“A tenacious leader will reinvent the idea several times until they find the right positioning…”

Interview by Kevin Ohashi of Ohashi Media

____________________________________________________________

This Interview was made possible by our friends at

Name your .com with Name.com

____________________________________________________________

Alex Mashinsky is a serial entrepreneur.  Alex has started many companies: Arbinet, Comgates, VenturiFX, Q-Wireless, Elematics, and LimoRes.  He has exited three of those companies including Arbinet which went public on the NASDAQ (ARBX).  Alex also runs a Venture Capital firm, Governing Dynamics, in New York City which focuses on IT, media and telecommunications.  Alex is the CEO of GroundLink.

GroundLink matches travelers and ground service transportation providers.  There are currently over 45,000 service providers on the service.  GroundLink offers worldwide ground transportation services through their partners.  They service fortune companies and individuals by leveraging their unique technology platform.  GroundLink provides real-time pricing and availability of limousines, taxis, vans, shuttles, buses, car rentals and ride sharing.  They also provide private label services for other large travel operations like JetBlue and Royal Caribbean.

MO:
I don’t know where to start; it’s special to see a serial entrepreneur who has achieved so many successes.  It is even rarer to see one who publicly posts their failures.  I admire that and find it a refreshing change.  So using that as a starting point, you get right to the point that you learned more failing than succeeding.  You list some quite spectacular opportunities you missed (Google, Skype, and ICQ to name a few).  However, I don’t see many any operational or internal failures listed.  What were some of the biggest failures/mistakes you had inside the companies you ran and what did you learn from them?

Alex Mashinsky:
Finding and retaining the best people is always a challenge. Founding and running startups requires you to take the lead and be able to solve any problem, as the company matures you need to hand-off most of these responsibilities to your team members  and many companies fail in this transition. I had my share of mistakes and failures mostly in compromising on the level of people I brought in.  I take your point and will update my failure list with these as well.

MO:
You studied Economics at Tel Aviv University.  You founded so many technology companies and have had roles including technology architect.  Where did you learn your technical skills?

Alex Mashinsky:
I was a hacker as a teenager and got thrown out of high school for pranks and lack of attendance, so basically my teen years were spent in my room with a lab full of equipment I bought in junk yards while my classmates partied. I also took a few courses form the Open University at 17. The funny part was when the same school who booted me out allowed me to teach an electronics class before I went to the army.  I served in the Communications Corp in the Israeli Army for about a year and then learned all I needed on the job after coming to the US.

As you can see from my background I am not a big believer in formal education, it teaches you what everyone else already knows. I wanted to discover new things.

MO:
I’ve seen your name attached to 4 active companies, how do you manage your time to effectively run so many companies?  What roles have your partners and mentors played in your successes?

Alex Mashinsky:
I work at GroundLink every day and as CEO have direct responsibility for all the activities of the company. All the other companies I am either a passive investor or my responsibilities are limited.

As a founder or investor I had a greater role in the past but I have transitioned all of these to others. You can really do only one thing well at any one time so if you have several good ideas you better think hard and decide what you want to commit the next 5-10 years and go for it.

MO:
GroundLink acts as a platform or marketplace aggregating many different ground transportation providers under your brand.  It seems like a very different product than your other startups (other than LimoRes which is partnered with GroundLink).  Where and why did you decide to move into this market and away from the telecommunications sector?

Alex Mashinsky:
GroundLink is actually very similar to Arbinet, it solves many of the same problems both for the demand side and for the suppliers. Each industry goes through cycles and if you want to create value it is critical to have the right timing and the right business model, if you got these right you have a much better chance to succeed.  I worked in many different industries so I guess I have a better view of the cycles and what model will make it.  I felt Telecom got to a point of diminishing returns and very little value would be created by new startups. That’s why I passed on investing in Skype – I knew too much.

MO:
I can easily see a demand for corporations who need to arrange a lot of travel. How do you attract individuals to GroundLink?  What are the biggest differences between your different segments and how you market to them?

Alex Mashinsky:
We are going after the retail segment, partnerships and the corporate world. Retail is a tough one so we are doing a combination of PR, buzz, Google and other sources to get in front of the consumer and show them we have a much better solution.  Partners understand the value quickly but it takes longer time to implement with them. The corporate world is looking for us to manage their expense and travel policies globally, the same service they currently buy from Avis or Hilton.

MO:
You’re now a Venture Capitalist.  What types of people attract you most and how do you evaluate their ideas? Where do you find these deals?

Alex Mashinsky:
I invested in many other companies with mixed success so if I had to summarize it I would say that the Entrepreneur and his talents and personality traits are more important to the startup than the idea and its validity.  A tenacious leader will reinvent the idea several times until they find the right positioning and will save the company.

Very few guys get it right the first time, usually it takes 2-3 years of tinkering to find what the customer really wants and how to deliver it.