Emphasize problem-solving: Trent Kocurek

For Airship CEO Trent Kocurek, focusing on the views of the people you’re trying to help is critical to business success. Kocurek, a 2008 Harbert graduate in management information systems, says problem-solving has to be ingrained in a company’s culture. The serial entrepreneur also urges risk-taking early in a career, when there’s more room to make mistakes.

Transcript

Narrator:

Welcome to the Harbert College of Business podcast with your hosts, Sarah Gascon and Currie Dyess. Today's guest is Trent Kocurek, co-founder and CEO of Airship, a software services company. He is a 2008 Harbert graduate in management information services.

Currie Dyess:

Trent Kocurek, War Eagle, and welcome to the show.

Trent Kocurek:

War Eagle. Thanks for having me.

Currie:

Yeah. It's our pleasure. Thank you for taking the time to come hang out with us today. Trent, you can easily be described as a serial entrepreneur. What does that mean to you? And what keeps you coming back and putting more irons in the fire?

Trent Kocurek:

I tell you what, every new business that I've created, and I'm on my fourth now, I've learned a little bit more that's had me wondering if I put some of that into practice on my next one, how much of an impact or how much more I could achieve, even if it's just a small bit more success. So as I've evaluated my experiences, I don't know if it's naivete or if it's just never being satisfied, but each business that I've started, exited, I've always tried to learn something from it and I've always wanted to put those learnings into practice. So it's just hard to stop once you've done it.

Sarah Gascon:

At what point did you know you were going to be an entrepreneur? How did you take those first steps?

Trent Kocurek:

I don't know if I ever really thought to myself, I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I think that that terminology really started coming up even more and more probably in the late two thousands, at least for me. All I knew is that I was somewhat stubborn. I understood that the people around me that I was surrounding myself with that success to them was really, and success to me, was really creating some more joy in someone's lives and having more control over that was always something that I aspired to. So it turns out, yes, that's entrepreneurship. When you take an idea, you take a thought, you take a feeling and you run with it, and you create something around it that you yourself control, that's just kind of started really poking me in late two thousands, early 2010. So again, I don't think I ever sat down and said, I'm going to be an entrepreneur when I grow up. It was more so I kind of just kept reaching for more and I found myself in control, good and bad, by the way, for those that are entrepreneurs or looking to be, so the good times and the bad. But yeah, it was just something that I kind of fell into and I've not been able to stop.

Currie:

When you started your entrepreneurial journey, what did your business plan look like? And I ask that because I feel like a lot of young folks, especially recent college grads, that is one of the hangups, it's got to be a perfect business plan to be a successful entrepreneur.

Trent Kocurek:

Yeah. There's a great quote by Bertrand Russell. He says, every great idea starts out as blasphemy, and I think that that's something that you're just going to have to be comfortable with. I would say to many, and too often I would say to entrepreneurs, don't base your success of your idea or what you can do on anyone other than those that you're looking to help. If the idea that you're trying to create or the product you're trying to create or the business you're trying to create, the only people you should be focusing on their input are the ones that you're trying to serve, hopefully the ones that'll be paying you to add that service and try your best to drown out the noise from those around you. So the business plan is never going to be perfect. You'll be learning as you go. And if you try to get it perfect, you'll find that your two years have passed. The idea is no longer valid because you've waited too long. So start with something, get it in front of as many people as possible to get their feedback, but again, only take those that you're looking to serve's feedback as ones that you should determine whether or not to move forward or pivot. Don't get caught up with your friends or anybody that doesn't have, again, a really a deep connection to what you're trying to do.

Currie:

Hey, as a follow up, while everyone has their own metrics for success, we do call some businesses unicorns for a reason. Why do you think that starting a business based solely on whether it's going to make a billion dollars or not is the wrong way to go about it?

Trent Kocurek:

Going back to just early stage entrepreneurs and understanding where they're at and understanding their mindset, I think too often they're caught up in what they see right now, which is these billion dollar exits, these unicorns, the WhatsApps, the Instagrams, all of these just giant exits, and I think that they focus on that too much. I think that they're trying to go after maybe their first one as their first hit. And I think that that's why I wanted to say serial entrepreneur, and I kind of like to joke a little bit about that first exit of an iPad Mini is because everyone that you step to is a success. Right? It's not that first business that you create, you're young, you're hungry, you're trying to solve that problem. There's a high likelihood that first business that you create is not the same one that you're going to be creating 20 years from now.

