Entrepreneurship Within Emory: A Quick Talk with Charles Goetz

I was wearing my best freshly pressed blazer, three-inch heels, and silver dangles. I was going to interview one of the most successful entrepreneurs on Emory University’s campus. As I waited outside of his office, on the top floor of the Goizueta Business School, I wondered what kind of person he was. Professor Charles Goetz is, after all, a published writer of three books, a lecturer at the Goizueta Business School, and — most outstanding of all — a successful serial entrepreneur who has built nine successful ventures up to date. Looking through the tall glass windows at the tiny people walking outside on the ground, I anxiously glanced at the digital numbers on my phone screen every now and then to make sure I wasn’t late to conduct his interview at 11:15 AM sharp.

Two crisp echoey knocks on the wooden door later, a voice informed me to come into the office space. Professor Goetz is a friendly man, full of passion and zest for business, nothing like the intimidating lecturer I had imagined. A few firm handshakes, exchanged laughs, and quick introductions later, we found ourselves at a round table within his office. With my laptop plugged into the outlet to my right and the voice recorder on, the interview has begun. Professor Goetz has an infectious personality that enveloped me in his passions towards entrepreneurship and in life. In the following article, I will recount some of the key moments of the interview and I hope — though you may not have met Professor Goetz before — feel his passion for entrepreneurship and reap new knowledge regarding the field of entrepreneurship as I have from the live interview.

It states in your biography that you have built up to nine new ventures up to date operating in six unique industries such as banking, healthcare, radio, broad-casting, sports, real estate, and advertising. What advice would you give entrepreneurs trying to break into these various fields?

Professor Goetz: The truth of the matter is it’s all about finding the needs. Every industry has needs. If you can find those needs and find a solution…a lot of the times taking a solution in one industry into another industry can be very effective. That’s how I was able to build [those startups] in such different types of industries.

What are some of the major obstacles you faced while navigating these six different industries? Were there any particular obstacles you faced that aspiring entrepreneurs should be aware of?

Professor Goetz: Definitely, each industry has its own issues and opportunities. What I have found in my case that has really made it successful is that I have a certain set of skills, but the truth of the matter is that in every industry I needed somebody, in case I didn’t know the industry. In the case of the financial industry I had some background, but all the other industries I really didn’t have this strong background in them. So I would either find a junior partner I would bring into the business or some senior executive I would hire who had that experience I could rely on.

I also needed it for connections. Because what every entrepreneur needs to know is that the number one reason businesses fail is due to a lack of sales. If you don’t understand that you will not be able to build a business successfully. A main cause for lack of sales is tied to connections. If you hire people to be salespeople who don’t have any background in the industry, it’s going to take up a long time to even find the right people. That’s a lot of wasted time and wasted money.

Instead I like to find people who already have connections and instead of getting me into a low level at a company get me to the CEOs so I can start moving the business much faster and much more successfully. And once I have enough companies on it, the amount of followers who may be a percent of the market anyways will follow…and that’s why I like to get people with great connections too.

What are some of your major setbacks and major failures as an entrepreneurs and how did you push out of the mentality of doubt and push towards success?

Professor Goetz: Don’t go into entrepreneurship unless you expect to have some really hard days. If you look back on it, while we got all these great successful companies like Apple and Google and all that, but they went through periods of crisis.

In the case of Apple, they literally went down to a dollar stop. They were almost out of business and if it wasn’t for the iPod it would’ve failed. Pretty much every company has that time of day that it gets very difficult and it is really just seeing if you are a believer of what you’re doing and if you’re not a believer of what you are doing then you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. And this goes back to what drives you and if you’re doing it just for the money you’re going to fail. The odds are much higher and when it gets tough you leave. And if you’re doing it for what I like to do…I like to build new jobs and I have built over 1,500 new jobs. That was exciting…I like to do things that no one has ever done before.

Those are the things that keep you up when it’s really difficult and if you don’t have those things to get you through those really hard times you’re not going to do it. You’re not going to be successful.

From your experience what are some marketing strategies that you would recommend to small businesses? Do small businesses stand a chance against these established corporations in your opinion?

