Andy Wilson ’01, co-founder and former CEO of Logikcull, built a company that changed how the legal world handles data—and has the tattoos to prove it.

On his right forearm, the words “Never Give Up” are inked in Gaelic, honoring his Scottish roots. On the left, the same phrase appears in Arabic, a tribute to his wife’s Iraqi heritage. It’s a personal motto etched in two languages, but one unshakable belief: perseverance.

On April 18, he returned to the Pamplin College of Business, where he earned his Bachelor of Science in Management Science and Information Technology, to share the lessons he learned navigating the wild, sometimes punishing, world of startups. Today, Wilson has mostly stepped back from full-time entrepreneurship and now advises early-stage founders. But the fire is still there—and so is his gift for telling it like it is.

That mindset proved essential for someone who launched a startup from his home that would go on to transform the eDiscovery industry—the process of collecting, reviewing, and producing electronic data for legal matters—and eventually sell in 2023 nine figure acquisition.

But before the payoff, there were payroll crises. Imagine facing the very real possibility of not making payroll—then imagine your company is later acquired in a major deal. Wilson poured years of sweat equity into building Logikcull, and he doesn't sugarcoat the journey.

If At First You Do Succeed, Try, Try Again

Logikcull didn’t take a straight path to success. It started as intuitive software aimed at large-scale litigation, enabling companies and law firms to sift through massive data troves and make sense of it all. It was smart. It was timely. It was working.

Then came the 2008 financial crisis. Revenue dropped dramatically. Most would have taken the exit—sold the company and moved on. But not Wilson and his co-founder, Sheng Yang ’01.

Over a bottle of whiskey and a lot of hard thinking, they decided to pivot. They reimagined Logikcull not just as a legal tool for big firms, but as a universally accessible, cloud-based platform powered by machine learning and AI. It could handle everything from emails and videos to texts and Slack messages—helping anyone from lawyers to journalists quickly and affordably navigate oceans of information.

This resulted in a platform used by everyone from corporate legal teams to watchdog reporters filing Freedom of Information Act requests. A disrupter in every sense.

The Secret Sauce: Ikigai and Inversion

So what does it take to build the next Logikcull?

Wilson points to the Japanese concept of ikigai—a framework that helps align your passions, talents, and the world’s needs. He challenges aspiring entrepreneurs to answer four deceptively simple but deeply revealing questions:

  • What am I good at?
  • What do I love to do?
  • What can I get paid to do?
  • What does the world need?

Once those are clear, the next step is to find a market that’s broken—a market struggling due to bad tech, poor service, or opaque pricing. Then, invert it.

“Hopefully it’s a large or emerging market,” he says. “And then just turn everything upside down.”

But even the best idea won't matter if you forget the most important ingredient: the customer. He emphasizes creating a culture of customer obsession from day one and notes, “Customer. Customer. Customer.”

He also points to removing bureaucracy. “Somebody messes up, and you create a rule. Do that for five years, and you’ve got a thousand rules,” he says, rolling his eyes.

Instead, embrace the Virginia Tech mentality. “Grit…is killer,” he says. “Lean into that. That’s going to be way more valuable in the future than just being good at memorizing stuff.”

Watch the full fireside chat.

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