Cameron Ring

STATS

Number of Companies Founded: 2
1. netElement
2. Plaxo

Number of Companies Sold: 1
Company Sold: Plaxo
Sold To: Comcast
Unique Users: 50 million

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Hometown: Herndon, Virginia
Currently Resides: Menlo Park, CA
College: Stanford University
Bachelor of Science: Computer Science – 2001
Masters of Science: Computer Science, Specializing in Systems – 2003

Hobbies/Interests: Flying Planes, Playing Frisbee, and Rock Climbing
Biggest Fear: Heights
Favorite Quote: “It’s all good.”
Role Models: Founders of Yahoo, Jerry Yang and David Filo, and founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/cameron-ring/2/306/341
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Cameron-Ring/604100867
Plaxo: http://www.plaxo.com/directory/profile/4294967297/bab290c8/Cameron/Ring

THE INTERVIEW

Kim Ngo: I’m here in Mountain View, California with the co-founder of Plaxo, Cameron Ring.

Hi Cameron. Thanks for being here with us today. Let’s start with the Plaxo story. Tell us about that.

Plaxo

Cameron Ring: Sure. Plaxo was founded by Todd Masonis, Sean Parker and myself. Sean, the co-founder of Napster, and I went to high school together, and Todd and I were college roommates.

In 2002, as Napster was collapsing, Sean wanted to find a way to not lose touch with all of the people he had met, so he gathered a bunch of the people he knew, including Todd and I, and we started brainstorming in his living room. As we talked more about the staying in touch problem, we realized that, while there were some serious technical challenges, the real problem was more of a social one: how do you actually get people to use a service that depends on having a lot of people already using it?

Originally, there were roughly 10 people sitting in Sean’s living room talking about these ideas, but as the months went on, Sean, Todd and I were the only ones left. Once we built a working prototype, we started pitching to investors. We thought we’d get investment pretty quickly. I remember Sean claiming it would only take two weeks to raise money because of his connections.  Like lots of things with startups, it didn’t work out exactly like that…

Nine months later, we eventually raised money. Part of the “problem” was we didn’t know what we were doing… but that was probably a good thing. When you start something new, not knowing what you’re doing can be beneficial because you’re unaware of all of the problems you’re going to run into. Even though that doesn’t sound ideal, it can really help you keep your focus.  For example, if we had known about all the pitfalls that could have possibly plagued us, the whole venture might have seemed too daunting, and we wouldn’t have done it. A bit of healthy naivety works in your favor, so don’t become too world wise.

The downside, though, is it took us a long time, and it didn’t help that we were pitching to the wrong people. Because we didn’t think we needed that much money, we started talking to angel investors. What we did not realize was these angels had just been shocked by the dot.com bust and weren’t interested in our high risk/high reward pitch. Instead, they were interested in safer investments showing early revenue. It wasn’t wasted time, though. We spent a lot of time refining our pitch so by the time we got to Mike Moritz at Sequoia Capital, our slides were tight, and we were ready for any question they might have thrown at us. More important than just being ready, though, is that we’d finally found an investor that was a good match for our high risk/high reward vision. Mike hadn’t made an investment in the last 18 months. His model, Sequoia’s model is the high risk/high reward model. After getting the thumbs up from the rest of the partners, they gave us a couple million dollars. We looked at each other like: “…What just happened…?”

Kim Ngo: Besides liking the high risk/high reward pitch and idea, what else was Sequoia Capital looking at?

Cameron Ring: When you’re pitching a big vision to Sequoia, it’s not about a business plan and a bunch of excel models. Obviously, you need to think about how you’re going to grow and make money, but everyone knows any model you build during your first pitch is bullshit. It’s easy to make numbers work in Excel; it’s a lot harder in the real world. Instead of models, what really matters is the team… that’s what they’re really investing in. They have to believe you can do it despite the infinite number of things that can go wrong. So if you’re looking for funding, you have to really understand who you are pitching to, what their investment model is, and make sure that model matches where you want to take the business.

Also, my advice to anybody who is looking for investment is to first ask yourself, “Does the idea really need funding?”

