English Major to Serial Tech Entrepreneur… to Toasters?
The Third Growth Option with Benno Duenkelsbuehler and Guests
English - September 23, 2021 10:00 - 30 minutes - 21 MBBusiness business revenue expansion growth Homepage Download Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Tom Klaff shares his story of growth and learning, allowing us to learn from lessons he picked up building and exiting several businesses, and now building a new rocket ship, a relevant brand on the kitchen counter.
4:01 – “…I was struck by the level of introspection… when did you start articulating your personal building blocks?” – “… it’s like a debrief after the mission, you want to look at things you did right, things you did wrong… after every one of my ventures.”
5:01 – “I paid a lot of dumb-tax… part of it due to experimentation, all of it is value-add. It definitely helps you grow.”
11:45 – “…waiting in line for 40 minutes for people to toast their bagels… how come we can put a man on the moon, but we can’t toast bread faster than 4 minutes?”
13:15 – “I look at large industries with little or no innovation, where I can look for technology and solve a problem.”
16:15 – “…think thru a business that’s disruptive and aspirational, like Keurig was, like Dyson was… that was the most important thing: finding people who had already paid the dumb-tax.”
18:26 – From first customer meeting with barely a prototype to in-store date within some three months “Williams-Sonoma was wonderful… they have a great brand and they put us on the map, you couldn’t have asked for a better launch partner.”
21:54 – Biggest surprise about B2C, selling to retailers and ecom: “I have a new appreciation for B2C companies selling durable goods: you've got to be great in every facet of business – sales, marketing, engineering, manufacturing, operations, logistics, finance. Everything has to be spot on... in software, you’re not dealing with all those moving parts.”
25:31 – About the next 12-24 months: “We’ve got big plans, huge vision. We see ourselves as a relevant brand on the kitchen counter… We’re a platform technology company around heat transfer… we have a big agenda.”
27:16 – About being an English Major: “The singular most important skill you can have in any career, especially in business, is the ability to communicate… communication is the lifeblood of a functioning business… there is a hand-in-glove fit with STEM and liberal arts.”
Always growing.
Benno Duenkelsbuehler
CEO & Chief Sherpa of (re)ALIGN