The annual TiEcon, hosted by Tampa Bay's TiE chapter, was hosted Feb. 16 and brought industry leaders together and a slew of entrepreneurs under one roof during the annual conference.
Steve Raymund, who founded Tech Data and is now a director at Jabil and ConnectWise, was the first fireside chat of the day speaking with Florida's former CFO Alex Sink. Raymund detailed his time during the rise of Tech Data and what he is focused on now, while providing advice for both entrepreneurs and investors.
Do not be afraid to switch things up
"All the companies were founded, at one point, by an entrepreneur who had a vision," he said. "The same is true with Tech Data. When I first bought it, it was a very small company and losing money. We realized we weren’t going to get very far, so we repositioned from selling to users to B2B. It catalyzed our growth and then we expanded geographically."
Along the same lines, Raymund cautioned entrepreneurs to be critical when looking for a problem, versus giving up on the business entirely.
"The point is a lot of time when entrepreneurs start, they might have three quarters right," he said. "And it's easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater, saying, 'We messed up, let's start over.' With us, we had the nucleus that was really powerful — we just applied it in the wrong direction. So we re-targeted, which turned out to be the right target."
Communicate with employees, competitors and entrepreneurial organizations
"Organizations like TiE can be critical in developing entrepreneurs' businesses," Raymund said. "In my day, there wasn’t much of an ecosystem. [Those organizations] started giving me a better context and data points, with people to bounce things off and it's really helpful rather than to figure it out by yourself or even with your team."
And Raymund believes there is even opportunity to be gained from discussing business with your competition.
"Even in today's world, your competition quite often has to be your collaborator; we used to call it co-ompetition," he said. "Some of those have become close role models and part of my success is I watch someone and I pick them and say, 'I want to be like them.'"
How distribution models can thrive in the "era of Amazon"
"A few years ago everyone said, 'It's all going mobile and online, how will you survive selling printers?'" he said. "It's amazing; it's still growing and finding opportunities, but over the years the method of distribution was giant specialty stores. Now all boards and companies are obsessed with Amazon, so it's constantly challenging how will you respond to them, why can’t they come in and take over, how can we be more resistant and less vulnerable?" he said. "Some things are very difficult to overcome but I think creative companies — just as we did 35 years ago — they can continue to do that thriving in the era of Amazon."
If you notice a change in the industry, be quick in your response
"When I look back on my own experience, I realize how many needles we had to thread to get where we were and the odds are stacked against us," Raymund said. "One of the reasons we were successful was because we tried to embed humility and curiosity into the business. We were always out learning, asking questions and constantly tinkering on the model and making changes. Part of it is pattern recognition; it's making changes and creating a response. I've been in companies where the response is not so quick and they suffered. And others responded really fast and got ahead of the curve, sometimes for a very long time."
