PlayerLync CEO and co-founder Bob Paulsen believes persistence and flexibility, not perfection, is essential for successful leadership.
“You can do all the right things and not achieve the expected results … at least in the short term,” he said. “What’s important is to remain resilient and to welcome the biggest challenges, then to communicate your analysis and logical direction with the team. A vision is good to have, but there is no straight path to achieving any vision as the road is lined with surprises.”
PlayerLync was founded in 2011 and is a mobile workforce empowerment platform that helps companies like Starbucks, Chipotle and Southern Company Gas ensure that every frontline employee has the personalized and timely information they need to do their job, delivered automatically through their mobile device.
Paulsen left a prior telecom entrepreneurial venture to become part of a team of partners exploring ways to leverage their knowledge of content transmission and networking technologies. The executives found a niche in providing digital and secure playbooks to the Denver Broncos, then expanded to provide the same service to additional NFL teams.
“While we expanded our effort across sports, the media jumped on board with stories in the Wall Street Journal, ESPN, a full-length cover story in the Denver Business Journal, and others,” the company said. “One of these `publications caught the eye of a Chipotle executive who needed a more modern way to onboard their fast-growing employee base. As we were already looking for expansion opportunities to industries with massive mobile workforces, the timing of Chipotle’s outreach was ideal as it further validated the value of our MCM platform.”
Within four years, PlayerLync established itself as an emerging leader in the restaurant, retail and hospitality market, with over 150 customers. Paulsen has been key to leading these initiatives, guiding the company through its various stages of growth and setting the course for future expansion as the world moves more and more toward digital.
“Bob has had repeat success taking ideas from their infancy through to industry leadership in massive, emerging industries,” his staff said. “He has unparalleled discipline and business acumen keeping the ship on course while also understanding the need to flex to the needs of a market when appropriate.”
Paulsen’s career has been decorated by numerous awards and recognitions. He’s attended various speaking engagements, including the following: University of Wisconsin School of Business, University of Washington Foster School of Business, DU School of Entrepreneurship, FSTech Keynote, Startup Grind, Denver Startup Week, ESPN, The Wall Street Journal and numerous other stage and media appearances.
Despite that success and recognition, he’s still looking for the next opportunity, he said.
“I’ll always be in search of my next opportunity to improve, lesson to learn and great person with whom to connect,” Paulsen said. “I don’t actively strive to be ‘influential’ or to be an ‘industry leader.’ Those are by-products of doing the right things that drive positive results. I do try and give my all, every day, to be collaborative, innovative, disciplined, have utmost integrity, and to have fun. Mix those with sound business acumen, and you can achieve the kind of results that may warrant others to think of you as influential or as an industry leader.”
