What it takes to build a $1.7 Billion Dollar Company with Michael Chasen

Founder & CEO of SocialRadar – Michael Chasen

Michael was a co-founder of Blackboard Inc a company that was sold for almost $1.7 billion dollars. Now he has a new startup and we talk about how he is starting, what mindset shifts he needed to grow his company so large, and what new companies should be focusing on to grow.

Check out SocialRadar.com for more info!

Thanks so much for listening!

Transcript:

Jaime: Today on the show I have Michael Chasen, a man who sold Blackboard for over $1 billion - that's billion with a B! He's starting a new startup called SocialRadar and you'll be amazed at what he's doing as a company and also what he's doing internally to create an amazing culture and a huge business. Stay tuned - you don't want to miss this!

Announcer: Welcome to the Eventual Millionaire podcast - with your host, Jaime Tardy. Real talk and real advice from real millionaires, with a sharp focus on you - the Eventual Millionaire.

Jaime: Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I'm Jaime Tardy and today on the show I have Michael Chasen. He's amazing - he sold a company called Blackboard, Inc. for over $1.6 billion. Now he's starting a new venture called SocialRadar and it's extremely exciting. We're going to be talking about it today. Thanks so much for coming on the show today, Michael.

Michael: I'm very excited to be here, thank you.

Jaime: So the fact that I can say $1.6 billion, that's probably what you're known for now. Everybody loves to say the word "billion", I think. Tell us a little bit about how you started Blackboard and the sale and all of that fun stuff.

Michael: To give you a little background on myself - I went to American University, here in Washington D.C., got my undergraduate degree in Computer Science, went up to Georgetown, got my MBA and ended up working at the KPMG Peat Marwick as a higher education technology consultant. They were working with a lot of schools and a lot of universities and we saw a trend taking place - they were starting to spend millions of dollars wiring the dorm rooms and the classrooms to the internet and yet there was no software that made that useful for teaching and learning. So myself and my good friend Matthew Pittinsky, who was actually my roommate from college who I was also working with, decided to quit our jobs to design software that would let schools bring their teaching and learning online. We literally came up with the idea of starting our own company two weeks before my year anniversary of working at KPMG and I was like "No, I've got to wait, because I've got to have at least one year of work experience on my resume in case this doesn't pan out." So we waited those extra two weeks and, two days after my year anniversary, went to my boss and let him know that we were going to leave to start our own company - and we started Blackboard. We watched the company grow from what started with just the two of us to an organization of over 3000 people and 20 offices around the world. We started with just a handful of clients using our technology and grew to over 30,000 institutions and 30 million users on a daily basis, using our software for teaching and learning around the world. It started as a small, private company, we eventually raised over $100 million in private capital along the way, took the company public for $400 million, and two years ago sold it for around $1.7 billion. So obviously it's this great journey, I think it's almost the quintessential story of two guys out of school that started a company and had the opportunity to stay with it as it grew. The most exciting thing to me was that we designed software that's actually made a difference in teaching and learning. But we had a lot of help along the way - a lot of people contributed to that, so I don't mean to say that all of that success was because of the two of us, it was mostly because of the team that we were able to put together along the way, but it was a great ride.

Jaime: That's insane. That's actually one of the reasons I wanted to have you on here - the growth you've had is just ridiculous. Did you know at the very beginning, I don't know what year that was, but did you know that it would be that big of a success?

Michael: No. I always like to say that Blackboard was an overnight success over 15 years. It wasn't a company that just took off the next day - we were, every day, slowing taking one step forward and making progress. We started the company in 1997, so it takes a long time to get to be a $2 billion.

Jaime: As it should! Why do you think you were such a success? Were you the first one in that space? What was the reason that you created this, over everyone else?

Michael: We certainly had an early mover advantage but we weren't the first people in the space. Actually, about two or three weeks after we started the company and we finally got internet access we were searching Yahoo! and we came across a company that had started six months beforehand called WebCT that had already started, had a product and had 200 schools using it. I said "Oh my goodness! I guess this is not an original idea. I can't believe some other company started six months ago!" Later on, we ended up dwarfing it in size and basically bought the company, but nonetheless they actually had a head start on us.

