The Rewards of Building Relationships. Bill Shaddock BBA 73 Chief Executive Officer The Bill Shaddock Companies

Transcription

1 PROFILE ALUMNI NEWS 1 Finding His Calling Shaddock knew at an early age that he didn t want to work for a large business. His father was a doctor, and Shaddock saw the difference he made in the lives of others. He came to TCU thinking he d be a doctor, too, but gravitated to the Neeley School. TCU gave me confidence in who I am and how I engage with people. I found my friends and my calling at the business school. After his business degree he got a law degree and practiced law in downtown Dallas for a few years, and then went into the real estate business. I realized I d rather make deals personally than just document the deals of others. 2 I am only one, but I am one. Shaddock believes one person can make a big difference. He certainly has. He started as the sole owner and employee of a title company and grew it into Capital Title, the largest independent title company in Texas. He is also president and partner of Shaddock Development, CEO and owner of Willow Bend Mortgage, and owner and chairman of First National Title, the 12th largest underwriter in the nation. I don t have a good way to make money, but I do have a good way to build relationships. I build personal relationships by being positive and encouraging others. I ve never seen a critic succeed unless he s being paid by The New York Times to be a critic. My skill set is helping organizations and people see and obtain their ultimate success. 3 Keep it Personal Shaddock s success is due to a combination of how he was raised, his education, his skills and his personality. People do business with people they know, trust and like. I m all about getting people to know, trust and like me, and ultimately do business with me. The Rewards of Building Relationships Bill Shaddock BBA 73 Chief Executive Officer The Bill Shaddock Companies By Elaine Cole Bill Shaddock is a people person. If I got up in the morning and my only thought was about making money, I wouldn t be where I am today. Building personal relationships transports me to opportunities. 4 Funding the Future To support new entrepreneurs, Shaddock formed the Bill Shaddock Venture Capital Fund, where TCU students grant money to other students with promising business ideas. Since 2015 the fund has granted $87,750 to 19 students. Not every business that is started here will survive, but that s not my expectation. Every organization needs people who are enthusiastic, positive, motivated relationshipbuilders who are able to visualize a dream and use their skills, abilities and relationships to make that dream a reality. 5 Words of Encouragement Shaddock s enthusiasm for TCU is evident. He serves on the boards of both TCU and the Neeley School, supports several academic and athletic programs, and helped bring the Horned Frog statue to the east side of Amon G. Carter Stadium. TCU offered a guy like me the opportunity to win in life. Leadership is about enabling and encouraging others toward success. This very day there is someone who needs your encouragement. Make sure the person who gives them that encouragement is you. Volume 19, Issue 1 TCU Neeley School of Business 35

2 SPECIAL SECTION ENTREPRENEURSHIP Entrepreneurship and Investing: A Marriage Made in B-School On one side: students asking for money to finance their business idea. On the other side: students holding the purse strings of the Shaddock Venture Capital Fund. In the middle: experience they can t get anywhere else. By Elaine Cole 12 TCU Neeley School of Business Volume 19, Issue 1

