“We originally had visions of building a little bit of a client base, selling to AOL, and retiring in the Caribbean. Well, we were a little late for that, so we had to opt for Plan B which was to buckle down and build the business.“ Dale Coyner, Serial Entrepreneur, Founder of Communicast and Open Road Outfitters
The Rich Niche Group blog interviews and enables you to hear directly from successful entrepreneurs and product managers about the steps they took to grow their businesses/products and how they were able to create, penetrate, and/or dominate their niche. This week we interview Dale Coyner, the founder of Communicast (which was sold to PrecisionIR Group), Open Road Outfitters and a noted author of several motorcycle touring books and a motorcycle touring blog
Interviewee: Dale Coyner, serial entrepreneur.
Why Selected: Dale is a two-time entrepreneur and one of the pioneers in the use of interactivity and streaming technologies within the web conferencing and webcasting industries. Dale is also a motorcycle touring enthusiast and author of several books and a blog on the topic. Dale is also a member of the Virginia Governor’s Motorcycle Advisory Council.
I had the pleasure of first consulting to and then partnering with Dale (and David Paul, co-founder of Communicast) as we grew the company and eventually sold it to PrecisionIR Group and their Vcall division. Under Dale’s guidance, Communicast became known as the leading interactive webinar platform and was one of if not the first to integrate streaming audio and video. Dale’s foresight and unique ability to understand problems and break them down to their smallest and easiest to solve position enabled Communicast to continue growing while delivering its famed “white glove” service. Dale also understands himself, his strengths, and the strengths of those around him and he has the ability to bring those strengths together to make the team more productive.
In the following interview, Dales takes us through how he was able to keep Communicast growing without ever taking any venture capital and how the start-up of Open Road Outfitters differed from Communicast. During the interview, Dales makes several points about what it takes to grow a company, the key points you’ll take away include:
1. Know your buyers. Possessing a solid understanding of your buyers will enable to you understand their problems and build products they understand.
2. Take advantage of the numerous open source and low-cost solutions are now available to help small businesses.
3. “It’s the rare opportunity that can stand up to the scrutiny you’ll put it through if you write even a simple business plan.”
4. The biggest threat to losing your position as a market leader is to become complacent to the changes in your niche/industry.
You are now on your 2nd start-up, how has the start-up Open Road Outfitters differed from starting Communicast?