Jaime: When you saw that, were you scared? Were you like "Oh,my gosh, they're going to beat us," because they did it first?

Michael: Of course.

Jaime: You see, that's what we need to hear - we need to hear that you're normal and had fears too,because otherwise we're like "They're awesome, they kept going through." So tell me, as you grew, because you started from nothing, a school student, to this crazy thing - what were some of the mindset things that stopped you along the way?

Michael: People ask my similar questions - "What were your concerns along the way?" or the biggest stumbling blocks or the biggest mistakes you made. To us, they were so many and they occurred every day. One thing that comes to mind, overarching, I can say that both myself and my co-founder Matthew Pittinsky, had to believe that, in principle, we would mess up every day. We only had one year of work experience when we started this company but the one thing we had in common was that we were both able to learn from our mistakes and quickly course correct from them. We made mistakes and had huge concerns every day but we would just put together a plan to adjust them and make sure that they didn't happen more than two or three at a time and that perseverance, I think, is what led us to, at the end of the day, having a successful company.

Jaime: Nice, so keep moving forward. For SocialRadar, especially with building this huge company and then selling it and then starting from scratch, pretty much, with SocialRadar - tell me what that's like?

Michael: I love the idea of being an entrepreneur and creating a company. Of course I knew when I left Blackboard.

Jaime: Sorry, somebody on a Segway just went behind you.

Michael: Yeah, we have a Segway in the office that people use to get about.

Jaime: That's awesome. Sorry, it's a distraction when there's a Segway behind you!

Michael: So SocialRadar, I certainly need to apply a lot of what I've learned in the past and my experience at Blackboard to SocialRadar but there was never any question that I would want to do it again. I so much loved starting a company with Blackboard and doing something that could change the world so of course it was something where I thought "I need to do this again," and if ic an now apply all of the knowledge that I've gained from my experience at Blackboard I could have an even bigger impact or do something that has a potentially larger opportunity and that's what SocialRadar is all about.

Jaime: Why don't you tell us about how you found the opportunity for SocialRadar, and of course tell everybody what it is, because they don't really know at this point, and why you chose it?

Michael: One of the great things about working in education and being CEO of Blackboard is that I got to be hands-on with a lot of schools but also their students. There's an interesting dichotomy that goes on in education - educational institutions often trail on the technology, they're late adopters. They've sped up recently but sometimes, in deploying technologies, they're behind corporations by maybe 3-5 years, whereas their students, the clients of the schools, if you will, are so on the cutting edge that if there isn't a technology, they'll build it themselves. So there's a great dichotomy and I had the interesting perspective of seeing what the institutions were doing with technology as well as what the students were doing and being hands-on, watching these students, I got to see a lot of trends that really started to formulate on the college campuses before they became trends in the real world. One of the areas that I saw during my time at Blackboard was not just how much these students were starting to share their social information, on a Facebook timeline and other places like that, but how they were starting to share their location information as well. Just freely - if you had a group of friends, you'd all get on Find My Friends with Apple and just share your location all the time, and they weren't concerned about the privacy issues that people are so concerned about, they saw a big benefit to knowing where their friends were and how to meet and the ability to connect in that way. And that overlaps with an interest of mine - I always found it interesting that people have a smartphone device that really acts as a location beacon, if you will - you're always sharing and broadcasting your location now. At the same time, there are now 2 billion user profiles up in the cloud, between Facebook and all the other social sites. So you have over a billion smartphones sharing your location and 2 billion user profiles - no one has successful integrated those to make it so that, when you walk into a room, you know who's there and how you're connected to them. So SocialRadar is going to be real time information on the people around you - you can walk into a room, look down at your phone and see that there are 20 people there that you know - 6 coworkers of yours, 3 people you went to college with, a friend of yours from high school, a person from your street, 3 friends of friends - and not only can you know who's there, but you can see that one of your college friends that's here recently got their MBA and one of your coworkers recently got married. So we're going to give you real time information about all the people around you to allow you to better know who's around you and locate them, as well as be aware of how you're connected to them and what they've been up to lately. All of that information currently exists online, we're just taking that information up to the cloud and cross-referencing it with the location information to make it relevant to where you are and the people around you. And that's the idea for SocialRadar.

