Before we get started check out Visual Website Optimizer. Did you know it’s a dead simple way to do A-B testing on your site? Just enter your site’s url and you’re ready to create variations of your current site’s design. Once you’re done, test it against your current layout and see which one increases conversions. VisualWebsiteOptimizer.com.
Next is Grasshopper. Did you know that in addition to being the virtual phone system that entrepreneurs love Grasshopper.com has one of the most popular blogs on entrepreneurship? Even if you’re not ready to get a new phone number from Grasshopper.com, even if you’re not ready to add extensions to your phone, even if you’re not ready to get text based voice mail and a toll free number and everything else that Grasshopper offers you, check out Grasshopper.com’s blog to learn about entrepreneurship.
Finally, who’s the lawyer that tech entrepreneurs trust? Scott Edward Walker of Walker Corporate Law. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Scroll down to the bottom of his site and see what other entrepreneurs have said about him, including Jason Calacanis of Mahalo who says, ‘He’s a great lawyer who loves start-ups.’ WalkerCorporateLaw.com.
Here’s the program.
Hey everyone, it’s Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy.com, home of the ambitious upstart. Man. There you go. Home of the ambitious upstart. How do you put together the right team to pursue a big vision? Joining me is Unity Stoakes the co-founder of Organized Wisdom, an expert driven platform for health and wellness. Since you helped me with that intro can you help us understand what the big vision was behind your business?
Unity Stoakes: Yeah. Organized Wisdom, as you said, is an expert-driven platform for health and wellness. And really we’re on a mission to close what we call this ‘online health gap’. It’s the scary space between when someone does an internet search and when they actually see a doctor. And there’s this big gap right now where people get scared, they get random information and there’s a lot of confusion. Our mission is to really close this gap. The way we’re trying to do that, because everybody now goes to the internet to search for health information, there’s a real problem because there are not very many doctors yet sharing their wisdom online. Our goal is to inspire a million health experts to move to the internet and to start sharing their health wisdom online so that we can close this online health gap.
Warner: Who are some of the people you got to join you in this mission?
Stoakes: We’re excited by the people we brought together to help on this effort. Jerry Levin joined our board; he was the former chairman and CEO of Time-Warner. People like Esther Dyson who’s a big health investor and a great futurist and thinker. We’re got people like Roger Ehrenberg, Jeff Stewart. There’s really about 30 great entrepreneurs who have joined us as investors and advisors to help us close this online health gap.
Warner: I want to find out how you did that because, frankly, I’d like Jerry Levin to come help me here at Mixergy and I’m sure my audience would like people of his calibre to join them in their missions. I want to find out how you did that but let me start off with this before we even get into how you got there. Before the interview you and I had a long conversation about the company and the direction of this interview. And you said specifically that you wanted to build a company that wasn’t going to be just another iPhone fart app or iPhone app in general, or just another photo-sharing site, but you had a bigger vision. Why is this such a big vision that you think it’s worth the time and energy you’re spending on? That you think it’s better than some of the smaller visions? Or more important to the world than some of the smaller apps that are being created? Why? What makes this so big?
Stoakes: Really, we’re trying to help people. We see that the highest application of building a business is to help people improve their lives, to help improve people’s health and wellness and let people live happier, healthier lives. When you’re just building another marketing company like we have in the past, or another technology feature, it’s just not as rewarding. There’s not as much meaning associated with your work every day. And frankly if you don’t have a company or an idea or big mission associated with it it’s just not going to inspire other people around you. That was really the means [INAUDIBLE] trying to help people.
Warner: I’m looking up some of the people who you have gotten to join you and I wanted to make sure I had as much information on them as possible while we talked. Why don’t we talk about the first one. Who’s the first high calibre entrepreneur or executive you got to join this mission?
Stoakes: I think Esther Dyson was rally one of the first supporters of our vision. She’s been one of the leaders in what’s become known as ‘the health 2.0 movement’. She’s been a great industry thinker and investor and supporter for many great companies and really she came on very early as both as investor and an advisor. That was critical. Having that first marquee supporter on your team was absolutely essential because from there you can grow and inspire other people to join your cause or join your mission.
