Alex Hern-CEO of San Diego’s Tsunami XR
Alex Hern has been an entrepreneur for more than 25 years. During his career, he has focused on early stage companies and on the incubation of technology companies. Mr. Hern co-founded and served as a Director of Inktomi Goldman Sachs-led IPO (INKT), which powered and was the search technology for MSN, Yahoo and AOL.
The Art of Focus with Alex Hern
Alex Hern:
So, at the beginning, don’t let ‘I don’t have the resources like
this guy that’s on this podcast to go do twenty things, to
delegate all this stuff to other people.’ Well, take a minute,
go find some people that might want to do it for equity,
because there are a lot of people that will do it for equity,
and then delegate those things that allows you again to
focus on the things you need to focus on.
Daniel Budzinski:
Welcome to The Art of Success podcast. I’m your host
Daniel Budzinski and I’m excited to be interviewing
personalities from all different backgrounds
on how they’ve learned and earned success.
Our goal is that the stories would equip you to achieve
success both personally and professionally. Please note
that there may be explicit words or conversational topics in
this podcast. So, if you’re underage or listening with a child
please be aware of this.
Lastly, please note that all the views, beliefs and opinions
are not always a reflection of the host’s.
Ok, let’s jump in. Alex Hern, welcome to the Art of Success.
AH:
Thank you for having me.
DB:
Been looking forward to this conversation. I really enjoyed
our pre-call, and some of the challenges you had put out
there on principles you live in your life and business.
But you’ve got a lot. We’ve got a lot that we can talk about
and you’ve got a lot that you’ve done in your past, so maybe
start with a little bit of how you’ve gotten to where you are
today and maybe some of those really awesome milestones
for our listeners.
AH:
So, I have been a serial entrepreneur. I started very early. In
my first company that I started I actually licensed from
Marvel the characters from the Marvel Universe for internet
use and internet search. And what I was trying to do was
start a kid’s safe search engine. And this was back in the
early days of internet era 1.0. So, I actually found a
technology that at UC Berkeley that had been DARPA
funded. And I contributed my license to all the Marvel
characters for internet use and for search use. They
contributed their IP and we started a company called
Inktomi. And Inktomi became the first big search engine
company before Google.
So, Inktomi was the company that powered search for MSN
for Yahoo and for AOL search. So when you type in the box,
we actually brought you back the answers and what that
opened my eyes to was this big universe of DARPA funded
technology at universities.
DARPA stands for the Defense of Advanced Research
Projects Agency and universities often apply for grants when
they’re trying to build future technology.
In this case the technology that they were developing was
scalable super-computing and there were two big projects.
One at Berkeley called Now Network of Workstations, and
one at Illinois called Cal, a former Berkeley guy, called a
Collection of Workstations and they were the first people to
really innovate taking small computers and networking them
together to tackle big problems.
The country was trying to build a missile defense shield
and you had to track in all those missiles like missile
command. But there wasn’t enough supercomputing to
make that possible, so DARPA was sponsoring work that
would allow people like the folks at Berkeley to build that
type of technology. We reapplied it and use it and applied it
to the internet because to us it was just about documents
and was like a giant container or filing cabinet that kept
getting bigger every day.
Every time somebody added something, and we applied that
technology to manage and track the web. And as the web
got bigger you could just add another Lego to it and expand
the way that you searched it and crawled it and brought back
the answer.
I spent the majority of my career taking that type of an
approach in finding technology in universities, spinning it out
or at research institutions and commercializing it.
DB:
Man, that is super fun. Tell us a little bit about what you did
with organization that got acquired by Hewlett-Packard.
AH:
So that was a company that we started. I actually wrote on a
white board ‘air traffic control for security.’ And that’s what
my team and I often do. We start from the very beginning,
you know, looking for big problems that need to be solved.
In this case there were too many securities. Computer
security on this had started because people were plugging
holes if you will, right. So, think of it as every time something
came up that was a new vulnerability somebody would stick
their finger in the dike, build a new piece of software and
create a new type of security software to solve that particular
problem.
The problem with that approach is that there’s nothing that is
a top-down view of all of it. So, we wrote on a white board
‘air traffic control for security’ and the idea became what is
now category Enterprise Security Management or ESM.
And our team essentially built a piece of software that allows
IT professionals, C-suite, to really understand the overall
picture of security. We have put in the first 17 million
ourselves and then we had both the In-Q-tel which is the
CIA’s investment arm and Kleiner Perkins which is one of
the tier-one VC firms invest and the rest is history.
We were the only tech IPO of 2008, during the recession.
Morgan Stanley took us out and then we ended up selling to
Hewlett-Packard for what became a 1.5-billion-dollar
acquisition.
DB:
Oh my gosh.
AH:
So, I’m probably proud of that one the most. We started that
company literally two weeks before 9/11. And then had to
go through the depths of the recession and all the issues
related to the turn down in technology during that period.
We were able to survive it because we built fundamentally a
good company and that’s part of what I think is an important
approach is a lot of us entrepreneurs go out and build things
that are very passionate, but they don’t really do the work to
figure out if there’s actually a need for it.
