The energy market is 10-20x the IT market. We are not talking about billion dollar markets but trillion dollar ones. There will be a lot of casualties but some enormous wins.

So, there us no doubt that life is really brutal today. But, prepare and get ready for enormous, explosive market opportunities. It’s going to be mindblowing.

So, I stick my neck out again typing on my small iPhone. I declared the old venture cycle dead last June. I am declaring the the next cycle, even bigger than the former, will kick in during 2010 with foundations forming by the end of next year. I also believe we will see 30-40% of remaining venture firms will not survive to see this through (food for another post)…

The Key Israeli Story: StartUp Nation

by mbmccall

Larger Post coming…without appreciating the context (yesterday’s post), it is hard to fully grasp the origin nor significance of the tech renaissance that is taking place in Israel.  One has to see it to fully appreciate it. Much like Boston and Silicon Valley had its origins in military R&D and culture, Israel’s tech ecosystem also comes out of this. It has had innovation after innovation emerge from its advanced defense work. For example, ICQ (not AOL messenger) launched instant messaging onto the world and originally came from te Israeli Defense Force’s internal uses. Same with voicemail and many other innovations. Israel has some of the world’s best minds in Big Data, IT security software, messenging, telecom infrastructure, etc.  A lot of this is described in the book, Start-Up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. Some of the numbers are eye-popping…one start-up per 2,000 people in the country for example. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Equally important is the Israeli resilience & tolerance for risk.  This is at the heart of the entrepreneurship.  When living in the charged environment discussed yesterday, you can’t help but to grow up with a DNA that accepts risk/change’s role in life and embraces the necessity of innovation.

I have to run to Tel Aviv’s accelerator, SOSA (their equivalent to Chicago’s 1871). More to come.

 

Up Close & Personal with Middle East Conflict

by mbmccall
Today was one of the most memorable days of my life. Things in the Middle East got very real today. We spent the entire day on copters flying South to Gaza with the Israeli Defense Force and then North to Golan/Syria and Lebanon with Israel's "Wolf Blitzer".  We were 10 seconds away from Gaza's Hamas mortar batteries as well as 200 yards from Hezbollah's missile arsenals in Lebanon. We also looked out over Syria's massive civil war from the Golan Heights.
 
Region on Fire: My summary takeaway is that there is seismic change going on in the Middle East across nearly every country. Most of the countries in the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, etc) were created arbitrarily by the British and French who took nomad (and warring) tribes and drew nation-state boundries around them (a concept foreign to them).  Each is now in the process of splintering apart into its Shiite, Sunni, Christian, etc sub-factions. The only thing that held these entities together were brutal dictators who used force/terror to bottle the 1700 year old genie (when Sunni & Shiites first split). Syria is splintering, Lebanon is getting bold, Gaza re-arms, Iraq is fracturing, the Palastinians are slow rolling and Iran races to go nuclear (while funding many of Shiite terrorist activities around). Israel sits in the middle, growing more resolute to take action while Europe prepares to impose its will on Israel and the US sits bewildered. It feels like something is going to go bang in the night coming up.
 
Breakfast w/the General: We started the day with bfast with Major General Amos Yadlin, the former head of the Israeli intelligence operations. He commented that much of the conflict is being driven by Sunnis vs Shiites vs secularists, especially their extreme branches. As a result, unnatural alliances are forming. Arabs vs Arabs, Arabs vs Israelis, Arabs with the west and against the west. Billionaires in Saudi Arabia funded initial ISIS activities but now, as ISIS has grown more radical, they have pulled back as ISIS condemns the Saudi secular rule. Hamas is in Gaza and Egypt is at war with fellow Arabs and allied with Israel. Hezbollah fights ISIS in Syria (terror organization vs terror organization). 
 
He commented that the region is struggling to find a form of government that both is consistent with its history/culture and yet brings it economic strength & political stability. It has tried monarchies, dictatorships, socialism, capitalism and now, the extreme factions are pulling it towards religious Islamic rule (unfortunately back into the dark ages).
 
