Latest / Entrepreneur Odyssey / Passion and Vision in Leadership
Transcript
- Tejneet Selhi: Hello everybody, welcome to today's podcast of episode of Entrepreneur Odyssey. And I'm delighted to have the wonderful Anthony Lapine on our podcast today. Welcome Anthony. Anthony, you were talking a little bit about the fact that the software that you've created via Hiplink is so it saves people's lives. How does it save people's lives? Because the alerts you said, um, go out through, uh, you know, to, through hospitals and things like that. How does it work? Can you give us a use case, please, and talk about how it works? Anthony LaPine: Good to be here. Tejneet Selhi: Anthony is the founder of an amazing technology called Hiplink and business called Hiplink, I'm really excited to delve into. But before we get there, Anthony, would you like to share with our audience a little bit about your background and then why you started Hiplink? Anthony LaPine: Yeah, you know, in the event of an active shooter, you've got an active shooter somewhere. Well, I started my career with IBM in the early 60s. So name is on some of the original patents for a thing called a Distrive. ⁓ started, I was part of my first startup at 27 and was It was bought New York Stock Exchange Company. That information is typically called in to a 911 center. They have ⁓ the center, they have what's called CAD and that's computer aided dispatch. but. Tejneet Selhi: ⁓ wow. Anthony LaPine: All that does is reach out or identify the person who has to be reached to. It could be a fireman, could be a policeman, it could be an emergency response person. Those messages are as it may seem, often go ⁓ via email just plain text messages. made my first million, lost it quickly in my second startup. But key with a company ⁓ is If that one work, it's not the of the world. Now, email is actually a very unreliable source for a multiple number of reasons. It's very slow, it can be blocked. Standard SMS also has some limitations. We... I've seen a lot of people, you know, after maybe one or maybe even two startups, they decide they're just gonna go back to Mother, which might be an Oracle or a Cisco or an IBM, and, you know, live out the rest of their life in the comfort of a regular paycheck. to be successful... run our messages through, and I might add standard SMS doesn't give you any kind of trackability in terms of did it get there? the person actually takes the time to acknowledge it, is it acknowledged? And it's one a time kind of thing. Our system able to an emergency Typically, if you're fortunate enough to bootstrap, very few people are actually fortunate enough to bootstrap a startup, you have to find capital. And in order to find capital, you have to put together a business plan. And a business plan has to demonstrate how the amount of money that you're going to be given is going to multiply, of like Jesus and the loaves of bread. As soon as the appropriate people are identified, we get the messages out to them ⁓ ⁓ technology that guarantees ⁓ that will get there in seconds. And we'll give you confirming message back that says, I got it, I got it. ⁓ And if don't get that confirming message back, you're gonna pick up a loaf of bread and you've got to feed ⁓ masses. So people are willing to give you money if somehow they feel that at some point they're gonna get a multiple of that money in return. So business plans are critical in order to get capital. Capital is critical in order to ⁓ ⁓ company. Now, that's just the first chapter. And the second chapter is then you'll escalate to the next person who is responsible in that task force. So you are virtually guaranteed in an active shooter situation to get the right people there in a matter of minutes, at least get them noticed in a matter of minutes so that they can get on site and get the situation under control. Tejneet Selhi: Mm-hmm. Anthony LaPine: typically people. all about people. When it comes down to the success of a company, products important. You to be careful that you have some what's called product differentiation in what you do. Tejneet Selhi: Yeah. Anthony LaPine: So many of these active shooter situations in the past, and you see some of them are still, know, senior law enforcement people are now being and litigated against because they didn't act quickly I mean, it's not impossible. think Starbucks may be an example. I can't think of another company. It's possible to maybe Uber is another example. Uber a startup. What was before Uber? Well, cabs. And I mean, or with sufficient professionalism to resolve the problem. So we contribute to that resolution. Tejneet Selhi: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Anthony LaPine: was a commoditized industry. Why would you jump into a commoditized industry? Well, by ensuring accurate and complete communication that is essentially guaranteed and can be tracked. So now if someone actually did not do what they were supposed to do, you have the logs and you have the information to go back and look, why didn't you respond