Silicon Slopes Pioneer: Jan Newman

welcome to the know your ship podcast presented by ehub I’m your
host Frank Dolce do you have a nickname by the way um if you go way way back
in my high school days I had a nickname and it was called the name was Cordo
I was when I was a freshman in high school I was 6 to about 130 uhhuh and I
was not very coordinated and so my nickname became coordination and then they
cut it short to Cordo so if you talk to anybody I grew up with that’s what
they called me everybody this is a great everybody did guess what CTO that
might stick it’s going out yeah CTO what are you now are you still 6’2 63 63
and not quite 130 just slightly over anymore I’ve lost my girlish figure just
a little bit slightly you look amazing thanks for 64 not bad wow 64 the white
hair shows I wouldn’t have said more than 63 thank you you bet absolutely
well Jan has spent a life 38 plus years in the software industry in Utah here
in Utah that’s a long time long time I’ve seen a lot of stuff that was how
near to the beginning of the software industry is that in Utah well there
were two main software companies in Utah when I started Word Perfect yeah and
no well that was it in Utah yeah there was really there may have been a
couple of small companies but primarily those were the companies and they
grew to be pretty pretty big at the time considering um but you had Microsoft
and you had Oracle and there’s a lot of companies that don’t exist now there
was a company called Lotus 123 that owned the spreadsheet Market yeah owned
it I remember Word Perfect owned the word processing Market novel owned the
networking Market mhm we actually tried to merge those three companies
together not many people know that story but Ray n who was a founder of Noel
just thought if we’re going to compete with Microsoft we’ve got to have a
word processor we’ve got to have a spreadsheet because they were coming with
Word and Excel and they and they own the operating system yeah on the desktop
which was their Juggernaut so windows and there’s a whole story about how
that came to be um but they had a juggernaut in the space and they controlled
everything and so Ry was like if we’re going to we’re going to fight these
guys you got to have something in the face of the consumer which were perfect
and um uh Lotus had and actually there was another company called Borland
that had a database and so you had those three those four companies were
going to merge and make this kind of super company yeah and it got right to
got right to the end and it fell apart wow why did it fall apart what um I
think the word perfect guys got a little cold feet on that uh Jim mansy who
was the CEO of of lotus at the time he still wanted to get some stuff done
but you get that many companies involved trying to figure out what a new company’s
going to look like and it just didn’t come together but eventually no Val
ends up buying were perfect which is kind of interesting yeah very
interesting in 92 I think the word Perfect story is fascinating yeah my
wife’s an attorney and for a long time the legal World stuck with Word
Perfect and still to this day prefer Word Perfect yeah I hear this argument
all the time about how Word Perfect was so much more manageable that space
they owned they own the legal space just hands down so okay so I think that’s
an interesting question H how could someone How could a company that owned
the space and still is highly regarded in the space get beaten out what was
the issue it’s very it’s it’s uh Microsoft played this perfectly so there was
an operating system at the very beginning called dos right the dis operating
system it was the basic fundamental operating system of all the computers but
it would it didn’t have a graphical user interface it was just command line
stuff and people got really good at running command lines but when you ran an
application you know you wanted to have a graphical interface so people
started finding ways to have a graphical interface on top of of Dos well what
happened was IBM came out with an operating system called os2 I’m saying
stuff you guys probably have never even heard of oddly enough have you heard
of all I’ve heard of all of this yes so IBM came out with this this uh
operating system called os2 and that was going to become the new PC operating
system had a graphical interface Etc and they had partnered with Microsoft
because they had partnered with them on Doss put Doss on all their computers
so they were in a partnership there well in the meanwhile M Microsoft’s
building this thing called windows in the background and literally there was
a point in time where they just came out and they said we are not going with
os2 we’re going windows and they totally just dissed IBM IBM is the
Juggernaut in the industry in computers and everybody wanted a partment with
because they were so huge International I mean International Business
Machines what it stands for and they were everywhere and they owned all the
backend processing with main frames Etc they were just massive and they had
these huge service organizations and they just owned the Computing World well
Microsoft’s this little upstart thing and they end up partnering with them on
Doss and then they just totally flipped the table on them well guess where
everybody was writing their applications to os2 and so when Microsoft flipped
the switch they not only had windows but they had all of their applications
written to Windows wow and so when when they walked away from us too they had
Microsoft Windows and all their applications ready to go and everybody else
had to scramble to come up with a Microsoft Windows application including
word perfect and it just they never recovered from it wow amazing this is
just a taste of what you’re going to get on this podcast today the knowledge
hope I already feel like I’m a better person I always feel like that when I’m
around hang just no that’s absolutely true the first time I met you I tried
to call you Yen Yen or Yan I tried to call you Yin and then you said well it
would really be Yan yeah but my name’s Jan yeah so is there a history there
isn’t would the correct pronunciation be Yan yeah my grandfather’s from
Denmark okay so I asked my parents one time I said so where did you come up
with this Jan thing they go we don’t know I’m like you gave your child name
you have no idea where it came from but it’s kind of a Scandinavian name
right so whenever I’m in Europe everybody calls me yah um but it’s been a
little bit of a challenge it’s kind of like the boy named Sue kind of a deal
because it’s more of a female name right yeah and so I got a letter one time
that I was being inducted into the women’s Technology Hall of Fame in Utah
that was awesome love it did you get inducted uh I didn’t make the grade um
but I’ve I’ve had had that the worst one was on my Delta frequent flyer card
uhhuh they took my first name my middle initial which is Eric and I was Jane
nman for 25 years with Delta with Delta every time I check in they’d look at
me like can we see your ID sir Cordo Cordo J Jane we’re getting but the worst
one ever was I went to a golf tournament it was kind of a one of these um uh
what do you call it where you go in there it’s it’s where you’re it’s a
charity event right so I go this charity event I show up I paid my money I
showed up and I said hey Jan Newman I went to the desk you know where
checking Jan Newman the guy looks at me he goes you’re Jan Newman I go yes
and he goes oh no I go did you put me with three women he goes I did I go
well then I’m playing from the women’s teeth absolutely 100% boom it was basically
the worst golf day of my life these three women kind of went together I went
by myself you were all alone yeah it I was all alone well to be fair over the
last couple days I’ve done a lot of research okay on you and when I Googled
Chan Newman there were several prominent females of course named Jan J Jan
Newman yep and so yeah it just goes with the territory actually talked I
called a I called a heline one time for some company I was working with and
uh the person goes your name is Jan Newman and it was a female she goes my
name’s Jan Newman too going are you kidding me so we chatted not about what
I’d call about we just chat about our names for a while funny first time I’ve
ever met one someone with the same name that is a female yeah I’ve never done
that yeah I’ve never had that experience I maybe I won’t yeah but okay will
you do this for us sure will you just I I want to dig into your background a
little bit but I want I want people to know about your business life can you
just give us a 30,000 foot view of what it looks like when you got into the
working world and then the companies that you helped build that got acquired
to the point where you are today with Sage Creek Partners sure so um I went
to school at BYU and I was teaching French there to kind of help pay for my
school but I was also studying computer science and uh there’s this company
called Noel right which was growing like crazy in Utah County and I applied
for a job as a software test engineer which is kind of the lowest on the
ladder if you talk about software Engineers so I went in there and um got
hired and started working there and the company was growing so fast that
everybody’s just getting moved up and organizations being built under them I
was the very first software test engineer but eventually within like three
years I was managing like 70 people in this test organization we were growing
so quickly and um so I ran the test organization and then Ray nto who is the
CEO there was really became one of my mentors probably the most amazing
Mentor I’ve ever had uh he just said listen I need to have you start learning
different parts of the business and he loved to just take people and move
them around he would take you from I was running software test engineering and
he put me over all the technical support of the business it was kind of
broken at the time and so he says I’m going to put you over here and you’re
going to run this for a while so I got in there figured out what was wrong
there was some problems there we got it fixed and once you fix something and
it starts doing really well then they go okay you’re ready for the next thing
so then he puts me over all of engineering all of software engineering and
then one day I’ll never forget this we’re going uh the guy that was running
this one business unit which is the main business unit of noville he was
leaving the company just kind of abruptly had to leave the company and we
were flying to San Jose which we did every Monday morning for our staff
meeting down there we the the wheels just come off off the ground he goes
Newman here’s the deal you are now going to run all this entire business unit
was called the N Network systems group you’re going to run the whole thing so
