Any city’s tech sector is defined in large part by its success stories. That is, the people who have shown that it is possible to grow profitable startups there and have convinced others that they can do the same.
He is now settling into his new role as Geekdom’s first resident entrepreneur with a goal of growing 500+ startups by 2030. As of last month, it has achieved 104. Towards that goal, he spends his 35 hours a month meeting with entrepreneurs, discussing how to raise money and how to “validate” their products to achieve great success. We help startups with their concerns. Customers take them seriously.
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Growing up in the small town of Shallowwater, just outside Lubbock, Jones began his entrepreneurial career in the oil and gas industry before the 2014 recession forced him to branch out into other areas, including retail.
After selling Skipcart, he founded a new venture capital firm, Misfit Ventures. Through this company, I hope to team up with other entrepreneurs to start several companies each year.
“San Antonio has these accelerators and companies and capital. What about bringing in some of the smartest people in town with capital and ideas and co-founding a company together?” he said. . “What it does is accelerate the early stages of entrepreneurship. When we are all in the same room, that journey accelerates.”
He recently sat down with Express-News to tell the story of Skipcart’s growth, talk about San Antonio’s tech scene and the services he offers as a resident entrepreneur. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: How did you get into the tech industry?
A: I think it was 2014 when I moved to Fredericksburg from my oil and gas job in the Pleasanton area. I dabbled in different industries — started a bar, a wine bottling company, and a super-local taxi company. Then I got into retail, supplying things to retailers. Consumers buy a lot, right? I realized that there is a market.
I happened to be doing CrossFit with one of the HEBs, and he basically said that HEB needs to become an e-commerce company. Amazon was about to get big in grocery delivery and wanted to get into delivery. I said, “What are you eating today?” Well, we have curbside online. “What if we could offer delivery through that curb?” He put me in touch with this guy who was in charge of the e-commerce team. And he said, “That’s a great idea.”
Q: What did you have with you then?
A: There were no products. It was a very early stage idea. This guy was catching tiny little entrepreneurs who had no idea what they were doing. But he said, “I really like it. Let’s go build.” Validation meant it was worth the risk to continue.
Q: Does that mean you developed it with the intention of using it in HEB?
A: yes. Without HEB, this idea wouldn’t exist. I was going to work as a courier for HEB. We signed all contracts with them. At the time, they were partnering with his Instacart. We took it “white label”.
Q: By “white label” I mean that companies are creating something that they can incorporate into their services.
A: yes. HEB offers delivery — consumers don’t care who they partner with to deliver. They only care about ordering groceries online. It gives them the ability to be a shipping company as well and they don’t have to worry about that.
I knew nothing about technology and had no history with it.
Q: Do you have a coding background?
A: Other than logging into your email and Facebook. But it’s not a technology for people to build. It’s about vision. How do you see product and market fit and scalability? I don’t think you have to be a tech expert to do it really well. I have no choice but to become a visionary.
Owner side: Project management works to keep clients in charge of construction
Finally got this product that exists. And it is a functional product. And HEB is going to buy Favor, right? It basically took everything we built, learned about deliveries, hooked up drivers on the road. It was all shut down with phone issues.
Q: How did you feel about it?
A: It was really hard. Right now I don’t have a roadmap for where to go next. There was probably very little money left on the farm. It was like, “Okay, let’s go find more customers.” What I do is start emailing the CEO of Walmart.
Q: Do you have an aversion to HEB?
A: Hmmm… yeah. As an individual entrepreneur, you take it personally. It’s not until you enter the company that you realize that not everyone will always like the deal. After that, I think it was hard to see HEB in the same way, but I took a very entrepreneurial approach, not as a business person. I’m here.
Q: How has COVID-19 impacted your business?
A: Being one of the early (delivery) companies, we were able to hyperscale during the rise of COVID. Unfortunately COVID put us on the map as it was delivery verification. Then it becomes a kind of takeover. The problem is, it took a lot of capital to scale, right? That was a big reason why we pulled out. That’s because the timeline, the capital required to make a profit, was longer than I was willing to play around with.
Q: Is Misfit Ventures using the proceeds from the Skipcart sale to fund new ventures?
A: I’m taking what I’ve learned, what I’ve learned from selling, and saying, “OK, as an entrepreneur, what should I do next?” I want to go create a company. But what I need is to find capital, founders, developer ecosystems, all sorts of things. Find a recently retired person in town and say, “Hey, start a company with me.” I run multiple businesses instead of running that company long term. I co-founded 5-10 companies a year with these very smart people.
Q: What do you think of San Antonio’s tech scene?
A: Never run out of ideas. What’s missing is the rest of the ecosystem. We have a CEO who is a risk taker. But what about co-founders, vice presidents of engineering, chief financial officers, and product manager risk takers? Where do you find them? Places like Silicon Valley and Austin often come from other venture-backed companies and start-ups because they know what it takes to take risks.
Q: Can you find a lot of venture capital in San Antonio?
A: I don’t think it’s geographical. San Antonio has several venture funds. Geekdom Fund, Active Capital. But many of them are never locally deployed. It dates back to venture capital betting on very big ideas that could yield very big returns. It’s a very basic model, and I doubt this startup ecosystem allows for that opportunity. Venture capital isn’t what it was a few years ago when it expanded into everything. San Antonio doesn’t have many verified startups in a very large market that are ready to raise venture capital.
Q: So venture capitalists are getting stingier?
A: I think the macroeconomics of what happened: inflation, layoffs, interest rates. I think VCs kind of have the cash in their hands right now. What happened in 2021, early 2022 is basically VCs got access to all this capital and all these ideas and then they saw the market go insane so VCs It was like writing a check. What they are doing today is like doubling the investment they are making today.
Q: What kind of work do you do as an expatriate entrepreneur?
A: I take these entrepreneurs every step of the way. It may be in the idea stage, right? They say, “How do we make this idea product-market fit?” From my experience, I can say, “Here’s what I do to make this successful.” I’m a right-hand man
Q: Can you give an example of a problem someone might bring to you?
A: We have some really great entrepreneurs in our town — Roman Sandoval and Allosense (a company that makes sensors for the production of electric car batteries). Allosense is in this position to offer a very good product in the (electric vehicle) sector. How do I take this product and let people know that my small team can support big manufacturers like Samsung, LG, and Tesla? You may not be able to get to the , but you can usually go into the companies that test the batteries.” That’s your first step. This allows him to say: To come out on top, my salesman needs to change his journey a bit. ” Then how do you get your first customer? You have to be a salesman. You have to reach out to these guys. I need to call the CEO.
