Mike Farley is the CEO of Tile, the company behind the wearable gadget of the same name that tracks and locates small essentials. In this interview, he shares his everyday carry, some insight gained from leading a company, and his secret to achieving your goals and realizing your dreams.
For our readers who are not familiar with your profession, could you explain what you do and what your day-to-day is like on the job?
I have the best job in the world, I’m the CEO of Tile. If you have ever lost or misplaced anything, we provide a service that helps know where your stuff is and get back all that wasteful time searching for misplaced items. Using our app you can have your keys, wallet, or anything else show up on a map or beep so you can easily find them.
Every day I get to lead a great team of amazing people to make sure we are delivering the best of class support to our current customers. As CEO, I oversee all departments, including engineering, public relations, marketing, finance, and operations. The feedback we get from our community every day motivates me and the team to make sure we are engineering an amazing product.
From where do you draw inspiration?
Since I was child I was always a huge fan of the Rocky movies. The underdog overcoming all odds with hard work and passion is so powerful. Starting a company is very similar, you just have to keep powering forward. At Tile we call it the “wolf” mentality, where I encourage everyone to push the boundaries and create the new. When looking at the other great leaders in the world, it’s one thing to see the greatness they have achieved and strive to be like them, but it’s a great challenge to aim to get to that next level that no one has seen yet or imagined. As often quoted in history, the best way to predict the future is to create it. It’s a blend of creativity and hard work that makes that happen.
Besides your career, what else are you passionate about?
I am really passionate about music. I am a jazz saxophonist and am still able to weave in some jam sessions in between board meetings and production pushes. I read a lot and travel as well.
I think you can learn a lot about business and tech from the arts. Silicon Valley has a reputation for being all about the tech – but what music has taught me is that the user experience is often what sets tech apart from utility. It’s more about being human and having a product that fills a need of the human condition – in this case, “Honey, have you seen my keys?”
Artists have a very unique way of looking at the world. Often there is no reference point or foundation, but just a blank score and the motivation to try something new. And often playing with other musicians, you learn about collaboration and being able to identify patterns and opportunities that cannot always be planned out. Taking what I learned from music has had a profound impact on how I approach business.
What’s in your everyday carry?
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View Mike Farley’s Full Everyday Carry
My everyday carry is a blend of tech, music, and style. Everything is about craftsmanship, soul, and efficiency. For example, I carry two phones so I can keep in touch with family and also test out beta functionality for the Tile Community. I love my Apple Watch, but choose the Movado if I am attending a formal gathering. The last part of my EDC is about music and writing, which are very important to me. There is something about dabbling in analog that opens up the soul and makes for a better week, and brings clarity to everyday impossible problems. So much of technology is focused on the left brain, where part of my everyday carry allows me to work from the right brain as well. This interdisciplinary approach provides a creative foundation for how I approach life and work.
Why do you EDC?
The basis for Tile was to be able to keep track of the things that matter to me every day. In many ways, this is the essence of EDC. The things I carry with me everyday represent an elegant mix of design and utility — my two phones and Apple Watch for app testing and keeping connected to the world, my Moleskine notebook that helps me keep track of inspiration when it hits, and lastly my music gear. Although I am always thinking about work, I make time to listen to my favorite album or break out the saxophone for my creative release and some mental clarity.
Is there a particular everyday product you’ve been meaning to add to your EDC? If not, what’s your favorite item out of all your daily essentials?
Something that I recently added was my Apple Watch. It seems so simple, but only having to glance down at my wrist for key moments in my day, versus opening an app or pulling out my phone has really enhanced my productivity. I also think it represents a new kind of object that is more about layers of interactivity as opposed to a single use case. For example, I used to do the “pocket pat down” to make sure I had my three essential things, but now I just glance down at my Tile Watch app and see that all my stuff is with me. Plug aside, the Watch does not make sense for all apps or interactions, but it changes enough of the small moments of my day to make a difference so I can spend that extra time on other things.
Do you have any recent accomplishments or interesting projects in the works that you’d like to tell us about?
Several weeks ago we had someone in Belgium recover their stolen van using our product. It’s extraordinary that our device helped someone get back their car because another Tile user walked by the stolen vehicle and reported the location to the owner’s phone. It represented a big tipping point that our data already had validated that the members of our community were really global at this point.
Given your profession, what advice, tip, or secret would you offer to our readers?
Now is the time to act. If you have an idea, project or goal, go for it, NOW. It’s never too late to make it happen. Also, achieving anything substantial is not going to be easy. If it were, everyone would be doing it. Know that there will be hiccups, but that’s the fun part. When it looks like there’s no way you can make it work, persistence and drive will help you break through. Never underestimate the power of persistence!
Photos courtesy of Tile
This is a sponsored post presented by Tile.