Don't treat it like it is and don't feel like your success should be based off of the billion dollar exits. And if you didn't make a billion dollar exit, that it was a failure. I think every single exit has something to learn. And it could be as small as an iPad mini and it could be millions of dollars and it could be billions of dollars. But don't wait to start or don't feel like you have to aspire to that for you to kind of match up that idea. I think people are looking for a billion dollar idea when a multi-million dollar idea or even an iPad mini idea is a great learning opportunity for those as you continue to grow your career. You're young. Have some iPad mini ideas before you get to that billion dollar one. I'd like people to understand that a little bit more. I think that they get too bogged down with those big exits.

Sarah:

What does your process look like when you're starting a business? Are you thinking about ideas or thinking about, like you said, solving problems and do you whiteboard it? Or is there a group of people, your trust circle that you kind of bounce your ideas off of?

Trent Kocurek:

So I'm a big white boarder. For those that can see behind me, which none of you can right now. I've got a whiteboard in my office. I pretty much have one anywhere I am because I do like to scribble some ideas. The process itself really does start with a problem I listen for and I'm keen onto when someone says [inaudible 00:06:28] or the [inaudible 00:06:28], the moans, the groans, the I wish this, I wish that, I wish this could have happened this way. That's something that as entrepreneurs, I think that you just have this sixth sense and those things kind of perk you up a little bit more than others. And if you really hone in on that and ask the questions, which I believe is a superpower, asking really, really good questions, I think you'll find that there's a lot of opportunities out there. So the first step of the process is exactly finding a problem that someone is expressing. Right?

The second one is to make sure that they're not the only ones that are expressing it. Right? Too often we all think, oh, well, I've got this problem so the entire world must have this problem and I'm going to go and I'm just going to go heads down and I'm going to build this thing out. Don't do that. Always ask questions. Find someone who's similar to that persona that you're looking to help and ask them if they have the same problems. I think that entrepreneurs get a little scared that if they tell someone about their idea that someone's going to run off, stop everything that they're doing, sell everything that they have, and start your idea. I think if you think about it, that's how silly it is. So I would say first, that's the second piece is talk to people, tell them about it. Try to search out for those that look similar to the person that you're trying to help and ask them if they're having the same problems too.

So validate that it's actually a problem others are experiencing as well. And then the third piece of the puzzle is what's that minimum thing that you can do? Don't go build an entire web application. Don't go build a whole mobile app. Don't go spend hundreds of thousands of dollars building something out. Excel's pretty good at things. So is Airtable and Canva and so many other tools that you can get a free trial with. So is putting your phone number on a website for free and seeing how many people call you. So validating that idea needs to be as cheap as possible. And your whole point is trying to learn and identify what are those key pieces that truly are articulations of that problem and that solution.

Once you have that, it's rinse and repeat, honestly. Each time you go up in that ladder, you're re-validating what you learned from that last piece, and you're taking it through that cycle until hopefully you land on something, you're like, okay, enough people are calling me from my phone on the website. I can't handle that anymore. Excel, I'm now having to spend thousands of dollars on a license. I need to do something more. So you'll know when it's time, when those things that got you there no longer scale and people are still asking for more. But those three steps are usually how I would go about validating an idea, and I would recommend others do that as well before they spend a lot of time and money.

Currie:

Yeah. Trent, that is really well said. It's very easy to understand three steps. You weren't always an entrepreneur. You came out of school and got a nine to five, so to speak. At what point did you realize those were the three steps? At what point did you go all in on yourself?