Professor Goetz: Yes. More than ever. The reality is that the internet has leveled the field and there are lots of things that you can do very inexpensively as far as marketing. You can target so well…you can find a very good chance that the people you are advertising to are 90 percent probability of being interested where before you throw [your product] out to everybody and there was a one percent probability. Because of that there are a lot of free things you can do in regards to Ebooks and things like that so yes, there are ways to compete against the big companies. The big companies themselves are having problems.

The reality is that the big companies are not growing. A lot them are not growing as fast and the only way they can grow fast is by buying little companies that are growing fast. Because of [the big corporate’s] structure they are not able to change. Little companies, they find things and they can change overnight. Number of times over building a business I realize [with] new information [we] may be going in a new direction. Big companies take years to change directions. So little companies have real advantage in that case. But the truth of the matter is that, yes [big corporations] have more money. We will never have more money, but we have the ability to, in a lot of ways, grow faster as a percentage.

How important are patents and copyrights in starting a business? When should small companies apply for a patent?

Professor Goetz: It depends on the type of company you are. Let’s say you’re in a technology or healthcare [startup] who might have a product that we would call novel or unique from what is out there. I would suggest you get out right now as soon as possible because you can do what is called a patent pending. A preliminary patent [gives] you have a year to update it. During that process, you learn more [and] you have held that spot, which is key. When people look to invest in you or to buy your company, a patent increases the value very much.

Good copyrights also. A lot of people copyright everything. But if you have a unique name that’s really going to grow and you want to protect it, that’s a good copy right. But the patent s is really where the strength is. But let’s say you don’t even have a product that has the potential to be a patented product, you [still] might want to do patent pending. You might want to apply even knowing full well that you might not even get it. The reason you do that is once you apply you are legally allowed to say patent pending on your product. That means [from the] market’s [perspective], they look at that as saying new and improved and new and improved are some of the hottest words you can use for selling. So, by doing a patent pending, it really tells [the market] that this may be something exciting, new, and [differentiating]. And even though you may never get that patent, but at least you’re legally doing it in a way that can really differentiate you in a positive way.

So shifting gears, as an investor in current businesses what qualities and traits do you look for before investing?

Professor Goetz: I am currently investing in sixteen businesses of lots of different industries. Number one of the most important thing seasoned investors are going to look for are the people: if they have experience. If you are talking to a VC they’ll always tell you the same story. The first thing is management. [The VC’s will] take good management over a mediocre idea any day over mediocre management with a great idea. Number one is does that person (the leader of the business) have the experience and does that person have the vision and does that person want to manage.

People are number one. Number two is the idea. Is the idea itself have, not a little bit of value over what is out there, but does it have substantial differentiation. Is it going to grab people’s attention. So I’m looking for that idea that has the potential of growing really big. We may not grow it to its full size, we might sell it off in a few years after its grown nicely because we don’t have the necessary resources that a huge company could put in to grow it astronomically. Patents would be after that. Not necessarily that they have a patent, but maybe they are in the process of getting a patent. So those things are what I would focus on most.

As a lecturer at Goizueta teaching about entrepreneurship, is there certain skills you think is critical to entrepreneurial success?

Professor Goetz: One of the things I think is critical is sales. I don’t care if you’re going to be in sales or not. If the organization doesn’t have a sales mentality and understanding that everyone markets to increase sales [this could be detrimental to the success of the company]. Marketing is also obviously critical.

Do you have any last words of advice to aspiring entrepreneurs out there?

Professor Goetz: I think if you want to do it the number one thing that happens is that people say I have a great idea and they tell their friends and [their friends] say “oh yea that’s fantastic” and what most people don’t do [is that] they stop. They’re thinking that everyone thinks they’re brilliant and the difference between them and an entrepreneur is that [the entrepreneur] do it and they launch. Most people are scared of that jump and I say don’t just take that jump and all of a sudden quit your job.

I suggest while you’re working, in the evening start putting things together. Start testing whether people will buy your products. Once you know that there is real interest and you start to talk to some clients and prospects and they’re saying “Yes, I’ll buy if you build it.” then you are ready to go. Don’t just say I have an idea I’m going to quit my job. Start doing some work on it before you do.

Written By: Yifei Gao | IQ Associate