Because things get a lot more complicated when you accept investment, and there are pros and cons. The best thing about taking investment for us was it scared the crap out of us. We didn’t want to fail, so it motivated us to work as hard as we could. In a way, we were trapped; we didn’t have an escape route. The only choice was to push forward, and do the best we could. If you have no other choice, you’re more likely to fight to succeed. The bad thing about funding is it can be really distracting. Once you have money, there’s other stuff you have to do. You might need office space, a bigger team, et cetera .  All of that stuff comes with money. It takes your focus away from the product and slows things down for the first couple of months.  But if you’re already efficient and moving fast, ask yourself if you really need investment. And if you decide you do need some kind of investment, consider all of the different types (angels, professional seed,vc, etc.) and be prepared for a little slowdown.

Kim Ngo: Let’s move into the psyche of the founder/entrepreneur. What does it take to be a founder in this industry?

Cameron Ring: The best thing about being an entrepreneur is that it’s one of the few job titles you can give yourself. It’s all about deciding that you want to do it and then just doing it. It’s entirely up to you.

Kim Ngo: Sounds like, “… no one is going to help you.”

Cameron Ring: Exactly. That’s why it’s so satisfying: You succeed or fail based on your idea, your ability, and your effort, rather than who you know.

Kim Ngo: And is there some amount of luck?

Cameron Ring: There is a huge amount of luck! Anybody who says otherwise is selling something. The only thing you can do as a founder is try to come up with something interesting, work really…really hard, and hope that it works out.

Kim Ngo: But do you have to be logical…meaning, do things have to make sense?

Cameron Ring: Eh, well…

Kim Ngo: How do you decide if an idea is worth going after? In addition to coming up with something interesting, working really…really hard, and hoping it works out, do you have to look at the numbers?

Sandy Jen and Cameron Ring

Cameron Ring: I don’t want to say “no,” but the answer is definitely not yes.

It’s so much easier to convince yourself not to do something than to convince yourself to do something. And there is so much more value in doing something even if it’s kind of a bad idea. In pursuing an idea, good or bad, you may discover something you’re really interested in or you may discover another problem you can solve. And maybe that will be the thing that takes off.  So rather than convincing yourself that something is a bad idea and giving yourself all the reasons that it’s not going to work, just give it a shot.

If you’re passionate about it, just go for it … especially if you’re already looking at spreadsheets and running numbers. In the beginning, all those numbers are meaningless anyway. Investors know it, and you know it. Obviously, you need to understand what drives the product and business. Just don’t spend too much time staring at Excel instead of building it.

Whenever I talk to people who are thinking about starting something, I’ll give them feedback and say, “This is why I think this is a good or bad idea…” or “Here’s how I think you could make it better…” or “Here’s what I would do…,” but take everything you hear with a grain of salt. You’re the person in charge. You should do what you want; don’t listen to me if you really believe in what you’re doing. No one has a better idea of the problem you’re trying to solve than you. It’s so easy to say, “Oh, this person is so smart! They’ve been through it a bunch of times, so they must know what they’re talking about!,” No! That is totally wrong. Nobody really knows anything, not about anything new. Instead, you should just do it. Nothing good will happen by thinking someone else knows better or has the answer.

And the downside risk is so small especially when you’re young and don’t have a lot of responsibilities. Responsibility seems like this monotonically increasing function where you’re constantly acquiring more responsibilities in your life: mortgage, family, kids, whatever. The downside when you’re young is maybe you’ll go without a paycheck for 3 months, 6 months, 12 months…however long it takes. But once you get funding, you get a paycheck then there is no downside. The upside is potentially huge: you get to work on something you’re passionate about while making an impact and hopefully earning a good financial return. There’s really no reason not to do it. There are lots of good examples of people that have done it before, and they’re not any different than you. So, don’t worry too much about the numbers and just give it a shot.

Cameron Ring

Kim Ngo: So, you founded two companies, Plaxo and netElement. Did you fundraise anything for netElement?

Cameron Ring: Nope.

Kim Ngo: Did you sell the company?

