How does coding for fun lead to becoming a category king? On today’s episode, Brett Hurt joins Christopher Lochhead in a riveting discussion about his story of serial entrepreneurship, the future of data, and the power of community.

“There's just this serendipity that occurred in life where these things really drew me.” - Brett Hurt on how entrepreneurship pulled him in

Three Things We Learned

Wired to do big things

Brett has always had the knack for creating things that spelled massive success from when he was young. His parents had taught him to slow down when he finally becomes successful the way he defines it. For a time he tried out his parents’ lifestyle, but entrepreneurship has always pulled him in.

A figure to emulate

He took a three-year break from being the head of his company to be more hands-on as a father to his children. It surprised him when his ten-year-old daughter walked up to him one day to ask when he was going to start another business. He realized he was most inspirational to his daughter when he was working and not being on every field trip, and his children became data.world’s first investors and are very proud of chipping in their toy money when they did.

Serendipity of success

He got into his first big success as an entrepreneur when he started an e-commerce site with his wife on a whim. He was feeling bored one day so he began coding an e-commerce package that he and his wife utilized for an online store. There weren’t many people online back then, but a community eventually built around it.

The serendipity of building the e-commerce site directly led to the first category that he entered into, which is e-commerce analytics. Hence the birth of Coremetrics, rated the #1 Web analytics solution some years later.

Bio:

Brett is the CEO and co-founder of data.world. It is a Public Benefit Corporation (and Certified B Corporation) focused on building the platform for modern data teamwork.

data.world helps you tap into more of your company’s collective brainpower—everyone from data scientists to nontechnical experts—so you can achieve anything with data, faster.

Brett is also the co-owner of Hurt Family Investments (HFI), alongside his wife, Debra. HFI are involved in 59 startups and counting, mostly based in Austin (see http://lucky7.io/portfolio for details).

HFI are also invested in 15 VC funds and multiple philanthropic endeavors.

Brett founded and led Bazaarvoice as CEO from 2005-2012, through its IPO, follow-on offering, and two acquisitions (PowerReviews and Longboard Media).

Prior to Bazaarvoice, Brett founded and led Coremetrics. Forrester Research rated Coremetrics #1 Web analytics solution and, like Bazaarvoice, it expanded into a global company and category leader. IBM acquired Coremetrics in 2010 for around $300m.

Links:

data.world

LinkedIn

Medium

Facebook

Twitter

We hope you enjoyed Brett Hurt on this episode of Legends and Losers! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

On another episode of Questions and Cocktails, Christopher Lochhead responds to a question by an aspiring category king. What does a good first marketing hire look like? Do you choose potential over experience?

“I think legendary CEOs are evangelists and they don't outsource the strategic part of marketing.” - Christopher Lochhead

Working on Lightning Strikes

Josh Goodman is grinding to build his nine-person company to a new height. They have doubled in revenue for the last three years in a row. However, their marketing department has little to nothing besides SEO and social targeting advertising.

He has advertised for a Marketing Manager on LinkedIn and has gotten a lot of responses. With his venture for a first marketing hire, he wants to hear thoughts on whether to hire a 25-year-old or someone who’s hardcore in the trenches of marketing.

Hiring Right for a Small Business

It can often be tempting to hire a youngster with tons of potential and still has a lot of room for growth. The company can sell them on what they do in the business in order to help the new hire crush it in the role they will take.

On the other hand, there is the option to hire someone that has had their experience with email campaigns and content marketing. These people are all about creating a brand and helping manage and build assets.

Outsourcing the Strategy

For a small entrepreneurial company, the CEO also needs to take up the role of the CMO. A C-level executive sounds like a good idea, but it is far more beneficial for a CEO to act as the category designer and evangelist of a brand, especially at an early stage of the game.

Even when a company has gotten bigger, the E in CEO should still stand for “evangelist”. Prominent examples include Steve Jobs of Apple and Larry Ellison of Oracle.

To hear more from Christopher, download and listen to the episode!