Iron Dome Command Visit: We drove down to Palmachim military air base & the Iron Dome battery to see what few get to: inside the Cube which controls and launches the anti-missile systems (Iron Dome, David, Arrow, etc) protecting Israel from the South. We sat 20 ft from the control room in the bunker.
 
Israel has three levels of defense:
Iron Dome for short range…2-10 sec to respond to rockets usually from Gaza
   – this summer: 7,000 rockets fired, 7 casualties, 1-3 shelter trips per day in Tel Aviv
Arrow 2: 10-60 sec to respond, midrange missiles from Iran, Syria, etc
Arrow 3/Patriot: long range ballistic missiles with 2-10 min warning
 
Gaza/Hamas Mortars in the South: Egypt and Israel are allied in fighting Hamas both in Gaza and the Egyptian border. Our copters landed outside Ashood which is 10 secs from Gaza mortar and rocket launches. This is where the underground tunnels under the security border from Gaza emerged into Israel that were destroyed over the summer. Hamas spent $50-100m building these 32 cement encased tunnels. Weapons came through these which were up to 90 feet down. They took two years to build, some 2 miles long and up to $3m each. In the Eqyptian side, Egypt claims it destroyed over 600 smuggling tunnels into Gaza. Some are so large that vehicles can drive through.
 
Gaza is a tragedy.  It has the potential to become a key economic center for the Palastinians…it has a port, sits on both the Egyptian and Israeli borders and had plans to build a regional airport. However, it lacks a middle class, with almost 2m fifth generation Palastinian refugees there. As a result, it suffers economically and Hamas has stepped in (funded by Iran & others) to provide key resources like schools, shelters, food, etc.  In exchange, Hamas uses these same homes & schools as origination for tunnels into Israel.  Additionally, it fires its rockets & mortars from these urban centers.  As you can see from this photo, Israel sits with its Security wall (upper right) and much of the border & parts of the interior Gaza lay in rubble from counter strikes (left).
DSC_1833
 
Jerusalem the current flash point given the Palestinian driver attack and his subsequent killing by the police. When the security wall left 300,000 Palestinians on the Israeli side and milliins economically shut off from Israel on the other side. I found out today that the Palestinian's funeral was the night we were in Jerusalem and many were watching to see if anything erupted. Today, there are clashes as Palestinians on the Temple Mount throw rocks down at the Wailing wall attendees.
 
New Canvas: We then flew North by copter to the Golan Heights/Syria and Lebenon border). I had the good fortune to sit next to Alon Ben-David, Israel's "Wolf Blitzer". He had a surprising optimism for the potential of the region. He pointed out that every 100 years, you have a chance at a new canvas. With Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Kurds/Turkey and such all in flux, there was opportunity to bring parties to the table. The Palastinian issue seems to be a distant second to the Shiite/Sunni conflict across all countries.  The hope would be that with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Eqypt, PLA all united by the Shiite/ISIS threat, they combined with the US/Europe could be a force of positive redesign of Middle East. That said, with the Egyptian peace talks likely stalled, Hamas rebuilds its tunnels, Israel digs in and Arab/Israeli relations in Jerusalem grow more tense.
Me with Alon (Wolf) on the copter:
IMG_1028
 
 
Syria Is Splintering up North: Looking down from the Golan Heights, we could see the battle lines of the massive civil war in Syria (could drag out for 10 more years). The Asad regime has surpressed the Sunni/Shiite tensions underneath a brutal dictatorship. There are a dizzing array of factors battling each other in Syria..Shiite Hezbollah (Iran supported), Syrian Shiites and minority groups like Christians support Asad. Meanwhile, Sunni forces take various forms, ranging from Free Syria Army (supposedly a moderate consortia),  Jabhat al-Nustra (Syria's Al-Queda…middle) and ISIS (extreme Sunni) and 10 various rebel Sunni groups.  These extreme groups feel empowered with the overthrow of Mubarak & Huseein. Here is the Syrian panorama from Golan:
IMG_1041
 
Let Syria Burn…for many in the Middle East, Syria at war works well for them. Hezbollah is dragged into this, Syria is not a unified threat to Israel and ISIS shows itself to be barbaric. 
 
