Life, Leadership and Entrepreneurial Insight with Former YPO Chairman Chuck Davis

2012-13 YPO international chairman, serial entrepreneur and e-commerce veteran Chuck Davis was recognized in March by the Los Angeles Venture Association in recognition of his remarkable business career. More than 300 leaders in the venture capital community, including fellow YPO and WPO members, chief executives and founders of successful emerging companies, joined LAVA’s annual venture awards dinner during which he was named to the LAVA Hall of Fame.

Davis currently serves as chairman and CEO of Prodege, parent company of Swagbucks. Since 2011, he has also been a venture partner at Technology Crossover Ventures and many other highly successful technology brands. He previously served as CEO of Fandango and Shopzilla/BizRate (now Connexity) as well as e-commerce president for The Walt Disney Company’s Internet Group.

You have been in various leadership positions and started many companies. What’s behind your entrepreneurial drive?

I’ve been fortunate to be a son of a family business YPOer, have gotten leadership positions as a hired gun and been an entrepreneur. Each has its fun sides. The entrepreneurship role has been spectacularly fun because in this digerati new age we are writing new rules and chapters every day.

Recently, I woke up at 3 a.m. to ensure I’d be able to buy an Apple watch as the pre-sale began at midnight. I believe this watch will create a whole new industry of tech companies building apps and products for it, and I want to learn about it as quickly as possible.

I didn’t understand the iPhone when it first came out and why anyone would use it. And yet Fandango, another company I led, had one of the first four apps on it and it changed the company. I didn’t understand why anyone would want a tablet so I waited a bit to buy the iPad when it debuted.

Twice burned, I want to be on the early learning curve with the watch as entrepreneurs want to find new opportunities and new ways of making our lives easier. That’s the true fun of being an entrepreneur.

Is there special significance for to being named to the LAVA Hall of Fame?

The Los Angeles Venture Association recognition was nice because (my wife) Jan and I still feel new as Californians even though we have lived here for 19 years. We spent a lot of time in New York, Philadelphia and Boston, and then ventured west where we knew no one.

The YPO Los Angeles Chapter welcomed us to Los Angeles and then I went on the ladder, screening for new members, leading education and then becoming chapter chair. YPO helped make us feel at home in Los Angeles and be able to say ‘I am now an Angeleno.’

It was also nice to be recognized by the business community in LA with the LAVA award. I haven’t been in town much, especially during my international board chairman role, so maybe they were just telling me they are glad I’m back home again.

What do you consider your greatest achievements, business or otherwise?

I’ve been fortunate to lead two private companies to nice exits and hope to do the same in Swagbucks. I’ve got a great family with Jan, and our children Jared, who works at Appnexus, and Jenna, who is at Brown University. I have also served on many fun boards, for profit and nonprofit organizations.

But my biggest accomplishment came in my role of coaching soccer. When I moved to Los Angeles, Jared was 5 and we missed the soccer cutoff for signing up “unless I would be a coach.” Jared had an under-10 boys travel team that was really fun, or at least the kids and coaches thought so. We must have been the worst team in California history, with 46 losses. But we had fun, stuck together and I went to coaching school to improve my game. The next year we were best in the state (61 wins). Even though I’m finished with that chapter, I still referee youth games on weekends when I’m in town.

The lesson here is that it takes hard work but it’s important to get the skills needed to coach properly, coupled with getting the right kids in the right positions, something I try to do at work too. Hard work and learning is also akin to attending the Global Leadership Conference at YPO and learning how to be a great officer. In the end, I coached 600 games in 10 years split evenly across my two kids — that was a fun balance to running a company, climbing the YPO LA ladder while finding meaning in life by making significant impacts on several kids’ lives.

Any other piece of advice for YPO leaders starting their YPO journey?

I would encourage our up-and-coming generational leaders to fan out and get involved in more than just their work. Create good family-work balance. Donate time and find your own ‘giving back’ journey that might include coaching, tutoring, rounding out your safe zone and broadening your journey with more involvement. Society needs more participants and fewer spectators.

(The author of this article is Rola Tassabehji, regional marketing manager for MENA, Africa and Europe)