in the appropriate period of time? Why did we have to escalate and waste the time escalating this? What was your differentiation? It was technology. getting on your iPhone and having it automatically, having it be somewhat cost effective. But how many went into ⁓ Uber before it profitable? Billions and billions. ⁓ Tejneet Selhi: you you Yeah. Yeah. Anthony LaPine: And in that sense, it's a lifesaver. ⁓ ⁓ the risk of Uber failing at one time, very, very high. But ultimately it became the preferred, what word do you use, rented vehicle, perhaps you could put it that way, the preference to the cab. So. Tejneet Selhi: definitely. May I ask question? Do ⁓ task in the US ⁓ use software? Yes. Anthony LaPine: Virtually, mean, there's competition in this space. ⁓ me say that there are different quality levels ⁓ suppliers. Tejneet Selhi: Yeah. Anthony LaPine: So those raising capital, having sufficient capital, as in the case of Uber, to make a revolutionary product successful in a commoditized market. I don't recommend that approach unless you've got, you know, billions. Now, on the other hand, start a startup like AI. believe that ⁓ may have the most sophisticated, the most complete, the accurate system available. Are there other systems? Yes. Do most 911 have something? They probably have Many of them are using somewhat archaic systems. And why are they doing in today's world. Now, you know, going back to the beginning of AI with open AI, took, you know, an awful lot of money to get open AI to where it was. But then subsequently, what are called AI agents. Well, because these systems cost money. And so if they don't have the budget, of them are still relying on radios. radios are ⁓ OK, the radios are kind of one ⁓ to many. what if out of range? doesn't take that much money to build an application on top of what's already been built. plug into the ⁓ LLM. don't have to build your own LLM. You build application and then you rent, essentially ⁓ rent someone ⁓ LLM. in order to support your application. is ⁓ a kind of, and ⁓ kind of the same ⁓ you go back in time, and I realize I may be going off on a little bit of a tangent here, but you the personal computer, I mean, if you think about the personal computer as a platform and then operating system. you know, how are you coordinating and, you know, how are you maintaining the records? is very important. In to being, you know, having a digital background, I have an RF background and I'm very familiar with radios. ⁓ And no question radios ⁓ in safety are incredibly important. But with cell phones now ⁓ and ⁓ what's FirstNet, which is a Tejneet Selhi: you Anthony LaPine: call it Windows at the time. was DOS really in the early days, but then evolved. think Windows 98 was the first version. But then on top of that OS, ⁓ of these applications were developed. And these applications, of them, Salesforce, for example, ⁓ more have ⁓ multi-million companies all built ⁓ on. Tejneet Selhi: Yeah. Anthony LaPine: a custom frequency for cellular that is only available to public safety. So you as a consumer cannot get on that frequency. So in an emergency, that frequency will not be jammed, will not be busy. Tejneet Selhi: you Mm. Okay, that's interesting. Anthony LaPine: And now the carriers are going to satellite. So if you're in an area where there's no cellular and you're out of range of RF, you can get satellite on your phone. we're working with these carriers to get our product on their satellites. a platform that had to exist before they could exist. now getting into, what does it take? It takes knowing how to manage people. takes understanding the market. You could have the greatest product in the world. I I don't know how. Tejneet Selhi: Thank Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. And does it work outside of the US as well or is it limited to... Amazing. Okay, incredible. I asked that because obviously I'm based in the UK and about maybe six months ago the UK government trialed... Anthony LaPine: We have customers outside of the US. mature your audience is, but you have products like Mizzakalk. Well, that was there before Excel. You have products like WordPerfect. ⁓ That was there before Word. What happened? I they were leaders. You have a product ⁓ Blackberry, a company called RIM. What happened? I I had a venture. Tejneet Selhi: Mm-hmm. Yep. the nation trialed like an emergency message an emergency alert in case of any, you know, natural disaster or worse. So it reminds me of your technology. And Anthony LaPine: Right. in a prior company called Datalink. We were one of the dot com companies and we had a joint venture with RIM in Waterloo and Blackberry was the leading product. And I remember being in a meeting with them where they said, we're never gonna have a camera on this phone. And I scratched my head and I said, Tejneet Selhi: I'm going to pivot a little bit, Anty, if you don't mind. How is AI affecting your business? Have you been leveraging AI for this technology? How is it affecting Hip Link? Amazing. Anthony LaPine: Well, AI ⁓ is affecting everything. Tejneet Selhi: Well they were wrong. They were wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Anthony LaPine: And those people who resisting it ⁓ unfortunately, are many that for one reason or another do not to engage in or don't believe in it or think it might be a product of the devil. ⁓ But I more to your we're using it at a lot of levels. Number one, we're using it development because the... Why? Why? They said, well, we can't take a camera into a military installation. And my reaction was, well, that's the wrong market. Your market is the consumer market. again, and that company was led, co-CEO, was a Harvard MBA and a top-notch engineer, co-led that company. And they still didn't get it right. Tejneet Selhi: Yeah. and end. Anthony LaPine: So, and I worked early with Steve Jobs. Steve was an incredible visionary. Unfortunately, he too ⁓ to run a company ultimately they fired him and he needed to be He did. The ability to write code, the ability to... add features to our product, fix bugs in our product, to do with code. AI basically reinventing development. Absolutely, completely. seen I don't know how accurate they'll be. Tejneet Selhi: did pretty well though after he got fired. ⁓ Anthony LaPine: But it was the next company he started, which was Next, which created an operating system, and then Pixel. But it was the operating system Next. but number of developers necessary to develop anything is being cut in half and may even be cut to one third requirements. It's that effective. that's number one. Number two is in any area, it's marketing and you're asking it to give you that got them back into Apple because Apple had not been spending what they needed to spend on development. They had switched more to marketing and they lost the fact that the world ⁓ is a world where if you're not constantly developing the next product, you're gonna end up in last place. they, yeah. Tejneet Selhi: Okay. Anthony LaPine: draft of something, up with a concept. I literally, there isn't anything, any work. I mean, you could have asked prior to this meeting, ⁓ give me outline ⁓ of what want me to talk to Mr. about. And it'll go look at my background. Tejneet Selhi: Yeah. Yeah. So Anthony, sorry, sorry to interrupt because I think it, what just said there is really, really fascinating. And I think I just want to summarize for the audience in terms of what's most to starting a business is making sure there's a clear business plan and Yes. Yep. making sure that you've got enough capital, I think, ⁓ definitely very key from what you were explaining. And as well as that, a good product, of course. Yeah. ⁓ Yep. Anthony LaPine: And it will come back and say, okay, here are areas that he has had experience in, here are some things he's done, why don't you talk about these things? AI ⁓ will give you that agenda. In fact, if had listening in the background and you had asked it, as I'm Okay, so let me give you the roadmap. So... Tejneet Selhi: Yep. Yes. Anthony LaPine: capital and reserve capital. You have to have people who willing to put more money in as needed. have to be able to hire talented people. Knowing to measure ⁓ attract people is critical. You have to know how to ⁓ manage. ⁓ if a technical person, you better find some people who can help you with marketing and finance and administration. Tejneet Selhi: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Anthony LaPine: Give me some suggestions as you hear Mr. Lapine speak, give me some suggestions as how I can modify the direction of this conversation. It can do that dynamically. bottom line is there isn't virtually anything you ⁓ or shouldn't be asking AI about. ⁓ thing I would say to people is just think of it ⁓ ⁓ smartest person you will ever meet available to Because just because you're good at developing a product that is innovative is completely insufficient for a successful company. So you have to find people with the skill sets necessary to run an entity, not just develop a product. to answer any question you have. Tejneet Selhi: Immediately as well, almost immediately. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Anthony LaPine: Immediately. And if you don't like the answer, tell it you don't like the answer and say, you know, can you give me a better answer? And then at that point, the key to success in any kind of a company is revenue. So you can have the greatest product of the world, but if you don't have a revenue generating engine, if you haven't hired the right marketing and salespeople, your product will end up being last in the market. Your product will fail because you won't be generating a sufficient revenue. And eventually your finance people, the people who are financing your company will say, Tejneet Selhi: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's what you input is what you output, right? And I think that people don't realize that with AI. Yes, yeah, absolutely. Anthony LaPine: It's garbage in, garbage out. It's that metaphor. But another application that I'll share with you