Lebanon Waking Dragon: In the last two weeks, Lebanon has begun to stir after 7 years of quiet. After the 2006/7 war where Israel drove all the way to Beruit and destroyed Hezbollah's buildings, it has kept its head relatively low. However, recently, it blew up an Israeli jeep using an IAD.  This renewed confidence is troubling. Hezbollah is backed by Iran through Syria. In the picture below (only 200 yards away), there are large houses built by Hezbollah for civilians.  There are over 100,000+ missiles, all larger, more accurate than those from Hamas, stored or even have built in firing silos. Iran has armed Lebanon as a deterent to Israel bombing its nuclear bomb efforts. Syria is critical to Lebanon as it is the direct route to Iran for weapons. If these missiles launch, they will do significant damage to Israel. 
IMG_1043
 
We returned back to Tel Aviv for dinner with the IDF 8200 Elite Intelligence unit…the best of the best. Quite a day.

Stunning Day in Jerusalem…Day 1

by mbmccall
Quite the first day…cultural day in Jerusalem (minus our guide saying “all schools have cancelled trips to Jerusalem given events this week…”).   Landed at 8:30am and off to the races. We visited the Old City where we walked through the four quarters, touched the marble Jesus was supposedly laid on (post Cross) and the cave he was supposedly laid, all encompassed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. While being in the heart of all the unrest you see on CNN, you feel amazingly safe…more so than parts of many major US cities.  Crossing streets being the most risky times 🙂
 
Intriguing dinner with two of Israel’s top journalists who gave us their take on the region & country while we stared out the patio at the old City. The context was almost surreal as we spoke and I was literally looking out at the infamous Security Wall and the intersection of four cultures in the Old City. You could feel the energy of all this history and intersection. Pretty wild.
 
After dinner blew me away. We went to see the City of David's tunnels…wasn’t certain what to expect. I assumed this would be the minor part of the trip and looked forward to the Wailing Wall.  I was wrong.  We toured the excavations of the City of David that were just discovered in the past 5 years (used to be under a parking garage of all places).  Sitting underneath parked cars had sat 3,800 years worth of layered remains from 18 different civilizations stacked on top of each other (Persian, Roman, Jewish, etc).  They also found letters with seals from actual messengers mentioned in the Old Testament (Jeremiah). This is significant because it foots with the Bible, indicating that the Israeli’s did live in Palestine first (however, doubt will solve the Mideast crisis 🙂   They then took us down to tunnels from 560 bc that ran up from the City to the “Temple Mount” at the top of the Hill.  It still had pottery and ash marks from when the Romans drove the last Israelis out in 70 AD and people literally took their belongings and fled. Romans smoked the tunnels as they tried to escape.
 
We ended the night at the Wailing Wall. I have one of these in my office when dealing with portfolio companies!
 
The Former "Parking Garage"…3,800 years/18 different civilizations stacked on top of each other…!
IMG_0976

From the Seeds of Despair Come Greatness

by mbmccall

"I'm sorry, there's nothing more we can do."

I was always envious and impressed with one of my former entrepreneurs, David Linn. After HBS, he managed to arrange to play professional soccer during the summer (Chicago Fire) and work at McKinsey the rest of the year. He was our top deal guy at Centerpost and has an effusive energy and presence that makes you want to be involved with him & whatever he is doing. We were disappointed when he left Centerpost to go to New York and be with his fiancee, his soul mate but we were happy for him. Fast forward 9 years and imagine my surprise to see him on the stage of the Social Innovation Summit. My heart sank as I heard him talk about how his now wife came down with a rare sarcoma and, after 7 years of fighting, died in 2011.