You know, it’s ok to fail over and over and over but you’re
really should understand what the market’s all about and it’s
a good thing to spend a little bit of time, you know, figuring
out if the thing you’re building has competition, if the thing
you’re building is relevant, if the thing you’re building is too
early, because that also kills entrepreneurs. Running out of
steam because they can’t raise the capital to make it
through.
DB:
That’s good; I like that.
AH:
That goldilocks principle of just-right is super important.
You’ve got to be the right product at the right time.
DB:
And the fact that you were the only funded organization in
2008 or the only– what specifically was it?
AH:
No, we were the only IPO in 2008. Height of the recession,
right, when things were going not so good. But we were
able to make it out and then we were acquired.
DB:
And how fast was that turnaround from start to finish of the
building of the organization and the ideation process?
AH:
Yeah, that took awhile because the ideation took about 6
months, but the actual company because of it being the
recession and because it was an enterprise-focused
company: we were a B-to-B, not a B-to-C company -but they
take a little bit longer. It’s about eight years.
That’s another thing. If you’re going to go sell to business as
opposed to consumer, it’s a whole different ballgame. You
really have to raise enough capital and have the resources
to go call on Global 2000 or even mid-market. And that
takes a lot of time and it takes more capital than your typical
consumer play. So where you can get virality to give you,
you know, lift. In our case you got to put feet on the
pavement and go knock on doors and get people to try your
software, etc.
DB:
That’s super cool. Ok so, let’s kind of lead into what you’re
doing right now because your story is so interesting the
things that you’ve accomplished is remarkable and even
some of these principles, I really want to deep dive into
them. Tell us about Tsunami XR. Tell us about what you’re
doing, and I know you talked about some of the rounds that
you’re in right now. Share with everyone, given the high-
level detail of what it is.
AH:
So, we’ve built the next generation of collaboration. We’re
on a Skype call for example right now and at the end of the
day when this stops, the only thing that lives is what you
record. There’s no notion of persistence or co-presence. And
I’ll explain what those are in a second.
Persistence is that space lives after we get off the call and if
we go back to it, we can go ideate in it or white boards in it.
There are videos that we watch; there are notes that we
made. Maybe we ingested a jet engine from CAD and we’ve
exploded it and we’ve changed materials on an intake valve
or left a note for a colleague that’s collaborating on the next
ideation or innovation session.
So, in our world, these actual spaces continue to live.
Tomorrow I can pick up exactly where we left off or
tonight or at any time and I can meet you back in that same
room or I can go there by myself, continue to work.
Maybe you’re in a different time zone and you pick up where
I left off right. So, these spaces persist. They live and
breathe. You can undo unlimited undo’s because we journal
everything that happens in them. And so, it’s for the first
time you really can collaborate with someone as if you’re in
the same space without being in the same space. It’s not a
screen share.
The second part of it is this notion of co-presence. Co-
presence means that while I’m in that room with you, this
virtual space I can go and do what I want to do, and you can
go and do what you want to do, or I can follow you.
So that’s like how we behave in the real world. If you and I
are in a breakout room or in an office together and I’m
writing on one white board you could be writing on another
one or preparing a power point while I’m doing that. We
don’t have to be doing exactly the same thing or watching
the same screen.
In our world I can do anything that I can do in the real world,
but do it digitally and that’s going to be transformative
because it allows people to for the first time really feel like
they’re together even when they aren’t.
It’s a much more different experience. It’s always on
Than for example, your traditional telepresence like Skype or
other things that are Skype-like. So, what we’re doing is
we’re leap-frogging what people like Zoom are doing which –
all they’ve really done is made it easier to do to
communicate over telepresence-like solution. They’ve made
the function easy the invite easy, it’s free at the beginning
etc.
Well we’ve taken that a step further and said how do people
really work in the real world and how can we transform the
way that we work digitally to make it feel more like we’re in
the same room at the same time.
We got lucky to have some great early adopters. Honda is
using it to innovate at Honda innovations. We have folks like
Ford using it. We have people like Lockheed using it, and
others.
So, we’re being used as a product by people that are solving
really important problems and they can do it with our
software.
DB:
Super cool. So, it’s essentially, kind of like Skype/Go-to-
Meeting or you know you use the other one. But more in
that there’s persistent time. It’s a virtual space that’s always
available to revisit but it has everything in it, everything
you’ve worked in. Is that kind of what it’s like?
AH:
Correct, but it’s not just document sharing. Yeah, it is but it’s
not just a space where you document share. It’s literally I
can bring in an oil rig or an Exxon refinery into the space,
right? We’re both in it and then I can also bring other tools
with me while we’re in there – a white board, I can share my
screen, etc.
But we’re both sitting in a room with that refinery at scale.
So, it’s truly a virtual cross-device platform. That’s the other
part about it. We made it XR which means Across-Reality.
So, you could be on your phone I could be on an oculus rift
in VR. Another person could be on an augmented reality
device and all of us are sharing the same space virtually.
So we see things in 3D. It’s not a 2D space only -like you
have on a Skype session where you have these flat boards.
DB:
I was going to say –it seems like much more like virtual
reality augmented like it seems like people with an oculus on
the head.
AH:
Yeah, it is but it isn’t because you can access it from
anywhere. We made it so that, the mistake that I think a lot
of entrepreneurs made in the VR space or are making even
in the augmented reality space today is that they’re really
making it only for those devices. So when they build
software, they’re trying to build an experience in VR or a
game in VR.
And the problem with that is that there’s an adoption cycle
that has to happen with those devices. Your software is only
as good as there are number of devices to download and
install that software on. We took a different approach. We
said there are billions of mobile devices; tablets, phones, etc.
Let’s tackle collaboration on those so that companies can
leverage their existing platforms that they’ve adopted and
then also at whatever the next great point solution is to our
platform so that people can connect across any device.
What that does then is that opens up all devices that are out
there as potential customer for our software, as opposed to
just waiting on an adoption cycle for devices that are new,
that are in market and that large corporations are going to
use but they’re needing to experiment and are going to
figure out where it fits in their ecosystem.
That’s why we’ve been well-received by large companies.
Because we didn’t go in there and go ‘hey –
you’ve got to throw out all that stuff you’ve invested in and
now we’re going to do everything in VR and AR.’ Well,
nobody thinks like that in big business. They think about a
change in decades, not in days. They need to think about
‘how do we leverage what we have?’ and then ‘help us learn
about the new stuff.’ That’s exactly the way we approach
this business.
DB:
To your point instead of layering it very flat and you and I are
doing a screen share right now and I’m showing you my
screen on some platform or program that shows the 3D
animation design or the CAD design for a car piece. We can
actually go into the system real time and it’s all right there.
It’s not like you and me sharing a screen it’s like you and me
in there together.
AH:
Well I can do screen share. I add video boards that we can
see each other like this Skype call. It’s full voice and video. I
can add unlimited number of participants. I can have a
thousand people in a training session, for example.
In those spaces though, I can now ingest over three hundred
file types. So, any CAD file that is relevant to large
organizations we ingest.
DB:
It sounds like its straight like Iron-Man stuff.
AH:
It’s totally like that stuff. That’s exactly it. We’ve totally done
that. We build exactly that. Like in that movie, where he’s
moving things around and he can bring in a 3D object,
explode it, and twist it. I can laterally leave sticky notes on
that thing.
DB:
It’s an alternative reality, though right? Because if you’re
saying it’s persistent time or persistent space, it means that
it’s always there. Right?
AH:
Yeah. Think about it as layers on life. So, what’s going to
happen as we move forward, and all of this evolves is that
it’s going to be the physical world and there’ll be these layers
on the physical world that sometimes are literally layered
right onto the real thing and those things are called digital
twins. Or, they’re just spaces that live virtually that allow us
to extend where we are to unlimited places and unlimited
possibilities that you can ideate in without taking up physical
space.
So, wouldn’t it be nice if instead of having to rent another
10,000 square feet of office space about a third of which is
going to be breakout rooms and rooms if I can dedicate that
space instead to people and turn all of those breakout rooms
into a virtual environment where I can meet anybody
anywhere at any time. But I’m not paying real estate for that.
That’s essentially what we’ve built.
DB: [laughs]
AH:
You know when you solve that problem you first have to
think about what the customers’ needs are going to be. In
our case we said: customers are going to need to bring in
any kind of material, they're going to have to be able to
share their screens, share video, see each other, ingest
power points, pdfs, ingest CAD files of any type, schematics,
whatever, to do their jobs and their work.
We solved all of the hard problem of ingest which was no
easy feat and then we also built these spaces that allow you
to launch a room. You dedicate it to whatever the work is
that you are doing in there. You name it, so maybe it’s ‘Jet
Aircraft Design.’ And I can now invite people into that room.
But that room is 3D. Now I can have 2D-like experiences in
there, but it’s also 3D in there. Meaning that its unlimited in
size and scale so, I can keep adding information to it and
then go back to it.
DB:
It sounds like Inception meets the Matrix meets Iron Man.
AH:
That’s actually a kind of good way to think about it. I never
thought about the Inception part of it but it’s kind of true.
DB:
I think of the Matrix which I just rewatched this last weekend
with my wife and a few friends. And the whole idea of when
they go into that white world, that blank white world and then
they bring in all the guns. All the guns fly through, all the
gun racks fly through. And then from your thing, this might
be people looking at the design of an entire building that’s a
manufacturing plant or they’d be able to see the layout
before they see it.
And I think about when I was reading Steve Jobs’ book.
That had to create with millions of dollars that he had to get
approved through the board. The design of his warehouse –
or no sorry the design of the Apple Store, before. And now a
days we’re saying, ‘why do that? Why buy the furniture when
you can actually do it?’ And that’s a possible other use of it.
That’s remarkable.
AH:
Yep, we actually do have people using it to do planning of
factories etc. Or there are automotive manufacturers saying
that they are going to build the factory of the future. But, you
know, if I put this big piece of equipment a little bit closer to
the guy installing the windshields, is he going to be able to
do another 10 windshields a day or not? Well you don’t want
to build life-size prototypes of that over and over and over.
