Being COO of an Internet Incubator

I try pretty hard to keep this blog focused on technology and geeky stuff, the problem is that since I now have a very different focus in my professional life I don’t explore stuff as deeply as I once did. I’m still very involved with technology and geeky stuff, but I’m also very invovled with business development and management. Because of that, I don’t blog as often as I would like to. But, if my blog was focussed more on being a COO, it might be more interesting. I think being COO of a fast paced internet incubator is even more interesting because I’m not running just one company – it’s more like 10. So I’m going to change the nature of my blog. From now on I’ll focus more on the day to day stuff of being the COO of Provo Labs and tracking the things I do from day to day. My days can be kind of boring, filled with meetings and somewhat mundane. Part of it is also confidential, but this new direction should make for an interesting look into the business aspect of geekdom.

So, here’s a little background: I’m the COO of Provo Labs, I’m also the CEO of one of our incubator companies, Blastyx. All of our businesses are very technology centric and part of why I have my job is my intimate knowledge and understanding of technology and programming. I play a key part in all of our technology decisions – but I don’t pretend to know everything, I take other people ideas into consideration and will sometimes change my opinion before giving it to my boss. My boss is Paul Allen (no, not THAT Paul Allen), he is the managing partner and CEO of Provo Labs. His focus is on furthering our company from outside the company. Meaning that he spends most of his day networking with people and companies unaffiliated with Provo Labs, mostly business people and money people. He is also a board member for several of the companies that we have a minor stake in. What does this mean for me? Well, as COO I am responsible for the office operations. I make sure that all of our employees are headed in the right direction, I oversee the day to day operation of the company and mostly work on furthering our businesses. So, with this new direction for my blog, I’ll begin by chronicling my day.

The day began with text messaging with Robert Merril, our primary technical recruiter. I’ve got him working on finding me a couple programmers. I had left him a message last night that I needed to find someone capable of doing audio editing for us. The messaging led to a phone conversation once I was on the road and headed to the CTO Breakfast. While I do my 25 minute drive to work I usually work the phone to get a jump start on the day and to try to make sure that things are happening by the time I get to the office. This morning I only had a couple calls to make so I finished the drive by listenting to the podcasts of one of our latest acquisitions, Business Jive. I got to the CTO Breakfast a little past 8 am. I really enjoy attending these, Dr. Phil Windley hosts them and they’re always informative. Todays breakfast had the largest turnout I’ve seen there, all the chairs were taken. Several people I know attend the Breakfast, including my good friend Scott Lemon. I had to leave the Breakfast early to get over to the office for a meeting with Directpointe about doing some hosted Exchange work for us. I had some problems with the bid they gave us and asked them to redo some parts of it. After that, I went into Provo Labs media Editing Room for a while to review a preliminary cut of our recent LoveSac shoot and to review a new cut of our ‘Wireless Mountain Man’ video. The videos Blastyx had put up a couple days ago were first cuts that we knew still needed some work. After that, I headed over to Thanksgiving Point with Dave Biesinger, the CXO of Blastyx, to interview Terrence, a guy we’re thinking about hiring.

After the interview it was back to the office for a 1 – 5 pm meeting with the Provo Labs management team. I like the way a lot of our meetings go, we try to focus on getting things accomplished within the meeting and keep things pretty informal. I’ve never seen anythign like our meetings in the corporate world. I took away about 20 items that I needed to focus on in the short term, which isn’t too uncommon. After that meeting, Paul and I met with Dave Martin to review some cool new tech he’s been building. Immediately after that, I had a half hour or so with Paul where we discussed
the final details of acquisition for the two companies we picked up this last week. After that, it was the usual short meetings that I have nearly come to expect as I exit the conference several people are waiting around to talk to me. Then I headed home, working the phone again to make sure I’ve addressed the critical issues of the day before I finish up. I arrived back home around 7 pm.

We have an AWESOME team! We have two new hires from last week, both of whom we bought out their companies and those companies will now play a critical role in our portfolio. These two guys are absolutely incredible, they totally grok what we’re doing and are already immersing themselves into it. I’d hire two more like them in a heartbeat!