Bob Myers, Tech industry veteran with over 30 years of experience and an entrepreneur with 3 tech exits, has always thrived on the challenging—the seemingly impossible. Myers was the previous CEO and founder of Pillar Technology, now Accenture (ACN). Myers is also the founder of the FORGE Innovation Centers in Palo Alto, California, Columbos, Ohio, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Des Moines, Iowa.
Myers motivation for taking on challenges translated directly into his success in life and business. His love to take on projects that are fraught with opportunity or risk surrounds his mantra, “Focus on the success of others and you’ll find success.” Go big or go home. He changes can’t into can, won’t into will, never into now.
Please tell us a little bit about your company – what is SkyL all about?
SkyL is a next-generation incubator. It combines the Skill (SkyL) of proven entrepreneurs, with a killer ecosystem of partners, investors, and companies wanting to change the world and industry in a big way. SkyL helps entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs scale their startup by providing partners to enhance the startup’s vision and push the concept past its present potential. SkyL’s current customer base includes clients such as Airriva, Livate, SmartSurj, MyPerfectDose, Tublian, and SmartTrade.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
I most recently sold Pillar Technology to Accenture (ACN). I was the Founder and CEO of Pillar Technology, now Accenture Industry X, one of the nation’s top business and technology consulting firms specializing in loT, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence, smart grids, smart connected products and services, smart cities, and more. Pillar was a consulting company that helped traditional companies respond to disruption or create disruptive offers. After selling the company, I realized that there is a huge gap of incubated companies (start-ups), and a tremendous need for solid, reliable, trusted capital placement in both entrepreneurial efforts as well as in big corporations.
What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
- You have to be willing to cut the umbilical cord of reliance on someone else paying your paycheck.
- Drive, passion, flexibility and a thorough understanding of how important tech is.
- Ability to fail and get right back up and try, try, try again.
What are your plans for the future, how do you plan to grow this company?
We plan to improve the traditional venture capital metrics on success and target billion-dollar valuation of portfolio companies.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
We will be the best at standing up profitable companies. We will have advanced, super tech capabilities, world-class, groundbreaking social marketing ecosystem partners, extraordinary operational excellence and coaching, along with the highest win rate of any incubator.
What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them?
First, I would say not recognizing that I was initially too early to the market. I also under-capitalized and made the mistake of giving equity away too early.
How do you go about marketing your business, and what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
Social, social, social. Actually, the experiment of standing up SkyL in the social domain is the first example of how to do it for other companies. I’m building SkyL in the same way we will help others build, market, and scale their business. Outside businesses can help to introduce your company to their network of investors – if that is somewhere you foresee your business going. A good incubator provides benefits for investor relations like savvy offers and exits. An outside source provides a far-reaching ecosystem of partners that enhance and shape the vision of your concept through years of experience and pushes it past its present potential. It is also much easier from someone on the outside looking in to analyze and consult you and your team on a plethora of issues.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
My biggest challenges have been maintaining a work-life balance and learning what and when to prioritize. As I continue to overcome these challenges, I do so by forcing myself to be in the moment of whatever project I am working on.
What is the one thing you wish you knew before starting your business?
One Thing! If I had to choose, I would have to go with how to write and sell much larger contracts.
What are the top 3 online tools and resources you’re currently using to grow your company?
As mentioned previously, social media is crucial for our company growth, so our top online tools are Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok.
What are three books or courses would you recommend to entrepreneurs?
- Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris.
- Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance
- The movie The Current War, which is a historical film inspired by the competition between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse over which electric power delivery system would be used in the United States.
If you had the chance to start your career over again what would you do differently?
I would have gotten a purer engineering education, focused on electronics, microchips and so on.
Recognized I created $100,000M companies for myself and others. I was ignorant of the potential I was sitting on.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
I wouldn’t. That amount is too small, it’s undercapitalized. You can’t even buy a laptop for $1000.
What is your favorite quote?
“Focus on the success of others and you’ll find success.”
What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
Be willing to cut the umbilical cord. Starting a successful, modern company requires an experienced, creative, and innovative support system, improved incentives and structure around investment rounds, and faster pivots fueled by a network of partners. Through an innovative support system, such as an incubator, which provides emotional and mental support, partnering allows startups to think big.
Random Bonus: With the game on the line and 5 seconds on the clock, who takes the last shot? Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, or Lebron James?
No question-Jordan. Watch the ESPN series Last Dance. He is the clutch of clutch. Period. End of story. Mic drop.
How can we get in touch with you?
You can contact me on the Sky LLC – Please feel free to add me on social media @realbobmyers
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