That’s the way it used to work.
In our world, you ingest that 3D model right into a space, and
then you can put on a set of VR glasses or you can access it
even from a tablet or your PC and actually see the
proportions of what you’ve done in real life but not real life.
It’s all virtual.
But when you go and build it and install it at the factory
you’ve already iterated all of the things you needed to do to
create the efficiencies you want for the manufacturing floor
without ever having to prototype anything.
The prototypes now live in these virtual environments
and it’s pretty exciting. It’s going to really impact everything
from design to how people buy things.
DB:
Yeah, shopping, the consumer experience. Why not have
Macy’s have stores online and you just —
AH:
Yeah. We just did a great gig for a one of the largest
building supply companies in the world. Everybody has this
CAD that’s trapped in ugly engineering designs- meaning to
the engineers, to the guys that use it, it’s about function not
form. And what they did was they prototype stuff.
Well what we do is take those CAD files, we export them and
turn them into beautiful objects. It could be a window, for
example. Or maybe the customer has 20 types of windows
that they sell. Well we can make those windows look lifelike
and then we’ve taken that CAD and really brought it to life.
We’ve added textures, materials, big lighting, all the things
that the consumer wants to interact with, because
consumers don’t want to buy products that look like ugly
CAD files, right?
So, what we’ve done is we’ve brought them to life in
configurators so that, at the end of the day a consumer can
interact with that object and change the colors, change the
fixtures on it etc.
Now that is something that is useful for marketing. So we’ve
taken the product out of CAD, and maybe now it lives on the
website. But we now take it further even and we say, ‘why
don’t we take that information and throw it into workspaces,’
which is what our product is. And now that becomes a show
space – a show room.
So, I can dedicate a single showroom to an individual
customer and then that becomes their custom showroom.
Not a general showroom, which what a website is.
A website is kind of trying to be everything to everyone at
once, but you may only care about certain things. So, what
we now can do is invite you only to a space that has the
things in it that you care about. They’re 3D. You can
see them and then as I follow you as a customer over life, I
can continue to add things to that space that you care about
as opposed to being a generalized experience that is what
we experience on websites today. Unless we filter through
the things we want, we can’t find stuff. It’s shopping cart –
that’s as custom as it gets.
DB:
It’s very flat. The UX is very flat.
AH:
Yeah. But also the experience is flat. It’s not customized.
And that’s what we’re doing. Sales is a process, right? It’s
not a single event, especially complex sales of big things. If
I’m buying jet engines or I’m buying anything thing that’s
complex- an automobile for example. I want to take time. I
don’t want to have start from scratch every time I go back to
talk to the sales person, right?
I want more information, but I also want to review the
information that I’ve already seen. I may want to go back to
it and ask more questions. Well today, the way sales works
is people have to start from scratch every time.
We have information that we’ve captured in CRM. But from
a customer experience point of view on the marketing side,
ingesting that information, it feels like the guy’s always
starting from scratch every time I talk to him or her.
And so, what we’ve done is said, ‘no – that experience is
something that you can pick up where you’ve left off and all
that data should be there.’
I, as a sales man, shouldn’t have to be digging through email
to remember what it is I showed Daniel.
DB:
That’s next-level.
AH:
Yeah, I should be able to go right back to where I was with
that customer.
DB:
…and see the whole picture.
AH:
See the whole picture and I’ve added stuff to it, right? And
that’s what we’ve built we’ve built a place that all that stuff
lives so that we’re picking up where we left off and we don’t
have to go back and rebuild the past every single time,
which is what it feels like often in sales experiences.
DB:
So, I want – and I agree with you on that. That that would be
very revolutionary. We all do that. Anyone that’s listening is
going to be like, ‘yep that’s exactly what I do because we’re
having so many conversations.’ We have to go back and
remember what was talked about.
I want to turn a little bit now towards you raised the first
round, 25 million and now you’re going through your next
round, correct, pretty soon?
AH:
That’s correct. That’s true.
DB:
And how much is the next round?
AH:
We’re going to raise 50 million in this next round.
DB:
Okay, and will there be another round after that?
AH:
No, this should take us through cash flow break even. We
might take some more money just because we have done an
acquisition and we may have our eyes on a few others. But
that’s all going to be valuation-dependent. If we get the right
price, as an entrepreneur what I would say is you have to
take the money when you can get it because these are
cyclical events in terms of fund raising. There are times
when the doors just shut on you because of things beyond
your control, like the economy.
And so what you want to do is raise the money you need
and then have some in reserve because not everything goes
as planned sometimes, right? And you have to be able to
have money in reserve in case things don’t go as planned.
DB:
So, my main question that I really was intrigued by in our
conversation is this idea of multitasking and the trick or the
lie attached to it. But more importantly to me would be this
idea of focus that you talk about. 4-5 hours. I was even
sharing with my wife and a few friends about our
conversation already.
I know that when you’re raising money, fundraising is not
easy. Building a company is not easy. Knowing your
competitors is not easy. Doing market analysis isn’t easy.