Trent Kocurek:

So I wish I had this glorious moment of the clouds opened up and the sunshine down, and it really came to one moment. It was actually on our second business, which is in county apps. And I think I've told y'all a little bit about, it's probably the sexiest market you can ever think of, the county government space. And we were building, we were trying to solve the problem of car tag renewals. People were passing out lines in Jefferson County. We were like, you've got a computer in your pocket. So we started building that company. Of course, this was nights and weekends, we still needed our nine to five, which was a fantastic company. I think that's one thing that I'd like to talk about later is just the relationships and the amazing company that we worked for that gave us some of these opportunities. But we found that the problem space was not going to be well taken care of if we were a nine to five.

Because I got a phone call one day, January early 2014 that said, hey, we've got every news outlet you can even say with all the letters and all the channel numbers, and they're heading to the courthouse and they're ready to do an expose on your product and on your business. Can you come? And we had to say no to that. And at that point it really kind of forced our hand. We already knew how to articulate that problem. We already had gone through steps one, two, and three. But again, at certain point it doesn't scale anymore. And what didn't scale is us having a full-time job and trying to do this at the same time. So it was probably through that third or fourth iteration, we had already built the product. We had already done the MVP that we realized, okay, now we need to take that next step, which is give it more time, give it more attention, really bet on it.

And that's not an easy thing to do. That's a scary thing to do. It's a very, very scary thing to come from a company that you've been with since you were 19 years old that you'd gotten all your opportunities with and said, okay, now I'm going to lead this company and I'm going to bet that what I'm doing is the right thing to do. Here's the thing though, we're young and especially y'all, the undergrads that are listened. You're young. You can make a lot of mistakes right now. Now's the time to make those mistakes. And I was young at that time too. So taking that into account, you've got time to make things up. And taking those risks allowed me to again, learn and then build what we have today. So it was a couple of those iterations, but then it was more of a forced hand that says, hey, sometimes you just got to take that leap.

Sarah:

Tell us a little bit about Equip and how you found yourself working with the Auburn Eagles program.

Trent Kocurek:

Yeah, Equip, I love Equip. It is our latest venture along with Airship, which is the company we also run today. This is just kind of serendipitous, but one morning Terry and I and my wife, we're sitting in our living room. We have three little children, so they get up at six o'clock. We make sure to try to get some type of peace in before they get up. So it's about 4:30 or five having a coffee. And usually we don't talk to each other again. Again, we're just trying to zone out, do something mindless, and get ready for the little guys and gals coming down the stairs. But she asked me the question. She said, have you ever heard of the Auburn Eagles program? And I said, I hadn't. It wasn't around when I was at Auburn. She goes, well, there's a young man from back home, Coleman, Alabama. His name is Jackson. And he got into the program and he looks like he has Down Syndrome or something like that.

That's typically what people think when they hear about intellectual disabilities. Down syndrome is the easiest and most affluent kind of disability that people look at when they think of intellectual disability. I was like, well, that sounds incredible, but let me look into it a little bit more. So she sent me the link and I just read the mission on the website and it just hooked me. At the end of the day, what we do at Airship on a day to day basis is that we try to solve problems through technology. And I said, wow, I wonder how many problems or opportunities are within these inclusive postsecondary education programs. So I found the first email address I can find on the website. I sent an email and a few days later, a couple of meetings and moving things around, I met Betty, who is the program director there at the Auburn Eagles, and we hit it off quickly.

Sitting there and talking to her as I do, I just started asking, how do you manage this? What's your day to day look like? Tell me about how? what are the tools that you're using? Because at the end of the day, I didn't know how I was going to help, I just knew that I wanted to. I knew that I wanted to be part of this and help with the success. So Betty started talking about their day. They spend hours in seven different tools trying to collect and manage the information as well as dealing with those with intellectual disabilities that on a day-to-day basis need a lot of attention, a lot of care. These are sometimes the first time that they're away from home for the first time in their lives.

And so I was hearing the stories about having to look in three different places to find someone's emergency contact when we've had some scares on campus with some of these students, and the time that it took to actually get around to finding the information that they needed to do to act on that, medical plans, emergency plans, guardianship status, understanding should I call their parents or should I not? Just general information was all over the place. Spending hours, I think they said they were they were spending up to four hours scheduling their classes, scheduling their social events, scheduling their work events. All of this was done in a Google Sheets with every single person had their own tab because some of the technology just wasn't robust enough to have user experience, but also just the tools that allowed for some of that management of time and schedules.

