Editor’s note: Grace Ueng is the founder of Savvy Growth, a leading leadership coaching and management consulting firm, and a well-being and performance science expert. Grace writes a regular column on happiness and leadership for WRAL TechWire.
Last week, we shared highlights of Joe’s upbringing in Akron, Bronte’s bootstraps, and featured a “Karate Kid moment.” Today we find out how being a school teacher was the foundation for building his entrepreneurial spirit, and where he’s been focusing his time since selling his company.
Peace Corp education teaches
During our fireside chat, Joe talked about how valuable his first stint as a teacher after graduating from Harvard University to the Seychelles and then Ecuador was to his role as an entrepreneurial technology leader. He talked about how it turned out. He said capturing the mindshare and excitement of middle school and high school students couldn’t be more difficult. And that realization early on as a member of the Peace Corps provided insight later when faced with exciting young software developers.
“You’ll be able to build something. It’s all about motivating people.”
Brontë’s principle
There are a number of core company beliefs that developed over time, and as Bronto grew, Joe and his team thought it was time to put them on paper. Many of you help shape your company’s culture, so we share the Bronte Principles in full in hopes of inspiring your company’s ideas.
On behalf of all Brontos – welcome. Please join us.
When you work at Bronto Software, you’ll join a group of talented professionals focused on building the world’s best marketing software company.
principle
As a member of Bronto Software, you’ll be joining an exciting, challenging and rewarding workplace. We expect you to grow, learn, and contribute through your experience here. To be part of this highly professional team, you will need to understand your responsibilities, be proficient, and collaborate with others. Regardless of your position within our company, we expect you to be a leader and a team player.
Over the years, we have discovered the following principles to guide our growth as a business and as people. These principles should be used as a compass for making decisions at Bronte.
1. Our customers drive our business
Serve your customers and success is guaranteed. Customers pay us, and that’s why we exist and grow as a company.
2. The best way to make customers happy is through happy Brontos
We strive to provide a rewarding, rewarding and fun workplace. We understand that when we ourselves are happy and productive, we can best serve our customers with enthusiasm and insight.
3. Indigestion is more dangerous than starvation
There is no shortage of opportunities to pursue. The challenge is to find opportunities to strengthen rather than broaden our focus. Distractions are costly and take you away from serving your customers.
4. Activate the community
We have a responsibility to use our passion and commitment to be a positive change that improves our local communities. We believe this is an essential element in becoming a stronger, more profitable company and a stronger, more purposeful people.
5. Hits, not home runs
Consistent execution of our strategy, day in and day out, makes us a great company. Chasing trends in search of one big goal may be appealing in the short term, but ultimately doesn’t benefit the company in the long term. Continuous striving for operational excellence is the key to success.
6. It’s hard to make something easy
Developing intuitive products and services is difficult. This process requires endless repetition, constant attention to detail, and the discipline to include only the “nice-to-haves” and ignore the “nice-to-haves.”
7. If you can’t measure it, don’t measure it.
Projects are rarely perfect from the start. You can always improve. Measurement provides a framework for improvement and the discipline to pursue only clearly defined projects.
8. Plain language wins over jargon and buzzwords.
We pride ourselves on being clear, honest and open with our customers. We don’t talk about business behind buzzwords. We believe that plain spoken language is the most effective and powerful way to communicate with our customers.
In-house management or venture funding?
As Joe ramped up Bronto’s business in the years following the dot-com bust, little venture capital was flowing. As companies rationalized and “regressed,” there were many layoffs. Joe chose not to take any outside money, rather he and Chaz each put in $5,000 and Joe did not receive a paycheck for three years.
He explained that if he had been able to bring in external funding, he probably wouldn’t have known at the time how best to use that money. Instead, he spent that time learning. He taught himself how to code. He knew a lot because he had coded his early products himself. This paid off, and a few years later, he was able to demo the product himself at an important first meeting with NetSuite. They were immediately impressed and said they had rarely seen a leader who could do that.
“Keiretsu”: What makes a difference
After a very stressful negotiation and acquisition by NetSuite, and then a period of remaining with the company, Joe took a year off from high-profile activity. He gave himself time to think about what would happen next.
Where did he want to make a difference? Early the following year, on January 1, he established his holding company, Collopy Ventures. This is a type of keiretsu affiliated with his family office’s focus entities.
He decided that one area of the triangle would be technology, software. While he started Bronto himself, he realized that some founders couldn’t afford not to take a paycheck for several years. He thought that by using recurring revenue to fund his B2B software startup, he could help reduce startup costs toward increasing revenue.
The idea behind Jurassic and Primitive Ventures: Brontosaurus exists in the Jurassic, and its corresponding fund focuses on ventures with little or no existing capital and multi-million dollar revenues. Before that, there was a primitive era, when the fund focused on very early-stage ventures with just a few people working in garages.
In either case, his funds offer the advice of an experienced operator, with Joe adding wisdom to guide the path to increased returns and flattening that is happening with many players in Bronte’s category. Helpful.
GrepBeat: District Density
Districts such as the Financial District and the Diamond District have density. With GrepBeat, Joe steps outside of the dinosaur theme with “beats” reminiscent of newspapers and activities. In our chat, he held a contest to see who could define “grep” and be the winner of the new red coffee mug He GrepBeat socks.
One audience member guessed and came close to the actual meaning of a Unix/Linux command used to search files for occurrences of a string that matches a particular pattern. GrepBeat’s job is to parse and bring you all the meaningful Triangle Tech news.
Joe recalled his early days when it wasn’t easy to get press attention. That’s why GrepBeat makes sure the stories of early-stage startups are told. Joe, known as the godfather of GrepBeat, has incorporated this media entity into the creation of his space through regular Happy His Hours and his one-day event called Grep-a-palooza. The third conference will be held on June 4th at the Durham Convention Center, with keynote speakers Jes Lipson of Levitate and Igor Jablokov of Pryon.
Did I leave the world a better place?
During his years in the Boy Scouts, it was ingrained in Joe that he had left a better place than he expected. Living and working in Durham, he and Karalyn decided to focus their philanthropic work there.
His oldest daughter attended North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM). His experience reminded Joe of his time growing up in Akron. He considered NCSSM to be a meritocracy, a free boarding school for all students admitted based on their ability. Graduates are people who can go out into the workforce and make a difference in the world, and Joe noticed that many of the successful tech CEOs in the Triangle attended his NCSSM.
He recognized the strength of scientific research methods at this school, and by awarding the Director of Entrepreneurship position, he enabled these incredibly bright students to experience the joys of entrepreneurship. We thought we could invest in more startups in North Carolina over the long term. Something he discovered at a similar age.
Joe also thinks about Durham’s economic disparities and recognizes that economic development is difficult to solve. There’s a lot to do beyond the technology field, so he and Karalin will likely focus their attention in that direction for years to come. Finally, they want to continue to instill in his four children a desire to improve the human condition in the world and, most importantly, in their immediate community, Durham.
About Grace Yun
Grace is the CEO of Savvy Growth, a management and marketing consultancy that has been helping leaders and the companies they run to achieve their full potential by conducting strategic reviews, marketing audits, and coaching since 2003. is.
A marketing strategist, Grace has held leadership roles in marketing, business development, and product management for five high-growth technology ventures that successfully exited through acquisition or IPO. A TED speaker, her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Her Beast, and Inc.
For more information about Grace’s flagship workshop, HappinessWorks™, contact her company.
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