Founder Fridays: OmniStrat

Who are the faces behind a company? How did the company get started? These are common question you may have about startups you see and hear about. If you don't get a chance to personally meet the founders, you're unlikely to ever know their story. That's where we're starting Founder Fridays. 

This week we are featuring OmniStart founded by Matt Johnson, a company that is passionate about helping businesses achieve all they can, with the resources they have, under the circumstances they encounter. 

1) What is your current Startup? (Name & URL) 

OmniStrat

www.omnistrat.com

2) What's the elevator pitch?

OmniStrat is a pre-beta stage company bringing strategy management to the masses through an on-demand, software platform that addresses the main failure points of strategy and creates an efficient marketplace for the management consulting industry – ultimately helping business on both sides capture millions of dollars in otherwise lost strategic potential.

3) When did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur? 

My fist job out of college happened to be a start-up, but I didn’t fully understand what that meant at the time. I just took for granted that companies either existed or didn’t. I never thought about the tenuous nature of businesses when they were just starting out. What I learned at Hear Music, the startup I worked for, was that if it wasn’t happening or didn’t exist it was your responsibility to make it happen or start doing it. That fit well with my self-reliant nature. I realized that working for early-stage companies was more critical to my success in a job than a particular industry or role. It took a while longer before I felt confident in my business skills to go from working for entrepreneurs to being the entrepreneur. Ironically, it was seeing plenty of bad business practices, poor judgment and the emotional pain of losing a job in these high-risk companies that earned my respect for planning and strategic thinking. That fueled my passion for wanting to do something about it and ultimately create OmniStrat.

4) How did you meet your co-founders?

I’m the sole founder or OmniStrat, but it’s not for a lack of trying. Strategy is a misunderstood and intimidating topic for many people. Trying to find others who shared my passion and were willing to sacrifice their financial stability to pursue it didn’t happen in the early days. My belief that this was a venture worth pursuing and could positively impact a huge number of companies that kept me going. Now that I have a demonstrable application I have been more successful at convincing people OmniStrat is worth the effort. Recently I have attracted some fantastic people who will become founding management team members or supporters of OmniStrat.

5) What was the best advice you ever got?

My lawyer, Sean Abbot from Company Counsel, gave me the best advice to date since starting the company. I know this only because I ignored it and it cost me money and, more importantly, time I didn’t have. Not being able to attract a technical co-founder I entered into a software development partnership with someone who had great industry credentials. This person’s mantra was helping entrepreneurs “go from nothing to something”. The agreement this person wanted was definitely “not market”. Sean said I should stick with the original terms offered. I overruled Sean because I thought I knew this person. When the project imploded I had no recourse, had to eat the money and live with this person being a stockholder in the company. Live and learn - preferably by others mistakes, not your own.

6) What Startup(s) are you most excited about today? Why?

I’m excited about anyone who has the conviction to start their own company and I root for them all - accept those eventual strategy management copycats once I show them how it’s done ;-) I will call out the open-source community for their amazing efforts that make companies like OmniStrat possible. We owe them thanks for what they have accomplished and continue to provide tech start-ups.

7) What's your favorite part about being an entrepreneur?

All the people you meet as you build your dream into a company. Many of these people have become good friends who will be in my life a long time. Others will be great resources no matter what I’m up to.

8) If you could recommend one book for entrepreneur's to read, what would it be and why?

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink. Command and control management is so last century. Daniel Pink has researched the fascinating science behind this myth and written a great book that explains what people really want in their lives. Run your life and your company by the autonomy-mastery-purpose system and you’ll be surprised what can be accomplished and with faless resistance.