Warner: There’s so much Esther Dyson has done; I’m looking here at her Crunch Base profile to see if I could come up with a few things to point out. Her newsletter, Release 1.0, helped drive the early development of the PC…I’m now reading directly from there. I don’t even know if I can encapsulate what it is about her that makes her such a prized supporter. Is it that she’s invested in companies that many of us know? Is it that she’s been driving 2.0? It’s all of that. So how did you get her? Or you go ahead.
Stoakes: She’s a true visionary. She thinks differently than most people do and she pushes ideas forward. But I think what’s really special about Esther and people like Esther it’s really a combination of their ideas and their support but also their contacts and connections. She’s been involved with so many great businesses over the years that she can help facilitate introductions but she can also help transform your thinking along the way and help you shape and vision and idea along the way.
Warner: How did you first connect with her?
Stoakes: Interestingly enough when I was just out of college at my first job at a company called Middleburg and Associates I used to read Release 1.0 and had contacted her way back in the day when she was writing these articles. That’s when I first came into contact with her. My business partner Steven Krein who’s the CEO of Organized Wisdom, also had a relationship with her and he actually reached out to her when we were just forming Organized Wisdom and pitched the idea to her. And I think that we both had a prior relationship with her gave us that initial credibility so that she would listen to the idea and listen to us. And we also had a track record and I think that’s helpful. We had taken a company public in 1999 on NASDAQ so we had a track record of success, we had done a lot of things in the community and New York City and Silicon Alley and we had been in the scene, so to speak, building businesses for many years.
Warner: When you reached out to her, back when she was running Release 1.0, you’re saying you just wrote her a letter? This was before email really, no?
Stoakes: No, no. I actually would email her and pitch her story ideas and try to meet with her for lunches. At the time I was helping launch companies like CDNow and DayTechOnline and AdOne and this first wave of internet companies. This was in 1996. I was trying to get in touch with her and Release 1.0 to get her thoughts and ideas about these companies that I was working for. Street.com.
Warner: In 1996 when you were reaching out to her, when you were emailing her, she emailed you back? She was following up on the messages you sent?
Stoakes: It wasn’t always just email but you’d go to events; back before MeetUp, she’s on the board of MeetUp.com, you would go to breakfasts, you would go to events that other organizations would have so you’d try to corner people at those events and try to shake their hand and pitch them your idea when you could. That’s what I would do back in the early ‘90s.
Warner: What’s your strategy? How do you get someone like Esther Dyson to, or anyone who’s at one of these events, to pay attention to your pitch and remember it?
Stoakes: I think the most important thing is to stand for something, to have a mission. It’s not talking about what you’re doing or how you’re doing it it’s why you’re doing something.
Warner: So in the days of Promotions.com, WebStakes, when you guys were doing online promotions what’s the big mission there that’s such a big ‘why’ that you get people’s attention?
Stoakes: Back then we were more inspired by how we were going to do something and what we were building. We were going to build the greatest promotions company of all time and all of these things. Our own personal evolution over the years was, ‘How can we take all this experience, how can we take all this we learned and taking a company public and building great technology platforms but do something meaningful with it? Do something that has a higher purpose and a bigger mission?’ which is what we’re with Organized Wisdom. I think when you have a story to tell, when you have something more meaningful then people like Esther Dyson or Jerry Levin are like minded souls and want to join with you to achieve great things.
Warner: Over those years, we’re talking maybe 10 years. It’s even more than 10 years; it’s almost 20 years that you’ve been contacting her, how has the relationship built up? Is it just you cornering her and telling her what you’re up to or sending her emails every once in a while with an update or did it develop into something more meaningful before you asked her to join you in this mission?
Stoakes: I certainly by no means was best friends with Esther Dyson but I think more than anything she was inspired and attracted to the vision and the passion and the idea that my business partner and I had. Because we had a previous relationship, because she knew who we are and she also liked our idea she gave us a shot. She gave us that chance and what we needed was that shot. Because once you have that sort of person with you, like an Esther Dyson, then you can go get other meetings. In fact, Esther Dyson is the one who introduced us to Jerry Levin who’s now on our board and one of the great mentors for Steve and myself and for our business.
Warner: Let’s slow it down so that I can absorb everything. When you pitched her what did you pitch her on at first?
Stoakes: We told her the story…it’s really a sad story but it’s the whole reason we created Organized Wisdom in the first place. One of our former investors actually was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and he and his family were searching online for information and they just could not find the information they needed. They called my business partner because they knew he knew how to find information online and he was great with the internet. And because of that we discovered this huge problem and that nobody needs millions of random information when you’re dealing with something as important as health information or pancreatic cancer. We set out to try to fix this problem to close what we call this ‘online health gap’. We told this story to Esther and she said, ‘That makes sense.’
