"The university system is old school and outdated"
Lucas James is building a 1,000,000,000 point data engine that will utilize AI and ML to predict how small business owners should spend their money on marketing. He is starting with digital marketing agencies as a core demographic and then broadening scope to all small businesses. The goal is to automate the scaling process for businesses and reinvent the way digital marketing agencies work.
Check out more interviews with entrepreneurs here.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET FEATURED?
All interviews are 100% FREE OF CHARGE
Table of Contents
Welcome to your ValiantCEO exclusive interview! Let’s start with a little introduction. Tell us about yourself.
Lucas James: I’m a tech entrepreneur located in Los Angeles, California. I own a $1.7m marketing Agency that I bootstrapped out of my college dorm room over the last three years. The purpose of that business is to fund my tech endeavors. Right now, I am building a software that my team is using to manage our clients. I will eventually roll this software out to our clients and agency partners.
NO child ever says I want to be a CEO when I grow up. What did you want to be and how did you get to where you are today? Give us some lessons you learned along the way.
Lucas James: Ultimately my main passion is technology. So I felt that being a CEO was the quickest way to get my hands on the coolest innovations. Originally, I wanted to be a musician, actor, or a filmmaker, but I felt as if that wasn’t providing me with enough meaning in life.
Tell us about your business, what does the company do? What is unique about the company?
Lucas James: Twiz marketing is essentially like any other digital marketing agency. Nothing unique. But, we are beginning to niche down on the VoIP space. This will allow us to maintain a competitive advantage and beat our competitors. Twiz Connect is our division focused on scaling agencies and it is unique because it is focused on agencies only.
How to become a CEO? Some will focus on qualities, others on degrees, how would you answer that question?
Lucas James: Degrees are dumb in my opinion. The university system is old school and outdated. I do realize I am coming from a position of privilege saying this (I have a degree) but I can’t shake the feeling that it isn’t objectively a rigged, elitist system. Had I had this context earlier, I would have not gone to college and started my business sooner.
What makes a good CEO is luck, having a great family that inspires hard work, an interest in the systems that makes society function, and an interest in innovation or efficiency.
What are the secrets to becoming a successful CEO? Who inspires you, who are your role models and why? Illustrate your choices.
Lucas James: I think like everyone else my role model for tech entrepreneurship is Elon musk. He seems to be the only person focusing on how to use technology to improve society in a fundamental way.
My only critique of current tech entrepreneurship is that it ignores personal suffering. For instance, all of musks inventions focus on extra personal realities (climate change, etc). Which deserve merit and should be focused on, but he ignores personal / societal issues like racism, homelessness, hunger as if they don’t even exist.
Many CEOs fall into the trap of being all over the place. What are the top activities a CEO should focus on to be the best leader the company needs? Explain.
Lucas James: I spend all day every day building software and a community of people who will use the software.
The Covid-19 Pandemic put the leadership skills of many to the test, what were some of the most difficult challenges that you faced as a CEO/Leader in the past year? Please list and explain in detail.
Lucas James: I will admit, there was a point during the pandemic where I wanted to sell my agency and quit growing it all together. I wish I was stronger there. I would have focused only on my software. This would have been fine I think, it just would have taken longer to scale.
What are some of the greatest mistakes you’ve noticed some business leaders made during these unprecedented times? What are the takeaways you gleaned from those mistakes?
Lucas James: I think it’s focusing too much on the problem and not on solutions to the problem. If you’re going to really maintain your business during turmoil you need to have a ridiculously positive outlook on everything.
In your opinion, what changes played the most critical role in enabling your business to survive/remain profitable, or maybe even thrive? What lessons did all this teach you?
Lucas James: Endurance + Luck = Success
What is the #1 most pressing challenge you’re trying to solve in your business right now?
Lucas James: Building extreme demand that spur on network effects which will enable fast growth in the business. I’m really focusing on things that sell themselves and trying to focus all core assets into niches.
You already shared a lot of insights with our readers and we thank you for your generosity. Normally, leaders are asked about their most useful qualities but let’s change things up a bit. What is the most useless skill you have learned, at school or during your career?
Lucas James: I can cup my hands together, blow into them, and make owl noises lmao.
Thank you so much for your time but before we finish things off, we do have one more question. We will select these answers for our ValiantCEO Award 2021 edition. The best answers will be selected to challenge the award.
Share with us one of the most difficult decisions you had to make, this past year 2021, for your company that benefited your employees or customers. What made this decision so difficult and what were the positive impacts?
Lucas James: Firing customers that were rude to our team. It’s not that it was a tough decision because you have to do this no matter what, it’s just hard. Mainly because I am not someone that likes conflict. However, in order to protect your team, you need to be the one that draws the line and raises the bar.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Lucas James 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 Lucas James or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
Did you enjoy this article? Check out similar stories:
Dave Portnoy: The Story Behind The Founding Of Barstool Sports
Jawed Karim: The Story Of Youtube’s Co-Founder And The First Youtuber
Dan Bilzerian: The True Story Of Instagram Playboy Millionaire
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.
