Chicago Exit Interview: Stephen Meade

Stephen Meade is probably best known in Chicago for his company Moneta Pro and as one of the co-founders of the Knock Now networking group. Under the umbrella of Big Bamboo, LLC, Meade has created a number of companies, but left Chicago for Los Angeles. As part of our “Exit Interview” series, talking with technology professionals who’ve left Chicago for other regions, we’ve talked with Meade about why he left and the different strengths and weaknesses of both his new home and Chicago.

Chicago Tech News: You’re probably best described as a serial entrepreneur, but that term can cover a lot of ground. How would you best describe your work to our readers?

Stephen Meade: What I tend to do is create companies around my own ideas. I find gaps that can be exploited and try to determine if there is a business opportunity. I create the due diligence and spend a lot of time building an advisory board of experts and experienced individuals in the industry of interest. I then ask them one pressing question- “Why WON’T this idea work?”

I’m much more interested in their experiences and objections, and by starting with why someone won’t work, I open myself up for true criticism. This has proved invaluable as at the end of the day, building companies and selling is all about overcoming objections.

The next step is to attempt to recruit management or interested parties that can help bring the company to market. Without good leadership, strong differential experience, and a focused goal, companies tend to either drift or never get started.

CTN: You left Chicago for Los Angeles, but not all of your corporate functions left with you. What percentage of MonetaPro remains in Chicago?

SM: MonetaPro as a company still remains there. But the actual functions are being rolled out again with a group in Dallas, Texas and Los Angeles. We still have the RONAStar application, which is the tool to help really large companies save money by redeploying their own assets internally. When Arthur Andersen imploded years ago, it set us back quite a bit. Now, the economy and environment is similar to 2002, so saving money and being more efficient is back in vogue.

For MonetaPro, we needed to find some consulting groups again who could bring the product to market, and we found both of those outside of Chicago.

CTN: What’s the current status of Knock Now?

SM: It’s interesting, for as much momentum, excitement and actual production coming from the meetings, it seems to have faded in Chicago. It’s unfortunate as we really searched to find someone to continue the efforts, and thought we had left it in good hands.

Alas, again, it leads back to leaderships in Chicago. We found someone who didn’t continue the effort.

In Los Angeles, we’ve started them up again, but also less frequently than monthly. That’s more a by-product of the great number of events that already exist.

CTN: People don’t switch coasts for a reason, and frequently it’s a business reason. What was the driving factor in your relocation?

SM: I often joke with people that if you do two things in Chicago you’re “off focus”, and if you do two things in LA you’re “creative”.

The reality is, it stemmed from a much bigger fundamental problem of I constantly saw in Chicago. No true community, no major accomplishments, no angel community, and most importantly no early stage experienced management.

This leads back to the premise of KnockNOW and the challenge I called the “Business LifeCycyle”. Chicago doesn’t have a Google, a Yahoo, or even a PriceGrabber or Facebook or MySpace, I could go on and on. So this means you don’t have a company that got acquired for a large sum of money that kicks out executives with $10-40MM net worth’s that are willing to jump back into the game.

LA, and the west coast in general is full of them. These are guys who have cashed out, have the funds, and are still young and hungry enough to jump back in and build a business, or invest in early ones.

Additionally, unlike Seattle (Microsoft Millionaire’s), Austin (Dellionair’s), or San Francisco (HP, Oracle, etc), you don’t have executives from Motorola, Caterpillar, or…well..who else is even really in Chicago?

My point is, I’ve never heard of a VP from Motorola becoming a Motorola Millionaire (if they even exist), and then jumping back in to create a technology company that could leverage their experience.

And I CERTAINLY never saw the likes of Galvin, Zander, Condit, Cowell, or any of the others who have built companies getting involved.

You need a complete eco-system of funding, experience, and involvement, and Chicago really has none of that.

CTN: Having been in LA for a couple years, what are the biggest strengths of it’s tech community?

SM: For LA, it’s interesting. It is a HYPER networked community. What I mean by that is, for the most part, everyone is networking with everyone else.

If you want/need access or introductions, they not only flow naturally, you can usually secure a meeting.

For instance, this is not to impress you, but to impress upon you, the difference. In just the last month, I’ve had introductions and meetings with the following:

CEO of Paramount

Former Global head of Strategy For Microsoft Mobile

Former CEO of George Lucas Entertainment

Founder of E! Entertainment network

Three people on the CGI (Clinton Gore Initiative)

Five Speakers from TED (if you don’t know TED or CGI, look them up)

Co-Founder of Participant Productions (Created movies Inconvenient Truth, Kite Runner, Syrianna, etc.)

And I could go on and on.

As well, a fundamental difference, going to a point earlier: many of these individuals are interested in joining boards, investing funds, helping get deals done, and make a change to something more entrepreneurial.

With that, you have a much more dynamic environment.

CTN: What’s the biggest weakness of LA’s tech community?

SM: Interesting as LA strength as it relates to technology directly, is content and the ability to monetize. Think about Myspace, JamDat, Activision, etc, as well as new companies like Starbiz.TV, SocialVibe, View2Together, and Hulu.

However, your question about weakness is twofold.

First there is not much development talent, so getting the actual platforms and technology built is a challenge. Second, Hollywood as a whole is still behind on their “understanding” of technology. However, again, a fundamental difference is their willingness to try new things.

Disney for instance has Steamboat Ventures, which does early stage investing for technologies that extend the brand.

Not only are there many examples like this, the investors are accessible and active.

CTN: You were in Chicago for a number of years and operated multiple businesses, what would you rate as Chicago’s strengths?

SM: If you have a company that is up and running, has existing customers, and sells to the Fortune 500 especially, you can do well. Chicago is not an early stage, beta or pilot, community.

However, Later stage funding, investment banking, and selling an existing product, service or technology from Chicago is easier.

Chicago is a very social town with a loyal workforce. From that standpoint, it’s created for worker bees and management. It’s not conducive to building.

Just ask yourself, as a community, name 5 companies that have been built in the technology community that are highly successful, created a vast number of jobs and wealth for the community, and are giving back in a myriad of ways?

I can’t think of one. Feedburner I believe sold for $100MM a while back, but I’m not sure what impact that had?

CTN: Where would you put the weaknesses in Chicago’s tech community?

SM: Well, I somewhat outlined that above, but it’s really a lack of angel and early stage capital, a dearth of qualified entrepreneurs and experienced managers coming from bigger companies, no cohesiveness among the community to truly help each other, and no early stage mentality.

CTN: What changes would need to happen here for you to spend more of your time in Chicago?

SM: Again, I love Chicago from a social stand point. Just building businesses there is extremely difficult. However, with MonetaPro, and the RONAStar product, we are starting to get some good traction again, and Chicago has a great amount of consulting and service based talent, access to Fortune 500 headquarters, and a centralized nature that makes travel easier.

So, from that standpoint, I may end up there a little more.