Jaime: So what made you go "I know this is going to be big. I want this for sure?"

Michael: Well one of the things that excited me when I started Blackboard was that I thought if we were successful we were going to fundamentally influence and maybe even change teaching around the world. One of the greatest moments of my life was when I was visiting a school in China and I walked into the computer lab and there were dozens of people sitting around, using Blackboard in Chinese. I was halfway around the world and they were using this technology that really myself and a group of my fellow co-founders and helpers had created. To have that kind of influence was so powerful and very special. When I look at this technology, I find it weird now that you sit down in a restaurant and if you don't notice your friends around the corner you might miss them entirely, or you might be literally sitting right next to someone and not know that they work with you or that you have another friend in common. I know that people don't currently find it unusual that you go to a meeting or a restaurant or attend a conference and you don't automatically know who's there and how you're connected to them, but that's only because the technology hasn't been available to give you that power. The analogy I use is this - I often tell people, 'Before you had your smartphone, I'm sure you didn't carry around a map in your pocket all day long, but yet now that you have a smartphone with a map available, people take it out and they use it every single day." So similarly, even though people might not recognize that they necessarily need this technology, of course when it is readily available and you can walk into a room, go to a meeting, attend a conference or go to an event and know not only your friends who are there but other people that you may be connected to and you can see how, and that can be presented on your iPhone, your Android or even your Google Glass device. I think that's going to revolutionize the way people meet and connect and that is so, so exciting to me, to be developing technology that can be used on a global scale. Of course I knew I wanted to pursue this.

Jaime: I love that. I was at a conference last week and there were people that were there who I didn't even know were there, and we should have met in person because otherwise we can't because we're friends online and it totally sucks that I missed that opportunity. The cool thing is that I am personally really excited about it, but the other piece is that this is a huge undertaking. Not technically, because you can gather the data and all of that fun stuff, but trying to get everybody to use it so that it's all sharing information at the same time, do you feel that that's an obstacle that you have to overcome, or do you have that figured out?

Michael: The way that SocialRadar works is that we monitor Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ for any location events that happen, so people are already sharing their location information, as well,of course, as anyone that has the SocialRadar application. We've addressed the chicken and egg problem so even if you're the only one who downloads SocialRadar, you can use it to monitor the location information other people are sharing on their networks.

Jaime: Awesome.

Michael: Of course it's made more powerful by all the people using SocialRadar but I think we've addressed the issue so that not everyone needs the technology to have it work on day one.

Jaime: I appreciate that, because I've downloaded one app that's like that and I have two friends on it. So when I'm in New York City it will say that they're close, but other than that I can't use it for any other place. So that's really cool that I'll be able to use this all the time. What's your plan for SocialRadar, for growth and all of that stuff? Do you think it will go viral or do you think you'll have to do a long chug?

Michael: Well I always plan for the long chug, but yes. I believe that this type of technology, at the end of the day, ends up going viral very quickly. I think that once we establish a good base then it will build upon that. I think five years from now everybody will be using this type of technology.

Jaime: Totally. So you're coming in on a trend beforehand, which is pretty much exactly what you did with Blackboard. So it will hopefully make it easier if it goes viral so you're not the one trying to push it up the hill yourself.

Michael: That's what we're hoping.

Jaime: That's why you're doing the interview, so we can tell everyone about it, so everybody make sure to download it right now! Is it in the App Store right now, we can just download it, no problem?

Michael: No, we're in the final stages of our beta now, but over the next couples of weeks or months it should be make available nationwide - probably in the next 6-8 weeks or so. But if you're interested, go to SocialRadar.com and sign up for our beta and you can get an early copy. Other than that, we should be out relatively shortly.