We took that down to 30 minutes. So four hours to 30 minutes. Now what does that do? That opens up three and a half hours to where their employment coordinator can go face to face and sit down and have conversations with these students that helps them train in the moment instead of being behind a computer. They were having to do task analysis and routines on paper. And what I mean by that is, I think if I asked you what you did this morning and what your morning routine is, we probably have very similar ones, maybe coffee, maybe tea, likely shower, I hope, brushing your teeth, I would hope, just the normal things, make your bed, the things that we do on autopilot in the morning. Well these students, that's not the case. Right? They need some help. They need additional support to say, hey, remember, brush your teeth, wash your face, take a shower, check the refrigerator for expired items.

All of these routines and tasks that we take for granted, and again, that are on autopilot, these are things that they have to do and be reminded of. And as they continue to grow, that's part of it is to get them to a point where it becomes more of an autopilot thing. But this was done on pieces of paper and check boxes, no communication back to the staff to allow them to act on that and see, hey, is this person improving or not without having to collect information and data along. So again, Equip and their mobile app, we were with the mobile app and Equip, we're able to now create those routines within their pocket on an app that sends information to and from, back from the staff. And they can actually give in the moment feedback and help them with any of those difficult tasks that they're maybe not getting right away, right, so again, that two way communication all the way down to group management with mentors.

There's over a hundred mentors, I think actually 160 mentors, students that are at Auburn right now that help the Eagles program. They walk to classes with these students. They go to their job sites with them. And imagine not only managing the schedules of the students, but now having to take into account these other students' volunteer schedules and matching them up with different areas and social events and making sure that someone's going to class with these students. So again, Equip helping with that. So just so many opportunities within just that small program that now that I've talked with several other programs, it's actually the same with all of them. There's just too many tools. The information's too scattered out and the time that it takes to actually manage schedules, routines, and tasks and really focus on the back office administration takes away so much from that face to face that they can have with the students. So I think if you talk to the Eagle staff now, they have a lot more time in their day. They have a lot more of the personal relationships that they're building with the students so that they can actually do what they need to do on that more personal level instead of having to administer tasks in the background.

Currie:

You're very mission motivated, adding value to other people's lives, and not shy at all about being outspoken of those things. What is it that motivates? You seem a bit like an anomaly, at least. Most people are about the business, but you're about the people.

Trent Kocurek:

There is no business without the people. There is no business if you don't have the right people surrounding you. There's also, if I look back at the success that I've had thus far, I'm not saying... I'm very, very happy with the success that I've had thus far, but I'm just getting started. Really a lot of that has come from the relationships that I've built with others. Right? And so when you're building these relationships, when you're thinking about them, when you're looking to serve others, it's got a funny way of coming back around to you and helping you out. So that's one of the biggest things that I've tried to do is surround myself with people that I aspire to learn from, and then give without expectation. Right?

Give without expectation. Don't sit there and say, well, if you give me this, I'll give you that. No. The more that you give without expectation, the more that you truly are trying to serve others, you'll be funny how some of those just pop back up and it's your next employee. It's a next connection to a deal. It's a next business partner. It's the next client. I think it's worked so well throughout my life that there's no reason giving up that now. Serving others has led to much bigger things that I could have done by myself.

Sarah:

With Airship, your mission is to solve problems through technology. What has been the trick for fostering creative thinking?

Trent Kocurek:

You get a really, really curious people in one room and you give them a problem to solve and then you just walk away. I wish that there was a drop, but truly, truly, I think if you can get the right people in the right room, give them the tools that they need to succeed, and give them some type of problem to solve, it is fun to watch that happen. So I think that we just have it baked into our core values. Right? We have this humbly confident, team focused, client obsessed. We have core values that really explain the type of person that does really, really well within our environment. And our entire organization is really built around solving problems. Right? We're very transparent with the business opportunities and problems that we have and allow input there.

And I think that that trickles down to having people feel safe and comfortable and confident in going in and solving bigger problems for our clients as well. So that creative thinking, it's got to be part of who you are. You've got to be that person that probably was a kid and asked the why question a thousand times and still wasn't happy with the answer. But then you do that and you get the right core values in there and you point them towards a problem and it's fun to watch. So it's got to be from the top down. It's got to be all throughout the culture itself is problem solving.