is I'm currently using it as a sales coach. Now, you can... I'm done. I'm not putting any more money in this company because you don't know how to turn a profit. And if you can't turn a profit, then this company can't go anywhere. So that's really it in a nutshell. You've got to get your company up and running and it's got to be profitable. Where are the exceptions to that? And there are some exceptions to that. One exception right now you could say is AI. Tejneet Selhi: Thanks. Anthony LaPine: Possibly, and I think there are half a dozen applications out there that claim to, you know, we'll help coach your salespeople. And we can use Bant or Medic or any one of the multiple protocols, Miller-Heinman. So, but what you can do is the following. You can create a prompt for AI. Tejneet Selhi: Great advice. Anthony LaPine: because all my salespeople have their own AIs. create a prompt, you put the prompt in and you're ⁓ asking the with this prompt to assist me, the person using it, me ⁓ in ⁓ this that I'm trying to close. I want to this transaction. I mean, profitable? I'm not sure we know who's profitable, but a revolutionary technology. And is sufficient to keep pouring into it even though it's not profitable? Yes. Why? Because you're dealing with ⁓ a revolutionary. technology, not an evolutionary technology, but a revolutionary technology. And people are willing to bet on that. That's why they were willing to bet to some extent on Uber, because it was revolutionizing a platform of transportation. Tejneet Selhi: Yeah. Anthony LaPine: And so I need your assistance. You give it back, you say use the MEDIC approach, use the SPIN approach, use the different approaches that are available. to what I'm to give you in terms of information about the account and guide me ⁓ as how I can converge on closing this transaction. Tejneet Selhi: Yeah. Yeah Yeah, absolutely. And can you tell our audience a little bit about Hiplink? Anthony LaPine: was a company that I acquired in the year about year 2000. I was running a public company called ⁓ Datalink, a NASDAQ company. And ⁓ I nine One of those acquisitions was Hiplink. Hiplink. Tejneet Selhi: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, excellent, excellent. And you know, and I think that's a really good point to make. You can use AI to improve your sales ability. And actually one of the tools that we have in my business is called a ⁓ call analyzer. You can post a sales call in into the tool and then it will tell you where you went, where you did well, where you didn't do well, like closing for example. Anthony LaPine: was a small little company located in Downers Grove, Illinois. The name of the company was Crosscom Communication. The name of their product was HipLink. Acquired HipLink nurtured it among these nine entities that I'd acquired. when I sold the public company, my wife, who'd been running Right. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Tejneet Selhi: things like that. So yeah, it's fascinating. So with regards to where you want to take Hiplink as a business in the next six to 12 months, what are your aspirations? Anthony LaPine: Well, Hiplink in this holding company decided to buy that company from the public company that we had sold and run it. So beginning in the company actually started in 1995 in Downers Grove, Illinois. You know, at the stage of career, well, of all, you need to know my wife is 20 years younger than me. her interests and passions, you know, ⁓ I've enough money to retire. She, on the other hand, it's not money, it's about passion. Women are wired I don't know if you've noticed that. Women seem to be ⁓ acquired it in 2000, nurtured it a bit until we sold it in 2000, until we sold the public company in 2009. And then since then have pretty much ⁓ the product into what is called an intelligent communications platform. Now, what that mean? Well, it means ⁓ any kind ⁓ critical situation, Tejneet Selhi: say men are from Mars, women are from Venus. So there you go. What does that tell you? ⁓ Anthony LaPine: So, you you gotta notice that over the years, it's probably the hardest lesson to learn. But in any case, she has a lot of passion for the company. She's currently in Washington, DC at a conference with, I mentioned CAD, computer aided dispatch, one of the largest CAD companies called... you need to be able to communicate to the correct people quickly, efficiently, I would call, using a word a lot of people don't understand, forensically. All that means is central square in, they're doing a large show in Washington DC where she's at at the moment. she ⁓ you know, ⁓ this just something that's compelling for her. What does she want to do with the company? you know, ⁓ she loves serving this safety community. after the communication occurs, you have to be able to go back and look at what happened because if the communication didn't result in the correct response, you don't want that to happen again. So you need the trackable feedback information to be able to go back and improve your system. So our product