Jaime: Nice, and I already did that, so great! Tell me more about what it's like creating this company. You had already created something ridiculously successful - are there any foundational pieces, especially for the people listening, who might have a company in the first year or two years and are trying to get all the foundational pieces that they need? Do you have any advice for that?

Michael: One of the things that I didn't do with Blackboard that I did with SocialRadar is that right at the beginning we outlined the type of company and the type of culture we wanted to create. So if you visit our website at SocialRadar.com there's my blog and you can read about the core tenants of what we call "unconventional wisdom" that we've applied to creating a culture for the company and by outlining that right at the beginning it was actually easier for us to then say "Okay, how are we going to formulate this and put up the infrastructures to support it long term?" At Blackboard we had a great culture early on and certainly a good culture as we continued to grow but I think because we didn't have those building blocks, because we weren't able to identify what was so important to us at the beginning, then as we grew we certainly lost some of those core pieces and now, my second time around, I want to make sure we don't do that again. So right at the beginning we've created this great culture and we're very focused on making sure that these core tenants exist as the company grows long term. I think that's critical and important for any early stage company in this type of fast paced environment.

Jaime: I love that, and I love that you're planning on it being huge. A lot of people in their first one or two years, especially thinking of you when you were a student, you weren't planning on it being this huge thing, although you probably hoped that it would be. It's a little different now, you planning this, because you kind of know a lot more. What can you tell someone who's just starting to try to look for something bigger, not just "Hope for the best?"

Michael: Let me answer that in two ways - so from what I think is the more important perspective, people say "Did you ever imagine that Blackboard would be that big?" and I always say, on one hand, "No". I had this idea with a friend from college and it was this crazy startup and who knew that it would be that huge? On the other hand, we certainly believed that it was a vision that could potentially change teaching and learning worldwide, and that's what we were pitching to the investors. So on one hand, did I find it plausible that we could get that big? No. On the other hand, was I thinking that Blackboard would become this global influence on education? Sure, because that's what we were aiming for! And that goes to the second part of what I was saying - people say "I can't imagine my company every being that big." If you're going to do a startup, if you're going to dedicate your time, if you're going to raise capital, then you need to be going after a big idea, something that you're passionate about. So when I talk about SocialRadar, I absolutely believe SocialRadar technology is going to change the world - everyone is going to have it on their smartphone and that is what I'm aiming for. So you do have to think about that long term, even if you're only half that successful. SocialRadar doesn't have to be a $2 billion, it can just be a $1 billion, but even to achieve that type of success, some of those core pieces that you put in early and take the extra time to be thoughtful about when you've just started the company, really end up paying back in multiple ways in the long term. If you're thoughtful now, even if you don't realize it, you might have 500 or 1000 employees later on.

Jaime: So did you do any tactical visioning? Is there anything that you did that could help us out? Give us an exercise to do that might be able to help at the beginning stages?

Michael: I think there are really three core tracks that I tell entrepreneurs to think about - the first is that, when you're putting together a company, putting together the leadership team, finding the resources that you need, the various areas of expertise, that has to be one of the first things that you do. Secondly, you've got to have a strategy for what you're going - you've got to have a strategy that says "We're shooting for the moon. How do we get from here to there?" And, lastly, if you're successful, not just what is the type of product that you want to create, but what type of company do you want to create? Which is why you have to have that focus on culture and teamwork. I think those are the three core tenants, the three core pieces of infrastructure, that you need to figure out early on. Even if they change over time, I think you need to have a good idea of them early on in order to be successful as a startup.

Jaime: Okay, can we dive deeper into each one of those? Because that's awesome and we could write it down, but then what do we do with it and what should it say?

Michael: I think it's about having the ability to sit down and formulate your thoughts and then pursue it. I had an expertise in building a company but obviously if I'm building this company, SocialRadar, it's not in the education space, so even if students are using it, it's not education software and there's a lot more social media so I knew I needed someone who has great social media expertise. Also the type of technology we are developing is different - Blackboard is large enterprise software, SocialRadar is a consumer app. I knew I needed someone who can build highly scalable consumer systems. So I set out to find a great social marketing person and a great consumer scalable technologist to supplement what I was bringing to the table. That was the first thing that I did. It took a long time to assemble the team and figure out who would be a great co-founder, both from a personality perspective as well as from a skillset perspective.

