Cynthia Kocialski did not plan to become an entrepreneur, but just like many things in life, our thinking evolves as we have life experiences. Entrepreneurship never crossed her mind in her youth. She had always expected to join an American corporate icon.
She went to undergraduate school at the University of Rochester and graduate school at the University of Virginia. Upon graduation, her goal was executive engineering management. “There was a visiting professor from IBM at UVA and he convinced me that IBM would be an excellent place to start my career”. In her years at IBM, she worked in three locations developing products from financial software to multi-processor computer systems to components.
“Upon reflection, my years at IBM were well worth it. I gained expertise in a wide range of business functions. Still, a few moments at IBM made it clear that IBM was not the company for me.” The first was when she worked for an executive manager in the midst of accelerating his corporate career through extreme political maneuverings. Cynthia knew she was more of a performance oriented person, and far less of an office politician. This was the game to be played for big company success and she couldn’t see herself engaging in such extreme politics.
Next, there was a series of human resource meetings; one was the annual salary survey and the other retirement planning. She just couldn’t figure it out. The salary meeting showed compensations were less than the market averages. At the same time, the retirement planning meeting showed after working for the company for 30 years, the pension would only provide a small percentage of the funds needed to maintain an employee’s standard of living. “I remember thinking, if you get paid less than average then how can you save enough to make up the difference by retirement?”
The final straw was when her product line was re-organized under a new division. As the person responsible for strategic product planning and representing the product line with the new division, it was clear that the new division had no interest in her group. “My group was unwanted and placed on hold until its fate could be determined. I knew the group would be disbanded. It was only a matter of time.”
At that point, she knew this couldn’t be her career direction. It didn’t make sense and it wasn’t compatible with her talents and personality.
“I convinced eight other IBMers to join me in a new venture. The key architect and I spent more than six months contacting companies and flying around the country looking for funding.” The team knew digital video, a hot commodity as it was the early days of the MPEG technology. Cynthia contacted the President of Micron Computer and one day received a phone call from him. He told her that although Micron wasn’t interested, he had mentioned our proposal to the president of another tech company, and they were interested. “Here was the chance occurrence that got us the deal. I’ve learned how fortuitous happenings can have a big impact on success, which is why networking is so important to start-ups.”
“A few lessons stand out in my mind about this effort. One was how much every person contacted placed on what the team had done. Everyone wanted to know what successful products in the market place specific team members had worked on and how they had contributed to the product’s success. This was beyond listing professional accomplishments; it was about being part of a winning team. A second lesson was the emphasis on the make-up of the team. I had put together the right team with management, marketing and engineering experience in the advent of an emerging technology. It was beginner’s luck.”
Eventually the startup settled Cynthia back into role of an employee as General Manager for an established corporation—a routine, mundane, 9-5 position. She missed the challenge of creating something from nothing. So once again she headed off and co-founded another venture. This time it was a fabless semiconductor company producing low-cost components. A strategic partnership with a recent technology IPO and a darling of Wall Street launched this start-up. This start-up only lasted 18 months. It was an enlightening failure.
The demise was caused by another emerging technology. This new one promised to be the end-all technical advance. The market stalled as customers waited to see how the new technology would pan out. Customers put their orders on hold or canceled them, and investors lost interest. Unfortunately, they had waited to raise more funding until they reached a critical milestone. They had even turned down funding. The start-up ran out of money.
“In retrospect, one of my big lessons was to never fight the trend. Instead, embrace the trend and find the opportunity within it.” Next lesson was a start-up can never have too much money. Nothing about a start-up goes according to plan. The extra funds will help the company make the necessary transition change because no start-up gets the product right the first time. Unfortunately, a start-up doesn’t know what and when that transition will take place and can’t be budgeted for in advance. In the early stage of a start-up, funding is a never ending process. Another painful lesson is they were too focused on the product development and should have put more effort into the marketing sooner.
Afterwards Cynthia spent a brief stint as a consultant as a subject matter expert in the very technology that collapsed the previous venture. Soon the market heated up as the promise of the end-all technology faded. The older technology became hot once again. She founded a bootstrapped company offering a software product version of the technology from the previous start-up. “We actually started with the code base from the failed company and got customers to pay for the remaining product development.” Yet another lesson is that smart and talented people fail because of circumstances beyond their control. We would all like to believe that we are in complete control of our destiny. “The reality is we only control about one-third, another one-third is controlled by the competitors and the remaining is simply a matter of luck.”
Next, Cynthia wanted a short break from start-ups and briefly went to work for a large company. “I thought of it as more of a working vacation. What was I thinking? I found it was impossible to go back. Yes, it was a vacation, but it was utterly uninteresting. I found it difficult to get up in the morning and be the least bit enthusiastic about work. I had no tolerance for the work environment anymore.” It was clear that the path of entrepreneur was the only path for her. And to this day, she continues on with her ventures and helps others with their ventures.
“With each and every venture, I continue to learn new lessons. I continue to make mistakes. I bring my experience and knowledge to each, but more importantly, it’s my outlook that has changed from the first one. Every new venture will be a different situation, everything will and can go wrong, but it’s just a situation to be managed. I’ve learned failure is okay. It’s quite liberating once you no longer have a fear of failing; when you learn the consequences are mostly in your mind. It lets you try new things. If you aren’t worried about failure, you can focus on success. “
One could say that Cynthia has escaped the 9 to 5 job, which by the word “job” means working for someone else. However, that does not mean that she has a short work week or is less stressed. “In fact, I work all the time. My laptop is almost always with me. It never leaves my side. The difference is I define myself by what I do and like what I do. And so opening up my laptop at odd times and in strange places doesn’t seem unnatural. I can’t imagine what entrepreneurs did before mobility gave us the ability to work from anywhere at any time. The more impact an individual has on the bottom line and success of a company, the more pressure there is on them to perform. Entrepreneurship is not a relaxing life style. It is more like living La Vida Loca.”
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Cynthia Kocialski is the founder of three tech start-ups companies. In the past 15 years, she has been involved in dozens of start-ups. Cynthia writes the Start-up Entrepreneurs’ Blog www.cynthiakocialski.com Cynthia has written the book, “Out of the Classroom Lessons in Success: How to Prosper Without Being at the Top of the Class.” The book serves up tips, insight, and wisdom to enable young adults and parents of kids to know what it will take to forge a successful career, no matter what their academic achievement.
