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Founder,
CPi of Richmond, Tekna, Posh Tots, Genesis Marketing

Karen Booth Adams has never met a technology company she couldn’t grow into a multi-million dollar venture. In 1993, she took over technology consulting business, CPi of Richmond, at the tender age of 23, and has since launched eight companies, all of them profitable. Two of her technology-based startups have been publically acquired. And she grew one interactive Internet firm from zero profitability to a $10 million valuation in ten months. Today, Karen and her partners head three technology consulting firms, a software company, and an angel investor organization that funds technology startups.

Adams is such a wiz that she even launches successful companies in her downtime. One of her most triumphant ventures, Posh Tots, was begun as a hobby in 2000 with launch partner Andrea Edmunds. Adams had just sold a company that built e-commerce applications for Fortune 500 companies and found she wasn’t very good at being retired. After doing set dressing for the Stuart Little film and Friends, and being featured prominently in People magazine, Posh Tots sold for $12 million in 2006.

Just as passionate about her family and community as she is about her professional undertakings, Karen has continually sought new ways to bridge these various areas of her life. Posh Tots had an onsite playroom for employee’s children who needed a place to go during the workday. Karen has also sought new ways to reward her employees for their hard work — party bus, anyone? And with the current recession decimating her hometown of Richmond, Virginia, Karen has turned her attention to supporting other local technology businesses, in order to save as many local jobs as possible. As Karen clearly demonstrates, growth and profitability are just two ways to measure an exceptional career.

What we learned from Karen: “I think a good leader knows when the team needs to have fun. It’s a work-hard, play-hard mentality. Particularly in the first few years [of a startup], you are working long hours. It’s really fun, but it’s really stressful. You need to get the team out of the office, and have some fun, and don’t lose perspective. Everybody is trying to juggle work, and family, and find that balance.”

Passion Creates Profitability

“I had worked for consulting companies who, in my opinion, weren’t very loyal to their employees. And I thought that they had the profitability to be much more loyal, and they had the responsibility to their employees to keep them on the bench in-between assignments, if they could. I was really passionate about that one specific issue, and that’s what led me to start my own consulting company. I thought that there was an opportunity for a consulting company to have that kind of commitment, and that kind of loyalty to their consultants, and if they did, their consultants would be that kind of loyal back. That was our mission, and that was the passion behind what we got up and did every day. And that, financially, ended up working really well. But that’s not what the original motivation was.”

Have Heart, Hang Tough

“We looked at starting up Posh Tots in 2000-2001; those were our early years. The Internet had crashed, all of these e-commerce sites were just going down in flames, and it was rough. And so, here we were, saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to start up an e-commerce business, selling luxury children’s furniture.’ And people looked at us like we had three heads. I mean, there wasn’t a single person, not one, that told Andrea and I, ‘That’s a great idea. I’m sure you’ll make it a success.’ And that was after I had built and sold two companies, so obviously, we kind of had to know what we were getting into. But still, there was so much negativity out there, and so many people saying why it wouldn’t work.

And that’s a challenge, because even though you’re passionate, and even though you do it, and you’re committed to it, sometimes the negativity makes you second-guess yourself in those early days. And just staying the course, and not listening to it, and staying positive, is sometimes harder than it sounds, particularly until you’re profitable.”

The Sigh of Relief

“You start out thinking that you have a great idea, but until you see it on your financials, you really don’t know for sure. For us, it takes that concrete financial verification that, yes, our idea must be a good one….You kind of know, when you turn the corner, and that fear gets alleviated in your mind. And it’s different in every business. Sometimes, it’s landing a key long-term customer that you know is going to provide you with that steady revenue, that you know you’re going to be able to cover your costs, and you just have a huge sigh of relief.”

Use Your Crystal Ball

“The management team, and their experience, is huge. We look at the financial projections. And we have to make a determination whether they’re realistic, or not, and a lot of times that involves a lot of due diligence, a lot of financial modeling, a lot of going out and researching other competitors in the space, or people who have a good understanding of that kind of business, and pulling in outside expertise to help us make that determination. Can they really do what they are projecting, a year out, three years out, five years out? How realistic is that?

The third thing we look at is: ‘Is it defensible?’ You can have a great business model, a great business plan, but unless you have a unique differentiator about your product, your service, or your model, you’re going to, at some point, probably face some really harsh, fast competition from a hundred pound gorilla already in the space. How do you defend your brand or your business from it?”

Build Your A-Team

“A lot of companies that are really young, they put together advisory boards. They go out, and they find executives, sometimes retired executives, or sometimes investors, who are willing to serve on the advisory board. It’s a little bit of work, I guess, to go out and find those folks.

And then, as an entrepreneur, you have to be really open and willing to listen to those folks, who have a lot of experience in that particular field. If you can’t afford, up front, to hire some of your dream management team, a lot of startup entrepreneurs meet with those folks on a regular basis. They take those folks to lunch. They kind of, informally, pick their brains, and keep them up-to-date, and get advice from those folks, until they’re at a point where they can start hiring.”

How to Stand Out

“I’ve seen companies build their differentiator on the quality of their service, the consistency of their service, their unfailing, uncompromising commitment to their customers. I guess, by doing that, [they’re building a brand], although not a brand like we would think of in the apparel business….I’ve seen a lot [of companies] that have become defensible [from competitors], just by way of their intellectual property rights. They spent the time and money to trademark, or patent, their ideas and their specific marketing language.”

Working Moms Work It Out

“I think it’s that constant juggle. I am definitely not in the office on a regular schedule, 40 hours a week. I try to pick my daughter up at two o’clock in the afternoon, when she gets off of school….It’s a lot of emailing until two or three o’clock in the morning, sometimes, after they’re in bed, and a not-very-orthodox-schedule, that’s for sure. But, it goes back to, if you’re doing something that you love to do, you just figure it out.”

This Featured Lady was profiled by Sarah Tomlinson, a freelance writer in Los Angeles.

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