For as long as he can remember, John Knapp has been involved in some form of teaching, coaching or training others to make technology a creative tool. When the graphic arts industry began its transformation from pictures to pixels, leveraged by the power of desktop publishing, John positioned his first company, Binary Graphics, to help west coast companies retool, pick up a new artist’s brush called a mouse, and capitalize on a new language called Postscript.
Today, the language is ASP, ROI , or XML, but John still speaks it fluently. As the founder of such creative entities as StartupAlliance.org and the HowZone, the product is still the same — know-how that makes a difference in people’s lives. The mission is helping people use real-world knowledge to build better companies and make better decisions.
Back in the first age of digital enlightenment, the digital print design era, Northwest clients like REI couldn’t help but thinking, “We make so many catalogs, we might want to make them with a computer.” They came to John and asked for help setting up their production environment. So did Sun Sportswear and Associated Grocers, Boeing, Seafirst and Microsoft and a lot of the printers in and around the northwest. John found himself travelling cross-country giving seminars and lectures in the graphic arts industry. “While Binary Graphics has not been my primary focus for a handful of years I still to this day have occasional pre-press and desktop consulting contracts. I only take on the more challenging and interesting projects at this point.”
History began to repeat itself in ’94-’95. “There was a growing demand among my customer base to help support their foray to the web. I created a company called Kiket to help deliver desktop publishing training materials through the Web. I quickly realized that there was a greater opportunity to provide assistance to other companies who wanted to train their staff and customers via the Web. So Kiket became focused on helping other companies harness the power of online learning.”
When the online learning market was growing too slowly, he built out his knowledge transfer technology designs and gave it a focus which became HowZone. (http://howzone.net) Conceptually, HowZone is a knowledge exchange, a compilation of information from countless sources where individuals can collect the information that matters to them into their own private collection. “HowZone enables a new type of value exchange where manufacturers get closer to their customers using something more valuable than rebates or special offers. With HowZone, it’s knowledge that drives sales.” Here again, the desire to impart helpful information to others was John’s creative vision.
“At the time, I found myself looking for other founders and entrepreneurs to discuss business issues with, founders who were dealing with similar business challenges. I didn’t see a networking group that had what I wanted so I made one!” StartupAlliance.org was the result. (it was originally named Founder’s Tuesday in Fall of 2000) “It’s a very powerful association of brilliant individuals,” says John.
“I believe very, strongly in the power of entrepreneurship and education. Especially in a difficult market, some of the people I come in contact with are unclear what they need to do to make it. They can get frustrated and go away in which case we all lose, or they can get smart and do something innovative in which case jobs and value are created. If I can help them get the knowledge they need to get off the ground I will do so. Our first event was called “Financial Models that Hold Water” and it’s been an evolution from there as far as topics go. StartupAlliance.org is a group that is helping entrepreneurs build better companies.”
An intelligent risk-taker taking a quick trip down the block on his Yamaha FZR1000.
