When on business travel, I would often write to fill the time. This is the product of one such trip in which you might detect that I was quite bored. I swear that this was written and circulated at the company as a joke… well, sort of. MEMO From: Frank Wilem TO: All Employees [...]
Arctic Adventure
I was only a year out of college – old enough to get my first engineering job, but young enough to still be clueless about the world – when my opportunity to visit the Arctic presented itself. I was working for the offshore oil exploration group of Texas Instruments’ Geophysical Services Division, designing electronics. That’s [...]
Working for a living
When I was growing up and still in school, I was always driven to earn money. I suppose it was my budding entrepreneurial spirit behind the urge. Cutting grass was my first foray into business. I started with my own yard, though I admit this was at my father’s insistence. But eventually it occurred to [...]
Ernest and the squirrel
_____________________ Reader feedback on Frank’s latest book: “The Pass was absolutely gripping. The first few chapters were a reacquaintance with old friends. It felt like a homecomng. Then WHAM! The story took a grip on me such that I could not put it down for over 5 hours! I have never read so much in [...]
Pick Your Problem Set
Charting our course in life is really about picking our problem set. No matter how appealing an occupation or career opportunity may appear, with it comes a problem set. Being a forest ranger may be quite appealing to those young folk who love spending time in the woods communing with nature. But I would imagine [...]
Why Start-ups Should Consider Having a Board of Advisors
It took us 14 years to grow our business, Triton Systems, from a $1500 initial investment to over $20 million in sales then another 5 years to reach $100 million. In 1997 we partnered with Summit Partners, a middle market venture capital firm out of Boston, and for the first time established a real board. [...]
Make Work Fun
At Triton, whenever I was involved in the interview process, I would generally tell the candidate several things. I told them that our job was to try to find the best people we could find and then try to provide a work environment that made them want to stay with the company. I told them [...]
Bikini Experience Proves Vital in Selling ATMs
If you feel that the connection between selling bikinis and ATMs seems strained, join the crowd. Before we made our decision to focus our company Triton Systems, Inc. on doing one thing and one thing only better than anyone else, we got involved in numerous other ventures. I remember in our early days, as we [...]
Treat Everyone Like the CEO
Living on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I am a dedicated Saints fan. These past few years it’s been fun, but I can still remember the days when the team played so badly that fans wore paper bags over their heads at the game. One reason I enjoy the Saints is that Sean Payton and Drew [...]
Love Leaking Roofs
On April 19, 1936, the Avalon Theatre opened in Pass Christian with a repeat showing of “Mutiny on the Bounty.” Earlier that same year, the town’s other theater was destroyed by fire while playing this same movie. So it seemed appropriate to have history repeat itself (except for the part where the theater burned down.) [...]
