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TEACHING
Feature: From All Corners of Campus

OUTREACH
Feature: Entrepreneurial Training Camp

Which Fast-Growing Private Company Is #1?

Faces of Wharton Entrepreneurship

RESEARCH
Feature: Visiting Scholar to Business Leaders: Consider "Learning from Near Misses"

Verbatim: Our Directors, in Quotes

Brett Alexander Hurt
Chairman, Chief Architect, and Founder

Personal Information
Company name /type: Coremetrics, Inc. / C Corporation

Education: University of Texas at Austin, BBA in Management Information Systems, 1994; The Wharton School, MBA in Entrepreneurial Management, 1999

Primary place of residence: San Francisco, CA

It would surprise people that I….: Discovered my passion at age 7. I developed my first computer program then and was completely hooked. At age 7, I can’t say I had the foresight to think that computers would enable me to earn a living. I also didn’t know that it would lead to me getting picked on as nerd in public schools. Computers were not cool in the late seventies and eighties growing up in Texas – playing football was! But I knew I had found my passion, and my parents had taught me the value of doing so.

P.O.V. (Point of View)
I became an entrepreneur because…: I have an intense desire to create, and I believe in my abilities. I recognized that I was continuously thinking of new ideas, and I became determined to try my best to bring them to market.

Best way to respond to criticism and doubters: If you care about their opinion, determine the source of their frustration and attempt to turn them into optimists. But always remember, as Guy Kawasaki would tell you, "don’t let the bastards beat you down."

Best definition of a successful entrepreneur: One who is successfully exploiting or has successfully exploited a business opportunity by following their passion for creation.

Most challenging part of your job: Recruiting people that are better than I am in their functional area so that my dream can become a reality. This is an extraordinary difficult and emotional process. My most sleep-deprived weekends were the days when I was trying to sell our current executive team members on joining Coremetrics, especially our current CEO, VP of Engineering, and VP of Sales. I could envision the incredible impact they would have on my company if they joined; the thought of them not joining was almost too difficult to bear. Fortunately, all three joined!

Biggest impact of the Wharton School: My classmates. Many were exceptionally intelligent and provided inspiration when I needed it most. Wharton built my confidence up to the point where I believed I could accomplish anything I set my mind to.

Best memory of your Wharton days: A few months before graduation, I presented my business plan to my fellow Wharton classmates and a few outsiders in a Vance Hall classroom. Many of them invested afterwards.

Close calls
How you started your business: After launching an e-commerce site with my wife, Debra, we realized that we needed to understand our customer’s behavior so that we could sell more to them as well as service them better. All its glory aside, the Web masks all customer interactions with technology. You can’t physically observe behavior. We first hand experienced what it is like to run a business without knowing anything about the behavior of your customers within your own store! I decided to do something about it and started programming to solve it. We were able to quickly double our revenues and conversion ratio by more intelligently marketing to our customers, based on their previous actions. Most importantly, I was hooked. I was programming until 4 a.m. every morning and felt genuinely challenged and impassioned. After speaking to fellow Whartonites working at Amazon.com and CDnow.com, I was even more hooked. They encouraged me to solve this problem for the e-commerce industry. The industry was exploding with growth, and the majority of online businesses were in the same boat that I had initial been in. So I decided that’s what I would do. I recruited the initial team members, raised money from fellow Wharton students and alumni, and opened up shop.

Pivotal moment in growing your business: There was a point in time where our technology was broken and we thought it was beyond repair. The bubble gum and masking tape finally broke. Our customers were furious with our "beta" software. I was President and CEO at the time, based in San Francisco. Our research and development team was based in Austin. I flew to Austin and camped out in the office for four weeks until the problems were fixed. I named the initiative "Stand and Deliver" — it was time for us to deliver for our clients, our investors, and ourselves. We were successful, and our technology is one of the best in the industry today. This has enabled us to win, and, more importantly, keep, clients such as Columbia House, Eddie Bauer, GMAC Insurance, Nortel, and Wal-Mart.

Most interesting non-entrepreneurial job offer you’ve declined: To return to my former employer, Deloitte Consulting, after graduating from Wharton. They were going to reimburse me for my tuition. I took a deep breath, and plowed ahead with Coremetrics. I knew after declining this offer, there was no turning back now.

Biggest surprise you encountered growing your business: The challenge of managing expectations. Coremetrics has survived-hopefully for good-one of the most severe economic declines in modern business history. The gyrations of employee and investor emotions were at the farthest extreme of both scales. It was my job to always try to bring them back to center.

Most difficult decision you’re glad you made: Shortly after founding Coremetrics, I was having serious problems with one of my initial team members. He had frozen my business bank account and the business almost folded. It was right after graduation, and Debra and I were temporarily living with her parents. With a frozen business bank account, an inept and infuriating initial team member, and the feeling of living off my wife’s parents, I felt like I had hit rock bottom. But because of the constructive and positive influence of my other team members, especially Debra, and a fellow Wharton entrepreneur, Jeff Lipp, I decided to forge ahead. Even though Coremetrics was my passion, this decision was extremely difficult because I had to pay off our difficult team member with a significant portion of equity. However, I am glad I decided to go ahead and settle. Back then and even in today’s recessionary economy, I continue to believe that Coremetrics is one of the best business ideas in history.

Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur
Favorite Web site: Amazon.com: read, read, read (you’re going to need the knowledge and inspiration of the world’s best entrepreneurs, managers, and strategists); Amazon.com’s reviews and community are unparalleled (but, unfortunately, they aren’t a client yet). For example, I just ordered "The Entrepreneurial Mindset" by Wharton’s own Professor Ian MacMillan. All reviewers gave it a five star, so I am confident it isn’t going to be a waste of time.

Book that most influenced your thinking: There have been so many that have helped shaped my thinking. But one that was particularly useful at the right time was "Information Rules", by Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian. I read the book during in March of 1999, the period in which I was writing the initial business plan for Coremetrics, while I was on spring break vacation with my wife and 80 fellow Wharton students in Russia. I highly recommend this book; it is a prophetic look at the impact of a networked economy.

Favorite activity outside of business: Spending time with my incredible partner: Debra. We love to read, go to the movies, and visit Napa and Sonoma to tour the many wineries and take advantage of all that California has to offer.

Goal still pursuing: The pursuit of lifelong fitness and health. My grandfather taught me that health is more important than anything — without it, everyone suffers. As an entrepreneur, it isn’t easy to make it into the gym five days a week, but I’m still in pursuit of this goal!

Person most influential to your success: It’s a tie — my mom and my wife. My mom had the foresight to introduce me to computers at age 7 and teach me the BASIC programming language. She cultivated my passion. And Debra continues to support me every day. Debra was not only an early founder of Coremetrics, but has also supported me through the toughest decisions and most intense dips in my optimism.

Person you most admire: I thought about this question for a long time and went through the usual list, including Bill Gates, Andrew Grove, and Michael Dell. But I would have to say my answer is Dr. Leonard (Len) Lodish at Wharton. I had the pleasure of taking his MBA class, Entrepreneurial Marketing. It was one of the best classes at Wharton. I admire Professor Lodish because he is an extremely accomplished entrepreneur and teacher. I aspire to be as successful of an entrepreneur. As for teaching, my grandfather was a lifelong mathematics professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Perhaps he inspired me to teach one day. Professor Lodish helped me further shape that goal by demonstrating that entrepreneurship and teaching can be successfully married. Dr. Lodish is a humble man, but look at his incredible bio.

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