so you have engineering support uh marketing you name it everything and I’m
32 years old and I go Ray I just don’t know if I can do that and I go what
are my options he goes well I’ll fire you if you don’t want to take it I’m
like going I’ll take the job it sounds good yeah it sounds good what’s the
pay so that’s I don’t even think we talk about pay it was just like you’re
going to do Do It um so anyway I took the job and that was I was way over my
head there to be honest with you it was a very very challenging a stretch
yeah oh for sure the other things I did I felt very comfortable when I went
over to tech support I’d never done it before and there I just empowered some
really good guys that were kind of being held down and it just took off so I
kind of became a hero there and they just figure Everything You Touch turns
to gold and that’s not always the case right that was a very very difficult
job for me and I would say I was mildly successful in that job where I
thought I was Uber successful in the other areas and uh and then I stayed in
that job for a few years and then Ray norta he left the company in 94 and I
stayed two more years and then uh he called me one day and he says Hey Newman
uh I’d like to fund a business that you start and run I go well like I’m
working at novel have you been thinking about starting a business no not at
all not even I mean I that thought I didn’t know you did that I thought you
for people comp oh he’s crazy so he said I want to I want to fund a company
that you run I’m like going like what and he goes I don’t know come up with
an idea literally just like that so I’m like going okay so I got a couple of
guys we come up with an idea and um I said Ray I’ve got an idea here’s what
we do he says put together a little basic business plan so we did that and we
went to him and we said we think we need about two and a half million bucks
and we shook hands hands and two days later we had 2 and a half million bucks
in our bank account we didn’t have a contract or anything and we started a
old company called key laabs which was a thirdparty testing company which is
kind of what I’d done it was my expertise yeah and and so not to cut you off
but reading about your history that seemed to be where you made your mark and
and maybe that was a comfort level for you in the testing yeah Arena okay
yeah it was really comfortable so I I jumped into that business and to be
Hest very uh naive about the business world I just I didn’t know businesses
could fail I didn’t know how hard it was going to be and how much grinding
there would be and um I was just grateful we had Ray norta behind us but he
made it very clear this is your funding it will stop right here so you better
get after it wow he was one of these guys that would just let you just keep
taking money so he uh so we got going and I’ll never forget the first year it
took us probably four months to kind of get it up and going and our Revenue
started climbing and so we started hiring it started climbing some more and
we got to November and we kind of hit our Peak we’re like going wow this is
we’re killing it so we really kind of put the the pedal down and started
hiring some more and then from that month forward our revenues declined and
declined and by December well actually it was October when we kind of peak
November December we got down to almost nothing and I’m like going oh no what
are we going to do so I go to Ray and I said Ray would you be okay if I put
some of my own money in so we can cover our expenses and he goes I would love
to have you have money in this de I would love that that’s great and you can
you know what he’s thinking right you have skin in the game it’s you’re
different yeah and then January we turned the corner and it just took off and
we never looked back let me ask you a quick question before you go on how
meaningful was that to you to put money in did that was that like putting you
on steroids well it changed everything because all of a sudden you got that
investment your own investment changed everything and it literally was not a
ton it was 100 Grand but to pull out of your savings account and say this may
go away and you never see it again that was one of those moments where you
just kind of go we got to go and but it changed how I looked at the business
and it changed my motivation so I always tell people if you take other
people’s money you got to make sure you give them a great return but if you
if you want to really get some skin put some money into your deal and then
all of a sudden everything changes for you it accelerates everything well
yeah you just everything gets really serious all of a sudden and there’s no
dinking around you got to make it work if you don’t make it work you lose
your Capital yeah and so we worked at that literally that next year and the
next year so 96 so we started at 96 when the internet is really starting to
get some momentum by 98 we had multiple offers for the company so the first
offer comes in it was1 19 million for the business laterally we’ve been in
Ray put two and a half million and that’s it and um we’re in here two and a
half two years about a little over two years so we get this offer for 10 for
19 million we’re like going holy cow and Ray goes we go to take it to R and
he goes that’s not enough and we’re like and you we’re doing our calculator M
sounds like and he looks at you he goes look at you guys doing your counting
