TRIBECA FLASHPOINT ACADEMY CEO HOWARD A. TULLMAN SPEAKS ON SOCIAL MEDIA AT ILLINOIS GOVERNOR'S CONFERENCE ON TOURISM

TRIBECA FLASHPOINT ACADEMY CEO HOWARD A. TULLMAN VIDEOS AND OTHER MATERIALS ON RTBOT

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TRIBECA FLASHPOINT ACADEMY CEO HOWARD A. TULLMAN AT MID-ATLANTIC ENTREPRENEURIAL BASH

Part 3: 2011 Mid-Atlantic Entrepreneurial Bash
PART 3 VIDEO


On October 17, 2011 top business leaders, executives, company owners, and aspiring entrepreneurs attended the Mid-Atlantic Entrepreneurial Bash at the Comcast Center at the University of Maryland to celebrate outstanding entrepreneurship. A panel of world class company founders spoke including: Troy Henikoff (SurePayroll, Excelerate Labs), Howard Tullman (Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy), Ted Leonsis (Monumental Sports & Entertainment, AOL), Ara H. Bagdasarian (Omnilert), and Mark Walsh (Genius Rocket)

Part 2: 2011 Mid-Atlantic Entrepreneurial Bash
PART TWO VIDEO


On October 17, 2011 top business leaders, executives, company owners, and aspiring entrepreneurs attended the Mid-Atlantic Entrepreneurial Bash at the Comcast Center at the University of Maryland to celebrate outstanding entrepreneurship. A panel of world class company founders spoke including: Troy Henikoff (SurePayroll, Excelerate Labs), Howard Tullman (Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy), Ted Leonsis (Monumental Sports & Entertainment, AOL), Ara H. Bagdasarian (Omnilert), and Mark Walsh (Genius Rocket)

Part 1: 2011 Mid-Atlantic Entrepreneurial Bash
PART 1 VIDEO


On October 17, 2011 top business leaders, executives, company owners, and aspiring entrepreneurs attended the Mid-Atlantic Entrepreneurial Bash at the Comcast Center at the University of Maryland to celebrate outstanding entrepreneurship. A panel of world class company founders spoke including: Troy Henikoff (SurePayroll, Excelerate Labs), Howard Tullman (Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy), Ted Leonsis (Monumental Sports & Entertainment, AOL), Ara H. Bagdasarian (Omnilert), and Mark Walsh (Genius Rocket)

TRIBECA FLASHPOINT ACADEMY CEO HOWARD A. TULLMAN AT EXECUTIVE OECD BRIEFING SESSION WITH SECRETARY GENERAL AND PRESIDENT PRECKWINKLE

TRIBECA FLASHPOINT ACADEMY CEO HOWARD A. TULLMAN'S ADVICE FOR ENTREPRENEURS FEATURED ON RED ROCKET BLOG

A place for entrepreneurs to learn and engage on various topics and lessons with George Deeb, founder and former CEO of iExplore, Chairman and former CEO of MediaRecall and Managing Partner at Red Rocket Partners, LLC.

Howard Tullman's Acceptance Speech at the Chicago Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame

Howard Tullman is a serial entrepreneur in Chicago, and the current Founder and CEO of the highly successful Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy.  Success has followed Howard from one business to the next, which is well detailed on Howard’s biography page.  Howard recently won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chicago Area Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, sponsored by the Institute for Entrepreneurship within the College of Business Administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago. 

Below is an excerpt from Howard’s acceptance speech, that Howard graciously allowed me to share with all of you.  There are some terrific words of wisdom herein, for all you aspiring entrepreneurs:

“When I was looking back over the last 55 years (since I started my first business), I want to talk about some lessons I’ve painfully learned, and reflections which I hope will be of use and value to you, as you go forward to build and grow your own businesses.

First, you will discover that (except for your grandmother) the people from whom you really learned things of value (good or bad) were not warm and fuzzy folks. They were sharp, hard-edged, driven people with a clear sense of purpose who were always asking more of you. And, the real reason that those times were so instructive was that, in the midst of all of the blood, sweat and tears, and occasional screaming, you never doubted for a moment that they believed in you and that you were up to the task and could do whatever it took to get it done AND that they would be there working and standing right beside you when you did. People today don’t commit to institutions (if they ever really did), they commit to other people. It’s nice to be liked; it’s more important to be respected. Try to be one of those people.

