Name: Josh James
Hometown: Provo, UT
Occupation: DOMO Founder/CEO, Omniture Co-founder (sold to Adobe)
Passion: Winning, and being #1 in a field
Lunch: Cafe Rio
Be in Touch: Twitter
If you’re a young entrepreneur in Utah County, you’ll have a hard time avoiding hearing the name “Josh James” – a man who recently sold Omniture, a company he co-founded, to Adobe for $1.8 billion. He is living the epitome of an entrepreneur’s dream, and we were lucky enough to meet him for lunch, and learn a little bit more about what makes him tick.
Having done our homework beforehand, we had read a lot about Josh and one piece of advice that stood out to us was he suggested that young entrepreneurs should start with a blog. When we sat down to lunch, we asked him why. He explained that even a business only “making 5 bucks a day” is a business. And through analyzing a blog, you can learn to become an expert in a field. For instance:
“I know so many people that became an expert in web analytics. [For example], maybe they start a web analytics association. Then everyone thinks they’re an expert because they started the association. Then they walk around and do consulting for two- to three- thousand dollars a day, or do a speaking engagement at ten-thousand dollars a pop. Even if they weren’t that smart to begin with, they figured it out. They’re good business people. You can become an expert in so many things in a short period of time.”
This set the tone for the rest of our conversation. We learned about how Josh considers the best experiences to be the ones where you hit “go” and just jump straight in.
“Don’t worry about the business plan. If you’re really considering doing a business, then go. Get it started. Start doing anything. If you’re spending 5 bucks every day, you’re going to learn some lessons. If you’re making 5 bucks a day, you’re going to learn some lessons. And then you’re going to figure out how to make it a hundred bucks, or a thousand bucks.”
This was the mentality he had when he began Omniture. He admits,
“I lacked general business understanding, but I understood the math so I could see how business worked. I understood people, and how to motivate people, and I was pretty self aware. So every interaction was a case study to me. I was painfully aware that I didn’t know anything. I didn’t even know what I didn’t know – I just knew there was a lot.”
So he committed to learning it all, as he averaged working 18 hours a day as well as reading an average of 100-200 books per year during the formative years of his company. Not only did these books educate him, but reading about icons like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos gave him the confidence to continue on a similar entrepreneurial paths.
“When you’re young you have to make up for it somehow. We made up for it with hard work and then with being insanely competitive. For me, I always wanted to be the best basketball player or football player, but wasn’t blessed physically to be able to do that. But I had the heart of that, and I was finally playing a sport where, when I got on the court I wasn’t picked last, and I knew I was as good as everyone else on the court. It came down to ambition and drive and determination and practice.”
As for inspiration, Josh turns mainly to music. He met his wife when they were performers in BYU’s Young Ambassadors – a musical theater ensemble – though he wasn’t classically trained in musical theater. Despite the fact that he doesn’t listen to Broadway tunes, Josh will “listen to pretty much everything,” turning to hip hop, and “more esoteric” rock, like U2 and Coldplay.
“Music is my favorite thing in the world. Music motivates me more than anything…I love music that will allow you to sit there and think. I don’t necessarily care so much about what the words are saying. I generally don’t know what they’re saying.”
Josh is driven from a number of forces. He feels a need to beat the competition, and get to a point “that when you’re 70 you can look back and you’re proud,” having made the world a better place. He thinks about his employees, and their families, and the force for good that he and his company can be.
On a more personal level, Josh emphasized the importance of relationships – that what the people closest to you feel and think about you, and the time you spent with them is positive.
“You may have tough conversations, or get really intense, but do [the people closest to you] understand, beneath, that you really do care about them? I don’t know anyone that thinks business is more important than family.”
What is most inspiring about Josh, however, is how aware he is of his “A-Game,” both in business, and at home. He relates an experience when he realized how important it was to be as invested in his family as he was in his business.
“I remember looking up the word “zeal” in the dictionary when I was about 10. And that word has always been in my head. I remember one time when I went home at 2 in the morning, and I was dead tired. The next morning I was planning on sleeping in. Most days I came home and was super tired, but I realized…I spent the right amount of time with my family, but the quality of that time was not an A+. Just because you have the quantity doesn’t mean anything. I realized that when I go to work, I bring it. There are very few meetings where I’m not on my A-game. But then when I went home I was kind of a lump. The biggest epiphany for me was to realize when I go home, I need the same effort, and zeal, and creativity, and resourcefulness, to just be the best dad or husband you know how to be. That was really empowering and enlightening for me. I try to do that.”
Want to be more like Josh? He reads Forbes, Fortune, Businessweek, Wired, Fast Company and The Economist.
Let us know what you think about Josh James, or if you have any suggestions for guests we should be taking to lunch!