Cameron Ring: Nope. We started that when we were still in school. It went pretty well: we built the product, launched it, and got some good press. However, one of the founders who owned the domain went to study abroad and no longer wanted to work on it, so he shut it down to save money. We were kind of bummed, but it wasn’t a big deal.

Kim Ngo: So what happened?

Cameron Ring: It’s dead now, but what’s neat is if you’ve ever worked on an idea or even if you’ve just thought of an idea, Silicon Valley has this great recycling property. Usually when you think of something: (1) you’re not the first person who’s thought of it, (2) someone is thinking about it right at that second, and (3) it will be thought of and re-envisioned again. I’ve heard of a couple of different services that did whatnetElement did. Currently, I think there’s a Firefox plugin called “iosurf” that’s similar to what we had created.

A lot of people get caught up in the novelty of thinking they’re first. You should just assume you’re never first. Also, if you think of an idea someone else executes on, and it becomes successful, you’re not allowed to say, “Well I thought of that idea…they stole it.”  People are always thinking of the same ideas. There’s this collective global consciousness, so whatever inputs and signals caused you to think of that idea, other people are operating on those same inputs and producing very similar outputs. So realize you don’t own an idea…no one does. Instead, if you’re excited about an idea, you should start working on it right away because there’s probably someone else out there with the same idea!

Cameron Ring Having Fun

Kim Ngo: Do you have any role models?

Cameron Ring: Definitely – the founders of Yahoo, Jerry Yang and David Filo, and the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. I don’t know them well enough as people to say that I want to be like them as a person. Instead, I think they fantastic examples to other entrepreneurs.

What’s super valuable and special about the Bay Area, and Stanford in particular, is you meet and see a ton of smart people everywhere. That’s a really humbling experience. At the same time, you realize you’re not that different from the people around you and the people who came before you. You say to yourself, “Well, they did it, maybe I can do it too.” And once you start thinking you can do it, you then can start doing it.

Kim Ngo: But in between those steps there are other factors, like fear or lack of confidence, that could stop you from doing it. What about those factors?

Cameron Ring: You’re definitely your own biggest barrier. You think you don’t know what to do, and you assume someone else knows. You’re saying to yourself, “Man! I’ve got to talk to that person, and they’ll give me the answer.”  Eventually, you’ll realize nobody knows, and no one’s gonna give you the answer. It’s up to you to figure it out and give it a shot.

When I was a Junior, Todd and I took an entrepreneurship class at Stanford. We went to class, and we were like, “This is great; we’re going to learn the answers! Someone is going to tell us.” The professor started the first class by saying, “If any of you were ready to be entrepreneurs, you would be out there doing it already.” He went on to say, “My goal is to get you to stop coming to this class and others like it. Being an entrepreneur is the only job you can give yourself.” We only went to that one lecture, but his words really stuck with me, and it gave me the extra confidence/kick in the pants to actually go and do it. Ever since, it has been my mission to deliver the same message: There is nothing more to learn, nothing more you can prepare for… you just have to do it.

Kim Ngo: I understand the “just do it” part … I think (laughing), but were you afraid? What was one of the scariest experiences you had during your Plaxo career?

Cameron Ring

Cameron Ring: There was always a lot of fear, but fear is a good motivator. You just have to make sure to harness it for something productive. There are lots of scary moments: will the funding come through, will the product grow, will that big deal close,et cetera.

I remember when we were getting ready to raise our Series B round of funding, the product was just starting to take off, but we only had one data point. We managed to get to another data point right before the pitch to what ended up being our Series B investors. It was pretty scary, but it worked out. At some point, you have to just let go and hope for the best.

Another time was around Plaxo’s acquisition. The acquisition process can be really taxing and all-consuming. We had a number of ups and downs during the process, and it went on for a really long time. I remember we had a bad month during the process which set off some alarms.Comcast asked us to meet in person to renegotiate some points that had already been negotiated with the overtone of, “…or else we’re going to call this whole thing into question.” We were all like, “Oh shit!”

Kim Ngo: Did you guys show any signs of what you were feeling?