Second, most of the world’s great art, films, games and music – as well as most of the great inventions throughout history – were ultimately the result and expression of a single, uncompromising vision - albeit managed, massaged, and manipulated through a sea of change, confusion and compromise. Consensus is about finding the middle ground and making people feel good about themselves and each other. Teamwork is about getting the help you need to see your vision through to completion. But these tools and approaches will only take you so far. In this life, you’ll each have a chance, a moment, an opportunity to make something special and spectacular and to make a difference – if you have the courage of your convictions, the confidence in your abilities, and if you’re willing to make and stick to the hard choices that will inevitably arise. Don’t miss the train – it won’t wait for you.

Third, get your priorities right from the start. If you want to be an entrepreneur, get to the back of the line. The company (and its investors) comes first. The customers come second. The employees come next. And you come last. Get used to it. In more than 50 years, I’m proud to say that I never once put my personal desires, goals or even my financial interests ahead of those of my partners, investors, customers or employees. If anything, I’ve done just the opposite. I’ve done it all – lent risky money to employees and customers and even other entrepreneurs; co-signed home mortgages; helped with education and medical expenses; and subsidized people’s salaries when the various businesses couldn’t afford to do so. And, I’d do it again in a minute. It just comes with the territory when you believe in what you doing and in the people that you’re doing it with.

Fourth, plan on biting your tongue and eating lots of humble pie. At least it’s not fattening. There are plenty of people who think I’m outspoken, demanding, hard to say “no” to, etc. and they’re not wrong, but they don’t know the half of it. In this life, especially when you make a business of being in the business of using other people’s money (which entrepreneurs almost always eventually do), you learn to hold your tongue and suck it up and to eat LOTS of crow. I love to hear about all these successful guys (as they used to say about my friend Steve Jobs) who don’t suffer fools gladly. That’s all well and good - especially for billionaires at the top of their game – but it’s just a formula for failure for the rest of us. Part of the curse of being an entrepreneur (and one of the best ads I ever wrote for TFA) said: “I’ve spent way too much time explaining my talents to people who have none”. The truth is that’s just another part of the job.

Fifth, nothing is more important than making room for people. All kinds of people – because talent comes in lots of different sizes, shapes and packages. We want the talent, but we aren’t always willing to understand that it’s a package deal. Some work all night; some don’t bathe; some are insufferable and brilliant at the same time. You need to make room for these people and run interference for them if you want to build a great company. Too often, entrepreneurs try to find and hire people that look, act and talk like themselves and this never works beyond the first few employees. You need all kinds of people – even people just looking for a job – not a career and not looking to join your sacred crusade – just as long as they’re willing to do their job and do it as well as they can. And honestly, your employees also don’t have to love each other or go bowling every Thursday night. They just all need to show up and each do their jobs. Everything else is Kumbaya and gravy.

But the best part of having a terrific group of employees is when they leave the nest and go on to do great things themselves. I’ve had thousands of employees over the years and I couldn’t be prouder of how so many of them have turned out and how many are now leading companies all over the city and the country.

Lastly, I love sugar as much as the next guy (probably much more) and I have nothing against cupcake companies per se, but how about if we all hunker down and try to build some real businesses which will matter in the long run and which can help make a concrete difference in people’s lives. Education, energy, and health care – these sectors of the economy will all be disrupted and radically changed in our lifetimes – and these are also the areas that provide the greatest prospects for doing good while you’re doing well. It could just be me, but I’d rather have better batteries and cleaner cars than bacon or more butter in my candy bars.“

Certainly lessons we all can learn from, from a veteran who has been in the trenches.  Thanks, Howard, for sharing your lifelong lessons, and pioneering the way for the rest of us entrepreneurs in Chicago.  Wishing you many more great years to come.