Building a team around whatever you’re building is not easy.
I mean there’s so many aspects to creating a company.
So how do you do it, and maybe talk about these principles
and how they’ve served you.
AH:
Sure, I think that that’s a good question. So, there are two
kinds of things you have to think about.
Number one, you have to be able to delegate, and if you
can’t delegate it means you don’t really trust the people
you’ve hired. So that’s what you’ve done wrong to begin
with. So, try to find like-minded people like you. Interview,
and really do the deep, deep, deep interview.
The biggest mistake people make is hiring too fast and it
makes getting rid of people that are problematic way, way
harder than it is to find a good person. So, what you should
do is spend all the time you possibly can talking to folks that
have worked with that person before, making sure that
they’re the right fit culturally, that they’re the right person.
Do the homework. Spend the time to do the background
check. Do all the things that really matter because people
that you think you know may not be the people that they are.
So, it’s really, really important that the person is a cultural fit
and exactly the right fit for what you want to do. If I could
give any entrepreneur this advice it’s probably the most
important advice, I can ever give. Take the time to do the
homework before you let someone inside that garden wall,
because it’s way harder to get rid of them than it is to let
them in. And they can really be toxic to your environment.
Once those people are in, trust them, because you took the
time to really do the homework. And then delegate things
that you want to delegate because you hired them for a
reason so let them go do their job. You’ve got to let go of
the reins because you did your homework, and now trust
those people to do what they do.
When you do that, then it frees you up to focus on the things
you need to focus on. If that’s fundraising for some period of
time, then that’s what you have to focus on. You don’t have
time to do everything else. So, you need to hand off the
sales process during that period to someone that you hired
that you trust to do that.
DB:
That’s good; I like that.
AH:
But that allows you to really really put in the time that’s
necessary to do what you need to do. Whatever that is, it’s
going to require 4-5 hours of your concentration a day,
uninterrupted.
We live in these cube farms now, which is all cool and
democratic and everything. What that also is is there’s
distractions every 5 minutes. People that talk loud on the
phone or people that are coming to talk to you about how the
Vikings did, or the Bears did.
So that you have these constant distractions in these open
environments and what you need to do is find a place or find
a space or let people know that you’re deep into what you’re
doing and to not disturb you and it’s ok to do that in a nice
way without being rude.
And over time, people will respect you through that because
they see the output of what you’re doing. If you can’t do it at
the office, then do it at home. Spend those 4 or 5 hours
where you’re not going to get interrupted. That’s the key.
Because people always want to set you up on their track.
Because they’re all trying to do things and they want you to
make decisions. Sometimes they just want you to do their
job for them. And again, that’s what you have to try to avoid
and so I’ve found that– and I didn’t learn it early in life. I
learned it through trial and error. I used to want to help
everybody all the time and answer their questions, or I was
afraid to delegate because I thought they’d drop the ball.
But I learned over time by hiring great people that the way
you succeeded was trusting those people, taking the time to
hire them correctly and giving them the jobs they need to do
and letting them go do it.
And by the way if they don’t do their job, don’t wait for them
to learn or change, because if you hire great people, they
should be able to pick up the ball. Now that doesn’t mean
that you don’t have to train them or they’re just out of
college, or that they need to go through formal education
and integrating into your company and all those things, they
understand the culture, etc. But if you hire a senior
professional, like a vice president of warble corporation and
he’s now going to come do a job for you, that guy should do
his job, or that gal should do her job.
After two quarters you don’t see evidence of them moving
the ball or the needle, you need to fire as fast as you hire.
As you made that decision ultimately to hire you need to
make the decision to fire. It’s not easy because they’re a
good person.
DB:
it’s not easy, but it’s smart.
AH:
You like people, but what you’re doing is hurting the
organization if you don’t. It’s not about being Machiavellian
it’s you have to think about the whole not the individual. And
that’s what an organization is. A company is like a whole
system. It’s not an individual cell.
When things go wrong you can’t sacrifice the rest of the
organization because of the needs of a single individual.
You have to be able to protect the whole and that’s what
hiring and firing is all about. It’s not about being mean or
cruel or not liking someone. It’s really about, ‘is this person
the best fit for the rest of the people whose jobs are feeding
their families and everything else.’
You can’t let people stick around that are you know hurting
the organization as a whole. You have to let them go.
DB:
I really like that too -just so you know. It’s very applicable to
sometimes even the idea focus. So, instead of focusing on
the organizational need you’re focusing on each person’s
individual needs to make them stay on the bus, and if you
hired right, you should be focusing solely on just what the
company needs next.
So, talk to me about this multi-tasking thing, though. It’s not
controversial in a sense but it’s not something that maybe
everybody’s heard, is that the idea of multi-tasking is just
inefficient.
AH:
I think it’s a myth quite frankly; this notion that we can take
on lots of things at once. What you end up doing is a lot of
things poorly as opposed to– and I’ve argued and it's
entrepreneurs that think they are just great multi-taskers.
They’re deluding themselves. No one can really do a lot of
things right at the same time.
