It is easy to lose sight of what is important in life when you belong to an industry often consumed by corporate greed and self-serving ambition. However, entrepreneur and CEO of augmented reality streaming platform CrowdOptic, Jon Fisher is breaking the stereotype of the traditional businessman with his unique outlook on life and unconventional business approach.
Putting family first
Jon Fisher and his team have built two technology companies that are now owned by the top applicable acquirers in their industries, Oracle and AutoNation. As for CrowdOptic’s augmented reality technology, Business Insider claims they have "never seen anything like it.” However, Fisher made no qualms about his desire to start and sell businesses instead of running a company of his own in an interview this past week.
“I decided to choose the path of least resistance,” Jon said. “When you sell your product to someone great you can see your company go around the world, and the reach of your brand is much greater.”
Maintaining a business also requires discipline, hard work, and most of all: time.
While hard work is important in any business venture, sacrifices are often made that can take a toll on ones personal life; sacrifices that Fisher refuses to make.
“Spending time with family is most important to me.” Jon proclaimed. “It is good to have money and work hard, but even if I had the talent to make billions of dollars and it meant trading time with my family, I wouldn’t do it.”
Fisher and his wife will be celebrating 14 years of marriage next month, along with their 6-year-old daughter.
Jon emphasized the importance of family, not only in his personal life, but in his business as well. He has been working with the same team since he entered the tech world and sees them as sort of an extended family.
“While everyone defines success differently, I have become proficient at conducting a certain way of doing business on both the personal and business side.” Fisher states. “The benefit of having a long term team is that we trust each other, so we are able to have flexible schedules and spend more time with loved ones.”
Practice what you preach
As an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco, Fisher seeks to bring this business mentality into his classrooms by encouraging his students to “do good.”
Fisher discussed his concerns about how individuals who join the business world are expected to perform, stating that, “Unlike other professions, entrepreneurs are expected to have a constant outflow of “ah-ha” moments, when in reality there is much more planning and logic involved.”
In fact, Fisher claims most of these moments of inspiration, including the idea for CrowdOptic, originate outside of the business realm.
“I think the smartest I ever was, was around the time my daughter took her first steps.” Fisher recalled. “Various medical articles have discovered that first-time parents tend to meet milestones due to certain chemical releases in the brain,” he said, confirming his theory about the importance of family.
While people have a tendency to operationalize success in terms of economic prosperity, Jon Fisher truly believes in the process of innovation including the power of ideas, failure, and most of all family. Perhaps business moguls should take a page from Fisher’s book. The pursuit of happiness does not always entail the pursuit of money, and Jon is a testament to that.