2014 Southland Conference teaches lessons
The speakers at this year’s Southland conference came to Nashville from throughout the country and represented a variety of industries and experiences: a former fashion model turned entrepreneur, a former U.S. vice president, the leader of an Arkansas-based company, various Silicon Valley CEOs and more. Though they covered a spectrum of topics as diverse as their backgrounds, a few themes emerged as the conference progressed:
Leadership
When the speakers of your conference are CEOs of well-known brands such as Box, Evernote and Bonobos — along with a former vice president of the United States — you can expect the subject of leadership to arise. And it certainly did. For example:
• “You can’t lead people if it doesn’t come from authenticity. Our biggest enemy in life is ourselves.” — Bonobos CEO Andy Dunn
• “I’ve learned what many people here have also learned. You grow the most when you go through the most difficult and painful experiences.” — Former Vice President Al Gore
• “The trials you go through and the blessings you receive are the same thing.” — Walker & Co. CEO Tristan Walker
Going public
Going public may still just be a dream for many of our early-stage companies, but it’s something many of the Southland speakers understand from personal experience.
Bill Ready, CEO of Braintree, spoke about building his company and admitted that he thought very seriously about an IPO, but ultimately decided that he would rather sell to PayPal and continue building a larger mobile commerce platform (PayPal acquired Braintree in 2013).
On the other hand, Box CEO Aaron Levie had to talk around a few questions because of the SEC-regulated “quiet period” that comes with Box’s IPO plans. Levie spoke candidly about his decision to go public instead of selling the company to private investors or to another company. The deciding factor for him was realizing that his excitement about continuing to grow the company trumped the attractiveness of taking risk off the table, which selling the company would have done.
Disruption
Speaking about the disruption caused by companies such as Uber or Napster that bend the rules to make a change, Gore said disruption can be healthy because it forces us to reexamine existing paradigms of how the world works.
Thomas Laffont, senior managing director of hedge fund Coatue Management, also talked about disruption. He said Coatue loves people and companies that disrupt, which is partially why his firm likes investing in technology companies. Laffont said he views Southland as a disruptive conference, which is why he jumped at the opportunity to participate.
For being a two-year-old conference, we knew we’d have to get creative to attract top-tier speakers and attendees from the coasts. Enter in the Southern culture aspect of Southland.
Things such as barbecue, hot chicken and Tennessee whiskey separate us from other conferences — we want this to be a fun conference that people actually want to attend.
Southland 2014 was a huge success, especially considering that this is only the second year of the conference. It bodes exceptionally well for our state that something like Southland not only exists, but is happening right in our backyard.
We at Launch Tennessee are grateful to have Southland as a vehicle to drive awareness and investment for the innovation and entrepreneurship happening throughout our state. More importantly, we are thankful to each and every one of our supporters who are there to watch it unfold along the way.
Charlie Brock is CEO of Launch Tennessee (www.launchtn.org), a public-private partnership focused on supporting the development of high-growth companies in Tennessee with the ultimate goal of fostering job creation and economic growth.