Webinar Recap: Lessons Learned from Toby Rush - One of Kansas City's Most Successful Serial Entrepreneurs

Adaptation is the name of the game for entrepreneurs, bankers and investors of all kinds, and in the era of COVID-19, adaptation is the way we all take in meetings and information.

So it was at the first ACG KC virtual April 10 breakfast meeting, where more than 100 people “gathered” online to hear the story of Toby Rush, one of Kansas City’s most successful serial entrepreneurs.

The discussion, which was led by Greg Kratofil from Polsinelli, featured everything that is new about our world today, including a Zoom background of better days when the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl, to Rush’s daughter popping in and out to gather school work from the family printer in his office.

In the presentation, Rush offered solid advice and lessons learned from his life growing up on a farm and his later corporate and entrepreneurial experiences.

Rush’s entrepreneurial story starts on his family’s farm in northern Kansas – even though he didn’t realize it at the time.

“I learned about running a business there, and I didn’t even know it,” he said. “I heard my dad talking about selling futures, hold futures, cash liquidity, etc. It was the day-in and day-out running of a businesses.”

As a 10-year-old he raised and sold pigs. In high school he ran his own hay crew, again not realizing the valuable experience and lessons he was taking in along the way.

While earning a degree in engineering at Kansas State University, Rush fell in love with software, combining his creative and logical sides.

After graduation, Rush joined Accenture. He moved to Houston for a time before returning home and launching his first company, Rush Tracking Systems. That experience taught him the importance for a small company to have a strong board of directors to both advise and shoot straight when needed.

“When we were selling our LOI wasn’t as high as I thought it should be,” Rush remembered. “One of my board members looked at me and said, ‘The first exit is always the hardest. This is a fair deal. You’re just being greedy.’”

Message heard; lesson learned, Rush said.

Rush’s next company, EyeVerify, learned its tough lesson early on. The technology, using biometrics from eyes as a security measure in a cell phone, was fairly robust. The problem was that cell phones were just starting to become ubiquitous as cameras. No one was yet a selfie expert, knowing just where to focus to make a good picture or to let a scanner record anything.

“Early on what we showed was painful – a terrible user experience,” he said.

EyeVerify wanted businesses to be their customer, but businesses were slow to jump on the bandwagon. Things started changing when Apple Pay became normalized. And EyeVerify changed its focus to selling to banks and other financial institutions.

Rush also points to the team EyeVerify built as a key to its success.

“It was a diverse team in all aspects of the word,” he said. “And it was a low-drama team.”

Having confidence in his team was certainly a key to the process that was EyeVerify’s sale to Ant Financial (it was Alipay at the time of the sale and is still an affiliate of Alibaba).

That process was long, hard and taxing, culminating in a bidding war and trip to China to sign an offer sheet.

In the middle of all of that, in December of 2015, Rush hit the proverbial wall. He credits his wife, JoAnna, with getting him through that.

“There was so much pressure,” he said. “JoAnna looked at me and said, ‘Go do what you were called to do. We’ll still be here.’”

In 2016, the sale was completed and Rush took his place on the Alibaba leadership team – an honor in and of itself.

His first Alibaba strategy session was a lesson in how the company has been successful: The message was to stay humble and always listen to your customer.

After his EyeVerify exit, Rush took a minute to decide what he should do next. The answer came to him out of his desire to give back. He is hoping to launch a venture studio effort that will help startups – very early startups – with money, mentorship and finding a path to success.

“We’d like to start with 15 companies each year for four years,” he said. “We want to use the studio as a platform to pull resources together in Kansas City.”