Warner: You wanted her to do what? To invest? Did you want her to be on the board? Did you want her to an advisor, mentor, what was the goal?
Stoakes: The first thing we did was ask for advice. When you ask people for advice a lot of times they want to give it and are willing to give it if they care about your idea.
Warner: So your first goal with her was to get advice. What advice did she give up front, before she made introductions and helped you out? What was the first bit of advice that she gave you?
Stoakes: Just thinking back, it’s been so many years now, but she’s very good at not telling you what you’re doing wrong but leading you forward to how you can tweak your [INAUDIBLE] to make it that much better. And I think one of the first things she helped us understand is how we can tweak our idea so other investors would want to be a part of that.
Warner: I’m fascinated by that. Tell me what the before and after was? How did you pitch it before and how did you pitch it after she showed you how to reframe your message?
Stoakes: One of the things that we adapted along the way was this concept of not just building a great technology but really building experts, humans into the process. Where the magic happens is really by focussing on the humans and really getting us to think about how companies should be built in what we call the post-algorithmic world and she got us thinking about that. That was very special at a time, we’re going back four years now, when Google was still…well, still is, but people weren’t thinking about how to combine graphs and expert graphs with algorithms at that time. She got us thinking about that very, very early.
Warner: She said, ‘Think about people and not just technology and information. And pitch it as people and not just technology and innovation’?
Stoakes: The other thing is, while everyone else is going broad, she loved the fact that we were focused on the vertical of health and wellness. That’s a big question. With our name being Organized Wisdom people ask us every day, ‘Why don’t you do this for finance? Why don’t you do this for autos?’ She really inspired us…from the beginning it was always focused on health and wellness but she’s a big supporter of staying focused on that one vertical and really doing a great job with that one vertical. I think that was great advice.
Warner: She said, ‘Focus on people. Focus on the one vertical.’ How else did she shape you?
Stoakes: Bringing in other great investors and advisors. From very early on we started building both our board as well as our network of advisors to assemble the right team, the right team of like-minded souls who want to do something big in health and wellness. We were inspired by an idea of adding what we call ‘the billion dollar board member’ to our board from when we first formed the company. For two years we had been searching for this billion dollar board member; someone who had started a company from scratch and built it to over a billion dollars in revenue. That was a goal of ours. We went to Esther Dyson, about a year ago, and we told her about our goal and she recommended we meet with Jerry Levin. She made that connection. We now have our billion dollar board member. Jerry Levin has joined our board. It’s transforming our business and that’s very exciting.
Warner: Before we move on to Jerry Levin you said that you asked her for advice at first. How did that relationship build up and it built up into what? Did it get more formal that that? Did she make an investment? Did she become a formal adviser?
Stoakes: She made an investment and became a formal advisor. One of the great pieces of wisdom that Esther Dyson has shared with me before if you want a company to listen to you as an advisor, if you want to have them pay attention to you you should invest in that company. Rather than just advise companies she’s a big proponent of investing in companies which is why she’s such a prolific angel investor and supporter of so many great things ranging from MeetUp, she was in Delicious and flickr and she’s on the board of 23andMe.com. She does a lot of exciting things with space travel now as well. She invests in these ideas, she invests in these entrepreneurs and that’s an amazing thing. I think it’s a great lesson for other entrepreneurs or angel investors, really. If you want those businesses to listen to you consider investing in them.
Warner: She introduces you to…I shouldn’t even call him ‘Jerry Levin’. I don’t know him as well as you know him. I should call him ‘Gerald Levin’. So she introduces you to Gerald Levin, the guy who ran Time-Warner, who merged Time-Warner with AOL, who rose up through the ranks through HBO. He’s a very famous guy for a long time until he decided to drop out a little bit from the limelight. He’s not an easy guy to get a hold of. She makes the introduction and says what? That Gerald’s a guy who should invest in the business, that he should advise, what’s the connection she was trying to broker there?