But David is an amazing guy, a force of nature. As many incredible people have done, he took the pain, the sadness and the setback and redirected them towards making a difference. You see, for all of us, from the seeds of despair come greatness. For every setback and tragedy brings with it an energy, a yin to despair's yang. It can propel us to new heights to right unstoppable wrongs. To make the world a better place, whether through a business, a cause, a friendship or just a hug. As Buddha said, there will always be pain or disappointment but there does not need to be suffering.  Where are you going to point your immense talent & potential to make the world a better place?

As I said in my earlier blog post this year, I vowed to give back more. David created Cycle for Survival in partnership with Equinox and Sloan Kettering to raise money for rare cancer research (total 50% of deaths). They have raised over $30m in the last couple of years and every dollar goes directly to researchers. So, inspired by David's awesome response to life, David Rosen & I set up our Team Pritzker for Cycle for Survival on Feb 8th. If any of you are moved to support the cause, please go to the TEAM PRITZKER CYCLE PAGE. The McCall's are dividing and conquering…my daughter, Avery, will be David R in Chicago and I'll be part of our LA office effort (you can donate to either team).

In closing, I wanted to add a link to David's blog about turning 40 and How to Dance After Losing It All. He made the video below with his wife on her 40th in 2010. Don't forget to dance.

Millennials: Rightly Up-ending the Apple Cart

by mbmccall

“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” 
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

While the Boomer's bemoan (wrongly) Millennial's lack of work ethic, narcissism and lack of respect for seniority, there is a sea of change coming that corporations and start-ups alike need to fully appreciate. Millennial's aren't buying into the status quo, whether it be traditional corporate structures, incentive systems or goals. They have been honed since youth to achieve yet at the same time, have watched the ways of the boomers sink the economy into a hole. They have been asked to do more sooner (on the achievement track by 6th or 7th grade) yet now find traditional jobs harder to find and not consistent with their upbringing. So, yes guys, they are going to play by a different set of rules and, given they'll be a majority of the workforce within 10 years, you better get on the wagon.

Recently, Deloitte ran a Millennial survey to better understand their fastest growing employee segment. The findings are very interesting. Here is a link to it Deloitte Touche's CEO post on Their Millennial Survey.  It reinforces many of the themes we've heard in the past.

What I find striking about this post is that it is the first time I've seen a Fortune 100 CEO lay out why it is important to change, even turn on its head, how we (and they) manage people. Just as we moved from Organizational man through several iterations to the Knowledge Worker, we are now morphing into Millennial Man (or Woman).

At our annual Pritzker Group CEO summit, we held a panel on Managing Millennials with the wise sage, Kevin O'Connor (founder/ex-CEO Doubleclick) whose employees are all Millennials and the Millennial wunderkind, Rishi Shah (Context Media) & Emerson Spartz (Spartz Media). and the takeaways were consistent: mission/purpose in their firms, their jobs and their tasks are critical; they demand a meritocracy over seniority; they are very interested in professional development and ongoing self-improvement; they want more frequent feedback & affirmation; they are open to measured & action oriented criticism but not good with harsh/blunt commentary.  Intelligence is not what you know but where to find it (Internet generation)
 
The Deloitte study & others have a lot more details. However, the key thing to take away here is that all of our corporate & entrepreneurial cultures, incentive systems, goals, focus on mission, etc are going to need to be revisited and improved on. While more difficult to manage, I applaud their demand that jobs should be more than hierachical contracts where you are told to do some mindless task, put in your hours and suck it up for two decades. More to come…

In the interim, let the storm begin.

How Many People Have You Impacted This Year?

by mbmccall

As another year draws to a close, I increasingly ask myself the core question: How many people's lives have I helped to make better? Not enough. As I begin to draft my New Year's Resolutions and Goals, I'm going to push myself to get outside of my comfort zone and stretch in helping others in a larger way. Take a look at this great Upworthy video of the late Paul Walker's group, Reach Out World Wide. Be The Change You Want to See in 2014. Thanks Paul…

 (for those having issues with the playback, here is the original YouTube link,..because of the soundtrack in the video, I think YouTube/Zefer may be blocking some viewings)

 

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