of your money like that this guy’s worth a billion dollars right he what does
he care jump Chang so then he says iing this story he says it’s not good
enough I go okay literally two weeks later we get an offer for 27 million and
we’re like going Ray is this good enough and he goes nope and I’m like going
Ray we’ve been in this for two years he go it’s not good enough 2 weeks later
we get an offer for 40 million are these three different groups three
different companies three different companies and the company we sell to for
40 million it was a 100% stock deal their stock doubled within six months
before the deal closed it was an $80 million transaction and that was good
enough that was finally good enough what did you learn from Ray saying Newman
well that’s not good enough be patient and and look at and I didn’t really to
be honest with I didn’t know how to value a business at the time Ray s saw
something in that in the business that we probably didn’t see just because of
his background and experience so now when I look at a business I look at it
totally differently and if you here’s the other thing if you have scared
money in a deal you’re going to pull a trigger a lot earlier when you don’t
have scared money what scared money that means uh if this thing doesn’t go
I’m broke and you’ll you’ll see people do unless they’re just these super
risk-taking guys and they don’t care uh scared money is when you just have
fear driving everything you do you know we had Casey field on the podcast and
I know you know Casey but this story is very similar to a point in Casey’s
life when he was broke and had three young kids at home coming off of an
injury didn’t qualify for the NFR the previous year was barely paying his
bills and had to figure out a way to get back on top yeah and his way was to
win yeah he just had to win I could see in that scenario and we talked about
it like how do you manage that fear that’s like scared money if he went in
there with fear he’s not coming out on top he didn’t his attitude was I win
I’m going to win I’m going to win and he did yeah and then he won the whole
thing and a significant portion of the million doll prize and that set him up
yeah so I just think it’s fascinating across these different businesses I’ll
call rodeoing a business and software but there’s lessons really things that
are analogous between the two and in business and in life y about how you
manage fear money investment yeah and your livelihood and the story gets
better even better yeah this isn’t the end of that little company and what it
did okay so this is so that was kabs and you’ve now sold we’ve sold this
business but before we sold the business we had some technology in this
company that we thought was even more valuable than that company so we had
taken that and started a new business and moved all that technology into that
company called alterus and we gave a license to the KY laabs guys to use the technology
because that’s where it was part of what they did as a business right and uh
so we moved that over into this new company called alterus and I was running
that business and I let one of my other partners run the key laabs business
so we put that technology in there and we started growing that business and
it was a pure software business this other one was kind of a tech enabled
Services business because we were testing people’s products and stuff like
that yeah so was kind of the multiple you get on that’s not as high as a pure
software play so we got into this thing and we went to Ry and we said Ray we
think we’ve got a whole another business here would you be willing to help us
fund this business we think this could be worth a lot of money and he looked
at he goes I’ll do that so he puts $4 and a half million dollars into this
new business called alterus which was a I would just call it a systems
management company so it’s software to help manage PCS and laptops and mobile
devices and servers and and we expanded our portfolio uh of software
technology in that business and uh some really interesting things happened we
just thought okay we got this opportunity we’re starting to grow the revenues
but we were only doing you know four or five million do at the time and then
something personally happened that kind of changed my course on this one uh
my wife was diagnosed with a uh a liver disease that would at some point
requireed to have a liver transplant this was in 19 or 2000 basically how old
are you now um I’m 40 years old and so I’m like going what am I going to do
and I remember sitting in my office I told Ry I said listen my wife’s got
this thing I don’t know what’s going to happen they told us within five years
she might need a l transplant so I’m thinking about her and her family and
I’m like going I got to get somebody in here to run this business because I
can’t if something goes south here I’m going to have to spend time with my
wife so um I’m sitting in my office one day and I’m just like going who who
could run this business and as clear as a bell I saw this guy’s face and his
name came into my mind Greg Butterfield and i’ met Greg one time before that
so I literally got on the phone right then I said Greg what are you up to
these days he says well we just sold this company in fact Ray n had invested
in the company where he was the VP of sales um little company called vinka
and he says yeah we just sold the company and I’m transitioning out to my new