Stoakes: It started out with a lunch. So the four of us, actually it was five of us, it was my business partner and I, it was Esther Dyson and Jerry Levin and his business partner Bill West and they were looking to…Jerry had been looking to support and get involved with like-minded souls who wanted to do big things in health and wellness. It started with just a lunch and I remember very clearly the very first question that was asked at that lunch when Jerry turned to Esther and he just asked one question which is, ‘Esther, why did you invest in Organized Wisdom?’ It all developed from there. Over the next several months we built a bond, we had conversations, we met in person, we would share articles and information and we built a relationship over many months and then formalized the relationship when Jerry agreed to invest in our company and also join the board.
Warner: The first time you sit across the table from him what are you feeling? Are you feeling nervous? Are you feeling, ‘Oh my God, I’m about to do something I’ve always wanted to do’?
Stoakes: It was really an exciting moment and meaningful time for me. When I was in college Jerry was the CEO of the greatest company in the country. I went to a communications school and was studying marketing and communications and media and here I am now sitting with this person. I was just really happy to be there and personally it was rewarding because I had been searching for a mentor and just hearing how he conducts himself, the questions he asks, the way he thinks, I instantly had this very positive feeling about him and the relationship.
Warner: Give me an example. What’s an example of a way he thinks that just inspired you or helped you think differently?
Stoakes: I was really inspired and intrigued by the questions he asks and also how he listens. One of the great things about Jerry Levin is he takes a great interest in getting to know you, whoever you are, as an individual. He asks about your family, he asks about what’s important to you outside of business so he really builds a personal connection. I think by doing so we were able to quickly build a very strong relationship.
Warner: How do you win him over?
Stoakes: I think by being sincere and honest and transparent and…
Warner: Be more specific. What did you do to win him over because we’re all trying to be sincere and honest and some of us look like real douches when we’re like that and others of us come across better? So how do you do it? Be specific.
Stoakes: I think it comes down to your passion as an entrepreneur. I always say being an entrepreneur is like, by the end of the day, you’ve been beaten down with a baseball bat. You need to be resilient, get up the next day and be regenerated, have a smile on your face and be ready for battle. That passion doesn’t always come through. I think if you can’t stand behind your idea and have that passion, that excitement and that energy even at the end of the day when you’ve been beaten down people see that. They sense that and they know, or they think, maybe you won’t be able to survive through the battles that you’ll have to face as an entrepreneur over the years.
Warner: Do you have an example of a time when you talked to him when maybe you felt beaten down but instead of coming across as a guy who’d just been beaten down you communicated confidence and an ability to control your destiny?
Stoakes: Well, that’s a good question. I’m trying to think of a specific example. Really what you get from someone like Jerry Levin that’s really amazing is support and guidance in a mentorally way. Even when you are beaten down, maybe when a media interview didn’t go as well or a presentation with a potential investor didn’t go he sort of shifts your thinking to the bigger picture and what this means in terms of the bigger picture to find those lessons learned and…
Warner: Here’s the thing: it’s very impressive that you got a guy of his calibre to come and join your mission. I want the people in my audience…first of all to get an opportunity to sit across from someone like Jerry Levin, from the big entrepreneurs and the big CEOs of our time. But second, I also want to make sure that when they get in front of them they don’t just have a great lunch or a great conversation that they get to tell their friends about but that they have an experience that moves somewhere, that they convert this guy from a stranger into a passionate evangelist and a mentor. And if all I do is I send them away with is, ‘be honest and transparent and be passionate,’ I’m going to do them a disservice and you I can’t do that to them.
Stoakes: Sure. Let’s assume you’ve got a great idea and you’ve got a big inspiring mission and you’ve got the credentials and you’ve got the track record. Let’s assume you have all those things. Really it comes down to building a relationship. It’s not just about…
Warner: Tell me about that. I understand he asked you about your family and that’s very flattering when a guy who’s successful and you’re supposed to win over cares about you and your personal life. I understand how he could win you over with those little touches. How do you, a guy who’s relatively – no offense — a nobody compared to him, and don’t take offense because I’m a nobody compared to you and him way more, how do you as a guy who wouldn’t register on his radar how do you win him over and become a protégé? How do you do it specifically?
Stoakes: I don’t know that there’s a secret if that’s what you’re searching for but I think there’s common sense natural things that every entrepreneur should do.
Warner: What did you do?
Stoakes: You build a relationship over time. This isn’t about having a lunch and then asking someone to join your board or asking someone to be an investor.
