David H. Gilmour - Start Up: The Life and Lessons of a Serial Entrepreneur

START UP

THE LIFE AND LESSONS OF A SERIAL ENTREPRENEUR

by

David H. Gilmour

*****

PUBLISHED BY

Wakaya Perfection LP

Start Up

The Life and Lessons of a Serial Entrepreneur

Copyright 2011 David H. Gilmour

There are no born entrepreneurs. They are born of lifes experiences. David H. Gilmour

Start Up is dedicated to the one who makes it all worthwhile, my wife, Jill.

Start Up

The Life and Lessons of a Serial Entrepreneur

by David H. Gilmour

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see. Sir Winston Churchill

One of my most prized possessions is a portrait by Frank O. Salisbury. Blood, Sweat, and Tears hangs in a place of honour in my study. This is the second home this painting has had since it was commissioned by the Commonwealth Club in 1942 and completed by the artist the following year. Its first was Number 10 Downing Street.

For as long as I can remember, Winston Churchill has been a hero of mine. I grew up with the stories of my grandfather meeting him in Natal during the Boer War. I also have vivid memories of my father, sitting in the family home in Toronto, listening to the famous radio broadcasts during the Second World War. Later, as a businessman, I came to realize that Churchill embodied qualities in the political realm that I believe to be essential to entrepreneurial success. Politicians seldom provide useful models for anyone embarking on a business careerquite the opposite, usuallybut Sir Winston is the exception. His innate ability to command attention, his talent for engaging peoples interest, his skill at convincing people that his cause was their cause, his capacity for clearly articulating his thoughts and objectives, his forward thinking, and his decisiveness are aspects of character that would have made him a formidable business leaderhad he not been otherwise engaged.

He was courageous, and courage is something upon which, to varying degrees, all entrepreneurs need to draw at one time or another. Churchills stakes were a good deal higher than most of us are ever called upon to play. But there are timesin the darkest hour of a company as in a countrywhen conviction is all there is to go on. Whether he was in power or in the political wilderness, Churchill believed: in himself and in his cause. Conviction on its own is never enough, but the other elements that lead to success, in business as in politics, can never work without it.

I was fortunate enough to become a friend of Sir Winstons grandson. The Winston I knew was a chip off the old block: a writer, an adventurer, a politician. Although I am now of an age at which such news cannot be a surprise, Winstons death in 2010 was a blow.

The ancient Egyptian symbol of the ankh represents to me the inter-connectedness of things. I have always had the strong sense that even my earliest memories are linked directly to who I am nowthat the story of my life cannot be separated from the story of my entrepreneurial ventures. Will it be about business or will it be a memoir?, friends have asked when I told them of my plans to write a book. Both, I reply. In my case, one cant exist without the other.

Good or bad, dark or bright, my experiences have always felt to me as if they have been leading me somewhere. I havent always been sure where the path is going, but the lifelong habit of trying to learn from the past while trying to peer into the future has made me who I am.

When I was a young man, my father thought that I should take a job in an officeat a brokerage, or an investment firm, or a bank. I was deeply respectful of my father. Much of the advice Dad gave me has shaped my life. But in this instance, even though I couldnt quite see the path I needed to take, I knew instinctively that it lay in another direction.

Similarly, the time I spent as a co-founder of Southern Pacific Hotel Corporation, of Barrick Gold Corporation (the most profitable gold-mining firm in the world), and of Horsham Corporation (which became TrizecHahn Corporation, one of the largest publicly traded REIT companies in North America) was challenging and rewarding. I was, I believe, a valuable partner. But the truth is I was never as consumed by acquisition and management as I am by helping to start things up.

What my experiences have added up to, and what they have helped me create, are the subjects of this book. And while it may be unusual to preface a book with disappointment, there is always some element of sadness that comes with looking back. I am sorry that my old friend, Winston, shall not be ringing me up to let me know what he thinks of what I have writtenparticularly since, as these pages reveal, his grandfathers life has been such a touchstone for mine.

Were the achievements of Sir Winston Churchills life to be divided up among the biographies of three men, they would each still seem remarkable. His political life alone is a multi-volume saga. His writing would be prolific for anyone who thought of himself as a writer exclusively. But Sir Winston was not only a politician, and not only a writer. He was also a soldier, a journalist, a military tactician, a wartime leader, a painter, a bricklayer, an historian, and a husband.

All my life I have admired his keen observations. I have often jotted down his famous quotationssometimes because they are so witty, sometimes because they are so wise, usually because they are both. Im sure that many business people have encountered the kind of thinking that Churchill summed up so beautifully with his pointed comment: However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. What sales department would not do well to take as a motto, Difficulties mastered are opportunities won? Im sure there are many entrepreneurs who have fought their way successfully through the battleground of starting up a business and who smile knowingly at one of his most celebrated epigrams: There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.

Other than my own father, I cant think of a man for whom Ive had greater admiration. But were I forced to summarize Churchills life with a single triumphone that has had direct impact on my lifeI would say this: he helped to save freedom at a time when it was under the gravest of threats.

Creative capitalism is a potent forcearguably, the most powerful mankind has invented. But it requires a level playing field. It requires economic stability. It requires justice. More than anything, it requires freedom. I came of age in the post-war years and the world that Sir Winston Churchill saved is the one in which I have lived and worked. It is the world in which I have been fortunate enough to do business, and as I reflect now on my experiences as an entrepreneur, I find myself automatically reflecting on our debt to the subject of the portrait that hangs in a place of honour in my study. To paraphrase Englands greatest prime minister, never have so many owed so much to one man.

Chapter One

To improve is to change. To be perfect is to change often. Sir Winston Churchill

I always come back to Wakaya.

Its not hard to fall in love with this island. Most visitors do. Its a 2,200-acre jewel in the Fijian chain, in the Koro Sea, less than a hundred miles to the northeast of Fijis main airport at Nadi. I saw it for the first time in 1972, two centuries after its earliest European admirer landedalmoston its shore.

Captain William Bligh spied its white beaches, soaring cliffs, and lush interior on May 8, 1789. After the famous Bounty mutiny, Bligh was set adrift in an open boat with the crewmen loyal to him. In his logbook he wrote, As we approached Wakaya, two large sailing canoes approached. We, therefore, apprehensive that their intentions were to attack us, rowed with some anxiety, knowing that we were very weak.