Russ: This is The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com And now it is time for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, brought to you by Aflac, ask about it at work. And this is defiantly a special flashback because guest number one four years ago on The BusinessMakers Show was the entrepreneur that went from startup to a billion dollars in revenue faster than anyone else in history. And that is, of course, Rod Canion, the founder and former CEO of Compaq Computer Corporation. So last week I visited with Rod again and got an update with what is of interest to him now as well as revisiting some of the exciting times at Compaq. Rod, welcome back to The Business Makers Show.

Rod: Thank you.

Russ: It's been four years since you've started this show with us as our chartered guest, and I think it's been over 27 years since you, and Jim Harris, and Bill Murto started Compaq, so what's important to you these days?

Rod: Well, first congratulations on your success with your radio show and your webcast.

Russ: Thank you.

Rod: I have become very interested and focused in the area of entrepreneurship. When I started Compaq, I didn't think of myself as a entrepreneur, and it was way after the fact that I began to see what that was all about and understand the importance of entrepreneurship to America and to business. And I've met with a few other people who are like myself, who were entrepreneurs and who believed in giving something back in the form of helping new entrepreneurs get started and encouraging young people to become entrepreneurs. And that's what I spend a lot of time in now.

Russ: Well, that's totally compatible with our mission here at The Business Makers Show, so give me a few specifics. What do you get involved in, in that regard?

Rod: Well, I can narrow it to a couple of areas. One is in the academic area. I've been involved with the Rice Business Plan competition, and that's turned out to be more significant than I ever thought. There's a lot of really good things that have gone on there. I've involved with University of Houston's entrepreneurship program at the undergraduate level. It turns out they've done an outstanding job and have one of the best programs in the country.

Russ: Right.

Rod: And so that's sort of generally one area. The other side is I enjoy getting involved with an early stage company that's doing something that I think is worthwhile, that I think can be a success, and that has-you know-the other ingredients to make a successful company, and being a mentor, if I can, to the founder of the company.

Russ: What early stage companies are you involved in these days?

Rod: I'm involved with four right now in the sense of, having made an investment and being on the board. One of them, probably the longest I've been involved with for awhile, is called Questia Media, an online college library for liberal arts research papers. The others are a wide range, all related to the Internet. One is ChaCha, which is an amazing mobile answer service. These guys invented a way to get answers quickly and accurately for questions that you have while you're mobile, and a way to actually make money doing it, so they're doing a great job of that. They're well on their way.

Russ: And that's ChaCha.com, right?

Rod: ChaCha.com.

Russ: Okay.

Rod: If you, if you haven't tried it, try 1-800-2chacha, and you can verbally ask a question, or text to 242242 and ask a question, and it will go on from there. You'll figure it out very quickly.

Russ: Okay.

Rod: Another one is actually the winner of the first Rice Business Plan competition. So, Auditude, what they do-first of all, I don't have time to tell you all the things they've gone through because they've morphed three times. And the key with that is, in the Internet world if you're not a success in about a year, you better have changed to where the Internet has moved to, because it will not be where you started out. So what these guys are doing is they have an amazing technology that can find a video, let's say on YouTube or anywhere, on any website, and figure out what property, in the sense of a TV show, or a movie, or a song, what properties' actually in that video. What they're doing there is helping the owner of that property actually get a little bit of revenue by running an ad anytime somebody views that video. They are the only company that I am aware of that has a technology capable of doing it well. And so they're right at the stage now of proving their worth and getting themselves accepted by everybody in that business, and, as you know, some very big powerful players, in terms of owning media rights, property rights, that go with the video and audio.

Russ: Right. So, Auditude has this technology that goes out and finds videos, let's say YouTube, that can detect who owns them. So they discover that company ABC owns them, so you're telling me that Auditude then turns that into revenue for company ABC?

Rod: Company ABC, for the website, and for themselves.

Russ: Okay.

Rod: They sort of split it up if they can come to agreement. You know, at this stage, it's all new, and they're negotiating how it's going to work, but they're right in the middle of it.

Russ: Cool, all right, neat. That sounds exciting.

Rod: Yeah, it's cool.

Russ: All right, so that's, uh, Questia, ChaCha, and Auditude, and I think that leaves one more that you're involved in?

Rod: The most recent one I've become involved with is Physician's Capital Group. PCG, which, of all things, is doing physician's billing and collections, a very mom-and-pop type of marketplace, very fragmented from a company standpoint, and basically applying technology to make it more efficient, to eliminate the errors, and therefore, help make the collection of the money that's owed a doctor or a hospital more efficient.

Russ: Okay, physicians billing and collection. Gol, to me, Rod, it's, it's awfully complex when you factor in all the HMOs, and the insurance and, in all aspects of physician's billing. Does this company actually address that head on?

Rod: Well, it does and everything you said plus quite a bit more in terms of difficulty dealing with different insurance companies and frustration when errors are made because of the time cycles, and money that's just sort of out in limbo for a very long time.

Russ: Right.

Rod: So the, the ability to apply complete technology that is in today's world the best technology that's available to all aspects of solving that problem is really what it's going to take to make that work.

Russ: Okay, and is this a brand new startup?

Rod: They started almost a year and a half ago.

Russ: Okay, when, when you look at a company like that, what affects you to decide whether or not you want to be part of it?

Rod: Well, first of all, it has to interest me. You know, it's one of those things, it's hard to predict. Sometimes it immediately does, and sometimes it doesn't, so that's a starting point, but then after you think about it, and you apply your experience and logic, I think a company needs to be worthwhile. It needs to be doing something that will make a difference. Making money's great, but making money while you're doing something helping mankind, or helping solve a problem that needs to be solved makes it even better. And then one of those interesting things that just through the school of hard knocks I've learned, is that a lot of times if solving the problem is hard, it becomes a barrier to entry for other people. In other words, if it's an easy problem and you go solve it, you're probably going to have a lot of competitors solving it as well. But if it's a really hard problem, and you solve it well, that should by its nature, limit the number of competitors that you have.

Russ: How important are the people, the management team, that is there when you get there?

Rod: That's a crucial element. The leader, in particular, the CEO, has to have the capability to lead a company, to get the important aspects of business, in the early days of Compaq, I remember being asked, "Well, what was the area that was most important to your success?" And I would stop and think, and every time it would come out "You know, I wish I could say there was one. It was everything." You had to do everything right. And that's the case, so it's a hard job to be a good CEO, and it's also very hard to spot someone who's going to make a good CEO. But that's what you try to do. You try to look for the qualities and the characteristics that will allow a person to become a good CEO, with the training, with the experience, and with some mentoring. And, you know, in parallel with that, one of the things you look for is-this guy may be smart, this guy may really know what he's talking about-uh, is he open to other inputs? You know, why try to mentor somebody that's not interested in what you have to say? There's sort of a relationship that has to develop there, or it doesn't work.

Russ: And that concludes the radio broadcast portion of our discusion with Rod Canion, co-founder and former CEO and chairman of Compaq Computer Corporation. But obviously there is more. To hear a continuation of this discussion just go to thebusinessmakers.com and click on the Rod Canion WebXtra. And that wraps up this mornings Aflack BusinessMakers Flashback, brought to you by Aflac, ask about it at work. You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at thbusinessmakers.com.