BACK TO THE FUTURE – A “NEW” PLACE FOR START-UPS TO FIND FUNDING

BACK TO THE FUTURE – A “NEW” PLACE FOR START-UPS TO FIND FUNDING

So I gave a speech recently in California to about 300 corporate venture capital guys and I came away with a much clearer idea of something that I had been talking about and suspecting for some time. There’s “gold” for start-ups in them thar corporate places. And here’s why:

(1) Of the roughly 300 people at the conference, about 70 represented newly-formed or newly-reinvigorated corporate venture investing departments at MAJOR companies from across the whole world.

(2) Their charters and their comments were remarkably similar – “we’re not generating enough good ideas inside our firms and we have to go outside” and “we’ve cut back on R&D and now that the economy is heating up (from their mouths to God’s ears), we are behind the innovation and new product curves and losing share to our competitors”.

(3) They want to make “right-sized” investments – say $250,000 to $2 million – in the right kinds of deals within their own areas of expertise, BUT they don’t have to own or control the deals and – in fact – they would much prefer to simply be minority and patient investors.


(4) They see a HUGE opportunity because all the traditional VC guys have grown their funds so large that they simply cannot afford (in terms of opportunity costs, limited people resources, and the need to move the needle on their huge funds to show returns) to make a series of modest sized investments in start-ups EVEN IF they (the VCs) realistically acknowledge (as they do) that the start-ups don’t now need anywhere near as much funding as they used to require because of lean start-up models, lower technology and cloud costs, more effective and direct personalized channels to reach huge groups, etc.


(5) They understand that they are now mainly competing with all kinds of angels, angel groups and super-angels who are much better funded than they used to be and who bring a lot more (in terms of advice, access and mentoring) to the table than just a corporate venture guy normally would, BUT they say that they have one great BIG advantage over angels and that is that, in most cases for start-ups within their realms, they can also be the first major customer.

(6) Finally, they acknowledge that their two main competitive disadvantages are their speed of decision-making and the fact that within their corporate cultures, there is still much less tolerance for failure than in the VC world. I agree with that as to VCs, but I would venture to say (no pun intended) that angels (unlike VCs) are a lot closer to and tighter with their money (since it’s actually their money) than VCs are and a lot closer to corporate investors in that respect.

TRIBECA FLASHPOINT ACADEMY CEO HOWARD A. TULLMAN SPEAKS ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE ARTS AT CITY'S CREATIVE EXPO AT CULTURAL CENTER

TRIBECA FLASHPOINT ACADEMY CEO HOWARD A. TULLMAN QUOTED IN CRAIN'S CHICAGO ARTICLE ON START-UP FINANCING

When should a startup start worrying about making money?

By Lisa Leiter March 12, 2012

Chicago's startup revolution is in full swing. And that is causing some concern about whether the city will see déjà vu all over again from the dot-com boom and bust at the end of the last century.

Last year, Chicago companies raised $654.1 million in venture capital, according to Dow Jones VentureSource, more than any year since the peak of the dot-com bubble in 2000, when nearly $1.8 billion was raised. The number of investments: 70, the most since 2001.

Whether history will repeat itself in another boom-and-bust cycle is anyone's guess, but—Groupon Inc.'s famous profitability challenges aside—there are key differences between the dot-com glory days and now.

Chicago investors, already more conservative than their coastal counterparts, are asking about business plans, revenue and profits earlier and in more detail than ever before.

Some Chicago entrepreneurs are responding to those investor demands, as evidenced by a presentation at one of last summer's key startup events, incubator Excelerate Labs' Demo Day. Food Genius co-founder Justin Massa started his pitch to the audience with this: “All right, you're saying to yourself, ‘Food Genius, this is kind of cool. I get it. Dishes. But how in the world is it going to make money?' “

It's a question Mr. Massa, 33, started answering during Excelerate's summer program. Food Genius collects data on restaurant dishes, data he plans to repackage and sell to the grocery and restaurant industry. Mr. Massa, unlike some other early-stage entrepreneurs, says developing a revenue model before pitching investors was important to him. He initially started the process of raising $700,000 to $1 million at the end of the summer but says he pulled back last fall to refine his model.

“When I do go back out to raise money a few months from now, we will have the potential to be a company that generates money, and that gives us the opportunity to raise money from the right partners for us and give us a great valuation,” he says.

