No Vision All Drive

Memoirs of an entrepreneur

Ever wonder how a startup comes together—the people, places, skills, failures, and hustle that make it a real business? This is the story of David and David, two entrepreneurs with lots of energy and less of a roadmap than you might think. In 1993, David Cohen and David Brown founded their first company, Pinpoint Technologies, which grew from a basement startup to a successful multinational company with $50 million in annual sales and over 250 employees.

Chronicling the story of that company from its beginnings up to 1999, when it was sold to ZOLL, and beyond, No Vision All Drive is the story of that company and the people who transformed a flat-broke, shot-in-the-dark concept into a market-leading small business.

• This book is not about business; it’s about people
• David and David recount their experiences together
• Insight on how to build a successful startup
• Turn a seed idea into reality

Startup founders and startup employees, venture capitalists, serial entrepreneurs, and anyone with an interest in stories of determination and hard work will love No Vision All Drive.

Foreword, Third Edition vii

Foreword, First and Second Editions ix

Introduction 1

Prelude 3

Chapter 1 Learning to Be an Entrepreneur 7

Chapter 2 The Idea for Pinpoint Technologies 41

Chapter 3 The Early Years 53

Chapter 4 Becoming a Real Company 67

Chapter 5 Growing Up 95

Chapter 6 A Personal Milestone 109

Chapter 7 Growing the Company 111

Chapter 8 The Sale to ZOLL 121

Chapter 9 The ZOLL Years 137

Chapter 10 Why End It? 145

Chapter 11 After Pinpoint 151

Conclusion 159

Epilogue 165

About the Author 167

Index 169

DAVID BROWN has had a 30-year career starting and building sustainable companies, including Pinpoint Technologies and Techstars (with David Cohen, Brad Feld, and Jared Polis). A regular contributor to Inc. magazine, David writes on all aspects of entrepreneurship and scaling up businesses for sustainable profitability from the vantage point of a founder, an investor, and the CEO of Techstars. He has a B.Sc. degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. A ski instructor in the past, David still enjoys hitting the slopes on a good powder day. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, with his wife and family.

Starting with just $50 dollars each, David Brown and David Cohen created Pinpoint Technologies, the first Windows-based ambulance dispatching system. Working in a fast-paced and demanding industry experiencing rapid consolidation, Brown provides a personal, honest, and forthcoming account of the early struggles, risks, and key principles that led to Pinpoint's long-term growth, sustainability, and acquisition by ZOLL Medical Corporation.

No Vision All Drive is more than a chronological telling of Pinpoint Technologies and Brown shows how relying on a superior technology can be a short-lived advantage. Instead, the founders of Pinpoint Technologies worked relentlessly to incorporate features customers demanded, risking personal income, sharing living space, and moving around the country to get a foothold in the highly competitive, fast-changing, ambulance dispatching industry.

In No Vision All Drive Brown provides an unconventional blueprint that other startups and scale-ups can use to create long-term sustainability. For example, Pinpoint Technologies wasn't located where the customers were plentiful, but where the founders wanted to live. The founders, with no real business experience, created the culture they wanted: they hired friends and people they liked, had flexible work hours, had no dress code, and few rules. They ended up creating an ethos of honesty and transparency with customers, vendors, and employees that not only helped Pinpoint, but has also been a big reason for the success at their latest startup, Techstars.

Praise for No Vision All Drive

"No Vision All Drive is so addicting I couldn't stop reading it. Little did I know that David's execution discipline and kindness took shape during his early, fast-moving entrepreneurial journey. If you want to understand how to create a great company for long-term growth, read this book!" —Isaac Saldana, Founder and CEO of Joy Labs, former founder and CEO of SendGrid (NYSE:SEND)

"In No Vision All Drive David Brown chronicles with vivid and lively anecdotes the building of Pinpoint Technologies (with David Cohen), from first pitch for funding to the napkin vote that landed the company in Boulder. While Brown, Cohen, and their Techstars cofounders are well-known for pioneering the accelerator industry, readers will see how the early Pinpoint days contributed to their entertaining and inspiring entrepreneurial journey." —J. Brad Bernthal, Founder and Director of the Silicon Flatirons Center's Entrepreneurship Initiative

The startup memoir of Pinpoint Technologies written by Techstars cofounder and CEO David Brown to help entrepreneurs build and scale their business!

"I remember the moment we started our business as if it were yesterday. At the time we weren't sure what the company would do, only that we wanted to run our own show," writes author David Brown in No Vision All Drive. Within ten years Brown and his founders built Pinpoint Technologies into an industry leader, sold the company to ZOLL, and started Techstars.

David Brown's candid account of the steps—and missteps—along the way to building a sustainable company provides entrepreneurs, business and community leaders, and others with insights on how culture, leadership, values, risk-taking, and relationships with customers and employees shape and position a company for long-term success.