Daring to Dream
The founder of Precise Software Solutions, a comprehensive IT solutions provider, dreams big— and has built the team, culture, and technology he needs to support his vision.
THE TEAM AT Precise Software Solutions, Inc. are problem-solvers. They help federal agencies use technology to solve business challenges and run their organizations more effectively. Precise is a small business, but customers are impressed by the breadth of its capabilities, which include system modernization and integration, data management, and strategic consulting for federal government agencies.
Zhensen Huang, founder and CEO of Precise Software Solutions, began government consulting five years ago. While working as a senior principal at a larger IT company, he saw many ways in which he could run a more nimble organization and drive benefits for customers. He believed he could start his own business and compete with larger ones by delivering more efficient and innovative solutions.
He was right. Precise made a name for itself in the federal space. Working with government clients, including the Food and Drug Administration, fueled its three-figure growth rate. In just five years, Precise grew from a team of one to 150 employees and subcontractors. In 2017, it brought in $17.6 million in annual revenue. This year, the team expects to hit $27 million. To accommodate this growth, Huang has had to move and expand the office. The company now has space in a high-end building in Rockville, Maryland, off a major highway frequented by D.C.-area commuters. Precise isn’t the largest tenant, but it’s one of only three with their logo on the building, alongside two large businesses.
Huang is quick to attribute his company’s success to the hard work of his employees. They give Precise a competitive edge, which means attracting and retaining talent is imperative. Jeffrey Page, the company’s vice president of operations, says the company’s core values—commitment, integrity, innovation, and diversity, play a big role here. Huang embodies these values, which sets the tone for the rest of the organization. “We intentionally promote a supportive culture of collaboration and openness. Our employees know there are no questions that can’t be asked—of our CEO or anyone on our team,” Page says.
It helps that the CEO himself isn’t afraid to ask questions. Huang says he knows he doesn’t have all the answers, so he surrounds himself with bright minds he can learn from. He is humble, but he dreams big when making decisions about the company’s infrastructure and processes. “When we were starting out, we could have chosen a cheaper accounting solution, but we went for a top-notch system that could support the growth we were planning for. This saved us the hassle of having to switch systems as we reached our growth goals,’ he says.
When it comes to the future, Huang is more optimistic than ever, because he has the foundation in place to support his vision: to be the top player in the space. Huang says Precise will continue to differentiate itself with agility and innovation, “not just in terms of technology, but also in terms of processes, and how we use automation to help customers do things more efficiently.” He will also stick to his simple, but powerful mantra: “Dream big, be humble, and work hard.”
scooters they already owned. And the thought occurred to him: If you attach a motor to the scooters, might grownups agree? VanderZanden found adult e-scooters made by Chinese manufacturers on Alibaba and ordered a few. And then a few more, and then a few more, until he found the Xiaomi M365. “I pulled it out of the box, and the thing looked like Steve Jobs himself had designed it,” he says.
VanderZanden and his wife, who were then back in San Diego, took the scooters to the boardwalk. Heads started to turn. “Everybody was like: ‘Where can I get one of those?’ My friends who took a ride would text me and call me and say, ‘Hey, can we go for another ride?’ People would get addicted,” he says.
The Xiaomi M365 became Bird’s launch vehicle, and, by April 2017, VanderZanden had incorporated Bird Rides and raised $3 million in seed capital, throwing in some of his own cash and convincing Sacks and others to participate. But let’s just say it took Sacks—who’d already watched VanderZanden flop twice—some time to warm up to this latest venture.
“He told me the idea of adult scooters and explained how riders would just leave them on the sidewalk, and I was incredulous. I thought he was crazy,” says Sacks. He invested anyway. “Once I went to Santa Monica, I realized it was magical,” he says, after he scootered to his destination, without waiting for a cab or sitting in traffic. “I started thinking about how big this idea could become, and realized that it’s transformational. You could have millions of these, and start displacing car trips for commuters—and eventually redesign cities.”
Bird’s modus operandi has remained remarkably consistent: Identify cities without laws proscribing e-scooters, launch a fleet of them, watch as people start scooting all over town, and then wait as city officials scramble to respond to the newfangled transport option. The price paid, as of November 2018, has been nearly half a million dollars in fines and court fees, hundreds of seized scooters, numerous cease-and-desist letters from angry government officials, and at least three lawsuits. One is a proposed class-action suit launched by nine plaintiffs who claim that Bird, Lime, and Chinese scooter manufacturers are responsible for shattered teeth and broken bones. In another filing, the city of Milwaukee branded Bird a public nuisance. And there have been two reported deaths associated with e-scooters, according to The Washington Post.
In response to such concerns, VanderZanden has said he doesn’t minimize the accidents, injuries, or deaths, but brings in another perspective: Automobiles kill more than 40,000 people annually in the U.S. The fewer the cars, the safer we’ll be, whatever the risks of e-scooters.
Still, in San Francisco, Bird’s launch-first, explain-later policy backfired after Bird, Lime, and Spin unleashed some 3,000 scooters on the city in March 2018—an event that won the tag “Scootergeddon.” San Francisco banned scooters until regulators established a pilot program, but when the city started licensing companies, Bird found itself on the outside looking in, as did Lime and Spin. (Scoot and Skip won the only permits.)
There’s also been some visible backlash from people outraged by the rideshare firms’ tech-punk attitude (see “There’s No Such Thing As Bad Publicity,” page 104). Birds and Limes have been crushed by trucks, pooped on, tossed off buildings, set afire, and heaved into oceans and rivers, as amply documented on the Instagram feed @BirdGraveyard. Such blowback isn’t always the stuff of funny social media posts. At Bird’s headquarters on Electric Avenue in Venice, burly-looking security guards stand behind a 10-foot iron gate. As Bird’s value crested $1 billion, physical threats against the company and VanderZanden ensued—a sobering touch at an office more inclined to startup whimsy, where each conference room is named after different avifauna: Dove, Eagle, Falcon, Penguin, Cardinal, Toucan, Robin, and, yes, even Big Bird. (“We scaled security as the company scaled,” a Bird spokeswoman said. “It was not because of a single event.”)
When especially tough local laws prohibit e-scooters, Bird sends in a cadre of policy wonks, lawyers, and lobbyists to persuade legislators to change them. These efforts are led by Bradley Tusk of Tusk Strategies, a former top aide to New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg who made his bones by spearheading Uber’s victorious efforts to take on regulators.
Tusk’s argument for Bird is this: If cities want to reduce traffic and greenhouse gases, they need people to rethink their approach. Why use a 4,000-pound automobile to go two miles when a bike or e-scooter can better handle that task? Micromobility—as this burgeoning industry of small electric vehicles is called—equals transformation. At least this is what Bird and its e-scooter siblings assert.
“Our mission is very strong: It’s to remove cars from the road, reduce traffic, reduce carbon emissions,” says VanderZanden, whose relentless drive is perhaps matched only by his dedication to stressing Bird’s vision at every possible opportunity. “Every city in the world could benefit from that.” More cannily, VanderZanden positions Bird as a means to amend what ride-hailing companies like his former employers Lyft and Uber have wrought—adding more congestion to cities. To correct that, America needs to let go of its “car addiction,” he asserts.
“There’s a shitload of money in e-scooters. We are talking trillions of dollars.” —Transportation analyst Horace Dediu