And if you think about the best athletes in the world. How
many of them are multisport athletes? You don’t have
LeBron James also hitting home runs. There’s only been
two of those guys and even those guys if you really think
about their careers, they didn’t do both sports – they weren’t
awesome at it right? Maybe with the exception of Jim Brown
who played lacrosse and football at Syracuse. Outside of
that who has really really done a great job at multisport,
where they’re at the top of their game, top of their field, trying
to do everything at once. It’s near impossible.
And yes, there are a few exceptions to the rule. But you
know, but the majority of the rule is that you’re not the
exception.
So, for what I’ve found, and I can only speak for myself, is
that I used to take a lot of things on. I used to spin all the
plates, mostly because I was afraid to delegate, or I thought
that I’d do a better job than the other person. That’s just ego-
driven kind of stuff, or insecurity sometimes.
But what I’ve learned is that instead if you hire the right
people as I said earlier, and you let them do their job, then
that leads you to be able to focus on the things that matter
the most.
Now in business, those things change over time. At the end
of the quarter what matters is making the quarter. If you hire
the right people and if you’ve fed the funnel and if you’re
monitoring all the metrics along the way and the people that
are supposed to be doing that are doing that, and if you
routinely review, then you don’t have surprises at the end of
the quarter.
Anybody that surprised at the end of the quarter is a terrible
operator. Because you know going into the quarter what
your funnel looks like, what the deals are building up to be.
And if you’re truthful to yourself, and if people are honest
about what those opportunities are or aren’t, then you know
at the beginning of a quarter what the end of the quarter’s
going to look like.
So, what I do is I look at what the organization needs and
say, ‘what is the most important thing over the next span of
the week or a month usually?’ And then when I identify
what those things are and then I rank them, I then pick the
one that’s the top one and I delegate the rest. I focus on that
one thing until it’s 100% done, and then I move on to the
next thing once I’ve done it. If that’s fundraising, then that’s
all I’m going to do. Because fundraising is what keeps the
company going. It’s the fuel. You could build a Ferrari or go
try to race it but if you run out of fuel then your Ferrari’s
going nowhere.
So, if fundraising is what’s important, you have to focus on
fundraising. But it might not be fundraising; it could be
something else. It could be sales, right?
DB:
It could be product iterations, or reiterations. There’s so
much to all of this.
AH:
It could be patents that you want to file, that are important to
file –all that. But what you can’t do is think you can do it all
because you can’t. I’ve never seen anyone that’s really
efficient at multitasking.
You have to really focus on the very core things that you
think are important, and then give it 5 hours, 6 hours, no less
than 4 hours a day, and really just do that in a way that’s
uninterrupted. I was at the office all day on a Sunday. That
doesn’t sound appealing to a lot of people, but it was great
for me because I’m there an no one’s bothering me.
What I get to do during that block of time is do what I need to
do without anybody trying to distract me or take my time.
Now, my people know me well enough now to know not to
do that, but because we live in these modern, open
environments in an office, there’s just a lot of noise and other
people talking, and customers come in and people want to
say hello. To me nirvana is a Sunday where none of that
happens and I can just focus, focus, focus on the things I
need to do.
So, find that time. That block of time. Don’t give up working
out or having dinner with your kids because of it. Just find
that time, put it on a calendar, put it on a block and stay
consistent, and stay at it and use it for the things that matter
the most, and I guarantee you that your productivity will
triple, quadruple as a result.
DB:
That’s cool.
AH:
Because we always end up not completing. That’s what
happens when we’re distracted; you move on to the next
thing, but you left the last thing.
So, what you need to do is reevaluate what you needed to
do to begin with, or finish it and prioritize it
DB:
Well that’s what multi-tasking does. You jump to the next
thing because you feel like ‘I’m hitting a wall, but I’ll get back
to it.’ But you really don’t get back to it. I mean, you may
get back to some of it but not all of it.
AH:
Yeah. And I mean, I know it’s hard because what I’ve started
a lot of things by myself from scratch and at the beginning
you are doing a lot of things.
But what you’re really doing is your main things is you’re
doing the start-up phase of what you’re doing. And that’s just
part of what you do. But what you don’t want to do is go get
distracted and help your other buddy with his stuff start-up
while you’re doing that. As much as he may want you to and
you want to, you can’t do that. You have to focus on the
thing you’re doing.
What I would also recommend to entrepreneurs is because
you can’t do everything and because focus is so important,
give up some of your cap table to other like-minded people
that you trust and like that you want to bring on as co-
founders. Because those people will take on some of the
things that you need them to take on. And that doesn’t
mean you have to pay them a salary at the beginning they
might be willing to do it for stock.
So, at the beginning, don’t let ‘I don’t have the resources like
this guy that’s on this podcast to go do twenty things, to
delegate all this stuff to other people.’ Well, take a minute,
go find some people that might want to do it for equity,
because there are a lot of people that will do it for equity,
and then delegate those things that allows you again to
focus on the things you need to focus on.
I’ve given up a significant portions of the cap table to people
that I knew I needed so that I could get to the end game
because at the end of the day owning a lot of nothing is
worth zero, right?
