Episode 8: An Inc 500 Serial Entrepreneur

Jason Hauer is a serial entrepreneur and Inc 500 honoree. He has had a variety of roles and titles over his 20+ year career. He’s worked in information technology, market research, and sales. He’s founded and exited companies. Now he’s focused on disrupting with artificial intelligence.

Today, Jason is CEO of HauerX, a private equity and growth partnership company. He invests in and works with companies and founders primarily in the AI space. He puts his strengths as an activator, disruptor, and macro visionary to find opportunities for companies to grow and thrive.

Prior to founding HauerX, Jason co-founded and grew The Garage Group, a consulting company focused on brand growth and new product innovation with F1000 companies. As Co-CEO, Jason learned all about the excitement and challenge of growing a company rapidly. He ultimately exited the company.

Throughout his career, Jason has sought to avoid defining himself by a specific job or function. Rather, he has used principles to guide him on his non-linear journey.

5 Core Themes

Here are five themes you should take note of in your own career adventures.

Know Your Superpower

As Socrates said, “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” Honestly, knowing yourself is REALLY tough. It can take decades. It takes a lot of trial and error and self reflection. Someone I know once told me they didn’t truly feel comfortable in their own skin until they were 50. Give yourself some grace and freedom to explore. This will help you get closer to personal wisdom.

When asked about what he is focused on with HauerX, Jason talked about combining AI with innovation, insights, and sales. At a higher level, he discussed his strengths with associative thinking.

Your Energy Source

Where do you get energy? There is much more to energy than whether we are introverts or extraverts. Do you love understanding people? Do you enjoy working with your hands? Do you love analytics? Find your fountain of fulfilling energy to fuel your career.

For Jason, energy comes from connecting with leaders and focusing on growth.

Principles Guide You

What principles do you use to guide your career? Jason developed his ethos by combining reading and experiences. Jason learned the importance of contribution by reading The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker early in his career. Plus, his experiences working in IT, insights, and consulting helped him learn the importance of customer empathy.

Don’t Be A Feather In The Wind

Don’t confuse pivoting with being flakey. Careers require picking a path, walking it, and reassessing. Along the way we must always ask ourselves if the path still makes sense. Sometimes we find tangential routes that make more sense than the one we are currently traveling. This could be an off shoot that leads to the same end point. Or, it could be a full course correct.

Buy Then Build

Part of what Jason is doing with HauerX is evaluating businesses to buy. Call it entrepreneurship through acquisition (i.e. - ETA). This is a complicated and potentially risky path. Yet, it’s a path others like Jason have traveled. Beyond his own experience starting and selling The Garage Group, Jason read Walker Deibel’s book Buy Than Build. It’s focused on helping entrepreneurs skip the startup phase.

Listen to the Full Story

Jason is focused on pairing his sales and marketing skills and principle focused mind with founders and enterprises focus on disruptive growth. He found his way down this path by taking action and doing. Jason believes that knowing your super power and what energizes you is critical. Then, it’s all about getting out into the world and trying things thousands of times. We must stay focused on what we’re trying to accomplish, but should leave room for revising our path.

Enjoy the episode! Thanks for you support!

Paul G. Fisher

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