Alex Lepe
Ed Cox thought he’d be a jazz musician, going so far as to enter the Berklee College of Music in Boston after high school. The realization set in there. “Despite practicing six to eight hours a day, there were a whole lot of other people around the world who were a lot better than I was,” Cox, who plays the piano, says. Cox, who grew up in Arlington, transferred back home to the University of North Texas.
While in school, he got a job serving legal papers. That led to starting his own process firm before he graduated college. The relationships he built led to law school, which led to the formation of his own firm, which specializes in construction. Cox has grown his practice significantly in the two years since he joined the Entrepreneurs’ Organization’s Fort Worth Accelerator program for entrepreneurs who don’t yet have the required $1 million in annual sales for EO membership. Cox earned EO membership a year ago. And this year, he’s agreed to take over leadership of the Accelerator.
Working in College
I needed to put myself through college. I got a job serving citations and subpoenas for a retired constable in Tarrant County. Then I started my own private process business. I ended up putting myself through school doing that. I had 20 law firms in the DFW area.
Why the Law? I had a government class that I just loved. Through the private process business, I met a lot of lawyers. They were fascinated by my stories of what would happen when I would go serve process papers. As I got to know more lawyers, I began to realize I could make a living doing this.
Sneaking Into an On-Campus Job Interview I was in the middle of [my law school] class. Because of my class rank, I wasn’t eligible for a lot of those interviews. I stuck my resume [in the folder] for one firm. (The recruiter was a UNT graduate.) He picked me for an interview solely because I was a North Texas graduate. He extended me an offer to work over the summer in Houston, then fulltime.
Next moves: Joining North Texas firm in construction law, then forming a firm with two other lawyers, then starting his own in April 2009.
We are working on developing our law practice and title company. I’m a licensed escrow officer in addition to being an attorney. We are 75 percent legal and 25 percent title. I’ve got six attorneys, including myself, and 11 employees.
Breaking Into EO I have been working with a life coach for several years. She encouraged me to check out EO. I joined the Accelerator two years ago. My business had been ebbing and flowing on the cusp of that million [dollars in sales required for EO membership].
The Accelerator Experience I was placed in an accountability group (with other Accelerator members). The Accelerator uses the book “Scaling Up.” The program allowed me to get out of the day-to-day as a lawyer and think about the business. At the end of the first year, I qualified for EO and moved to six lawyers from three while in the program. And I still belong to my Accelerator accountability group.
Accelerator’s Success Since Inception in Fall 2014 We’ve had seven graduates, five of which have gone on to join EO. With the current participants, plus graduates plus people who have come/gone, we’ve had a total of 28 people participate in the program.
What He’s Learned From EO Here’s an example of something I would never have thought to do. Every day, we’d come into the office and start working. [My EO coach] suggested a daily huddle. We meet every day at 8:30. We meet standing up. Everybody shares our wins they’ve had in the last 24 hours, a personal goal for the day, a professional goal for the day, and any roadblocks they see getting in the way. What that daily huddle brought was a togetherness that had not existed before.