Warner: That’s a good point. You’re right. I might pull the trigger too quickly and maybe try to finish everything up right there in that first lunch, I get my one shot, I might try to get him to sign up and be my advisor there. That’s a good point. I’ve got to take my time. What else?
Stoakes: You ask good questions…
Warner: What’s a good question you ask Gerald Levin?
Stoakes: You interview the other person. You interview them. As you say, being a nobody, if you have the confidence, and you have the good ideas and you have that passion then to a certain extent you want every other partner, every investor, every board member, everyone else coming into your vision and your idea to be aligned.
Warner: I see. So you’re saying, ‘Why are you interested in partnering up with me and Organized Wisdom? Why should I, in a sense, invite you into my vision?’ That’s one of the things that you did.
Stoakes: Yeah. And I think the key is just making sure people are aligned. We like to say we’re like-minded souls because we’re aligned, we have the same vision and that only comes through talking. Sometimes it’s via email, sometimes it’s face-to-face, sometimes it’s on the phone but building that relationship over time I cannot stress how fundamental that is. The second thing I think is many entrepreneurs just don’t ask. They may think that someone is out of their reach or just because you don’t have that established track record or aren’t on the cover of the Wall Street Journal every day then maybe those people won’t want to join your mission. You’d be surprised that if you just go communicate and just put yourself out there and try to connect with these people. First identify who they are, who you want on the team and then go meet with them. I think a lot of people don’t take that simple step. We went to Esther Dyson and asked her. She’s not just an advisor with her name on our website and all these things. We leveraged her because we knew she would have great ideas on who that billion dollar board member would be. And we were right. Just by asking that one person that one question transformed the future for us.
Warner: I love that. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. How many times do you hear that the hot girl is the one sitting by herself on a Saturday night because everyone is too embarrassed to ask her out or everyone assumes actually that everyone is asking her out. Meanwhile, nobody is. That’s a good point. My analogy’s a little bit off but you get where I’m going with it. How do you build a relationship with him over time? And I’ll move off of him; I don’t want to sound like I’m a stalker of Gerald Levin but how do you build a relationship with him over time?
Stoakes: Communication, communication, communication. One of the early lessons I learned back in 1996 when I was just out of college is you want to update people. You may think you’re updating people but you’re really just giving them the highlights or you’re just telling them the good news. But you give them more information. The full story, more details, the ups and the downs and I think by doing that, giving someone the whole picture of your business and also who you are you can really start to build that relationship over time because they’ll trust you.
Warner: So over time, after that one meeting you started updating him saying this is where the site’s going, this is what we did yesterday, this is what we did the last month? That kind of thing.
Stoakes: Yeah. Pick up the phone, have a conversation, run an idea together. One thing that we did from the very beginning, this was before he joined our board, is we actually worked on a project together and by working together, actually doing something together you really get to know someone.
Warner: What’s the project?
Stoakes: We were working on a big deal together.
Warner: What’s the deal?
Stoakes: Actually it’s been announced. We did a deal with Reader’s Digest and he was helping us with certain aspects of that and packaged that the right way and that was very important. Through that process you actually get to know someone and develop a relationship with someone when you work together.
Warner: Unity, are these question dorky? I feel like I should be embarrassed to ask these questions. I kind of feel like I’m going up to you as a guy who just kissed a girl and saying, ‘Can you teach me how you got her to say yes to the kiss? Can you teach me how you kiss?’ I’m obsessed with these little details. Tell me if it’s dorky, though.
Stoakes: I love how you dig in. I’ve seen many of your interviews. You’ve got a great style and really get to the nub of the matter and dig in so I’m happy to share anything with you. My main message and reason for wanting to talk to other entrepreneurs is to show my story that you don’t have to have this big track record and well known figure to do big things. One thing that I think is most important is I hope to inspire other people to have that mission, to use your time for meaningful things. If you’re a developer out there or you’re an entrepreneur out there is what you are working on going to change big things? Is it going to change the world?
