The average American works 8.8 hours a day, 44 hours per week. The average entrepreneur works 63% more than that. So, when I had the idea for a tech start-up designed to transact raw materials, specifically lumber and wood products right now, you better believe I wanted to like the people that I was spending more time with than my family.
Joe Campagna (COO) and Ian Polakoff (CEO) signed on right away to be co-founders of MaterialsXchange (MX). They both come from the financial technology world and are invaluable to MX. We were excited about becoming a team and giving this idea some legs. We worked diligently together and accomplished a lot in a little bit of time, but there was that one lumber guy missing; the guy who knows lumber like I know lumber…
Leaving the corporate world for MX took a lot of consideration for Ashley Boeckholt (CRO) since he had been having great success as a director at Koch Paper and Pulp, but he and I have history; we cultivated our careers together. Ashley and I are both Bloch Lumber alumni, meeting on the job in our 20s. But Ash grew up at his dad’s lumber yard, so he already knew the ins and outs of the business when we met. (Ironically, my dad was a construction superintendent who actually bought lumber from Ashley’s dad back in the day.) A mentor who continuously taught me about lumber and fostering customer relationships, Ash eventually shared an apartment with me for a number of years and even stood up in my wedding. As is apparent, a lifelong friendship formed from a work one.
Our original boss, Ted Bloch, imparted determination, a will to succeed, and being an effective leader upon us. After Bloch Lumber, Ash and I took Mr. Bloch’s lessons on our different paths. Eventually, I was trading lumber electronically on the floor at the CME, and Ash went to Koch. But there was always that gnawing feeling that we could be doing more. We could do things the way we wanted to do them, to do them better—much as Mr. Bloch had done in creating his own company.
Now, lumber industry veterans in our 50s, we know that the quality of our relationships with co-workers greatly influences the quality of our work. So, it was natural for Ash and me to evolve from colleagues to friends to business partners in order to create the highest quality of work. Ash brought the respect of the lumber industry with him to MX. People trust his judgment because he is a forward thinker with an ability to analyze market dynamics in an unparalleled way.
Ashley and I trust each other. We challenge and understand each other to balance our strengths and weaknesses against the other’s. A working relationship like ours is not achieved overnight. My wife would say that we have a bro-mance. I would say that the backbone of our working success is friendship. Whatever its name, teamwork drives the MaterialsXchange ship.
Ultimately, quality comes from working closely as a team. You cannot just build a business; you build relationships with people, and people build the business. Throughout this journey, devoting ourselves to teamwork means that we have committed ourselves to overcoming obstacles with the support of each other. Whether starting a new company or refining an old one, relationships like Ash’s and mine come from a place of encouragement and backing each other. In the end, that teamwork piece is the key to benefitting the whole.
Mike Wisnefski, CEO of MaterialsXchange, is a devoted husband, father of two awesome kids, and passionate fly fisherman. MX is an electronic B2B marketplace for buying and selling raw materials, including lumber, OSB, and plywood. MX brings price transparency, efficiency, and a streamlined payment process to the building materials industry, and its network of digitally connected users communicate in real-time with instantaneous interactions.