Jaime: You asked them to be co-founders instead of just saying "It's my thing and I'll just pay you?" You actually wanted them to be co-founders.

Michael: I think the people that you get early on, when you don't have any money to pay people, really early on, you need people who are not just passionate, but I think if they're going to be truly passionate they've got to be owners as well. So, yes, the three people in my leadership team I asked to be co-founders of the company. I know many times I'm referred to as the founder of SocialRadar because it was my idea but I consider them to be co-founders alongside with me because we're building this together. That was identifying what you need, from a leadership perspective, and then putting together the right team, which is the most important thing, I think, for any startup.

Jaime: So start with that core, definitely.

Michael: Once you have that core team in place, what's the strategy? You have this idea, this theory of where the market is going, some mockups of what it should look like - how do you put together a plan to get it built and put together plans to market it once it is built? How do you assemble the rest of the team? You sit down with that core group and you build out those plans. For the long term, at least you have a structure that you're following, your initial idea is down on paper to allow you to better analyze both the direction you're going in, as well as looking back and seeing how you're doing against how your actual plan was.

Jaime: So what does that strategy look like? How long of a thing was it? I'm not sure how much you can tell me, but go ahead!

Michael: I think people would do it differently for every company. The way I did it was in PowerPoint, actually - I'm a big PowerPoint user. I said "Okay, here's what we're doing in the short term against the long term, here are the goals, here's how we're going to measure ourselves. Here's how I explained the company and what we're doing, here's where the opportunity is." By putting that together it forces you to have this framework about how you're thinking about your idea and its execution. It isn't just a single document where you can say "I'm done. I'll check how I'm doing against it in a week or a month from now," it's a living document. We adjust our strategy document, if not every week, I think almost every day, to continue to refine it and it gets better and better. It's used for different things - parts of it are used for your company pitch, parts of it are used to bring other people on board, part of it is used to raise capital and part of it is just your general strategy so that you know what you're doing on a daily basis.

Jaime: I like that. So did you raise money for SocialRadar too?

Michael: Yes, we raised just over $12 million from a couple of leading venture capital firms and a number of notable individual investors - Steve Case, Ted Leonsis and Dave Morin, CEO of Path, all came in and directly invested in the company as well. So we did, as I said, just over $12 million.

Jaime: You have a lot of cash, I'm assuming, from the sale of your previous business - why bring in investors?

Michael: I actually helped fund the company in the first place to get it to that level. I've always been a big proponent of bringing on board strong financial investors - not only because I know that if this is going to be successful we're going to need significant capital, but you're bringing on board more than money, you're bringing on board additional expertise in building the company and I had such a great experience raising capital and working with my investors with Blackboard I certainly wanted to duplicate that process with SocialRadar.

Jaime: Would you suggest that somebody starting, who has a big vision, raise capital? Should that be part of it? I've interviewed over 120 millionaires and some people are hardcore bootstrappers and others say to raise venture capital. Where do you stand on that?

Michael: If you have a big idea then, almost by definition, you are not going to have enough capital to go after it. so if you truly think you have a world-changing idea, then you need to take advantage of your first mover advantage, you need to take advantage of having your product built and out there as soon as possible. Bootstrapping is certainly a way to go if you can afford to go slower and not as big but if you really have what you believe is this world-changing, passionate idea then getting venture capital may be the only way. I've met plenty of people along my travels that have bootstrapped very successful companies and done really well with creating large companies without having to attract capital so really whether someone should get capital is unique for each person but I've found that, partnering with people with deep pockets and expertise can really help contribute to building a company.

Jaime: Any advice? Because I have clients that are raising capital right now and it's a hard road to go down for some people. It's kind of hellish when you're asking people for money, you're giving people pitches, going "Okay, I hope you like my idea. I hope this is enough. I hope you like me," it's so sales, over and over again. So what advice do you have for people?

