Howard Tullman's next big adventure in technology
When Howard Tullman stepped back from the day-to-day operations of Tribeca Flashpoint Academy
after selling a majority interest to Chicago-based Sterling Partners, he had no intention of slowing down.
The 68-year-old serial entrepreneur was just gearing up for his next act: a $2 million venture fund called G2T3V LLC.
“We
started G2T3V because people saw this new technology being created at
the school and asked, 'What are you doing to commercialize it?' ” he
said. "We didn't feel like the school could really do it and take on the
risk. And it plays to my interests. We'll do investments of $25,000 to
$50,000, but we have partners who can do up to $250,000.”
The fund has just five investors, whom he declines to name other than himself.
He
takes the Warren Buffett approach, investing in what he knows. What
makes Mr.Tullman so interesting is that, after more than three decades
as an entrepreneur, he knows a lot more than most. He's been involved in
insurance, technology, education, film and gaming. He got his start as a
lawyer.
Just look at his portfolio:
PackBack,
a digital textbook-rental startup created by some Illinois State
University graduates; Chicago-based augmented-reality startup MagicTags; BCV, a Chicago-based social media services provider
SnapSheet Inc., which uses mobile phones to enable insurance repair estimates; Paris-based
Sketchfab, a web-sharing service for interactive 3-D models; Chicago-based
Philo Broadcasting Inc., which provides custom mobile-video content for advertisers; Chicago-based social media data miner
Social Crunch; Denver-based online pawn lender Pawngo; San Francisco-based
crowdfunding startup IndieGoGo Inc. and Atlanta-based Vehcon Inc., which
provides vehicle data to insurers. He's also contemplating an
investment in Pathful, a Vancouver-based startup, that provides website
analytics, and he recently completed the TechStars Chicago accelerator.
“This is an opportunity to solve problems in industries where I've got
20 or 30 years experience,” he said.
Mr.
Tullman also had been at Tribeca Flashpoint about five years, which is
sort of his limit for any single endeavor. “I wasn't that interested in
taking attendance,” he said.
G2T3V is his second venture
fund. The first, Chicago High-Tech Investment Partners LLC, was launched
11 years ago and is winding down, though it still has three active
investments.
He has boundless energy. When I caught up with
Mr. Tullman one morning last week at about 8 a.m. for breakfast, he'd
already been up since 4. And few people know as much about tech as Mr.
Tullman. Sitting down with him is like touring the chocolate factory
with Willy Wonka.
He was carrying three cellphones:
•
A Moto X. He likes the voice-recognition software, Google Now, and the
feature that launches the phone's camera with a flick of the wrist;
•
An iPhone, which he uses to demonstrate MagicTags, augmented-reality
software from a Chicago startup that allows you to superimpose a photo
or video onto a picture. So if you take a picture of a product such as a
cereal box with your phone's camera, you also would see photo or video.
The image of a Beach Boys album cover automatically pulls up a video.
• A BlackBerry. It's his primary phone because he can type faster with a physical keyboard. He's
a prolific blogger and writes
columns for Inc. magazine on his phone.
“No
one keeps up (with tech) the way Howard does, and no one connects the
dots the way he does,” said Ed LaHood, a longtime friend, founder of
MagicTags and CEO of Chicago-based startup MainCloud LLC.
Mr. Tullman is one of the thousand or so techies that
Google chose to test out its Glass product. (He's known Eric Schmidt for a long time).
He
relays a recent conversation with Vincent D'Onofrio about doing a
web-video series set in Chicago, capitalizing on the next big trend, TV
and films made for the web. “(Kevin) Spacey set the curve with House of
Cards.” Tribeca Flashpoint counted Robert DeNiro among its investors.
Mr.
Tullman is jazzed about Sketchfab, which he came across while working
in France on an environmental project. The company later participated in
TechStars New York. When the new Xbox came out, Sketchfab launched an
interactive 3-D model of the gaming system on YouTube that got millions
of views.
“It's all about how to capitalize not just on
the hours in the day, relationships, but also mistakes I've seen before
and how not to make them again,” he says.
His advice to
entrepreneurs is simple and grounded in decades of experience as an
entrepreneur that includes CCC Information Services, Tunes.com, Cobalt
Group, Kendall College and Tribeca Flashpoint.
“Slow down,
find a way to pay the bills,” he said. “A lot of companies don't want to
do B2B. Everyone wants a home run, but that's a really bad strategy
because it rarely happens."
It's a hard message to sell, though.
“Once a year, there's an Instagram that perpetuates (the dream),” he said.
(Editor's note: Sterling Partners' headquarters location has been corrected to Chicago in this updated story.)
Follow John on Twitter at
@JohnPletz.
