Mark Sole
Mark Sole is a serial entrepreneur with 20+ years’ experience in Silicon Valley as a founder, executive, investor and advisor to startups focused on SaaS, security, and payments in financial services. His company, Sipree, is a cloud-based technology company transforming global payments processes by delivering a choice of alternative payments networks in a single, secure platform.
You’re a Silicon Valley CEO now, but tell me about your first job.
My first job – it was an interesting one for a kid from Fairbanks, Alaska, but I have to confess – I did get fired from it. I was fourteen and there was a local jade dealer who bought a four-ton piece of jade from Juan Perón’s failed regime in Argentina. It was supposed to be sculpted into a likeness of his wife, Eva Perón. I was hired by him to work behind his shop, cutting brush, while he spent his time working his business. But I kept finding myself inside the store talking to customers. I loved chatting with them, finding out about what they were looking for, and ultimately learning how to sell to them – although I didn’t really realize that at the time. Eventually the owner of the shop pulled me aside and said he had to let me go. He said he liked me, and his customers all liked me, but he hired me to cut brush and weeds, not to sell to customers.
So what’s the lesson you did — or didn’t — learn?
Well, the lesson should’ve been to do the job you were hired to do. But to me, the real lesson was that you have to know who you are and what you’re really passionate about, and go do that. I was so much happier in the front of the store, talking to customers. And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.
Wanting to be with customers alone doesn’t make you a successful CEO, though.
One thing my wife and I stress with our children, and everyone we work with here at Sipree, is tenacity. It’s easier to be tenacious when you really believe in something, like I do in Sipree. If you believe in the value of what you’re selling and are empathetic to the needs of a customer, then it’s not selling, it’s filling a need with a solution. That’s an honorable feeling.
So your tenacity keeps pushing you forward. What do you imagine will be your crowning achievement, then?
I don’t believe in the idea of “A” crowning achievement. If you ask me what I’m most proud of in my career, it’s not anything big. It’s the culmination of many small things — for example, signing our first customer here at Sipree. When you do something that’s never been done before, seeing it actually work is magic. Like the Wright Brothers, I imagine, when they actually flew, that is always a sweet moment to savor as a team. When I look back, it’s really all the small victories along the way that mean the most.
I understand that one of your potential deals was derailed by a run-in with a PAE.
Our mission at Sipree is to transform enterprise payments through technology innovation and access to a wide range of alternative payment networks. Recently, we had a large commercial opportunity that we had to ‘no-bid’ because a piece of our solution was held hostage by a two-person PAE who never used the patent in any way. In the end, we lost a potential customer and were not able to provide what we believe would have been an exceptional product experience. We’re a small company, but even at our scale, PAE’s can hurt. This is just one of hundreds of examples of how patent trolls threaten businesses and kill innovation. Financial services, in particular, is a huge target given its role in global commerce.
And is that what lead you to LOT Network?
We’re big supporters of what LOT Network is doing because it’s important for innovators, large and small, to understand how to protect themselves from this dangerous threat. PAE’s and patent trolls like to hide behind a veil of good intent that doesn’t actually exist. In essence, patent trolls and PAE’s require that an economic tax be paid by us all for the benefit of a very few. It’s not in the public interest. We applaud LOT Network and the founding members for helping companies like Sipree let our IP drive innovation and growth. It’s the way business should be.