"There will always be peaks and troughs, so don't react to a peak thinking there will never be a downturn, but also don't react to a trough thinking things will never turn around."
Chao He Tweet
Chao He is the founding partner and Chief Technology Officer of Swenson He, a digital product agency in Los Angeles and Dallas. He currently leads the engineering and design teams in executing the firm’s mission to deliver unmatched client results in the software consulting industry. He has a successful record of helping clients drive projects from conception to completion, with a relentless focus on intelligent design, precision, and efficiency. Chao’s core competencies include navigating complicated pre-existing conditions to design the most suitable solution for the situation and clearly communicating deep technical content in a digestible manner. By definition, the CTO of a services company must achieve more with less and Chao excels at balancing impossible deadlines with limited resources.
Swenson He’s client projects span a multitude of industries and technologies and Chao quickly adapts to each particular environment in order to execute premium solutions within the best practices. With several patents currently pending for his work in the field of mobile technology, Chao is a leader in the practice areas of visual and user experience design as well as software architecture and engineering. Swenson He was founded in 2014 by Chao and his fellow Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumnus, Nick Swenson to fulfill the increasing need for companies and organizations to build sophisticated, robust mobile apps. Before building Swenson He, Chao was on the founding team of Rest Devices, a Boston-based consumer products company and the maker of the Mimo baby monitor.
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Table of Contents
Thank you for joining us today. Please introduce yourself to our readers. They want to know you, some of the background story to bring some context to your interview.
Chao He: Thanks for the opportunity. Looking forward to sharing my entrepreneurial story, it’s unorthodox but all of the best entrepreneurs have unique elements in their stories. Mine starts quite a few years ago, during my formative years at MIT- when I met Nick Swenson. We’ve been fortunate enough to develop a strong business partnership that is well into its second decade, and that has formed the basis for pretty much all of our successes. What started as a two-man consulting shop has grown into a full-service agency and venture investment group, and we’ve learned a ton along the way.
You are a successful entrepreneur, so we’d like your viewpoint, do you believe entrepreneurs are born or made? Explain.
Chao He: It certainly can’t hurt to be born with a predisposition to take on forward-thinking endeavors, and it does help to have a built-in network of advisors and supporters to provide a safety blanket for taking the plunge, but entrepreneurs can be made from any starting point. At its core, entrepreneurship is about being resilient in the face of adversity, and that trait can be developed in anyone over time – it’s just a matter of how much time a person is willing or able to invest.
If you were asked to describe yourself as an entrepreneur in a few words, what would you say?
Chao He: Cautious optimist. I tend to evaluate situations and problems with a healthy dose of optimism because always thinking about the worst case is both demoralizing and unproductive. Being an optimist allows you to see beyond immediate issues and think creatively about efficient solutions to problems. Of course, being able to balance the optimism with a dose of caution does help keep you grounded and realistic.
Tell us about what your company does and how did it change over the years?
Chao He: Swenson He is a full services digital agency offering software strategy, design, implementation, support, and all kinds of other services. We work with companies as large as Fortune 500, and as small as brand new startups. We also have an in-house investment arm that partners with exceptional founders to build disruptive companies. We’ve changed in pretty much every way imaginable over the years… in terms of headcount, business model, branding, etc – but what hasn’t changed is that we still very much rely on our ability to deliver results to differentiate us from the competition.
Thank you for all that. Now for the main focus of this interview. With close to 11.000 new businesses registered daily in the US, what must an entrepreneur assume when starting a business?
Chao He: An entrepreneur has to simultaneously assume that their idea and business will one day become a Fortune 500 company, but also that they are late to the party and many others are already trying to do the same thing. Having an optimist attitude helps distract you from the odds that are stacked against you, but knowing from Day 1 you have to compete to survive will prepare you for when adversity inevitably comes knocking.
Did you make any wrong assumptions before starting a business that you ended up paying dearly for?
Chao He: Of course, we made all kinds of assumptions that have cost us. For example, at one point we signed a 5-year lease for much larger office space than we needed, assuming we’d grow into it… but the pandemic meant we had to completely re-design our working model and are pretty much 100% remote now. Getting out of that 5 year lease cost a pretty penny, but we certainly learned a lot from the experience.
If you could go back in time to when you first started your business, what advice would you give yourself and why? Explain
Chao He: The main thing I would tell myself is that there will always be peaks and troughs, so don’t react to a peak thinking there will never be a downturn, but also don’t react to a trough thinking things will never turn around.
What is the worst advice you received regarding running a business and what lesson would you like others to learn from your experience?
Chao He: I’m not sure I’ve ever received any actual “bad” advice. Advice is only meant to be food for thought – if it were more than that, it’d be called “directives”. So as long as you treat advice as an opinion worth considering against other opinions or your own, I don’t think I can consider any advice to be truly “bad”.
In your opinion, how has COVID-19 changed what entrepreneurs should assume before starting a business? What hasn’t changed?
Chao He: COVID-19 has changed everything about starting a business, but also nothing at all. What I mean by that is consumer behaviors have changed, workplace interactions have changed, and even now those things are continuing to evolve… but the core tenets of building a successful business have not changed at all. Those who can identify a pain point, come up with an appropriate solution, and communicate the benefits of their product, will succeed, even if it means selling through different channels, or communicating with teammates in a brand new fashion.
What is a common myth about entrepreneurship that aspiring entrepreneurs and would-be business owners believe in? What advice would you give them?
Chao He: That their idea has to change the world! Successful businesses come in all shapes and sizes, and it doesn’t mean that every company that doesn’t become Apple is a failure
What traits, qualities, and assumptions do you believe are most important to have before starting a business?
Chao He: Being a cautious optimist (see the previous answer).
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How can aspiring leaders prepare themselves for the future challenges of entrepreneurship? Are there any books, websites, or even movies to learn from?
Chao He: I think the best way to prepare yourself for being an entrepreneur is to become an entrepreneur. No book or website or movie that can teach you more about handling adversity than actually confronting adversity in real life.
You have shared quite a bit of your wisdom and our readers thank you for your generosity but would also love to know: If you could choose any job other than being an entrepreneur, what would it be?
Chao He: I’d be an athlete, because while innate physical abilities will get you a head start in sports, a lot of important traits are “made”, just like they are in entrepreneurship… optimism, resilience, etc.
Thank you so much for your time, I believe I speak for all of our readers when I say that this has been incredibly insightful. We do have one more question: If you could add anyone to Mount Rushmore, but not a politician, who would it be; why?
Chao He: Don’t add anyone else to Mount Rushmore, it’s a sacred Native American site that should be spared any further manipulation.
Larry Yatch, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Chao He for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Chao He or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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