Michael: That is exactly what you need to do for any startup. If you can't pitch people on the brilliance of your idea and generate a lot of capital, then how are you going to sell a client your product? I have occasionally found people that aren't good at sales that say "It's hard for me to raise money." If you're not good at sales and raising money then you may not be good at sales and selling your product either and that may be something you need to think about.

Jaime: That's huge. I love that advice. Awesome. Tell me, after we use strategies, so when you have that plan, that living document that you can work from, what's next?

Michael: If you have the team and you have your strategy document it's not that difficult to start putting together your MRDs and your PRDs for designing your product and putting together a team. That's a little bit more scientific and there's this great roadmap on multiple ways you can do development. So there's that third component, which is how do you want to build the company and what's the focus and the vision and the mission of the company? And that's more important and it's the road less travelled. So you can say "This is the type of company I want to create," say you're going to have an open environment, you're going to have a focus on teamwork, this is how we're going to share ideas, this is how we're going to all work late together, this is how we're going to focus our time and energy, this is how we're going to get everybody on board. I think that's that third core piece, creating that culture, creating that vision for not just what your product does, but your vision for what your company is supposed to achieve is so critical and important. Again, I would sit down with a PowerPoint deck and my team around me and we would work together and say "What kind of company do we want to create?" Throw down ideason paper, try to narrow it down, be succinct, and then finally have this framework for the organization that we want to build, and build a product that's going to be successful in the space.

Jaime: I love that, because you're walking it. Considering when we first started talking you were like "I'm in this open space," I don't know if you can show everybody.

Michael: Yeah, sure.

Jaime: Go ahead. You're in this big, huge room.

Michael: Let me see.

Jaime: You have people with Segways going around behind you. You don't have this corner office. There are tons of people.

Michael: Down here.

Jaime: Nice.

Michael: So, yeah, we're just in a large, open area and we're all working together.

Jaime: So why choose that? Why not have a corner office just for you to be able to pay attention? Because there are distractions and interruptions - a Segway going by in the background can be kind of distracting!

Michael: You think that's distracting? We just had a Halloween party here where we invited the kids. Just to my right, see that? It's a giant, blowup ship and there's a spider on the ground over there. That's what's going on in our office. You trade a little distraction for creating a good community environment where people can work together and really create strong bonds and teamwork, which I believe is necessary for any startup. When you know about the trials and tribulations that you're going to go through as a group, you need to have those strong bonds.

Jaime: I like that. Have you ever read the book "The E-Myth" by Michael Gerber?

Michael: No, actually, I have not.

Jaime: You haven't? Okay, I can't ask you about this.

Michael: I can talk about stuff I haven't read - go ahead!

Jaime: Perfect - let's make stuff up right now! The thing that comes up over and over, and I definitely love the book, but he talks about how people are very replaceable and we can just put them in the system if your business is good enough - like look at McDonald's, you can just go ahead and create a business like that and that's what gives you scale in your business. But it sounds as though you really care about each and every one of your team members and you're a core team and you're together, which isn't really the same thing. What do you think about that?

Michael: Let's separate my startup from McDonald's, which has a million employees. At some point, when you know your strategy and you've executed it and it's working, well, then, yes, members of your team, I think, become more componentized, more replaceable. Maybe not the core people, the people at the top. At Blackboard we had 3000 employees at some point and some would leave the company - like I was CEO and I retired in December and the company has continued and is doing very well, so even I was not an irreplaceable member of the team. So once you reach that size, you componentize the group and a lot of people operate independently as part of an overall contributing member of a large organization that isn't wounded when one person leaves. We haven't gotten to the point where we put a detailed process around everything we're doing, we're years away from that, so I think it's more a matter of timing than it is different philosophy.

Jaime: Thank you. I love that you said you're years away from that, because I know some people that are in the beginning stages assume that we can put in crazy systems in place and really try to work themselves out of that right now, but you're seeing a path of years before you can really create a system that is hardcore.

