John Wright

Having a growth mindset is important.

 

John Wright has been the CEO at TrueDialog Inc since 2014.  He is a seasoned executive with over 25 years of experience in messaging technologies and startups. Before taking over as CEO of TrueDialog, John was Chief Sales Officer of Access USA Shipping, an international shipping and logistics company before its sale in 2014.  Wright started his career as a DBA for Data Services firm Acxiom Corporation.  There he started learning about building and managing large scale data warehouses for companies like Neiman Marcus for purposes of sending catalogs and driving in-store traffic. In 1997 he later became one of the founding team members of the Acxiom Digital team when they invested in email services company BigFoot interactive.

In 1998, he joined FloNework running and building the sales team, growing it into a 30 million in recurring revenue, and was established as one of the first and leading Email Marketing ASP’s (Application Service Provider) before its eventual sales to DoubleClick in 2001.  He then joined several of the original FloNetwork founders in forming and building an email archiving firm Fortiva (Acquired by ProofPoint in 2008), which specialized in proving compliance solutions for financial services companies.

At every business, John recognized the fundamental needs that technology could solve in connecting business with their customers more efficiently and in providing more relevant messaging that could be built-in cloud communications-based business solutions.

John grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas and earned his BA in Finance at the University of Arkansas.  When John is not working, he and his wife enjoy spending time with their 2 rescue beagles (GiGi and Grayson) and enjoying all that Austin Texas has to offer!

Where did the idea for TrueDialog come from?

TrueDialog was founded based on the rapid growth and adoption of SMS messaging as the preferred channel of communications for consumers.  TrueDialog was founded to enable businesses to easily reach their customers with texting to add convenience, speed and increase customer response rate and satisfaction.  Today more than 7 trillion text messages are sent each year and this channel has become more important than at any time in history for businesses to add into their communications platform.

What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?

Engaging with customers, prospective customers, investors, and employees. Being able to do that all in one day is always considered a VERY productive day.

How do you bring ideas to life?

Ideas typically come from problems and how to solve them.  Identify a problem. Start gathering information about the problem, come up with solutions to the problem, and select one and put a plan of action to address the problem.  Most great businesses are developed from somebody trying to solve a problem.

What’s one trend that excites you?

I’m tied between 5G Networks and RCS Messaging! I RCS messaging, which is coming to the United States, will transform the creativity and effectiveness of texting in the same way HTML email transformed email marketing when it was introduced during my time at FloNetwork.  RCS enables rich graphics, interactive links, and content and will boost business text messaging engagement and response where are already high response rates.

What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

Waking up early (best thinking happens early in the morning) – Also, making the bed every day.  No matter what happens in a day if you feel like you accomplished nothing, you can always say I accomplished one goal today and its typically when are getting into a made bed at night!

Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.

The Nile is the largest river that flows North.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Always ask questions

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

Build what customers need not what developers want to develop.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

Creating a Yelp type of business for business owners can use to rate customers.

What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?

I recently made a donation to Houston Beagle Rescue – provides food and medicine for dogs that are abandoned by their owners.

What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive?

Text Messaging and my text inbox are by far the most used application in my business (and personal) life!

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

Atlas Shrugged – it really shows that when people can pursue their own goals, production increases and life becomes meaningful.  It also shows how society falls apart when we deny human nature.

What is your favorite quote?

“We didn’t lose the game, we just ran out of time” – Vince Lombardi.

Key Learnings:

• TrueDialog was founded as SMS texting was becoming the preferred way for consumers and business owners to communicate easily and effectively.
• In addition, TrueDialog identified a growing need and took that opportunity
• Having a growth mindset is important.