A Chat With Paal Gisholt, President/CEO, SmartPak Equine

I had been doing venture capital investing for the past 10 years, and you can pretty much break new business concepts into two categories. Once is a new technology looking for a killer application, and the other is new business concept or technical approach that solves a real problem in the marketplace. One is pushing technology around to find a home for it, and the other is very much a market-driven thing. There are some good examples of the former, such as Gore-tex W.L. Gore company, which has taken Teflon and put it into everything, but in my experience, I’ve had a lot more success when you find people who are feeling intense pain based on having a problem, and you come in with a really good, clever solution. The reason for that [success] is because when people are having that pain, they’re much more likely to change their behavior. And in my experience, that’s the toughest thing to get customers to do—change their behavior. They’ll really only do it, and only in substantial numbers, if you’re solving a problem for them. Our philosophy has been: Don’t just offer products, solve problems.