"For most companies we look at, I think they are too slow in deriving business models." — Paul Lee, Lightbank

“I do think that entrepreneurs from here are much more pragmatic, and I look at that as a positive,” says Lon Chow, general partner at Chicago's Apex Venture Partners, whose portfolio includes Chicago startups like Appolicious, Sittercity, Ifbyphone and Trunk Club. “Most of the businesses that are created here in Chicago tend to be solving a real problem or addressing a real need or one that didn't exist before.”

Mr. Chow adds that he is not seeing any of the “insanity” of the dot-com bubble days, when companies like Pets.com, an online pet supply store, and Webvan, an Internet grocer, grew too big too fast and flopped.

Perhaps Chicago's most memorable dot-com bomb: Internet incubator DivineInterventures Inc., a one-time symbol of the city's technology aspirations. Divine raised $129 million in a much-anticipated IPO in 2000 at a time when most of its 54 companies were not profitable.

“The model used to be get big—regardless—and lose a lot of money,” says Tribeca Flashpoint Academy President and CEO Howard Tullman, who in 2000 ran Xceed Group Inc., a Chicago-based Internet design and strategy business. He contends that things have shifted since then. “I'm very encouraged that real major businesses are now being created.”

OPPOSING VIEWS

Still, there are differences of opinion in Chicago's technology community about at what stage a startup should be concerned about revenue and profits over all-out growth.

No early-stage investor will say a startup should push for profitability immediately, says Paul Lee, a partner at Lightbank, the Chicago tech investment fund founded by Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky, Groupon's co-founders. Even so, “for most companies we look at, I think they are too slow in deriving business models. So you see them chasing something that sounds impressive on paper but doesn't really yield anything relative to West Coast investors, who are more inclined to track traffic and engagement metrics rather than a business model.”

To be sure, for some companies, like Pinterest and Twitter, matters like functionality and attracting and retaining users take precedence—at least in the near term—over profitability.

Daily-deals giant Groupon has been at the center of some of the profits-vs.-growth debate over the past year. The fastest-growing startup ever, the Chicago company is still not profitable. But Groupon, which raised $700 million in a November IPO, the biggest for an Internet company since Google Inc. went public in 2004, was able to generate revenue early on and posted more than a half-billion dollars in sales in the latest quarter.

Jason Fried, co-founder of Chicago software firm 37Signals LLC, preaches that profits should be the focus from day one. He also served on Groupon's board for about a year, leaving in January 2011.

“They were more successful in growth than probably any other company that has ever been in that short period of time,” Mr. Fried recalls. “But for me, that is not a measure of success for a business. My measure of success is, ‘Are they profitable?' Currently, Groupon doesn't fit that mold, but they might.”

A BETTER BOOM

Fast-growing firms like Groupon and restaurant ordering service GrubHub Inc. are unproven from a profit perspective. But, unlike their dot-com predecessors, they don't have to prove the Internet works. That's an advantage today's dot-com startups have over their late-1990s forerunners.

Industry observers say today's tech startups are able to build businesses cheaper and more easily, with access to experienced entrepreneurs, mentors and investors.

“The current boom has been fueled largely by very professional businesses . . . with solid business models,” says George Deeb, managing partner of Red Rocket Partners LLC, a Chicago-based startup consultancy. “There's much more sanity in the marketplace today than there was in the late 1990s.”

© 2012 by Crain Communications Inc.

TRIBECA FLASHPOINT ACADEMY CEO HOWARD A. TULLMAN - KEYNOTE SPEAKER AT ILLINOIS TOURISM CONFERENCE

Thursday, March 15  11:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. South Ballroom, Level 2   Keynote Address New Tools, Trends, and Technology in Social Media Howard A. Tullman, President & CEO, Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy With social media's continued growth as a vital tool in promoting travel, you owe it to yourself to attend this presentation. Howard Tullman will discuss the latest social media trends and explain how these rapid changes will impact your business and the business of your customers, clients and competitors. We are experiencing a series of major changes brought about by the rise of social media and new technologies which will steadily become an even greater part of our lives. The first step in formulating any effective response to these changes is to understand and appreciate their nature, scope and impact. In providing this background and strategies on how to thrive in the current climate, Howard's presentation will make you more social media savvy in a social media world.  Sponsor: Chicago Office of Tourism & Culture