thing I said what are you going to do he say well I’m going with the CEO and
I’m going to be the VP of sales at this this other company we’re going to
start I go how would you like to be the CEO of the company he goes what I go
I got to step aside for a bit and I would love to have you come over on this
business he goes I’ll be right over and he came over and he goes listen I’m
transitioning this other company I said I’m leaving for Hawaii tomorrow for
two weeks when I get back we’ll talk some more but I showed him the business
we demoed the software and everything else he told me later he says I walked
out of that office and something just spoke to my heart that I got to do this
and uh that was a game Cher for us because we had a guy that really
understood sales and he brought a just a great group of sales guys over and
uh we had already negotiated a deal with compact computer Corporation who was
the largest PC manufacturer at the time and that’s a story of itself it’s one
of the coolest stories I’ve ever been involved with but they basically called
me one day and said hey we would like to put your software in all of our PCS
and I’m like going why are they calling us so I met with them at PC Expo in
New York showed them our stuff and they go yeah we want that wow so it got
installed on every computer they sold they own 30% of the market and so we
had basically a license to hunt with all the compact guys so Butterfield
brings this team of guys in here and it just took off and within two years we
were ready to do an IPO we were done about 75 million in Revenue at the time
and uh we had got all our bankers and everything we decided we wanted to do
an IPO Ray orta thought we were crazy because he’d been in a lot of public
companies it’s not fun yeah but we just said R we want to put this on our
resume that we did an IPO IPO yeah he said okay so we got all the bankers and
stuff we were ready to go in the fall of 2001 MH and then September 11th
happened we were we were teed up and ready to go do our IPO in December and I
remember calling Butterfield and he goes well I guess that changes that wow
so our plans for IPO get scrapped but things kind of start normalizing we get
everything going again and in May of 2002 First Tech we come out um with our
offering and we a public company that was pretty cool that’s amazing yeah
with the I can’t remember the time I think we were like $600 million
valuation or something that yeah unbelievable yeah for but that that one
little moment Frank I just have to tell you there was um for me and Greg
Butterfield both there was something happened okay that was pretty special
okay that’s why I wanted I I clued in on that and I wanted talk about that
because if I understand your history correctly that’s not the first time
that’s happened in your life yeah when you’ve had a Moment of clarity yeah
and we’re missing a whole part of your story that I want to get into okay so
let’s go back okay and and start kind of from the beginning getting up to
this point where you just left us with your isn’t that something in The Sound
of Music start at the very beginning is it a very good place to start oh yeah
I think you’re right Andrews go ahead yeah okay so we’ll go back we’ll go
back to the beginning after Moses LED you through to the promised land like
so sorry okay that’s a little far back I’m so sorry I had to do it that was
pretty good I get old jokes all the time thank you for throwing that in there
and you ended up in Idaho yeah right yes okay so you you grew up in Idaho
actually was born in Idaho was there for probably four or five years and then
we moved to Southern Nevada my dad was a school teacher gotta so I actually
didn’t grow up in Idaho yes okay in southern Nevada you’re your dad’s a
school teacher isn’t your mom a uh she worked at a bank okay and you had
thoughts of becoming a teacher yeah as well yeah my dad’s a teacher had two
brothers that were teachers yeah and in fact I remember in seventh grade
writing on a thing where they said what do you want to be when you grow up I
put on truck driver I had very high well driving truck yeah driving truck oh
I I kind of still fantasize about drive like there’s something appealing to
me about driving trucks I don’t know what it would be well I I love to drive
yeah and I love to see the country there you go retirement and I love fast
food there you go I all the box of check you’re ready to go it really works
out well yeah I would if I did that I would make sure that my route ran
through Pittsburgh PA constantly and I’ll tell you why okay I’m going to tell
you why very interesting chice because in Pittsburgh there’s a sandwich shop
called The pranti Brothers the pranti brothers sandwich is built for someone
on the road got it and what they the The Genius of the perante sandwich is
that they built the s sandwich with all of the accessories on the sandwich so
if you if you wanted a s if you wanted a sandwich and french fries and a
drink it’s all built in it’s all built in WoW into one and so then you just
have the sandwich on the road and you get everything I got to go there yeah
you have to is it still around oh yeah okay all right I’ll go next time I
think it was a Diner’s never been to Pittsburgh but next time you haven’t
never been you’ve been all over the world been all over the world you’ve
never been to Pittsburgh nope huh crazy well when you go I’m going okay all