Warner: It is but you know what? I’m going to talk for myself and my audience can think in their heads about how what you just said can relate to them. I’m going to think out loud how this relates to me. How many great entrepreneurs have I bumped into here at Mixergy and then just lost touch with? How many of them should I have brought in on my mission and the way you talk about your mission is the way I need to talk about my mission with them. The way you stayed in touch with Gerald Levin after you met him is the way I should have stayed in touch with guys like Scott McNealy. And I need to think about it as a much longer term process instead of thinking ‘It it happens it happens and if it doesn’t that’s fine. I’ll make for it with the law of big numbers by talking to lots of people.’ I need to stay in touch with them the way that you did and I also need to say, ‘If I can’t get them on board right away for this mission to help me out how do I start off with a small project?’ Maybe it’s just saying, ‘Hey. They’re really passionate about this one sector. Maybe they could help me find entrepreneurs who are great in that sector and help me put together a week of interviews with smart people on that sector.’ You’re bringing up a lot of little points that might seem insignificant to you but I think are significant to me and my audience. Let me move on there. This can’t be about me; I’ve got to come back to my audience and to your story. Who else? Who’s the next big person that you landed and got to join your mission?
Stoakes: There were really a couple of great investors and advisors. Jason Finger was the CEO of a company called Seamless Web. And Jeff Stewart who has been a tremendous advisor and investor and joined very early. Also Roger Ehrenberg joined as an investor. We were one of his first early angel investments when he became active. We actually set out to do something interesting before we had any VC money we said, ‘We want to go bring in fellow entrepreneurs, other people who have built businesses.’ We ended up bringing in about 30 entrepreneurs and we made a list of who we wanted to be involved in Organized Wisdom. This is going back to 2006, 2007. People like Jeff Stewart, Roger Ehrenberg, Linda Holliday, Jason Finger; these were the people at the top of our list. We put this list together and went out and tried to bring in fellow entrepreneurs because we knew that other entrepreneurs would also have a like-minded vision for how we wanted to build our company…
Warner: Can you pick one of those out of that big list who was especially interesting in the way you pursued him or her and brought him or her on board?
Stoakes: Let me think. Jason Finger actually is an interesting story because he joined as an investor and is on our board. He was the CEO of Seamless Web which he sold to Aramark. He was the roommate of my business partner Steven Krein in college. They have a long-standing relationship and I think one of the other lessons here is building a business is a long game. It’s a long…you’re potentially going to be doing it for years and years and years. Hopefully years if you’re successful and you want to know the people you’re going to be partnering with as well as possible. When you have a relationship with someone like a Jason Finger throughout college and over the years that goes a long way. My business partner, Steven Krein, helped get his first investors in Seamless Web. He helped bring in his first venture money to Seamless Web. By the way, we have the same sort of investors. It’s all connected to a certain extent and that’s another signal that those relationships over the years are very, very important.
Warner: Steven helped him a few years ago. When it was time for you guys to get advice, get mentorship, get money from investors you guys went and talked to him and had the relationship with him to draw on. Who was especially tough? Who was someone who was on your list who you said, ‘That’s a bit of a stretch but we’re going to find a way to make that happen.’
Stoakes: A little bit different spin on that but one angel that I’m most proud of is a gentleman named Don Middleburg and he was my first boss out of college. I didn’t even think to go ask him when we were raising money. He was always a great mentor of mine, someone who I regard very highly and he had sold his company and it just occurred to me about three days before we were closing our round that I should give him a call. Not because we needed his money but because I wanted him in our round and I wanted to see if he would invest in me all these years later. I was pleasantly surprised that he did.
Warner: Were you a little nervous to talk to him about this?
Stoakes: Absolutely.
Warner: What was the nervousness about?
Stoakes: I think anytime you ask people for money, whether it’s friends, family or other entrepreneurs, there’s a lot on the line. Your credibility is on the line. What if they say no? In the case of Don Middleburg what if he rejected me? It may have been this big wound but you have to deal with rejection as an entrepreneur. You normally get a lot of no’s than yes’s along the way when you’re raising capital that’s for sure.
Warner: We have just a little more time together and I’d like to spend a little bit of time on this concept of going green virtually that I know is very important to you. Can you explain to people what going green virtually means? What is that concept?
Stoakes: Before the concepts of lean start-ups and building distributed remote companies sort of became in vogue we created this concept about, four or five years ago, that we called ‘going green virtually’. It’s really a whole philosophy about how you build your business. In our case, it’s not just about not having an office and working in remote locations and having team members distributed in the cloud. It’s more of a philosophy about how you operate your entire business. It’s about how you conserve and leverage all of your resources and it’s the most effective way we believe to manage your resources. Your time, your energy, your money, your…
Warner: What does it mean? How does it relate to time? I understand going green virtually that it means no office and everyone gets to work from wherever they live and that means you get to draw on a talent pool from all over the world. What about the time management? How does going green virtually relate to time?
