In the startup community, it's well-known that Bill Cunningham is a man of action - he makes things happen. In recognition for his efforts, Cunningham is being honored with the Spirit of Entrepreneurship Award at the Greater Cincinnati Venture Association's meeting at the Cintas Center at Xavier University on Tuesday May 17th.
Like most great stories, we started at the beginning: with paper routes, lawn mowing, and pumping gas at Standard Oil, when gas was 25 cents per gallon. The best part? His original Esso shirt, circa 1971, still fits. With 5 startups under his belt, over $20 million raised, director of two different entrepreneurship programs, and director of the
Greater Cincinnati Venture Association, Bill knows a thing or two about entrepreneurship.
Q. How did you go from working at big companies like AT&T, Data General, Meditec, and Apple to being an entrepreneur? Where did it all start?
Cunningham: Well, my first startup was
CollegeView. There were three of us that co-founded the company. One of them died at age 42 of a heart attack. And that's when I decided to quit Apple. Life is too short. Marty, my wife, came home and said, "What!? You quit your job at Apple? The company is not even funded yet? You took our 401k's and put it into the company?!" Hope is what drives entrepreneurs.
Q. That took some guts. You've been involved in 5 different startups in various capacities - tell me more about those experiences.
Cunningham: At CollegeView, I was a co-founder and we raised $20 million. Don't ask me how. We only wanted a million and our investor, the Daily Mail (UK) said it's bigger than that - let's put in twenty. Before they invested the big bucks, the Daily mail lent us $100,000 so that we could launch the product at a conference for colleges. We spent $35,000 on a booth. We were the hit of the conference - all the other vendors were irate because there were lines to see us.
CollegeView was my first big deal - and the one where I learned the most. Probably because that's where I made the most mistakes.
CollegeView is how I connected with Xavier University- they were our first customer. Xavier offered me a job teaching entrepreneurship and I loved it. It was great because it allowed me to keep working on startups as well. Before I knew it, I passed the 5-year mark at Xavier and had become the director. I left Xavier in 2000 when OfCourse, (a startup, of course) raised $1 million. The investors wanted me to focus on that full-time. OfCourse aggregated courses for professionals - like learning Microsoft Office, etc - and organized it into channels like cable channels.
In 2003, I restarted Diamond Fiber Composites - a family owned business of a college buddy that made advanced materials for aerospace companies. His Dad, Dr. Ed Funk, was a serial entrepreneur and his startups included 7 companies - an artificial hip company, an investment castings firm, a superconducting materials company, and Diamond Fiber. After his untimely passing in 2003, I actually recommended that they shut it down, but they said, "Dad really liked that one - can't you fix it?" So, I raised $500,000, turned the company around, eventually moved it from Columbus to Cincinnati, and then finally won a $250,000 per month purchase order from a Fortune 500. On the first month of production, they changed their mind and cancelled the order- that was another cathartic moment - but we survived and eventually sold the company to our largest customer. I tend to have a bias towards action - not over thinking things.
Q. Who were your mentors?
Cunningham: Z. David Patterson from Blue Chip. He was an investor in Diamond Fiber and he was the type of guy who would always ask, "Why not?" Rob Daly is another guiding force. He is a people person and really understands the human condition. Sandy Eustis at Xavier was another guy who had a bias towards action - he started
Xavier's entrepreneurship program and was one of the early adopters embracing entrepreneurship as a major.
Q. You're a well-known mentor to entrepreneurs. Of all the entrepreneurs you've taught, which ones stand out?
Cunningham: Brian Thompson was a student at Xavier and now he has a really great company called
Sensus Machine Intelligence, a predictive maintenance and failure monitor for rooftop air conditioning units. His first big customer was Target. He's a neat guy. He's been running the company for about 6 years and actually started it in Italy, where he was living at the time. He's turned down term sheets and continued to grow.
Q. When I met you so many years ago, what struck me about you is that you are so positive. Where do you get that from?
Cunningham: You have to be positive. I don't know any other way. Where did I get it from? To some degree, my dad. He was the type that said things like, "Once you're 18, you're out of here." It was motivating. I'm blessed. I avoided getting caught up in the corporate treadmill. Also, I like getting involved. I learned how to silk screen from an artist in high school and when I got to college at Tuck, I was the guy who knew how to design things and make T-shirts. We would buy $2 shirts and sell them for $6. In 1976, in Boston, the Tall Ships came and I had the only T-Shirt that said "Boston. 1976. Tall Ships." We sold 300 shirts in the first hour, and then we went to Filene's Basement and bought their entire inventory of white T-Shirts and made 300 more. That was the best - the rush of having a big wad of cash in your back pocket. After that, we went out and got two huge steaks. I didn't really do it to make money, but to have fun.
Q. You've been the Director of both Xavier's entrepreneurship program as well as NKU's. Tell me a little more about why you love teaching.
Cunningham: Teaching is ultimate selling - getting 30 students to buy your product. I love it. You get to see the fruits of your labor in successful entrepreneurs like Brian Thompson. And you can experiment and test ideas at universities. Universities will let you try just about anything as long as it doesn't cost them budget and as long as it doesn't harm small animals.
Q. What would you like to see for the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Cincinnati?
Cunningham: We're on a great path and things are starting to become less territorial and a more vibrant entrepreneurial culture is growing. There's a gestational period, though. We need to get to the point where we have second and third generation entrepreneurs – when they're on their second and third startup - and that's an eight to ten year cycle. We're getting there.
Q. What words of wisdom do you have for entrepreneurs?
Cunningham: John Scully has a great quote: "There is no finish line. The journey is the reward." It's not about the money - it's about the fun, the happiness. Also, Tony Shipley likes to say, "Do the right thing and good things will happen." I believe that.
Photography by Scott Beseler.
Esso shirt, circa 1971
Bill Cunningham
Elizabeth Edwards and Bill Cunningham
Elizabeth Edwards