Finding the balance
Lubbock entrepreneur shares secrets of success at luncheon
By Lee Anderson - Times Record News - Wichita Falls
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Don Stull talks modestly about his entrepreneurial skills, but the West Texas native is the co-founder of several ventures in the communications and medical device industries.
One of them, Alamosa PCS, became one of the largest initial public offerings in the states history — a deal worth more than $4 billion after it was acquired by Sprint in 2005.
Speaking Wednesday at the kickoff luncheon of the Lalani Distinguished Entrepreneur Speaker Series at Midwestern State University, Stull used an analogy of a three-legged stool when starting a new entrepreneurial business.
You need all three legs to keep balanced, he told the crowd of business leaders, MSU faculty and students. In entrepreneurship the three legs are the business idea, the entrepreneurial team, and, of course, financial support.
If you have only two, youll spend your entire time trying to stay balanced, but in the end you generally fall. So to create an environment friendly to entrepreneurial startups, you need all three.
The Lubbock resident also stressed the ideal way to recruit entrepreneurs is to have a structure that can provide support, both management and financial, so that the entrepreneurial process can take hold.
Ideas are transportable, but they dont move to areas without support, he said. Communities that offer support will be more successful in attracting entrepreneurial startups.
Stull told the crowd he was raised in the oil field and that he left when it was not doing so well.
He also said he held a variety of jobs — starting at age 13 in a hush puppy costume — ranging from a stock boy to shoe salesman.
When he graduated from Texas Tech, he said he had $200 and a job offer with an engineering firm in Houston. He then returned to Lubbock and went to work at a consulting firm and then things started coming together.
He talked about putting several business plans together for companies that were clients of the firm.
Stull received his bachelor of science degree in civil engineering at Tech, with minors in architecture and mathematics. He later earned his masters at Tech.
He spent eight years as a co-founder of startup companies, and it was with Alamosa PCS that he led the company in its multibilliion-dollar deal with Sprint. He now teaches entrepreneurship at Tech and also serves on the board of directors of four medical companies.
Also during the meeting, Stull extended the offer to collaborate with Jeff Stambaugh, the recently named director of the Munir Lalani Center for Entrepreneurship and Free Enterprise at the Dillard College of Business Administration at MSU, to posssibly make it even more successful.
He praised Stambaugh, the business school, and MSU as a whole, saying it has a great atmosphere.
At the end of the program, Stambaugh remarked to the audience, Don can get the juices running. He can really energize people.
Business editor Lee Anderson may be reached at (940) 763-7533 from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. His e-mail address is andersonl(at)Times RecordNews.com.