Cameron Ring: Oh no, you can’t. You can’t show it. Fear hits you, but eventually, you get over it. After that, you tell yourself, “We’re going to do it. We’re going to do our best.” You just have to surrender to what fate has in store for you. You can’t control everything; all you can do is your best. Use the fear as a motivator. Let fear push you, but don’t let it be debilitating. So we drew up a plan, flew out to Philly, and said, “We’re just going to put our best case forward and negotiate all our points.”

When we got there, everything was fine. We made some minor changes to the deal but nothing like what we had imagined. We just couldn’t believe the change in our mood from that morning to that evening. It was unbelievable. I think one of the most important lessons I learned from that experience was… you really need to stay top of mind, and there’s no better way to do that then to be there. They need to know who you are; they want to build a relationship with you. If I could have done anything differently, I probably would have camped out there until the deal was totally done.

Kim Ngo: Is there anything you would have done differently in your career journey?

Cameron Ring: Well, I wish I had learned earlier that no one has the answers. You should really trust yourself instead of looking for external answers. Don’t think that somebody else has more knowledge and is better equipped to solve your problem. It would’ve been nice to have learned that lesson earlier, but it worked out.

Kim Ngo: So what keeps you going? What drives you?

Cameron Ring: I enjoy everything I do. You just have to love it.

Kim Ngo: Outside of business, what are you afraid of?

Cameron Ring: I’m afraid of heights, which makes it strange that I’m taking flying lessons. There was a time when I was really afraid of flying but I’ve gotten over it.

Kim Ngo: How did you conquer that? Did you tell someone to push you? What happened?

Cameron Ring: No. It’s really hard, but repeated exposure is the best, I think. You have to force yourself to do it, bit by bit. My dad used to be afraid of flying. To get over it, he joined the the Airborne core and started jumping out of planes. After that experience, I remember him telling me, “As long as I don’t have to jump out the plane, I don’t mind flying.”

Kim Ngo: Wait. Did you like the idea of flying? I don’t get it. You were afraid of heights, but did you like the idea of flying?

Cameron Ring: No. I didn’t like anything about it. I recognized that it was an irrational fear, and it was dumb to let that affect my life. I didn’t want to miss out on some experiences due to an irrational fear. I didn’t want that fear to be the reason I wasn’t traveling, going places, or visiting family.

Kim Ngo: That’s very inspiring. I think the truth is everyone should do one thing everyday that scares them.

Cameron Ring

Cameron Ring: I have this theory: As you get older, it gets easier and easier to only expose yourself to situations you’re comfortable with. Think about kids: most kids are pretty well adjusted because they’re forced to go to school, to meet people who are different, and to interact with them even if they didn’t like them. As an adult, though, it’s easy to self select for only comfortable experiences. I think if you want to be a well adjusted-balanced adult, you have to expose yourself to situations that make you feel uncomfortable or that you are afraid of.

Kim Ngo: What character trait do you feel is unique to you as a person?

Cameron Ring: Well, I know if I’m working on a challenging problem, I tend to focus on it really hard, and I can get grumpy if I’m interrupted. For example, if I’m trying to debug a particularly complicated problem, there are a lot of factors to consider. If I’m interrupted, all of that thought process gets purged, and it can be pretty frustrating because it takes a long time to get back in the groove. At the same time, interruptions are a common part of thestartup life, so it’s something I’m trying to work on.

Kim Ngo: You’re very focused. Sorry for all my interruptions. =/

Cameron Ring: Yes, very… very focused when I’m solving a problem.

Cameron Ring

Kim Ngo: So my last question…if you could give one piece of advice to future entrepreneurs, what would that be?

Cameron Ring: Just do it. Just get started. Stop reading about other people, and just start doing it yourself.

Kim Ngo: You mean like don’t read my blog?! (smile)

Cameron Ring: No (laughing). I mean… it’s the same reason why that Stanford class was so valuable. There was no content in that class I needed. Somebody just needed to say, “Don’t go to classes like this. Just go do it.”  That’s the same message I want to deliver. Don’t listen to people who tell you, “You can’t do it.”  Go prove them wrong!