So, it’s important when you’re trying to build something to
bring on people that can help you and there are lots of
people that are willing to help you that you don’t have to pay
cash that are willing to work for stock if you’ve got the right
vision and they share the vision.
DB:
Gosh, man. I wish we had so much more time. We’re up on
time here.
I’ve got one more question for you to maybe end the show.
This is like million-dollar knowledge here. You learn a lot of
problems that you don’t have to actually engage with or
mistakes that you don’t have to make by listening to a
podcast like this.
But one of the things that’s interesting to me is the emotional
roller-coaster sometimes of the experience of being an
entrepreneur. What do you do when you handle difficulties
or setbacks or let downs or just the daily grind of being
inspired to tackle big problems? What do you do just in a
daily practice to reward yourself or inspire yourself?
AH:
You know, I think that it’s really about, don’t isolate yourself.
Being and entrepreneur can be a very lonely experience.
Especially around payroll time when you have people
looking at you. You may not have the adequate resources to
do what you’re trying to do, etc.
I think it would really be super-challenging to manage
expectations, etc. But I think what you have to do is make
time to still have support outside of what you do. Whether
that’s your family, your kids, your friends, your dog; you need
to go out and create a support infrastructure that’s not work-
related so that you can blow off steam with people that care
about you.
And to do that, and what we often end up doing,
and I’m sure you’ve had this issue, is you’re so focused on
what you do your friends become the people you work with.
DB:
Right.
AH:
Well, that’s a big mistake. You should have friends at work,
but you should also have friends that you don’t work
with because those are people that you can go to to talk
about things that you can’t talk to people at work about,
sometimes, right? So, I think it’s super important to maintain
friendships, relationships outside of work that allow you to
have conversations and free your mind from the stuff that
you’re going to pick up when you go back to work no matter
what. But to me, I’ve found that to be the most important
thing that I’ve done, which is to maintain relationships that
are not work related so that I can have a life. Because life is
important too it’s not just all about work.
DB:
That’s super cool, man. I love that that’s an amazing ender
and I do agree that's it’s a different level of something that
energizes your everyday life. It inspires you and encourages
you.
Alex, thanks for taking time. I’m looking forward to watching
your venture and seeing it grow and become something
amazing and commercialized for all the other individuals that
would love to have something like that.
Any final thoughts for the listeners?
AH:
No, I think I’ve covered it all. You know, it’s ok to live your
dreams but it’s important to live your life.
DB:
I hope you’re more successful in life because of this episode
from the Art of Success. If you haven’t already, go ahead
and subscribe for the future updates released. Also, if you
enjoyed what you heard today share the Art of Success with
a friend, colleague or family member. Thanks again for
listening and we’ll catch you on the next episode.
Read More about Alex Hern and Tsunami XR in this recent Patch article.
Excellent content from beginning to end. Sharing useful and effective information in all your detailed and well explained information about Alex Hern .He has been an entrepreneur for more than 25 years.Their goal is that the stories would equip you to achieve success both personally and professionally.
Very cool insightful interview. After reading this I have a better understanding of XR as well as building a company from scratch!
Great interview! I have been following Alex Hern and his Tsunamy XR for the newest tech VR updates and his innovative ideas. Very hard working man, so nice to see that it paid off for him, even if he had the misfortune to go though recession. There are a lot of stories from that period that do not end well, glad his did. I am looking forward to see what they will bring to the table next! Exciting!
This is a great article especially with so many useful and important advices and explained this topic very nicely.Great information and very motivational but also keeps our expectations in proper prospective. . I really like the advice you hag gave.this is really amazing. i will definitely follow your suggestions . thanks for sharing useful information.
1
This is very informative, well described, and professionally done. It’s easy to understand all the points being made about Alex Hern. I like how it goes into great detail because this is something that everyone should know about. I enjoyed it a lot and will share what I learned with all of my friends.
I like the approach to see a success as an art, but not a plan or program.
This really is an inspirational interview. I always ask myself if regular people can go from little to entrepreneur, and this pretty much answers it. This was pretty long, so I’m going to re-read on my lunch break to get the full thing in. Alex seems like a pretty successful dude, and hopefully I can emulate a couple of the strategies he used to get to where he is today. 25 years is a long time to do anything, and to me that shows a proven track record and method for success.
This transcript of an interview was quite eye-opening to the world of entrepreneurs and what it takes to succeed. It’s quite an experience to see how Alex Hern was able to better himself and get himself through the process multiple times and succeed multiple times. I can see how much grit and determination it takes to become a frontrunner in new industries.
Great interview! This guy has done everything from Marvel to missles. As an entrepreneur myself I know how important it is to diverse my portfolio and this guy is the standard if you ask me. One thing that really hit me is the need to surround yourself with like minds and not isolate. Like he said as a businessman its easy to get caught up in your own vision but to see someone as successful as him still valueing that is great!
This transcript of an interview was quite eye-opening to the world of entrepreneurs and what it takes to succeed. It’s quite an experience to see how Alex Hern was able to better himself and get himself through the process multiple times and succeed multiple times. I can see how much grit and determination it takes to become a frontrunner in new industries.