Stoakes: When you do things like decide you’re not going to have meetings. When you do things like decide you’re going to cut the concept of commuting, which can take up to several hours a day for your team members, off the table it frees up a lot of time. There are a lot of things you can do in your business to think about time as a real asset; as a way to really be leveraged rather than have team members that are supposed to work 40 hours a week. We shifted the concept of time in our business completely away from time to being specifically about results and productivity. When you make that shift it frees your business up in a lot of ways. We think it’s not only more efficient but definitely more productive and ultimately results oriented.
Warner: I understand the virtual part of this. What’s the ‘green’ part of the concept?
Stoakes: The green part is about building a team and an environment…basically, it’s a more rewarding and fulfilling environment for your team members. We think one of the most important things you can do when you’re building a business is to have a happy, healthy environment. One of the concepts of green is being happy and healthy. When you enable your team to be able to develop their own schedules or shape their own schedules so they can spend more time with their family, you can create happier team members and employees because they can do the things that are meaningful in their life outside of just their job. We think there’s a whole approach to going green virtually which is really much more than how you build your product, how you operate your business efficiently but it’s a philosophy of how you treat your team members and how you build community within your company. What you stand for really, as a business.
Warner: I’m looking here at my notes to see if there’s anything else I want to talk to you about. Here’s where I think we should leave off. The person who’s listening to us who wants to make big contacts and they heard everything you said so far, maybe they might be a little lost and they need a first step. What’s the first step they can take right after this interview is over?
Stoakes: The first step is to get out a piece of paper and define what your mission is. Ask yourself, ‘Do I have a personal mission?’ Without that I’m not sure you’re going to be able to inspire other big thinkers, other great people to join your mission. I think if you [INAUDIBLE] clearly on paper then you can go tell you story, share your mission and hopefully inspire other people around you. That would be the first thing. Secondly I think you should put a list together. Who is your billion dollar board member? Ask yourself that. Who do you want to join your advisory board? Who do you want to be investors? Who do you want to be going to battle with day in, day out as you build your business? Who do you want to be surrounded by? Make that list. And then the third thing is find out how you can connect with those people. Who are the relationships, who are the people you know so you can get access to those people so you can start building that relationship? The next thing is build a relationship. Don’t just ask them right off the bat. Get to know that person. Perhaps work on a project with them. Get to know them over time. Get to know their families. Get to know what it’s like to work with them. Finally, don’t be afraid to ask. Ask them for help. Ask them for advice. Ask them if they want to join your board.
Warner: I’m actually writing this down. I love it. I know we’ve got people right now who are listening to us who are saying, ‘That’s what Andrew needs to be more of. Be that kind of clear. Bring people over who can give us concrete, usable, actionable advice.’ You just did it for them. I wrote down here, I like to see everyone in my audience actually write down notes as they do these interviews but more importantly I like them to take some action on it and come back and tell, not just me, what you’ve does but tell Unity what you’ve done as a result of this interview. Unity, how can they contact you and say thank you or reach out to you and start a relationship that 20 years later could maybe bear fruit and have you as their board member?
Stoakes: Please email me at unity@organizedwisdom.com or on twitter at unitystoakes.
Warner: How about this. Let’s send one more thing. I want to give them a sense of what you do. The homepage on Organized Wisdom will do that. Is there one page that they can go hunt down on the site that will say, ‘This is us. This is who Unity is. This is how it’s useful to me.’
Stoakes: We have our ‘about us’ page but what we’re really excited about is in about 30 days we’re relaunching Organized Wisdom. You heard it here first. It’s a big shift in where we’re going that we’re very, very excited to bring to the world. We think it’s going to transform people’s lives in a very meaningful way. We hope you’ll check out Organized Wisdom in about 30 days.
Warner: I love it. Unity, thanks for doing the interview. Thanks more than that, for the part that people didn’t see. You spent 20 minutes, maybe even half an hour, doing a pre-interview with me and it really helped. So thanks for all the time that you spent.
Stoakes: I enjoyed it thoroughly and love what you do, learn a lot every time I see you. So thank you so much.
Warner: Thank you all for listening and for taking this out there and going out there and using it in the world and coming back and telling both Unity and me what you did. Bye for now.
