My favorite gadget?: Yoga mat!

One year ago, “Found|READ contributor Luke Sontag”:https://gigaom.com/2007/05/11/passion-spotting/ co-founded “Vidoop”:http://www.vidoop.com/technology.php, a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based start-up which plans to change the way companies secure their websites, as well as the consumer experience of logging into them. As Sontag puts it, if he and his team have their way, “the days of your ‘pet’s maiden name’ as username and password are over.” Vidoop debuted it’s login authentication technology at “Web2.0 Expo”:http://www.vidoop.com/about_us.php in April this year, to “some nice reviews”:http://www.oreillynet.com/conferences/blog/2007/04/wired_web_20_expo_vidoop_and_t.html.

This interview with Luke is the inaugural piece in our new series: *”10 Questions with a Founder,”* in which we’ll introduce Found|READers to a unique entrepreneur and, hopefully, reveal to you a bit more about what the mind, and life, of a founder is really like.

Since my chat with Luke took place while I was trying to break away for the airport, he got jipped and only had 8 questions to answer. Luke being Luke, we think his responses are still fun and instructive. But tell us what you think.

*1) What is the first thing you do when you get up in the morning?*

Yoga. I go to sleep with my yoga mat right next to me. I wake up, roll out of bed, and do about 30 minutes of Iyengar yoga every day, even when I travel. We have a lot of activity going on right now, and so the yoga helps me by consciously taking my activity down a notch.

*2) Tell us something revealing of your personality that you also believe has contributed to your success.*

I have eight friends whom I’ve known since kindergarten.

*3) You’re not a coder, and you have people now who handle sales. Other than managing staff or fund raising, what do you spend most of your time doing as a founder?*

If I’m at the office late, it’s because I’m reading. I read all the time — basically, whenever I’m not doing something else. I read blogs, newsfeeds, magazines — everything I can get my hands on to keep up on what’s happening in our industry, which is site security, or trends in the “OpenID”:http://openid.net/ movement, which I think will be the future of our industry. We’re not based in Silicon Valley. We’re in Tulsa, Oklahoma. But our “patent lawyers are”:http://www.wsgr.com/WSGR/Index.aspx, and our “PR maven”:http://lastfridayladieslunch.net/whoissylvia/index.htm, Sylvia Paull, is also. I found them both from reading up on our industry to figure out who the important people are.

4) *So you’re a big weblog reader. But what is your favorite book?*

Ayn Rand’s _Atlas Shrugged_. I like for the same reasons everyone else does: it’s a book about rebellion. Besides the important tech blogs, like TechCrunch or GigaOM, I really like “Mark Cuban’s blog”:http://www.blogmaverick.com/, and Sun CEO “Jonathan Schwartz’s blog”:http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/, it’s great. Of course, now I read Found|READ regularly, too.” _See Luke’s earlier contribution on the topic of talent spotting_”:https://gigaom.com/2007/05/11/passion-spotting/.

*5) Is there a business leader whom you consider a role model, who is not in tech?*

Sure. Patagonia founder “Yvon Chouinard”:http://www.patagonia.com/usa/patagonia.go?assetid=2047. He is a guy who stuck to his guns and built a business in a truly different way — not just to make money (although he has done that) — he just wanted to make quality gear for his buddies. I admire that. He wrote a great book about his management philosophy: “Let My People Go Surfing”:http://www.patagonia.com/web/us/search/esearch.jsp?OPTION=ESEARCH&N=0&Ntt=Yvonne&search.x=0&search.y=0.

*6) What is the _least_ “founder-like” thing you do on a daily basis, besides yoga?*
I never take my PC home with me at night.

*7) What is your most precious possession?*

My class ring from “Subiaco Academy”:http://www.subi.org/, the boarding school in Subiaco, Arakansas where I attended high school. Subiaco is an all boys Catholic school, run by monks, and I think–besides being a founder–going there has been by far the most defining experience of my life. Like a lot of adults, they taught us kids that we could do anything, but they also told us that we should do it with a BIG-a@! piece of Humble Pie. I think about that all the time.

*8) We get a lot of questions from our readers about how to find a co-founder. So what was it about your co-founder Joel Norvell that told you he was the right person to found your company with you?*

I met “Joel”:http://www.vidoop.com/management.php seven years ago at the gym. He’s a former dancer, and is very disciplined about his physical fitness. I used to see him there regularly, every single time I went. He wasn’t one of these people who comes and goes or exercises in faddish fits. That tells you something about a person, when they care about their physical health. And it also told me that he is consistent and dedicated, which are important values in a future partner. I guess that was one simple thing that told me right away that we share some of the same values.

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