Sarah:

Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about company culture. What does that look like for you and what have you learned in your previous jobs and businesses and is it different from who you are now?

Trent Kocurek:

I used to think that culture was this thing. That culture has probably now become more ambiguous and vague the more that I've tried to create it and the more businesses that I've been part of, because I used to think it was easy to explain. It's the people. It's just the type of people that you bring in together and it's the type of Friday lunches and Xboxes and fun places to go eat and going out for drinks after work. That used to be kind of how I explained culture is friendship and things like that. And realize now that culture is really the, we are the fish, the water is the culture. It's the environment in which you create. And there's really no one single thing that I can point to or that you can point to, but a culmination of, yes, the people, but of the trust, of the relationships, of people being empowered to make decisions for those decisions to be okay if they're the wrong ones. Right?

So what I've learned over the years of trying to build cultures, and I was part of an amazing culture at that first company I worked for called [inaudible 00:21:28] Co, is that it's not just one singular thing. It's really a culmination of all other things. And it's the environment that is created that leads to an amazing culture, that culture's not necessarily cookie cutter from one place to the other. Right? That can look different in all sorts of different organizations. But there is such thing as a good culture and it really comes down to do you have the right people? Are you giving them the right tools to succeed? Is there trust involved? Do people say they love each other every now and then?

Man, we say we love each other all the time at Airship. That's the culture. Right? Again, it's fuzzy. It's fuzzy, but it's important. It's impactful. And I think that you find that the cultures that are the most successful are the ones when things go wrong or when there's hard times, that's where those companies still succeed. You can usually kind of tie it back to how close were those individuals and how much of that culture actually allowed them to be successful, even through rough times. So I know that we could probably do a whole podcast just on culture and the 20 things that you can do to help improve it.

Currie:

What's been the greatest challenge of your entrepreneurial journey and how have you evolved because of that?

Trent Kocurek:

I even gave this one some thought. I tried my best to stay on more of the positive side. With that, I sometimes forget the negative things, but I've absolutely gone through challenges. I think most of them come down to people and the choices that I've made and having to let people go that you really like just for the good of the businesses have probably been the biggest challenges I've had. The work is never the challenge. It's always it comes down to the work is not work without there's someone behind it. There's the people behind it. There's people behind the company. And when you have to make choices that impact them, it's a tough thing. It keeps you up at night. I would say those would be the biggest because any time I've had to make those decisions or those decisions have been made, they've weighed on me.

Outside of that though, I mean we've had the times, the fun times of we don't know if we're going to make payroll. We've only got two weeks of payroll in the bank and we've got a lot of people depending on us. We've got clients that are upset. Those are all the things that come along with it. But again, I think that that comes down to just being part of it. For entrepreneurs out there, you've got to realize that the highs are the highs, the lows are the lows. You've heard that before. And if you can hook onto a mission that the business and the people that are still there are worth fighting for it, then all of those choices that you have to make will typically come out on the positive side. That's really what you're trying to do. You can't make all the right choices. You need to make more right choices than you did wrong, and then you'll tally those up at the end. I hope that I've made more right choices and I forgot about a lot of the wrong ones, but I know I've gone through some pretty stressful time, but we're better for it.

Sarah:

What is the most difficult thing when looking for employees? Do they believe in your mission or your vision? Are they just there looking for a job? What is that process of hiring and maybe even firing for you look like?

Trent Kocurek:

I think too often people up front try to be more lenient with what a job looks like, what a career looks like, what a position looks like, and they try to say all of the great things about it. What we try to do here is we try to not only identify the great things, but also, hey, here's some of the challenges you're going to run into, but guess what? You're going to run into these and here are the people behind you that are going to help you get through them. I would much rather someone be fully understanding exactly what they're getting into than someone come in with a thought that this is going to be the most amazing thing ever forever. And then that first time challenge comes about that they start questioning what they did there so a lot of what we do is just based on transparency.

