Listen to this articlePatrick Henry former Entropic CEO, talks about taking a company from zero to one, then through a successful IPO and beyond.
Q: For those who haven’t heard of it, what is the best way to describe Entropic?
Patrick Henry: Entropic was a semiconductor chip company that developed the enabling technology for multi-room DVR. Through acquisitions and other product development efforts, they became a leading technology provider in the connected home entertainment market. As CEO, I took the company from pre-product and pre-revenue to a successful IPO on NASDAQ, and an eventual $1.2 billion valuation. Entropic was later sold to another semiconductor chip company, MaxLinear.
Q: Patrick, can you tell us something more about your background? What were you doing before Entropic and what you are you doing now?
Patrick Henry: I spent the early part of my career working with some of the larger tech companies in Silicon Valley where I worked in marketing and product development. I was recruited as the CEO for my first company in 2001, and I’ve since run four different tech product startups with multiple exits, including being the Entropic CEO for 11 years. It’s been a wild ride, but I love what I do.
Recommended: Q: Who were some of the key clients for Entropic and what were some of the key challenges that you helped them solve?
Patrick Henry: As Entropic CEO, we had a distinct challenge where we were selling our solution to our direct customers and to our customers’ customers. The decision of what technology to use in a Pay TV deployment was made by the service providers like Comcast, Cox, Time-Warner, Verizon, DirecTV and Dish Network. The decision of what chip supplier to use was made by our direct customers like Motorola, Cisco, Samsung, Humax, and EchoStar Communications. So, in addition to the normal challenges of driving innovation and product development, we had a very difficult challenge managing a complex sales process where we needed to maintain a strong relationship with our direct customers while working with their customers. This definitely created some tense moments, and we were able to partially offset some of that tension by having many of our key OEM customers and the service providers as investors in the company, and in many cases they were ‘observers’ at board of director meetings.
Q: What were the hardest parts of running Entropic?
Patrick Henry: I think the hardest thing with running any company, and this includes being the Entropic CEO, is staying focused, and that means saying ‘no’ to a lot of things and ‘yes’ to a few things. There is also what I call the dichotomy of being a startup CEO. Some examples are: you need to be frugal, but you need to fuel growth. You need to stay focused, but you need to keep the sales funnel wider in the beginning when you don’t have customers. In the early days of Entropic, it was critical that we generate revenue to demonstrate progress and get momentum. We did this through non-recurring engineering contracts with key partners, and selling design kits, before we even sold product. Eventually we had to land a large customer that could generate significant revenue. That target changed as the market environment changed. So you need to stay flexible. Patience, persistence and awareness are key. Having a plan is key, and adapting that plan to changing circumstances is also essential. Always be listening and learning. Keep an open mind to what you team, your customers, your partners and your board are saying. At the end of the day, as the CEO, you need to make the decision, but gathering information with a bias toward action has proven to be a winning formula for me.
Q: What are your plans for the future?
Patrick Henry: At Entropic, we had a saying: “It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be better than anything else in the market.” I love working with startups and love being an entrepreneur. I like building things that have the potential to change the world in a positive way. I coach and mentor other entrepreneurs, I am making angel investments, and last year I joined one of those companies as its CEO. It is in the agriculture technology space, and we are working to help farmers get better crop yield while saving water and energy. Very important things in today’s world. Giving back and doing something good while doing well are important to me. In my spare time, I like to workout, play golf, and spend time with my family. In the startup world balance is sometimes defined as that brief moment when you are going from one extreme to the next, but I am trying to find a little more balance in this stage of my career and my life, while still being focused on building great companies and winning in the marketplace.
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