3 ENTREPRENEURSHIP SPECIAL SECTION Austin Patry has an idea for a business, and it s a good one. So good that his fellow students in charge of the Shaddock Venture Capital Fund have invested $13,000 in him. What s his business? Voilà Valet, a direct communication and payment app to revolutionize the way valet service works for both the company and the customer. Like many ideas, Voilà Valet started from a bad experience. Patry was out with his family when the valet service couldn t find their keys. He used that experience to talk with others on both sides of the valet service. I used empathy, talked to the end user, put myself in their shoes, all the things we learn in Design Thinking at TCU, he said. He came up with an idea to deliver valuable real-time data to both the valet service and the customer. For example, the valet company gets a visual readout of each employee s shift, location and sales, to provide incentives for top employees. Employees get tips delivered straight to their bank account. Customers get live information on the location and status of their car. Most importantly in today s cashless society, customers get a quick and easy way to pay for valet and tips. With the details nailed down, Patry needed money to pay programmers to make it happen. He donned his business suit and pitched his idea in front of his peers who make decisions for the Shaddock Venture Capital Fund. He showed them his sketches for the dashboard, walked them through how the app works for both the company and the customer, and asked for $5,000. He got it. A few months later, with a functional app and dashboard made possible through the original funds, he came back to the Shaddock Fund and asked for additional money to pay his programmers and go to launch. I ll bring you along with me and show you where your money is going, he told them. They agreed and gave him an additional $8,000. The first time I pitched to them I had never pitched in front of investors, Patry said. It was an incredibly valuable experience. They told me what I needed to focus on, and the second time I pitched, they helped me see what I don t know, especially about marketing after I launch. I ve been so focused on finishing that I hadn t thought through the marketing. From VC to CEO Christine Clutterbuck was one of the students in the Entrepreneurial Venture Deals class who voted to give Patry money. She used that experience as an investor evaluating business proposals, competitors, marketplace and profit potential when she created her own business idea in the New Venture Development class. Born of her experience in and out of hospitals as a child, Clutterbuck came up with an idea for a virtual reality experience to help children combat the boredom, anxiety and depression that comes from spending weeks or months in a hospital room. I researched how virtual reality is used to help people with PTSD, and it hit me that this could be a very powerful tool to help hospitalized children and change their experience, she said. We can give them the chance to travel the world and do what they enjoy even if they can t physically be there. Classmates Mathew DeBilio and Kendall Records joined her team to create RelieVR, a community-based virtual reality platform that delivers engaging and therapeutic experiences for children in hospitals. They approached child life specialists at Cook Children s Medical Center to research current coping methods and programs, and get feedback on their virtual reality idea. The child life specialists were on board from the start, Clutterbuck said. They helped the team set up focus groups in the hospital. We met so many kids who needed an outlet, DeBilio said. One girl was spending hours looking at Google Maps. We knew we had something that could make a real difference in their lives. The first time I pitched to them I had never pitched in front of investors. It was an incredibly valuable experience. They told me what I needed to focus on. The second time I pitched, they helped me see what I don t know, especially about marketing after I launch. Austin Patry, senior entrepreneurial management major Volume 19, Issue 1 TCU Neeley School of Business 13

4 SPECIAL SECTION ENTREPRENEURSHIP We learned so much about ourselves, the way that we work together and how serious we wanted to be about the business. We also learned about our own company. This very real experience forces you to define and refine what you want to do. Christine Clutterbuck, senior entrepreneurial management major The trio refined their plan, their pitch and their prototype with the help of the Neeley Entrepreneurship Center and TCU Idea Factory, and then asked for research funds from the Shaddock Venture Capital Fund. They got it. Going in front of student investors gave me confidence to go in front of angel investors someday, Clutterbuck said. We learned so much about ourselves, the way that we work together and how serious we wanted to be about the business. We also learned about our own company. This very real experience forces you to define and refine what you want to do. Investing in an Investing Game The Shaddock Venture Capital Fund isn t limited to undergraduate students. Last semester, TCU Professional MBAs Paul Pieniadz and Christopher Fanchi secured $5,000 in funding for their company, Tempus Analytics, to develop TradeJester, a weekly game that offers the chance to win real money by virtually trading stocks around earnings announcements. The Earnings Game simplifies the stock market and turns trading into an exhilarating player vs. player experience, according to the website. Pieniadz and Fanchi describe their mobile app as the Xbox/PlayStation of active trading. By applying concepts from fantasy sports to sophisticated, automated analysis of market data, TradeJester allows users to trade stocks in a virtual and risk-free environment. The Earnings Game involves a one-week contest in which the gamer picks six stocks from a list of stocks reporting earnings that week, to buy long or sell short. The two completed the creation of the Earnings Game just prior to pitching their business to the Shaddock Fund investors. We were able to demo this successfully, which gave us more credibility than groups still in the exploratory phase, Pieniadz said. We demonstrated that we could use Shaddock s capital to expand our current product and attract a user base, whereas most groups proposed using funding to build the product they were selling. Tradejester is now up and running. Doling Out Dollars The Shaddock Venture Capital Fund began in 2015 when successful entrepreneur Bill Shaddock BBA 73 made a $250,000 commitment to form the student-run fund. The student investors who make decisions for the fund are in the Entrepreneurial Venture Deals class co-taught by Michael Sherrod, William M. Dickey Entrepreneurin-Residence at TCU, and Les Kreis, founder of Steelhead Capital Management in Fort Worth. An entrepreneur in America cannot be successful without private equity, whether from friends, family, venture capitalists, angel investors or crowd funding. This class is helping them experience how that works, Sherrod said. The students determine if and how much a plan will be funded. The money can be used for working capital, market research, purchasing materials/inventory or other business-related necessities. Students who receive funds must provide scheduled updates on their venture s progress. 14 TCU Neeley School of Business Volume 19, Issue 1

