Scot Wingo, NC State alumnus and president and CEO of ChannelAdvisor, told a gathering at the Entrepreneurs' Lecture Series last week that success has as much to do with people as profits.

"The math part (of the business) is really easy, but to be an entrepreneur, you have to become a salesman," he said. "You have to sell yourself and constantly talk to people."

As an example, Wingo explained how his second major project — AuctionRover.com, an online auction search engine — got off the ground while his competitors collapsed.

After he and his competitors were threatened with a lawsuit by online auction giant eBay, his rivals took out full-page ads in the major national papers telling users that eBay was "trying to hijack the Internet" and encouraging investors to dump their eBay stock.

Wingo decided that challenging a $14 billion company wasn't the brightest idea in the world. Instead, "I got on a plane and camped out at eBay until they would talk to me." He said he began the meeting facing 10 hostile lawyers and business leaders wanting to destroy his company, but left with a historic partnership and a "Barney press release — 'I love you, you love me.'"

AuctionRover.com began with an initial investment of $1 million. It was sold to GoTo.com for $181 million. Similarly, Wingo's first company, Stingray Software, began with three people investing $5,000 each in a product they created. That company was later sold for to RogueWave for $21 million.

Wingo said having patience, both in developing the companies and in selling them, was a key to such success. In the early going, he said, it's easy to look at the lack of funds and lose belief in the company.

"Just because you're not profitable, doesn't mean you don't have a good business," he said.

Similarly, when you find a little success, it's tempting to want to cash in on that success. In the case of both of his companies, Wingo resisted the temptation to take early funding or buyout offers, and it paid off handsomely later on.

"In start-ups, you often have to have a marathoner's mentality," he said.

Finally, of course, you have to be a risk-taker. His biggest one was turning down a financially secure job offer from Motorola right out of graduate school at NC State for an uncertain future with a start-up.

Wingo said he discussed his choices at the time with Dr. Tom Miller, professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State. Miller told him that since he had no wife, no mortgage and no car payment, he should go the entrepreneurial route.

"He said, 'what do you have to lose? Try out this start-up, and if it doesn't work, you can always get the Motorola job. But if it does work and it is big, think about of the upside you could have.' I factored in a couple of other things and I took his advice."

Nearly a decade later, Wingo said Miller is still giving good advice to well-prepared graduates through the university's Engineering Entrepreneurs Program (EEP), which Miller started in 1993 to educate undergraduate engineering students in the art and science of new product development within engineering entrepreneurial and corporate environments.

Through EEP, the students work in teams and research, design, build, test and demonstrate to business professionals their new products and business ideas. Wingo is a charter member of EEP's advisory board, and has invested significantly in support of the program.

"It's very self-serving," Wingo said. "Tom Miller is creating all these great entrepreneurs, and I want to hire them all. NC State has helped me a lot and I want to give back. It's important to give back."

At the end of the lecture, NC State Chancellor Marye Anne Fox gave Wingo a gift, a Wolfpack football jersey with the name "Skywalker" on the back. "Skywalker" is in reference to the character from Star Wars. Wingo got his start in online auctions buying and selling Star Wars memorabilia, eventually sparking an idea that made him millions.

The Entrepreneurs' Lecture Series is co-sponsored by EEP and developed by the Office of Public Affairs. Wingo's lecture was the third in a series of six designed to showcase great successes in entrepreneurship among NC State's alumni and partners. The spring lecture will be held in April 2003.

Posted October 15, 2002

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