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Inside the Mind Of A
Serial Entrepreneur

Jeff Lawson leads another winning venture.

ADAM FINKEL I SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

T

alk to the standout young
minds in America — leaders
in their fields under 40 —
and you'll see a key lesson
they learned from their parents. It's a
keen realization that you control your life.
You'll hear examples of siblings being
raised on the philosophy that they need
to learn from their own mistakes.
"It seems self-evident," one young
tech prodigy told me, "but so many
people never learn it because they're
too busy doing X to achieve Y — doing
homework to please parents, studying for
exams to get into law school — without
ever asking themselves if Y is the right
thing for them. Once you realize that your
life is your chunk of time, you face this
wonderful — if perplexing — challenge
of how best to carve it."
At 35, Jeff Lawson of San Francisco
has carved an enormously successful life
around technology, family, friends and
community — never forgetting his roots
in Detroit.
Versity.com, a previous company
Lawson started with fellow University of
Michigan grads Michael Krasman, Brian
Levine and Jeremy Lappin, raised $12
million in funding and eventually sold
for $80 million. Earlier this year, Forbes
magazine showcased Lawson as a "next-
generation leader in enterprise software."
Over the past few weeks, Internet
posts announced that Lawson's current
company, Twilio, recently raised a $70
million Series D round of funding, with a
valuation of nearly a half-billion dollars
and expected revenue in 2013 of $50
million. Reporters have speculated that
Twilio could have a public offering over
the next year.
Lawson graduated from Andover High
School in Bloomfield Hills and earned a
computer science and film degree from
the University of Michigan. He is back
regularly to see family. His wife, Erica, a
pediatric rheumatologist in San Francisco
at the UCSF School of Medicine, also
grew up here. Her parents are Fred and
Evelyn Freeman.
Lawson's road to becoming one of
Silicon Valley's standout entrepreneurs,
however, started well before his

32

Erica, Micah and Jeff Lawson

participation in BBYO's AZA or Willoway
Day Camp.

The Early Years

Lawson's creativity was displayed early
and often. The many times he'd take
things apart showed a child constantly
thinking differently about things,
challenging how things are and asking
questions beyond his years.
There was one particular example in
the 1980s when young Jeff, then age
7, built his own VCR — only to realize
shortly after that it would not work.
The son of Dr. Larry Lawson and Gail
Lawson, both of West Bloomfield, would
go on to many additional projects in his
youth, including a videotaping business
around his bar mitzvah years.
Growing up, those in the Lawson
residence emphasized the power of
knowledge. Quizzes about facts could
arise while driving in the car or while
waiting in line at the supermarket. Even
dinners were a source of intellectual
inquiry.
Lawson's sister, Rabbi Rachel Shere of
Adat Shalom Synagogue in Farmington
Hills, said that when a question arose
around the dinner table, their dad would
dash into the other room, grab a volume
of the 1983 World Book Encyclopedia
and bring it back to the kitchen so the
answer could be researched together.
When Shere was in third grade and
Jeff was in kindergarten, they used to

play the game "Lemonade Stand" on
their Apple Ile computer. Even at that
age, Lawson showed striking maturity
about business and technology. He would
outsell his sister every day of the week.

A New Endeavor

Today, Lawson is the CEO of Twilio, co-
founded in 2008 by him and two other
entrepreneurs from Michigan, Evan
Cooke and John Wolthuis, both U-M
grads.
Twilio is on a mission to change
communication forever. The company
empowers developers to build
communication tools from mobile
customer support and short-message
service (SMS) alerts to predictive
dialing and automated surveys. Not too
long ago, voicemail was the biggest
communication innovation in 20 years.
Today, Home Depot runs its global
customer support center on Twilio's
technology, and eBay automates
workflow communication with Twilio.
In fact, Twilio's 150 employees help
companies, universities, political parties
and charities around all corners of the
globe.
During a discussion with the Detroit Jewish
News, Lawson showed a genuine interest in
the entrepreneurial scene in Detroit.
Gregg Hammerman, an entrepreneur
in Ann Arbor and a friend of Jeff's for 15
years, remarks how Lawson always takes
time to connect with entrepreneurs in

the area when he returns, and he is
always willing to help.
"As long as I've known Jeff,"
Hammerman said, "he has always had
extremely creative ideas that synthesize
how technologies just gaining a toehold
will shape the future. That was the case
with his work at Versity, Stubhub, ideas
for network-enabled backups, car-to-car
communications and Twilio."
To Lawson's family and friends, he
has always been incredibly easy going
with a good sense of humor. People just
want to be around him, they say, so he
naturally creates community wherever
he goes.
Shere emphasized that though her
brother works incredibly hard, he always
makes time for family.
"When he's in town, we often talk
late into the night. When the rest of us
head to bed, however, he heads to the
24-hour Starbucks where he works until
dawn. And somehow, just a few hours
later, he's always chipper 'Uncle Jeffie'
when our boys jump into bed with him
first thing in the morning."
The siblings were raised by their
parents and grandparents to deeply
value their Jewish identity. Growing
up, the family attended Adat Shalom
Synagogue. Shere said that Jeff and
Erica's son, Micah, absolutely lights up
when they sing "Dayenu" and "Tree of
Life" to him. Even with his demanding
schedule, Lawson often makes time to
attend services and read from the Torah.
While venture capitalists globally
compete to find the next Twilio,
community leaders worldwide can learn
even more from Lawson's story. It's
emphasized in the weekly calls Dr. Larry
Lawson makes to his two children to
catch up before Shabbat.
The "next big idea" won't be a
hyped-up overnight success story. It
won't come from a fundraising gala
or a new building. It will be rooted
in the enduring values and regular
communications that hit close to home.
Twilio shows how communication can
be a big business; Lawson shows how
communication can be a catalyst for
good. ❑