Interviews at The Entrepreneur Center @NVTC

Tania Anderson, for Bisnow on Business: What exactly does your company do?
Provide security for companies that deliver information outside of the confines of the network. We’re in the licensed digital content market. We protect all of the information that flies around in the air that arrives on handheld devices, regardless of what form the information may take.

Who are some of your clients?
I can’t use names because all of our customers are under NDAs except for very few. Microsoft is one of our partners. Most of the people who have handheld devices that deliver information are our customers. If you’re using mobile phone developed by three quarters of the folks who deliver mobile phones, we’re on that phone for protection. If you get information, streaming videos, music on handheld devices, there’s a 75 or 80 percent chance we’re on that device. We’re on millions and millions of devices.

Did you launch Cloakware?
I came in January 2004 with the first institutional investors. I’m really not an entrepreneur. I usually do turnarounds or when a group of investors have brought in money where they see an opportunity but there’s a lot of heavy lifting to be done. I come in often when the company is crashed and try to put it back together. I kiss frogs. I look at opportunities where I can see beyond some of the noise and wreckage and really see an opportunity that if optimized it becomes a breakthrough. This is my fifth or sixth company where I’ve come in really to maximize the technology that others have built.

Why did you take the Cloakware job?
My last company was sold in 2003. I spent a year looking for opportunities. I looked at six or seven opportunities, and at the end of the day, none of them gave me the sense that if I put the business together in its optimized format, it would matter to anybody. I wasn’t answering an unasked question. I wasn’t solving a major painful problem. When I took a look at Cloakware, my feeling was that if this stuff did what it purported to do, it was a major breakthrough. It would make a huge difference in protecting licensed digital content, which prior to 2003 and 2004 had no way of being protected other than a build-it-yourself kind of security. I also knew the company needed to raise money to re-incorporate, re-focus, re-productize. That’s all stuff I like to do.

So if you don’t feel you’re an entrepreneur, what do you call yourself?
I guess I consider myself an optimizer. I just think of myself as a manger who comes in and really tries to get the best out of the technology, the best out of people. I build teams. I’m very proud of the people that have worked for me that have gone on to be CEOs. I think I have 12 prior employees who are CEOs.

What are two or three important lessons you’ve learned in business?
The most important thing to me is to absolutely build the highest quality management team as possible. To work closely with the team and build the team such that almost all of the tactical decisions for the company are made by the management team. Which then delivers a degree of accountability, a sense to make it work, a sense of authorship. And then after a year or so of building a good team, I step up a bit. I work strategically with the investors, I work across the industry and position the company for an exit play. Hiring the best I can regardless of where they’re from, make whatever arrangements I can to bring them in is very key to success. The other thing is to look awfully carefully before you take the leap. You can be the best manager in the world with the best team in the world, and if what you’re building doesn’t mean anything to anybody and doesn’t solve a known problem, if it doesn’t reduce a pain...if the dogs don’t eat the dog food, no matter how good you are, it doesn’t matter. It’s like one hand clapping.

What’s the most interesting job you’ve had?
I paid my way through college diving for lobsters off the Jersey coast. I did it all year round. My parents didn’t have the wherewithal to put me through college. I would go up every other weekend. Even in those days, which were more ancient than I’d admit to, we could get $1.50 to $2.50 a pound. On a good dive you could pick up 300-400 pounds of lobster.

Who would you sell the lobsters to?
Wholesalers. I had a dive boat with another partner and we would go out and get on the wrecks. As long as the weather was decent, we could get on a wreck. There were more lobsters in the winter along the Jersey coast than you could ever imagine. We would come in with 300, 400, 500 pounds each. That’s how I paid my way through college.

Did you have people around you growing up that got you interested in business?
I had no one around me that had any business interest at all. My father was a steel worker, my mother was a night nurse. I grew up frustrated that there were things that I wanted to do in life that I couldn’t do unless I found a greater level of income, a greater breadth of experience. I got out of college and was fortunate enough to get hired by Xerox Corp., as a sales person. I did 15 years there before I went off to run companies. Xerox was a phenomenal place to learn and grow and develop. They taught me everything I needed to know about managing and getting the most out of people and giving people enough room to run and grow.

You’re turning 60 this summer. What are your plans?
I am having a boat built as we speak. That’s my birthday present to myself. My wife decided that not only should we have the boat delivered but she also wants to go to Alaska on a cruise. We’re going to charter a 50-ft. boat with a captain and a chef for a week. The boat is supposed to be here next week.

[This interview conducted by Tania Anderson for Bisnow on Business.]