How James Clarke founded Clearlink: Then sold it and bought it back.

• Author: Clarke, James

SIMILAR TO MANY KIDS GROWING UP among the potato fields of southeast Idaho, I've been working for as long as I can remember. Despite my family not being farmers, everyone I knew seemed to have a job working to support the agricultural community in which I was raised. It was through these work opportunities and my now decades in business that I harvested the lessons that allowed me to found Clearlink--then sell it--and now return to it once again as CEO.

I learned my work ethic and my core values from my family. We had a Clarke family crest reading "Labor and Honor." We also had the example from my grandparents and parents that labor done with honor is the only acceptable way to go about one's work, whether the task at hand is big or small. I learned from my aunt Sybil--a legendary business leader and philanthropist--that success in business only becomes meaningful when the fruits are shared generously with others.

In college, I learned that I wanted to be my own boss while working for an extremely difficult manager. This was the kind of boss about which they make movies! Let your imagination run wild, and it might come close to what I experienced. While personally challenging, the experience was a great nudge into entrepreneurship. I am now forever grateful to my former manager because I don't know if I would have been inclined to get out on my own and start my own business without that type of hardship. After that, I vowed that I'd never work for somebody else again. Consequently, I started a first-of-a-kind door-knocking satellite dish sales company with a roommate and a couple of other friends. After a few years there, I found myself in a place where I yearned for more.

It was early 2000, and everyone was still talking about the internet's many possibilities. I learned that I could write my own destiny--and that it was not easy--as I worked alongside talented colleagues who became lifelong friends. I managed teams selling satellite dishes and shared office space with fellow founders and entrepreneurs like Todd Pedersen, CEO and founder of Vivint; Ryan Smith, founder of Qualtrics and owner of the Utah Jazz; as well as Sean Clark, VP of MX. It was a world-class group and a great place to learn what entrepreneurship was about and feel the excitement and drive of those with whom I found myself working. It was one of the greatest gifts one could imagine in the opening years of a career.

FOUNDING CLEARLINK ... AND TURNING A PROFIT

I had been sending sales teams throughout the country, but as I made the move in late 2001 to start Clearlink, I found myself in extremely choppy waters. The dotcom bubble had burst, capital markets were completely dry, and people didn't believe in the internet anymore-which I know is hard to believe, but it's true. I needed to provide for my new and now expectant bride, so I didn't have a way out. I didn't have a ripcord that I could pull and return to work for another company. I...