not only provides using some patented technology, ⁓ working with some other third parties She loves her customers. She loves being able to them help others. so in entity, think getting to a successful company, have to have incredible amount of passion for what you're doing. ⁓ It can't just be the money. in this whole communication chain, able to essentially guarantee that a message is going to get to the right person. And if that person isn't there, we'll get to someone who has been assigned as an alternate all the way up to the top person in that organization if necessary. fact, if it is just about the money, the of your success is very limited. The people are about the money are the people who are giving you the money, but they are giving you ⁓ the money anticipation of having the passion to do something meaningful with it. So passion is critical. that execution of whatever has to occur will then have a high level of certainty that it will in effect happen. So especially in public safety where life's are at stake, in the case of medical institutions ⁓ life is stake, oftentimes in transportation where life is at stake. Tejneet Selhi: by lightning. Anthony LaPine: And so where are we going to take the company? know, especially company like ours, ⁓ which owned by management without outside capital, because we sufficient capital to launch it ourselves, our objectives... ⁓ It's critical. So it's a product that has more lines of code it than well, lines code in it than the operating system of Windows. So it's a huge system. Tejneet Selhi: Thank you. ⁓ wow. Anthony LaPine: not the same as I an investor ⁓ and it my obligation to get him a multiple on his investment. In our case, the company goes where want to take it. And it goes as a ⁓ of what feel has integrity our customers and our It's both premise based or SAS. there are, especially in public safety, they get grants to buy assets. they would want it on site. and our employees. So we have some employees have been with us 22, 23, 24 years. So where are we going to go? And that's, I wake up in the morning and I'm a kept man. So the answer to your question is I turn to my wife and I say, where are we going to go? I never know what the answer is going to be. That's the other thing about women. They're so damn unpredictable. Tejneet Selhi: Hmm. Anthony LaPine: It's, it's... Tejneet Selhi: I guess where she feels the is taking her. But it like she's got ambition and it sounds like you say the most important is passion. She's got passion for what she's doing and for helping others. ⁓ Anthony LaPine: And the other word is vision. Your question is a good one. ⁓ are you taking the company? Where are you going with it? And she have vision. Not only is she passionate about how she can help. but she has a vision on how that help can be improved. So she has passion overlaid on vision, superimposed ⁓ ⁓ talent. ⁓ leadership a multifaceted element. It's not just one thing. Tejneet Selhi: Good night. Okay, yeah. No. Anthony LaPine: And it takes a team. And it takes a team. idea that one person is all necessary is foolish. ⁓ So. ⁓ Tejneet Selhi: Absolutely, absolutely. I think that's really important. And pivotal ⁓ to end on actually, think, because I could speak to you for hours, Anthony, I really could. I think you've just got a whole host of valuable knowledge that you could ⁓ ⁓ there one final thing you would like to leave the audience with before we ⁓ close? Anthony LaPine: Talking about entrepreneurship, always ⁓ that anyone really coming out of college with an entrepreneurial thought process. It's valuable to go to work for a large, company in advance of that. Because if you start something without knowing what it looks like to have a well-run company, you lose an element of education that you don't get in college. You can't get that in college. But you can get that out of college if you take the time to work for larger company. ⁓ that you can learn what that looks like. And then if you start your own company, at least you have an endpoint that you can point to. And I might add that was probably Steve Jobs failing the first time around. He started as a kid, him and Steve, who by the way is just the neighbor of mine, interesting guy. have too many stories to tell here about Steve. By the way, you worked at Oracle. Tejneet Selhi: ⁓ no, it's... We'll have to get you back on to delve into some of those stories. Anthony LaPine: You worked at Oracle. I knew Jeff Henley, who was chairman of Oracle. I worked with him at another company, but many stories to tell. thank for the opportunity to babble on. rare that get to do except occasionally with my grandchildren, who I quickly bore. So. Tejneet Selhi: Yeah. Well, absolutely and thank you for joining us. think, know, ⁓ you say, you've got a lot of knowledge that I think is going to be very beneficial to our audience. And ⁓ best luck with all endeavors and your wives for that matter. So ⁓ thank you much and have a wonderful rest of your day. Anthony LaPine: So thank you for the opportunity. ⁓ Thank you. Bye bye.