This transcript of an interview was quite eye-opening to the world of entrepreneurs and what it takes to succeed. It’s quite an experience to see how Alex Hern was able to better himself and get himself through the process multiple times and succeed multiple times. I can see how much grit and determination it takes to become a frontrunner in new industries.
Thank you for this eye-opening interview with Alex Hern. This really showed me a successful entrepreneur who overcame hard times such as recession and domestic disasters such as 9/11. It takes a lot of hard work and persistence to accomplish such a feat, and I am amazed at how Alex Hern was able to do it. Just goes to show how anyone can be successful, no matter what happens in the world.
Great interview! This guy has done everything from Marvel to missles. As an entrepreneur myself I know how important it is to diverse my portfolio and this guy is the standard if you ask me. One thing that really hit me is the need to surround yourself with like minds and not isolate. Like he said as a businessman its easy to get caught up in your own vision but to see someone as successful as him still valueing that is great!
This transcript of an interview was quite eye-opening to the world of entrepreneurs and what it takes to succeed. It’s quite an experience to see how Alex Hern was able to better himself and get himself through the process multiple times and succeed multiple times.
Some great advice in this interview for would be entrepreneurs. We get so caught up in doing everything ourselves and that’s where we get lost! No man is an island, delegate, delegate, delegate! Very much agreed about having friends outside of work, helps keep your perspective from getting too skewed. Always important to have friends that are different from you.
Alex Hern is a great example of persistence, and knowledge of the corporate world. Creating a great business you have to learn from your mistakes and be persistent, stay true and focus. I lack the confidence to even begin my own business, I pray that I get out of my own way and just go for it.
This interview was really inspirational for me and it really opens my mind up to the future and even my future personally. can see how much grit it takes to become a frontrunner in new industries. It was interesting and kept me thrilled and wanting to read more the whole time.
Thanks for sharing, Alex. I think a lot of people in a lot of industries can learn from this interview.
I really enjoyed this transcript and found the overall discussion incredibly fascinating. I come from a background mostly
interested in the gaming and entertainment industries. It super cool to hear the potential applications of AR and VR functionality outside of entertainment and more application in business.
Alex Hern shares a lot of wisdom and life experience that points to how he got where he is today. It is totally possible to copy and the lessons he has shared for your own success. Whether you’re looking for a path the greater success or are just interested in tech this is fascination article
very important interview and looks good and also its useful for all type of people.such and inspiration it show and much dedication can see here. so I’m going to read on my lunch break to get the full thing in. Alex seems like a pretty successful dude indeed and he is an inspiration for all.
Loved the interview. I’m amazed at how many different organizations he was involved with and how he keeps continuing doing what he does. It shows a passion that honestly I lack.
Very hard working man, so nice to see that it paid off for him, even if he had the misfortune to go though recession. There are a lot of stories from that period that do not end well, glad his did. Great interview! I have been following Alex Hern and his Tsunamy XR for the newest tech VR updates and his innovative ideas.
This was a really interesting interview with Mr. Hern. I enjoyed reading it and the transcription itself was well done. It’s amazing how much grit this guys has to be able to come through and succeed after not doing well the first few times. Amazing story, I will be coming back and re-reading this in the future!
I really loved this interview. It has me intrigued from start to finish. This interview is great for inspiration if one has questions about their future. This interview really shows what it takes to succeed and be an entrepreneur. I like how Alex tells personal experiences and shows how he really got to where he is today.
This is a really cool article. I think its interesting to find out how things/products gets started and i also like being able to get to know the people who started those things and most of their stories, like Alex Hern, are very inspiring and worth reading and knowing about.
This is very good interview. it is very helpful to people. it gives us more inspirations and motivation. this shows Alex Hern able to better himself and get himself through the process multiple times and succeed multiple times. it is very important to entrepreneurs also. If you look for a path the greater success or are just interested in tech this is very valuable article for all humans.
I think this is a great, in-depth interview. Alex Hern gives good advice to aspiring entrepreneurs.
It’s always interesting to hear the thoughts behind minds like this. When you see people out there doing what you want to do and being who you aspire to be, it helps to get to know them on a deeper level.
I loved learning more about Alex and his history. Thank you for bringing to light his accomplishments. I will be making sure to check back in for more updates on his career!
This is cool. It’s a informative interview for them who are working on a bright future.
This article is so informative and really gives me a great insight into this and just puts lots of great thoughts into my mind! Great details, descriptions, and writing!
I’m surprised that alex hern shares the same interests as me and the use of VR and AR outside of the entertainment industry into the business sector. either way i enjoyed reading the transcript opposed to listening to it, great job on the transcription many websites fail at doing the exact thing.
There is some really good advice in this interview for up and coming entrepreneurs. It is incredibly easy to get wrapped up in trying to do everything yourself, and this is where we get lost. Delegating is key. This is the sign of a good leader. You trust your team enough to handle things, knowing that you, as their leader, are ultimately responsible for how they perform. It is also very important to keep a work life balance, and to have a seperate life outside of work. I agree with this wholeheartedly.