Michael: At least. It took a good decade before we got organized at Blackboard and here I am in less than year one of SocialRadar so it will be some time before we have all the processes and components that large companies have. and I want to put that off as long as possible - there is a benefit to being nimble and not having rigid processes put in place until you've figured out your business model and at that point you will be able to optimize.

Jaime: Nice, so tell me a little more about that - why is being nimble and just a core team without too many systems in place a good thing?

Michael: Even though we have an idea of what we're trying to accomplish, we kind of know what our business model is, we also know that there are going to be a lot of changes along the way. So you don't want to put rigid processes in place when this may not be 100% what the business model ends up being at the end of the day. At Blackboard I was there for 15 years - we knew our products, we had multiple students, we were out in the marketplace, we had organization. There, we were able to put in place detailed processes to support that because our business wasn't changing. Here, with SocialRadar, we're doing state of the art development on everything besides the Android and iPhone devices, like we're doing things on Google Glass.

Jaime: You have Google Glass right there - nice!

Michael: This technology is changing and adapting each day so we can't put detailed processes around it because it's still being developed while we're developing on it. So that's why I think it's a good idea to be a bit more flexible and nimble in the early stages and that's where we are with SocialRadar.

Jaime: Okay, total side note, but what do you think on Google Glass?

Michael: I'm going to record a video of you recording video.

Jaime: Alright, that was cool.

Michael: I think it's early stage technology but we're definitely starting to see the potential of what this type of technology can do longer term when you can have an integrated, floating display right in front of you, so instead of having to look down at your iPhone it's just automatically right in front of you. so we're developing SocialRadar, for example, for Google Glass and you walk into a room and a card appears right in front of you and says "You know ten people in this room," and you can just flip through those cards and look at the ten people in the room and see how you're connected, so it's a great form factor for the technology we're developing. But it's a bit of a difficult technology to deploy - you have to sync it to your Android phone, it's not quite fluid, it's not even close to where I think it's going to be a year from now. But we at SocialRadar want to be ahead of the curve so we want to make sure that while we're developing our technology on the iPhone we simultaneously have prototypes working for Google Glass as well.

Jaime: That's insane, because technology is moving so incredibly fast and then of course you guys have to move fast to go along with it.

Michael: Yeah.

Jaime: Fun and exciting and also kind of crappy!

Michael: It's fun and exciting.

Jaime: That's awesome. We need to wrap up in a minute but where do you think technology is going? I worked at a computer shop when I was 16 and we cared about 4gb hard drives - we were like "Oh my gosh, the 4gb hard drives are here! It's so cool!" And CD writers that took 24 hours. It's insane what's happened now. If you look at the next 20 years, where do you think we're going to be with technology?

Michael: I think it's less about what people used to care about, which is the speed or the hard drive space. At this point those are both kind of unlimited. Obviously, in the future, it will be even faster technology or better broadband, but put all that aside and the most interesting thing,I think, is the new applications for technology that are going to come out of using your smartphone and I think those will be primarily linked to locations. So linked to your smartphone knowing where you are and what's around you and all of the ancillary technology that can be developed from having a truly smart smartphone or Google Glass or another wearable device that can take external inputs, whether it's the speed at which you're going, where you're located or how high you are above the ground and what's around you and give you information related to all of that. that's why I'm so excited about SocialRadar, because we are tackling one small piece of that, but I think the most amazing technology is the technology that people haven't quite thought of yet, but we're definitely starting to see it come to fruition with creativity and these mobile devices that can now track where you are at all times, people around you, the direction you're headed and all of those ancillary inputs without you actually having to type it into your smartphone.

Jaime: So think about when you started Blackboard, such a long time ago - you couldn't even have thought about SocialRadar, I'm assuming, because that technology wasn't there yet. So how do we stay open to opportunities? We have a business, we're chugging along, trying to figure this out, but there are so many opportunities that are coming up as new technologies are coming - how do we not want to grab onto those too?