We hope you enjoyed Questions and Cocktails First Marketing Hire! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

What do you do when your dreams get crushed? On today’s episode, Alex Hult shares his awesome story of business and life success. He tells us how he rose from a halted hockey career and became a legendary restaurateur.

“My mind was still thinking as fast, everything else was going as fast, but my body couldn't just handle the speed that I wanted to go.” - Alex Hult

Three Things We Learned

Alex’s promising hockey career

Hockey has been a gigantic part of his life. Growing up in Sweden, Alex was one of the youngest players in the elite league and was ranked second in the country. With a bright career ahead of him, the San Jose Sharks eventually drafted him in 2003.

The injury that stilted everything

Alex Hult got injured the summer right after he got drafted by the Sharks while in a playoff as part of the Swedish team versus Russia. He prematurely got back in the ice a month after the injury. He was late to realize that injury took six to nine months of rehabilitation, and his career took a turn for the worse.

Becoming a restaurateur

After he got married, Alex gave thought to what he wanted to do and the restaurant business sounded fun, so he opened up HULT'S in 2013. On the fourth year of the restaurant, he opened the first Flights location which took off like crazy. At Flights, they serve everything from drinks to food in three different ways.

They give good value to their customers and this commitment shows in how they are full every single day. The massive success birthed a decision to spice things up and remodel the old HULT'S location to become another branch for Flights. Since then, Flights have become one of the most reputable restaurants giving their customers a whole new experience.

Bio:

Alex is a Swedish native drafted in 2003 in the eighth round by the San Jose Sharks of the NHL. After a knee injury sidelined his career in hockey, he retired in 2009 after stints in the Swedish and European hockey leagues.

Alex met his wife, Sarah, who was Miss Nevada 2011 while pursuing a professional career in cards in Las Vegas. The couple married in 2013 and returned to the Alameda CA area where Sarah is from.

Links:

Flights Restaurants

LinkedIn

New Flights soars into Los Gatos with fanfare

Hockey player turned restaurateur

Former hockey pro Alexander Hult traded skates for skillets

We hope you enjoyed Alex Hult on this episode of Legends and Losers! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

How do you find a passion in solving a problem that a lot of people face? On today’s episode, CEO of Verbhouse Marjorie Scholtz, shares the story of how she realized her passion. She also talks about how she built a diverse team founded on a single mission, designing a new category of company that makes it easier for people to be homeowners.

"Especially in cities like San Francisco, the home ownership rate is the lowest it's been in 50 years." - Marjorie Scholtz

Three Things We Learned

Keep walking if you don’t know what to do

People often get stuck when trying to search what they want to do in life. However, when they can tell what they don’t want to do, that means they have something to compare it to. They have yet to discover what it is that they clearly want to sink their teeth into.

Some entrepreneurs begin with problems to solve

Marjorie considers herself lucky to have found a problem that she is so passionate about that it’s all she can do. It is this sheer want to make a difference by solving the problem that steered her into this venture. Most entrepreneurs she resonates with are those who have accidentally fallen into their ventures because they want to solve a problem.

Building a healthy ecosystem of people

Marjorie's team refers to a diverse set of people who really bring in different experiences and different viewpoints in the company. This distributed experience and viewpoints is what she calls the ecosystem. Despite the differences, however, they all share one common passion and belief in the problem that they’re solving.

One of the most difficult times of entrepreneurship is when you're alone in your head and you have no one else to start buying into your own theories and hypotheses. But with a mission-driven team, things get exciting. You are finally able to speak about your own ideas and get feedback, and this moves things along.

Bio:

Recognized as a national expert, Marjorie Scholtz is a tireless advocate of homeownership. Before launching Verbhouse, Marjorie spent a decade as founder and CEO of Stangl Advisors.

With more than $100M in loan modifications, real estate dispositions and acquisitions during and after the financial crash, she helped many homeowners find a path toward a more secure financial future.

Her passion to empower people, coupled with deep institutional knowledge, inspired her to create the Verbhouse Platform.

Links:

Verbhouse

LinkedIn

We hope you enjoyed  Marjorie Scholtz on this episode of Legends and Losers! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!