It's making sure that they fully understand what's going to be expected of them, what success looks like 30, 60, 90 days in, and then another year in. Right? We want them to know who they're working with. So we'll do team interviews. We'll let the team kind of wrap their arms around them, ask them questions, have a very relationship focused type of interview process, and of course our core values. If they don't meet the core values, it's not just that we're not going to probably have a lot of fun with them around, they're not going to be having fun either. Right? Because that's who we have here. So it's the core value. It's the mission. Yes, of course, but I say for most part it's just the core values and making sure that they have a full expectation of what they're getting into. And the people that understand that fully and still take that step and still give us the opportunity to bring them on, it's amazing at that point because there's nothing. There's nothing hidden. There's no skeletons. It's all just having fun and knocking it out of the park. So we have a long hiring process, longer than others, and I think it's for the better.

Currie:

You're a pretty young guy, but it seems like you have a lifetime worth of lessons learned and experiences just from your MIS degree here at Harbert College of Business to where you are now. What advice would you give our listeners, maybe current college students or recent college grads?

Trent Kocurek:

In every opportunity, try to surround yourself with people that you want to aspire to be. Find out where they're at. Go to the same restaurants. Go to the same networking events. And when you get there, don't ask them yes no questions, ask them deep questions. Learn how to interview someone. I think if I had to go back, I would look up how to conduct an interview because I think changing just a simple question of who do you work for to where do you spend the most of your time can lead to so many more deeper connections and just longer conversations that lead to more caring. So that's one is just surrounding yourself and learning how to talk to the folks that you aspire to be and interview them and learn from them. I've already said it once, but don't get so stuck on what other people think about your idea.

I said it about Bertrand earlier. Every good idea starts out as blasphemy. That's what makes you different. That's what makes you're trying to do different. And every single thing that's come that was worthwhile was typically uphill and was likely looked at as blasphemy from others that didn't understand. Another big thing that I love, and I'm just a quotes person, John Maxwell said, "Experience isn't the best teacher, evaluated experience is." Take stock in everything that you do from the successes and the failures, not just the failures. Too often people look at, oh, I failed. How could I never do that again? Look at how you succeeded and find out how you could have done that better. And I think that there's a, again, going back to superpower is I think that a lot of self-talk. There's a lot of negative self-talk out there right now, but if you're able to really kind of interview yourself in those positions and in those scenarios and situations, that's just going to lead you to learning and identifying areas where that could have been better. And then lastly, this is one that I'd probably, if I ever got another tattoo, I'd probably get this one, is that don't try to make everyone like you because you don't like everyone either.

I think at the end of the day, too often we work tirelessly on what that person across the table thinks of us and those that are really successful, I will tell you, yes, they care. Of course, we're not talking about being a jerk to everybody, but you should be focusing on the people you're trying to help, not the person across from you who doesn't like your idea, doesn't think you're smart, doesn't think that it's going to work. Again, not everyone's going to like you and you don't like everyone either so just get past it. And I think that that mindset will allow you to really shake off a lot of the distractions that happen as you're building a company, as you're solving a problem, as you're generating just a new business from nothing is worry about the people that you're trying to help and not the people that just are there to tell you yay or nay. Right? So those are some of the ones that I would focus on the most.

Currie:

That's exceptional advice.

Sarah:

You're on just this rocket ship journey. How can our listeners keep up with you and contact you if they have additional questions?

Trent Kocurek:

Yeah. LinkedIn is a great place. I'm on there. I check my messages. I accept invites. So if anybody wants to reach out, I'm happy to talk. But I'm sure you can find my name and how to spell it underneath the podcast here. But, yeah, look me up on LinkedIn and if it leads to more and you want to ask me some questions, we'll talk on there and we'll chat and I'll tell you some other ways they get in touch with me and follow along.

Currie:

Trent, thank you so much. Thank you for your time. This has been exceptional and you have had a tremendous amount of great advice for our listeners.

Trent Kocurek:

Well thank you for having me. It's a lot of fun and hopefully they take something away from it.

Currie:

War Eagle.

Trent Kocurek:

War Eagle.

Sarah:

War Eagle.

Narrator:

Harbert, inspiring business.