5 ENTREPRENEURSHIP SPECIAL SECTION The combination of entrepreneur and investor gives students insight into both sides of the story: raising money and investing money, Sherrod said. Asking for money is hard, but giving away money isn t as easy as it seems. It s a lot easier to give away someone else s money than your own, but it s harder than I thought it would be, finance major Joel Huffman said of his experience in the class. The analysis is harder. Plus, I really liked all the people who presented. I could see they are visionary. I could see their ideas. But you have to balance between skepticism and optimism. In April 2017, 12 teams lined up to pitch their businesses for funding. Huffman used his role in the decision to think about what kinds of feedback he would like to hear if the roles were reversed. I didn t want to just say what s negative, but more like, Maybe you can pivot this way. What else can you do with this product? How else can you scale it? Maybe I asked something they hadn t thought about, he said. Asking for money goes beyond that first pitch. After the first presentation, the Shaddock Fund investors choose the best ideas and ask the presenters to come back for a deep dive. The class then discusses, negotiates and votes. We try to avoid group think, be fair and hear alternate views, Huffman said. We discuss what we d like to see, what they want to use the money for. Do they really need that much? Should we encourage them to use it for something else? The key is understanding both the finance and entrepreneurship sides of business. I knew about ownership and equity, but this process is completely different, Huffman said. This is more now that we have that information how can we apply it? What does it mean? How do we analyze and make decisions on that information? It s not something students normally get exposed to. The most important thing we give TCU students is a balanced view of how theory and practice work together, Sherrod said. You can practice all day long, but you need the theoretical foundation coupled with the actual experience of engaging in real transactions and decisions. Huffman agreed. You can watch Shark Tank, but unless you are starting your own business or have money to invest, it s hard to know what it s truly like, Huffman said. Now, I know. SPOTLIGHT Cowtown Angels Fellows: Real Money. Real Companies. Real Investors. For Luke Wittenbraker MBA 13, his time as a Cowtown Angels Fellow was the capstone of his MBA experience. Working side by side with some of the smartest people in the DFW area, performing research and analysis, building models and exploring opportunities to invest was hands down the most significant experience in my education, he said. It changed the way I think and act with regard to valuation and making educated decisions. Each year, two MBAs are chosen out of dozens who apply to join Cowtown Angels, which connects entrepreneurs seeking early-stage funding with local investors. They work alongside the angel investors and participate in every aspect, from the initial pitch to the final decision on which start-ups to sponsor. MBA student Amenemopé McKinney applied to the highly selective Cowtown Angels Fellows program to gain a better understanding of how all parts of a business work together. As a fellow, McKinney has prescreened entrepreneur applicants, facilitated monthly forums and performed due diligence. She has evaluated business proposals and researched their profit potential. Being a Cowtown Angels Fellow has inspired her to think about starting her own business, and shown her how the brightest minds transform good ideas into plans of action. The skills and expertise Wittenbraker acquired paid immediate dividends. Upon graduating, he doubled his annual earning potential when he accepted a position as director of marketing and sales for Mactech On-Site, an energy equipment supply and service firm housed at TECH Fort Worth, where Cowtown Angels is located. Bottom line, I am in charge of producing numbers and results, Wittenbraker said. He acknowledged that, like an angel investor assessing a business future prospects, growth is only possible if you prioritize the right opportunities and follow through on those plans. Wittenbraker was so inspired by his fellowship that he is now a member of Cowtown Angels, directly impacting the success of local entrepreneurs and their early-stage companies. The Cowtown Angels Fellows program also includes TCU Neeley undergrads. The MBA students bring projects to the undergraduate Entrepreneurial Venture Deals class to perform research and provide recommendations, adding another level of real-world experience to TCU Neeley students résumés. It offers what no classroom can, said Michael Sherrod, William M. Dickey Entrepreneur-in-Residence who co-teaches the undergrad class. It is real work on real companies for real money with real investors. Volume 19, Issue 1 TCU Neeley School of Business 15