Adam Townsend Deluxe Bio. Directors Cut

I wrote this in 2013. One day I’ll update it, maybe.

This is the deluxe Adam Townsend biography with the bonus features. If you would like to know where I have worked and who I have met please visit my LinkedIn.

I grew up in the lower east side of Manhattan.

Almost every night we ate dinner at Leshkos on 7th and Avenue A. The restaurant is gone now. I have reached an age that I can say, like an earlier generation might have said about the Fillmore East or some other temporal artifact, ‘the young folk have no idea what is gone’. It wasn’t just a restaurant, it was an observatory. It was a safe place to watch the East Village in the late 60’s and 70’s.

I went to St Ann’s, then PS41, then Friends Seminary.

I decided to have a career in sales at a young age. Generations of my family had advanced degrees, were overworked, barely middle class, had multiple marriages and didn’t seem entirely satisfied or happy.

Desiring a different outcome, I chose the path they traveled less.

I went to work on Wall Street. I was the right person, right time, right place. The markets were wildly expanding, intellectual capital laborers were needed to reap and sow. High levels of testosterone, physical and emotional endurance and competitiveness; those traits that exhausted my family and friends, were prized here. I was home.

My clients and I acquired large positions in Micron and other semiconductor companies. This was the time frame that Windows 92 was just coming out and chips were a scarce and speculative commodity.

I was lucky, did well and when I had an opportunity to cash the big chips, I took it.

Wall Street taught me to have a complete system and environmental view. How to appreciate and manage complexity, volatility and imperfect information. And, that a smart guy who works hard beats a smart guy who doesn’t.

In 1996 the beginnings of Silicon Alley were forming and I was invested through several young VC funds that my Wall Street friends had started. 

I learned some more lessons:

Pseudo Programs was one such company. Its rival was broadcast.com run by Mark Cuban.

Josh Harris (Founder of Pseudo) was smarter. Mark was wiser.

For a brief stint I joined Pseudo as its Director of Sales. I saw that it neglected building real, rigid, processes around its people and financial management. This was consistent with how fast and recklessly companies were growing at the time.

A company I had invested in several years before was Administaff (now called Insperity) An outsourced Human Resources company, a PEO.

As an early investor I was given a right should I want to open up a franchise in a market away from the headquarters in Houston, Texas. I choose to exercise. However, the company decided (wisely) to change the model and buy back its franchise rights. Instead, in 1998 I became an early employee in its expansion markets. I was a salesman, but also an evangelist. Our clients then were the textbook definition of early adopters and chasm jumpers. Mostly innovative technology and financial service companies.

Administaff had just recently gone public and, always the deal maker, I thought a company I had made an investment in would complement it. As Administaff was outsourced Human Resources, this company, Virtual Growth, was outsourced accounting. In mid 2000 Administaff led a round of financing with Citigroup Ventures/George Arnold, Starvest/Jeanne Sullivan and Bessemer/Rob Stavis.

It is life changing to work closely with a real visionary, Paul Sarvadi, the founding CEO of Administaff and I was welcomed and useful inside a broad range of departments, included in board meetings, preparation and strategic planning. I was the right person, right place, right time.

I was fortunate to be there. When I joined the stock was trading around $20 from there it went to $2 a share. Within two years it had traded up to $60.

Lessons I learned:

  • Take all opponents seriously, don’t be arrogant. ADP, Administaff’s largest competitor at that time, had announced during their earnings call that they were going to “eat our lunch”. They did. ADP had made a tactical mistake announcing their intentions. We made an almost unrecoverable blunder not responding to this threat.
  • Operational excellence sustains innovation.
  • Manage geographical and industry risk. Economies have cycles and they can be devastating.
  • Headline risk is not just a textbook answer It is real. Clients react very badly to adverse headlines.
  • The best clients leave first.
  • Visionaries are courageous enough to listen to productive criticism and determined enough to know when not too.
  • Companies led by visionaries are not democracies. They are benevolent dictatorships. Accept that or don’t be there.

Going into 2006 I knew it was time to leave. The stock had done well and I was restless. At the end of 2006 I left to join Newtek as its VP of sales and marketing, and as a shareholder.

Newtek was publicly traded and I had known, and admired, its CEO for many years.

The strategic reason I joined is that I wanted to gain an insight into an alternate product distribution model, channel partners.

I was the right person, right place, wrong time. I still remain close with the CEO; he is a friend and a great guy. 

In 2008, almost a year to the day after leaving Newtek, I went to Gevity anticipating the acquisition by TriNet and funded by General Atlantic Partners of which I had become an investor and advisor.

And then….

I had a great 4 year career at TriNet. I left to invest in the newest generations of HR Tech and Professional Services Companies. Lots of great companies in the space, my favorite (right now) is Slack and Workday.

I am an LP of several Venture Capital and Private Equity firms and I am a very active part of a syndicate of family offices.

I am also way deep into being in great shape. I wrote about it here: Pivoting. The startup of me

The lightning round….

What am I proudest of?

  • My cognitive intelligence. Something in my brain allows me to connect dots really well.
  • Being aware of my shortcomings and compensating for them and my strengths and optimizing them.
  • Always trying to grow as a person.

One day I’ll update this, maybe