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Disinfecting Hospitals, Impacting Healthcare: Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Did you take some time off then?

Morris Miller: I did. I took a little time off. I realized that it isn’t consistent with what I wanted to do at all. Then we started looking at different kinds of deals. We invested in a medical startup. That was my first really big investment after that. It was a company called CardioSpectra. It had some interesting technology to help cardiologists figure out the correct treatment for patients with heart disease. Within 18 months, we ended up growing that company and selling it. It was a huge success. >>>

Disinfecting Hospitals, Impacting Healthcare: Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: You funded these other founders who came up with the concept of Rackspace. That’s how you got involved with Rackspace?

Morris Miller: That’s how I got involved, yes.

Sramana Mitra: Did you actually take an operational role or were you just an investor in Rackspace?

Morris Miller: Part of their deal with me was we would coach them. It was written into the contract that we would help and support them. Every Tuesday afternoon, we’d meet them for lunch. We’ll be there just to solve problems with them because I have been through a lot of these things in the legal publishing business, so it was helpful to them and it was a lot of fun for me. What started off as a one-morning-a-week became a morning and an afternoon. Then it became morning and afternoon the next day. Finally, I moved my office above theirs because I really wanted them to have the joy of running the startup. >>>

Disinfecting Hospitals, Impacting Healthcare: Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: This is a time frame when the Internet is starting to happen. What happens next?

Morris Miller: For the year after the sale, you become an indentured service where you have to stay around because the acquirer wants to know that there’s going to be a complete transfer of knowledge. But they don’t want you interacting with the employees much because they want the employees to become loyal to the new owners. This guy on my advisory board  asked me what I want to do. I told him, “I’d like to work on some Internet related stuff.” >>>

Disinfecting Hospitals, Impacting Healthcare: Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex (Part 3)

Morris Miller: I got 168 No’s before I finally found an investor to say Yes. I would work Monday through Friday. I’d work the weekend. I’d work the next Monday through Friday and the next weekend. Then, I might take three days off and go to New York to pitch somebody. Back in 1992, the venture capital community existed but it was very small and they didn’t necessarily interact with a brand new entrepreneur the way your incubator is facilitating that now. That’s the amazing thing. Today, a guy like me could go to an incubator. Then they’d say, “Let’s spike the idea. Let’s get it going and see what kind of market reception there is.” Back then, you couldn’t do that. You literally had to go find individual angels step by step.

Sramana Mitra: How much did you raise?

Morris Miller: $1.25 million.

Sramana Mitra: From one angel?
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Disinfecting Hospitals, Impacting Healthcare: Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: The Internet was not yet on the horizon.

Morris Miller: The Internet was not there. When I was in Law School, I read an article in the Forbes magazine. It talked about how Steve Jobs had just raised money for NeXT computer.

Sramana Mitra: My husband used to run NeXT computer.

Morris Miller: They published this article and there was this one line in the article that said, “These NeXT computers are going to have read-write CD-ROMS and you’ll be able to put a library’s worth of information on a disk.” I called my dad and said, “When you’re in Law School, they >>>

Disinfecting Hospitals, Impacting Healthcare: Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex (Part 1)

Morris Miller was an original investor in RackSpace, and ended up running the company for almost seven years. Following RackSpace, he is now building a super interesting company in disinfecting hospitals and saving lives. Read on. Exciting stuff!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were your born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Morris Miller: I was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. My father is a physician. My uncle is a physician and there was every expectation from the family and me that I would become a physician. I went to public school all the way through school. Then, as a sophomore, I decided to go to Felis Exeter Academy up in New Hampshire. I was the only one to go to boarding school.

Sramana Mitra: You returned to Texas though for your college or did you stay back in New England?
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Building an Internet of Things Platform Company from Zaragoza, Spain: Alicia Asin, CEO of Libelium (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: So all the selling that you do around the world is done through your Spanish operation. You sell on the phone and web.

Alicia Asin: Yes, most of the sales are direct sales due to inquiries through our websites. This year, we started opening distribution channels. Now, we have existing distributors covering most of the European territory, Singapore, China, Japan, South Korea, India, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, and US as well. This list is growing every month.

Sramana Mitra: Excellent. I think I’ve got your story. Is there anything else you want to share?
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Serial Entrepreneur Building a Luxury Business: Trevor Traina, CEO of IfOnly (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What is your customer acquisition strategy?

Trevor Traina: We have a two-part strategy. The first is we partner with a lot of high-caliber organizations like American Express. We’ve partnered with them particularly for their premium cardholders. We work with Sotheby’s for their top collectors worldwide. We work with private clubs in different organizations. We offer a level of access, which we call membership, which is our most premium access through our partners. The second part of our strategy is that we leverage our participants. We call them luminaries. When we add a new luminary on the platform, they go out to their social media following and alert them as to what they’re doing on IfOnly.

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. In terms of building this company, what has been your financing strategy? I imagine you bootstrapped it to get the proof of concept. After that, what happened?
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