Coffee With: Tech Entrepreneur Jordan Sterling

Jordan Sterling
Location: Austin, TX
Job: Vice President of Sales, Datafiniti; Founder, Alibi X
Education: B.A. in Business Management and Entrepreneurship, minor in Leadership Studies, Kansas State University
Twitter: @j_sterl

Tell us about your foray into the world of tech.

As an undergrad at Kansas State, I cofounded MyRiBiT, an online learning platform for college students. The idea was born out of my frustration with the lack of useful study materials available to students leading up to exams each semester. I’d find myself spending countless hours studying the same non-comprehensive review sheets and still feeling unprepared. (Yes, I was that kid who always complained about material on the exam that wasn’t listed on the review sheet. Why even give us a review sheet?!). I realized this was a frustration shared by many of my peers, and that’s when I decided to figure out a better way.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Fail faster. I learned after MyRiBiT that the best way to learn is often by doing – and that failure is necessary in order to get to success. We too frequently try to bandage full-body wounds instead of accepting reality and moving on. Instead of prolonging the inevitable, take the loss and learn from it.

Tell us about your job today at the startup Datafiniti.

Datafiniti provides companies with comprehensive web data that lends insight on market research and applications. As vice president of sales, I spend a lot of time communicating with customers and with my team, which I’ve grown from four people to 20-plus employees. I get to learn from some of the smartest people I've ever been around, and working with data all day every day is pretty darn cool, too.

And you have a side hustle as well, right?

Last year, I cofounded an online publication called Alibi X, which is a platform for people to share stories of Blackness. We are a diverse group of men and women concerned with unifying and uplifting our communities. We help generate conversations, blog posts, and other content to push the conversation forward. Just as information has been passed along for years by storytelling, we are simply moving this to the digital world. This idea also inspired our most recent venture, Silicon Jungle Labs, a startup studio focused on developing, growing, and selling early-stage products to larger brands and corporations.

How do you go back and forth between running a company and working at one?

I operate in very distinct headspaces. When I am working on Alibi X, I am working with more of a bird’s-eye view. At Datafiniti, we’re very focused on adding metrics and processes that help alleviate stress and align our team. From a managerial perspective, it’s important that our team feels empowered to make decisions and build processes. I also spend a lot of my time heads down and getting work done.

What should aspiring entrepreneurs keep in mind?

Your first venture is always the one that teaches you the most. You learn about the importance of culture, growing your team and moving the needle. Culture is the lifeblood for your entire organization, which first-time founders too often ignore. I would advise you to shake hands and kiss babies. While I hate the notion of tech founders doubling as celebs, there is absolutely value in being someone who people know and associate with business. One of the challenges most young early-stage entrepreneurs face is the credibility factor. Why should someone trust or believe you? Social capital helps a ton with this hurdle.

Talk about the influence of mentorship and role models in your career.

Royce Haynes, a senior software engineer at Pandora, has played a big role in inspiring me professionally. We have many things in common – we’re both Kansas State alumni and African-American men with careers in tech. Royce has always been a few steps ahead of me in his career, and watching and learning from his experiences helps prepare me for things to come in my own career. It’s not a matter of mirroring him, but it is powerful for me to know that someone else – a person of color I really respect – is able to make great strides in his career and show me what particular forms of success can look like. It makes me less fearful.

How can a candidate impress you in a job interview?

Weave in personal stories. If you have overcome a number of obstacles in your life to be in that room interviewing, that can really resonate. From working with investors to door-to-door ad sales, I've seen immense value in resilience. A person’s experiences and challenges lend the best insight into his character. When I am interviewing someone, I’m often looking for soft skills like personality and culture fit over experience and skills. You can train someone to develop skills, but it is much more challenging to teach tenacity or resilience. Those are innate and invaluable.

Images courtesy of Jordan Sterling