I am an entrepreneur having started more than 15 companies. I was raised in an entrepreneurial home and learned/built new technologies with family businesses. I work directly with leaders of large and small companies building strategic plans, roadmaps and new products. I am a mentor to small businesses in Nashville and run Southern Made during the day. I'm also a husband, father, runner, cyclist, tinkerer and coffee lover.
I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed by Lee Turley of the Edison Equation about being a failure. It was a really great, off the cuff kind of interview that really makes you think about what it means to fail as an entrepreneur. Is it bad? Is it good? What did you learn? How were you better because of it? Answers to all these questions help every entrepreneur grow, and failing is a crucial step of entrepreneurship.
From their site:
“Thomas Edison is repeatedly quoted and sited for his perspective on failure. This perspective has seen many packages; “fail fast, succeed fast,” “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Those tag lines are great for movies but failure in reality is both sharp and blunt like the corner of a steel table.”
I rarely do interviews (and this one is kinda low quality due to internet lag), but I hope it explains a little bit about my philosophy on failure and my failures along the way. My wife and brother are starting a new company called evbe (or Everyday Better). Im hard on them. I have failed a lot and it has hurt. Hopefully they can learn from me to not get hurt so bad, but letting them fail is part of their growing experience as well. In the end, their product, and they as entrepreneurs, will be better for it :)
If you know me, you know I don’t really do interviews. I don’t really like to be on camera or in the spotlight… I’m more of a behind the scenes get-shit-done type guy. But I make the exceptioin every once in a while, and this time it was for Travis Robertson at PodCamp Nashville 2011.
Enjoy the video (ps, the audio is bad for like a minute but gets better).
Check out the video and story below, a great bit of information from the company I work for, change:healthcare. We recently published our first quarterly HCTI – Healthcare Transparency Index – that shows you some of the trending data we are seeing from our massive data set from all across the US. The gist of it is this: you can shop for everything under the sun but healthcare. You can instantly lookup any Christmas present, car, can of soup, DVD… you name it. But in healthcare that has not been the case until now. change:healthcare works with employers and insurance carriers to show the true cost of medical services, dental services and prescriptions to employees before they have to spend the money. This is freakin’ awesome!
While the government claims to provide pricing for drugs and procedures, those listings only highlight what Medicare and Medicaid are willing to reimburse, not what those services actually cost. Hospitals, doctors and insurance companies provide patients with an itemized bill for care – but only AFTER the fact. The Healthcare Transparency Index, issued today by change:healthcare, is the first to provide healthcare consumers with ongoing trends data about actual healthcare costs – offering insight into critical opportunities for cost savings.
With more than 60 percent of employers in the U.S. expected to offer a consumer-directed health plan (CDHP) in 2011 as a way to curb costs, employees and their families will be increasingly accountable for “shopping” and paying for their healthcare – making it more critical than ever for them to understand the costs involved. To be issued quarterly, the inaugural Healthcare Transparency Index includes data derived from more than 1.3 million medical claims, totaling $220 million, from 90,000 individuals across all 50 states over a 12-month period. Key findings include:
Prescription drugs offer the highest opportunity for cost savings ($8 million across the HCTI data set), followed by dental, routine primary care physician office visits, psychotherapy, physical therapy and chiropractic. View Chart
Costs for commonly prescribed drugs can vary greatly. The following prescription drugs offer the greatest opportunities for cost savings for both brand names and generics – by simply switching pharmacies. In fact, an Abilify consumer could save up to nearly $2,500/yr by making a pharmacy change. View Chart
Wal-Mart, Target, Kroger, CVS and WalGreens top the list of pharmacy chains with the widest prescription cost discrepancies for both brand name and generic drugs. View Chart
It has been a long time coming, but Amy and I have finally moved to the city! We loved our home outside the city (don’t call it a country home) where we had a huge house on 3 acres and plenty of room to do anything we wanted. But we decided we were more interested in being close to the city. We are now within walking distance to an awesome coffee shop (Drinkhaus), Nashville’s best dessert spot (Cupcake Collection), the farmers market, downtown Nashville (to go honkey-tonkin’) and so much more. I’m not going to lie, it feels amazing to be able to walk out our door and be near everything :)
Contact me if you need our new address or phone number… or if you want to come hang out in the new house/neighborhood.
You know the expression “time flys”, we all use it. But it’s only when you sit and think about the major milestones and events that you realize how much has happened in that year, what you have really accomplished, how much you have to be thankful for and how much you have really packed into life. My trigger every year is today, October 31… the day Tim died. I’m thankful to have that trigger to really reflect on the year and think about everything that has happened in the past year, the people I love most, and the things I have accomplished. It’s always emotional to do, but a blessing none the less to force myself to take some time and really document what has happened in the last 365 days.
Took pride in knowing Tim McGovern, and remembering him
… and SO MUCH MORE! (I could prolly double this list easily)
I encourage you to find one day a year to sit back and just think about what all you have done, and what you have to be thankful for. I miss Tim every day, but am glad he gave me the gift of learning to reflect and be thankful. I miss you buddy.
