Bootstrap to $25 Million from Utah, Raise Money Later to Scale to $100 Million: John Pope, CEO of Jive (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Unless you go to an elite school or are plugged into an environment, you don’t really have access. With what we do, everybody has access anywhere in the world. Give us an anchor point from a chronology point of view.

John Pope: I started those two businesses in 2004 and 2006 right after I left school. The context was I had bootstrapped these two small businesses. I didn’t have any money to start out with. I was living in a very small apartment with my wife. We kept all personal expenses to a minimum. We made ends meet and no more than that. Everything else was reinvested back into the business.

So many small businesses don’t succeed because the proprietor wants to live a better lifestyle sooner rather than wait two to three more years when they can have the lifestyle and a scaleable, successful business as opposed to skimming off the top and cutting it off.

I had turned these businesses over to managers because scaling the business was the only interesting aspect of entrepreneurship. I didn’t want a lifestyle business. I wanted a machine that I could architect and see efficiency gains. That was the interest to me.

Sramana Mitra: You made the comment that you turned over these businesses to managers. Does that mean that you’ve moved on from these businesses? This company that we are talking about today is not one of these two right?

John Pope: No. The dream was to do something big. While small businesses are enjoyable, I didn’t want to be my own boss in a job. I didn’t want to create a job for myself. I wanted to create a scalable businesses. Scale was still the goal. I hadn’t completely removed myself, but the businesses didn’t depend on me. That was a rule that I had made for myself. As soon as I could, I shifted myself to more of an advisory position where I was very much involved but more at a strategic level.

I hadn’t really moved on. I was still a workaholic, but I just wanted scale. Even on a smaller level, I wanted scale. When I say I turned them over, I brought on management who could handle and even advice better than I could on the day-to-day aspects of it.

Sramana Mitra: Because I have a large audience of people, I’m just going to comment on some of the things you said to just level set on the value system. There is absolutely nothing wrong with your aspirations, but we take great pains to acknowledge people who don’t want to build hyper-scaleable businesses and hyper-growth businesses, and who want more balance in their life.

This terminology, lifestyle business, has something derogatory attached to it and I sense that in the way you use that term as well. We don’t use it like that. Lifestyle businesses are great. Small businesses are great. We respect all of those styles. We are not going to build a million entrepreneurs who are all going to build billion-dollar companies. I just want to put that front and center.

John Pope: Let me clarify. I am in no way against a small business or lifestyle business. I am the opposite of that. I saw my parents providing for the family in small businesses. I actually have a problem with how fundraising and getting to billions of dollars is glamorized.

Sramana Mitra: I have a huge problem with that. I think it’s unhealthy. It’s stupid. It’s completely mythical nonsense.

John Pope: You and I probably run into that quite a bit. I don’t want you to mistake me for somebody who is somehow trying to glamorize something that I don’t think is any more respectable than the person who has a three-year-old food stand. To me, it should never be an ego thing. I am absolutely on your end of the spectrum. When I say that I love scale, what I mean is that I love healthy operations. I love the idea that an entrepreneur can be a strategic thinker and bring jobs to people and coordinate the entire operation.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Bootstrap to $25 Million from Utah, Raise Money Later to Scale to $100 Million: John Pope, CEO of Jive
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