right so you you had thoughts becoming a truck driver and a teacher went went
through school you have how how many siblings in your family three half
brothers and three full siblings okay and kind of what what’s the age range
are you all similar I’m the youngest oh you’re the baby yeah I’m the baby
yeah so we’re kind of my full siblings were like two years apart there’s four
of us so two years part and in the others there’s kind of a big gap they’re
quite a bit older gotcha okay at uh and you grew up in the LDS Faith yep and
so when was it determined for you that you were going to go on a mission or
did you have some experience that led you to going serving a mission I had
kind of been thinking about it but wasn’t really all the way in there uh my
dad was actually a convert to the church and so um church was I mean I did
everything at church you know all the stuff with the young men and stuff and
I thought about you know maybe I go to Mission I started having some friends
talking about it but the thing that really changed everything for me was when
my brother went because he was he calls it his pre-christian era he had this
pre-christian era where I’m like going that guy is something else and he went
on a mission and it literally transformed him really I when he walked back he
came home I’m like what have you done with my brother I mean he was a totally
different person and so that was pretty incredible to me and I thought that I
want that in my life I want to be a better person so I decided to go I put my
papers in I get called to Belgium and France I I didn’t know where Belgium
was I’m not kidding you I’m not sure I don’t know where to is now I have no
idea and and I had to speak French I could barely speak English I mean
growing up in southern Nevada I’m just telling you other languages were not
on the top of my list and English was barely on the top of my list and so I
got to go to France and Belgium and literally I had one of those experiences
that just transformed me exper are you talking about an experience in
totality or are you talking about there was certain time place something that
was okay the whole experience the whole experience you get to grow up you get
to learn how to serve other people you get to forget about yourself you learn
more about God all those things come to you it was one of the most even to
this day probably the most transformative experience in a compressed amount
of time I’ve ever had do you lean on that experience all the time even to I
think about it a lot because of the things I learned there and and how it
continues to I just think about missionary service is one of the hardest
things you’ll ever do in your life especially in a foreign country and you’re
out there just grinding 247 for two years I mean it’s and you’re away from
your family and uh and i’ never been away from my I’ve been away from my
family a little bit going to school and stuff but when you’re over there
literally at the time there was no email so you’re writing letters you’d
write a letter and nine 10 days later you might get one back and they’re
Crossing path and what you’re asking they’re it’s just totally a nightmare
yeah and if they should send you a package maybe it would get this is on
Wells Fargo right the stage coach and it was coming across the ocean somehow
but it was it was just an amazing experience and what was cool in France and
Belgium Americans were a novelty you’d knock on the door and tell them you’re
American they’re like you’re an American really and they would invite you
right in really yeah oh it’s crazy how has that changed changed because now I
think that French people just don’t like Americans well there’s the people
that yeah there’s some challenging people that come from America right that
are tourists but you get away from kind of the big tourist places I think
it’s still a little bit of a kind of interesting thing interesting y so I
think about that regularly would and how that experience affects lives and to
me it seems like finding yourself in the service of others like you said
forgetting about yourself is a significant part of the transformation that
occurs on a mission couldn’t agree more and you think about today and how
self-absorbed people especially young people that get focused on themselves
and worry about what other people think and if you can get out of that just
leave that behind for a while I think it just does great things for a
person’s soul yeah I could I agree absolutely and I think in my own life when
I find myself in that situation and I mean I I know that’s a huge weakness is
being not being selfless being selfish when I find myself more on the
selfless side things just seem to be better yeah life just seems to be better
and I found that in business too the more you can face outward to employees
and partners and customers and stuff there’s just more joy in that right
there’s nothing better than changing the life of an employee or even changing
the life of a partner I I’ll never forget one time we were at a trade show
one time and noville stock was just a rocket at the time it was doubling
splitting doubling and I’ll never forget I was with Ray norta and some guy
walks up to us we were hopping out of a car to go to a meeting this guy walks
home he goes Mr norta you changed my life he’s like going do you work for us
he goes no no I just bought your stock he says I have paid for all my kids
college because I bought noville stock wow and he says thank yo