Michael: I think there's a difference between having a business idea and the technology that implements it. When we came up with the idea for SocialRadar, when I was thinking about how people would find out more about the people around them, I don't think I was thinking "What would that look like on Google Glass?" When Google Glass came out, I thought "How does my idea translate to and be implemented on that technology?" but that doesn't change the idea. So I think whatever your business is, the technology implementation of it is certainly a critical piece of it but it shouldn't necessarily affect what you're doing, it's just the form factor it's delivered in. so whether you're using SocialRadar on a four inch screen or five inch screen Android or iPhone device, a tablet or Google Glass that's, at the end of the day, me translating my idea onto that technology but it doesn't change the idea. That's what I think a good business is all about - having that idea that's independent of the technology but then utilizing the technology that's available around you to make it as good an experience as possible.

Jaime: And you can always just go with the technology as it comes out, because you'll never be able to predict what the technology will be in ten years anyway.

Michael: Exactly.

Jaime: Okay, I love that. We need to wrap up - I always ask the same last question - what is one action listeners can take this week to help move them towards their goal of $1 million?

Michael: I think, first of all, I would tell your listeners to go to the SocialRadar website and sign up for our beta. Also, if we do another open round on our finance I think the best thing that they could do to make $1 million is to invest early in SocialRadar - my last company did end up growing to be worth over $2 billion.

Jaime: I'm going to have to do a direct link - "Send Michael money!"

Michael: It worked out well for previous investors. In a more serious way, for those people who are entrepreneurs who are thinking about starting their own company, the best way to make $1 million, I don't think it's necessarily to aim for making $1 million. When I started Blackboard it wasn't to make a lot of capital, go public and get rich. Ancillary, all of those things ended up happening, but we started Blackboardbecause we were passionate about doing something that we thought could fundamentally change teaching and learning around the world. I'm now well off, I'm not doing SocialRadar to make more money; I'm doing SocialRadar because I again think I have an idea that could change the world. The thing I would tell your viewers is if you're trying to come up with something to make $1 million, you're probably not heading in the right direction. What you want to do is you want to come up with an idea that you're passionate about, something that you care about, something that you think makes a difference and if you pursue that, then I think happiness will follow, and one of those pieces of happiness may be that you make some money, but I think the only way to make sure you're successful in life is to follow your heart, your interests and passion, and if you're an entrepreneur that means choosing and idea and creating a company around something that you really think you can make a difference with, work 20 hours a day and be very, very passionate about. That would be my actual advice.

Jaime: I love that, because I think that matters more than anything else. The money we can't take with us when we die, but world-changing is a little insane. Thanks so much for coming on the show - where can we find out more? You already told us about SocialRadar.com, can we connect with you on social media or anything like that too?

Michael: Absolutely - I welcome people to reach out directly to me. My e-mail is Michael@socialradar.com. You can follow me on Twitter - @MichaelChasen. You can also follow SocialRadar on Twitter at @SocialRadarApp. Feel free to just reach out and directly contact me, I love connecting with people individually, helping entrepreneurs, answering more questions about SocialRadar and look forward to continuing the conversation.

Jaime: I love that you just gave out your e-mail address - and I know that's your e-mail address because that's what I e-mailed you on. I'm really impressed. Thanks so much for coming on the show today, Michael, I really appreciate it.

Michael: I had a great time. Thank you very much.

Jaime: I hope you enjoyed that interview with Michael and you heard it here first - we've got some amazing technology coming in the future thanks to him. Amazing and a little bit creepy, kind of cool! I've also tried Google Glass and unfortunately I still think they look dorky. If you like interviews like that, check out EventualMillionaire.com. You can sign up so that every Monday you know when the newest millionaire interview is. I've got some really amazing ones scheduled so you definitely don't want to miss out. It could mean a lot for your business. Take care and have a great day.

Announcer: Thanks for listening. You can find out more great information like this on EventualMillionaire.com.

 

Tags: business startup, Michael Chasen, millionaire interview, selling businesses, Startup

Categories: All, Business, Business Model, Entrepreneurship, Millionaire Interviews, Starting A Business

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