JB: Right now, many folks reading this are asking themselves the question, “When is the best time to go start a company?” Tell us how you got started.

I was selling things from the earliest age. I remember, before I was 10, going to the flea market, getting GI Joes, and selling them door to door to my friends in the neighborhood with my dad’s hand-me-down briefcase -- I still remember the code on the lock: 976. There was joy there because people were able to get the things that they couldn’t get, and there was a cool happiness there too. It wasn’t leadership because it wasn’t empowering someone else to then go do, and serve, and lead others. It was sales and it was commerce and it was enterprising.

JB: Okay, so fast forward to 2005 at ATDC.

KP: Yes, in 2005 at ATDC, I had gone through a lot of dramatic change in college. I had been arrested twice in college for partying and after a decade of trouble-making, I experienced a complete spiritual awakening focusing me on why I was here. One thing that stuck with me was that I had been given lots of talents and skills and they were unique (like everyone else), and that I realized my charter was to put them to work in the best and highest way possible.

JB: Were these skills academic or non-academic?

KP: It was a little bit of both but primarily street smarts to be real. In ATDC, there was this little group that would meet every other week and we were mostly entry level employees of ATDC startups who were there because we wanted to be startup people. At the time, I was working for a recruiting and consulting company and we were all services serving many of the those companies.

I would organize these events and I would call them wantrepreneurs because none of us were running companies but we all wanted too. We would get together and do things like read a book and share what was learned—complete with power points and projectors—and we would just talk about what we were going to do. We would come up with ideas and discuss how we wanted to start a company of our own. After work, we’d even play Cashflow the board game. We’d grab a beer, pull out the game, and play in an ATDC meeting room. Then we started to go see entrepreneurs speak. TAG, ATDC, and TiE all hosted these types of events all around town and many were in the ATDC building.

JB: Okay, quick question. If you guys wanted to start a company, why didn’t you guys start one then at that time?

KP: We weren’t prepared. We weren’t wise enough. We didn’t have the experience. We didn’t know how they worked. We didn’t know how they were funded. I didn’t know any of these things. That’s what we were trying to find out. We were educating ourselves on what it takes, and what I found was the most helpful was going to events where the entrepreneurs would come and talk.

Entrepreneurs like Reggie Bradford, Bill Nussey, David Cummings, Charlie Paperelli, Pricing Harding, and Rusty Gordon. Others came in and they gave talks and our whole crew would show up to these events and beforehand I would email the presenter. So I’d email Bill and say, “Hey, I’m going to come to your talk and I have a couple questions about X, Y, Z.” Then I’d go sit in the front row and before they came up, I’d shake their hand and mention, “Hey, looking forward to our talk.” Then they would say, “Any questions?” and I’d immediately raise my hand! Afterwards I’d come right up to them and ask them for a coffee. In fact, many of the important relationships I have today started like this, including one of our investors and board members, Tom Noonan.

What I learned was these entrepreneurs had a lot of influence and the vehicle of a startup was the way they impacted lives. I looked around the room at these entrepreneurs and I said to myself, “This person has talents, skills, capabilities and the desire to do something great and if I create a company, then I can create a vehicle that will attract those people in, and help those people grow.” So that is when I made the decision to start a company, and this was about 2005. My wife, April, and I had this spreadsheet listing the ‘Top 100 Things We Want to Do in Our Life.’ It had things like: buy a horse farm for my mom and fly a plane. There’s ones on there that listed ‘have a son.’ Recently, we looked back at our 2005 list and one of the items on our list was start a tech company in Atlanta with 50 employees.

JB: So how did you start?

KP: Well, I figured out what I wanted to do first and I knew I had a long way to go. Let me learn, earn, network, and prepare for starting that company. I was in a fortunate circumstance because I was in ATDC, which at the time, was the epicenter of everything tech in Atlanta. So every investor, entrepreneur and service provider came through at some point in time.

JB: Was working around ATDC a subconscious decision?

KP: Oh yeah. I was in the lobby and I saw the Technology Hall of Fame and I read the people’s stories and I said, “Who’s John Imlay?” Then I thought, “Oh! I want to be like that!” So I decided to be in the building where those people are hanging out.

JB: From 2005 to 2011, when SalesLoft starts, what skills do you feel you needed to learn?

KP: How to sell! Over the years, I learned how to cold call, and I learned how to objection handle. I learned how to build relationships, understand customer needs, and serve customers by solving their problems. I learned how to hire. I learned how to interview and attract talent. I learned some basic principles of leadership, which I realized later on that I had no idea about. I also learned how to learn.

JB: Did you have a time frame on when to start a business or was it more of a ‘you’ll know?’

KP: I was always “taking a stab at it” I guess it was more of a ‘you’ll know’, but I tried a bunch of stuff too.

In ‘08 I fell in love with an industry called Digital Signage.

I left Revelation Partners to try my hand at building a business in the digital signage industry. I went down that journey and started something but it didn’t turn into what I wanted to.

It came about by having meetings with the group from ATDC. We said this was a market that was going to be big. There were two other guys who wanted to start a company and we all agreed digital signage was the play. We were calling into workout facilities and gyms. We would call the gyms and ask them if we had some ads and content for their TV’s would they be willing to run a network there. *We didn’t have a network.* We were calling the display manufacturers and asking questions. I’m not sure how it even happened, but I got mailed this book and it said, Digital Signage Expo Las Vegas. As soon as I opened it, I thought, “I gotta be here.”

Laughs

It’s funny because all the others guys involved reminisce saying, “That’s when we stopped trying to do this business and you kept going.” So the next week, I had planned it out and came back to Revelation Partners and resigned and told them I was going into the digital signage industry. That’s all I knew. Remember, this was ‘08 so the market was on the downturn too. April had just gone through her investment banking nightmare.

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