Carl Spaulding
Utah, USA
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Risk Pays Off
When I got a note from a professor on a final paper saying “incomplete – see me” I was puzzled. But after a tense meeting with the professor in which I was grilled on how I had arrived at a particular algorithm for a software program, it became clear the instructor thought I had plagiarized the model.
I was incredulous. I asked what I could do to convince him the work was entirely mine. He said he was researching it and would get back to me.
My professor began making inquiries among his contacts in advertising and at other universities. His search came up empty handed and I got an “A” on the paper.
My professor had inadvertently helped me launch a new career. None of the people the professor contacted were familiar with my model, and some expressed professional interest in learning more about it. Soon I received a few calls at work from professors of computer science at other universities.
In the end, I began to think I might have a workable idea. Eventually I left the large ad agency I worked for to start my own business designing software for the advertising industry.
When I look back, I did everything the wrong way. I had no start up capital, very little of my own money to put into the new company, and I wasn’t a programmer. I had an idea; that was all. I didn’t have any evidence that it could work, no track record, and no foreseeable means to bring it into existence. What I did have was a partner who was as dedicated as I was.
It reminds me of a quote that John F. Kennedy referenced on at least one occasion from a book by Frank O'Connor. He tells how as a boy he and his friends would make their way across the countryside. When they came to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue, they took off their hats and tossed them over the wall, and then had no choice but to follow them.
In many ways, starting a business is like that. You don’t know how it’s going to turn out. The risk you take is that it will fail and you’ll waste a lot of time, money, and energy in the process. When you throw your cap over the wall, so to speak, it takes an act of faith in yourself and your ability to react successfully in the face of circumstances you can’t entirely predict.
Within nine months, having exhausted my savings, borrowed money from every willing family relation, and run up the debt on every credit card I could get my hands on, my partner and I brought the first version of our software to market. Today, our software is used by most of the top advertising agencies in the United States and in 40 countries abroad. Corporate clients include a large number of the Fortune 500 companies.
I have participated in several programs offered by Landmark Education and these programs have contributed to my success. To continue the analogy, I’ve always been the sort of person to toss my cap over the wall. But there is a profound difference between blindly taking a risk for the momentary thrill of it, and doing it because there is something on the other side that you’re committed to. That’s where Landmark has come in.
It has helped me to maintain a certain perspective in knowing that feelings or thoughts of failure or even of success are not the same as the facts and the work at hand. Even today in the face of tremendous success, there are moments of intense doubt or worry. We still have payroll and revenue goals to meet, clients to satisfy, and an ever-changing technological environment. I don’t think the doubts or the fear ever really goes away. To me, it’s just a matter of whether you’re going to stop when you hit the wall, or whether you’re willing to see what’s on the other side.
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