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Q&A: Ben Curren, founder of pot-sales software Green Bits [San Jose Mercury News](San Jose Mercury News (CA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Oct. 10--It started with a vacuum cleaner. Take it apart, study its pieces, put it back together. Next came a TV set. Pretty soon a young Ben Curren was building gas-powered airplanes out of balsa wood. By the time he got to college, the Mountain View native was still building but now using computer code instead of wood. "It was the same process as building physical things," he said, "but now the product was virtual." Those building skills honed as a child would help Curren, a 36-year-old former Intuit engineer, go on to create startups and launch projects that all began by looking at a problem, taking it apart and studying it, then putting together a solution. Curren's latest venture is Mountain View-based Green Bits, a fledgling startup with four employees that provides point-of-sale and inventory-management software for the legal marijuana industry, now in 16 stores in Washington and more soon in Colorado. Curren, who is funding the business himself, spoke with this newspaper about the opportunities and challenges of his latest building project. His comments have been edited for length and clarity. Q So you had quite the peripatetic childhood? A I was born in Mountain View and grew up most of my life in the Bay Area. But because my parents divorced when I was very young, I moved a bit back and forth to Oklahoma. My time in Tulsa was like something out of "Friday Night Lights," where the head cheerleader would date the quarterback. The longest I went to one school was three years. Because of my moving around, kindergarten was one school and first grade was another and second grade was another. I went to nine schools by the time I turned 18. So I got really good at working and focusing in the middle of complete chaos. Which is why I'm good at startups. I was exposed to a lot of chaos and change and I quickly learned in the midst of it how to figure things out on my own. Q So how did you get from making model airplanes to the world of computers? A After returning to the Bay Area, I went to Cal Poly for aerospace engineering. I was very hands-on, less drawn to theory, and that seemed like a perfect fit for me. But soon reality set in and I realized that building airplanes was not a one-person job. And since I wanted to do something more hands-on, I switched my major to computer science after learning to write Java when I was 18 years old. Q Why computer science? A My parents had bought me my first computer when I got to college and I learned Fortran and was so excited by it. As a kid I'd always loved building things. At 12, I was hanging out at hobby stores, taking things apart, building airplanes, figuring it all out. With programming, I'm still building things, but you can do it almost for no money and no supplies. All you need is time and some thought. Q So you graduated from Cal Poly in 2002, then started your own software-development business before joining Intuit for a few years. Why did you leave in 2006? A I worked a software engineer on QuickBooks products for bookkeeping and accounting and then payroll products. I learned how to work in a large organization and get things done. But there were a lot of politics, which was really frustrating, since I'm not a very patient person. Because of company politics I was creating new products but couldn't even launch them. So I quit. Q After creating a couple of startups that attracted quite a bit of VC funding, you eventually ended up starting Green Bits this year. How did that idea come about? A I have this list of different technologies I wanted to play around with. Every time something annoys me, or something seems interesting, I put in on the list. After a six-month break, I felt energized again and wanted to build something that could be useful. I looked at doing something with drones and farming, but then decided on doing something for the cannabis industry. Q Why? A I don't recall what prompted the idea; maybe it was stories I'd read about this new industry in Washington and Colorado where voters have legalized recreational pot. I did some research and saw how fast it was growing and how much federal and state compliance was required to open and run a pot store. Since I'd done a lot of payroll and bookkeeping software development, I figured the store owners would need a special product to deal with all those regulations. So I flew to Washington for a three-day class on how to operate a pot store. There were about 50 people there and I asked them what software they were using and I quickly realized there was no good solution available for this heavily regulated industry. Q So how does Green Bits' software work? A There's not a lot of competition providing this sort of software with our kind of pedigree. This is Silicon Valley-quality software custom-tailored for this new business model. If you go to Target, you come with your basket of goods and the clerk quickly scans it all, with no expertise needed. We wanted our software to work like that in a marijuana store. You ring the customer up, and it's simple, but our software also ensures that you're in compliance with state and federal laws governing the sale of marijuana. A retail store has to buy from a licensed grower and those orders have to be filed with the state. Our software hooks into the state's system and we know all the government tracking codes required. So when a product first comes into the store, we tell the government that the store has received the order, that it's now been put on a shelf, and that it's now been sold. It's all simple and seamless. Contact Patrick May at 408-920-5689; follow him at Twitter.com/patmaymerc. 5 thingS ABOUT BEN CURREN 1. He learned to program Fortran when he was 18 years old as part of the Aerospace Engineering curriculum at Cal Poly. He loved programming so much that he changed majors to computer science and never looked back. 2. He loves all things that fly. He is a hang glider pilot and has flown airplanes and helicopters. For fun he builds drones and remote control helicopters and planes. 3. He thrives in chaotic and ever-changing environments. Growing up he frequently moved, going to nine schools by age 18. These experiences gave him the tools to adapt quickly to new situations, a necessary skill for entrepreneurs. 4. He can try your patience by questioning everything and he believes that you must understand why things are the way they are before you can successfully change them. 5. He is a lifelong learner who is always trying to improve and he's a frequent user of Coursera.com, where he takes college courses on technology, business, marketing, and finance for fun. BEN CURREN Birth date: Aug. 18, 1978 Birth place: Mountain View Position: CEO and founder of Green Bits Previous jobs: CTO and founder of Outright.com, Web-based bookkeeping software. He's the founder of multiple small consulting companies and was a senior software engineer at Intuit. Education: Bachelor's degree, California Polytechnic. Family: His wife, Genia Curren, is a stay-at-home mom for their two children, Olivia, 7, and Max, 3. Residence: Campbell ___ (c)2014 the San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.) Visit the San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.) at www.mercurynews.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |