Dave Copps combines creativity, clear vision to make Web searches more meaningful [The Dallas Morning News]

Aug. 01--Dave Copps is out to change the world in his own way.

He's been a pioneer in semantic search -- a way of understanding the relationship between words to create more meaningful Internet searches -- for more than a decade.

His 5-year-old PureDiscovery Corp. in Dallas formed an alliance last fall to power the giant electronic archive LexisNexis' intellectual-property research products, building a database of 200 million searchable documents.

Critics question the feasibility of a global Semantic Web, but Copps says the technology is on the verge of making it big, citing Google's purchase last month of San Francisco-based Metaweb to improve searches.

He's always been a trailblazer. By 25, he had started a handful of businesses.

"I never knew there was another option than to do my own thing," Copps, 48, said. "My mom tells me I used to do these things all the time -- lemonade stands and things like that."

He started his first business, a photographic marketing company, as an 18-year-old college freshman with $6,000 borrowed from his father. It failed, and he returned to school. Also during college, he started a profitable business selling pun T-shirts such as Hard Knock Cafe.

After graduating from the University of North Texas in 1986, he worked for a couple of local tech companies and built the first real-time news service on the Internet for WAVO Corp. in Dallas.

In 1999, he co-founded Engenium Corp., a $3.5 million-revenue semantic search company whose customers included the Pentagon, CIA and FBI. He sold it to Marsh & McLennan in 2006 for $27 million.

Two events have made a profound impact on Copps: His 23-year-old brother was killed in a car accident in 1987, and Copps had a brain tumor removed in 1989. While on the operating table, Copps said, he died for 25 seconds.

"Since then, I've cherished every moment," said Copps, who keeps the brain scan hanging in his closet as a reminder. "That really drives me."

He's one of those people who is as creative as he is analytical.He sails, brews his own beers, writes poetry and plays guitar in a rock band called the Brothers of Other Mothers. He has nine guitars, including a mother-of-pearl and abalone beauty by Austin artist Teye. He and his family escape each year to a house Copps owns on Bequia, a Caribbean island in the Grenadines.

Copps once brought along an electric guitar to a national conference to sing "The Internet Sourcer's Blues," a song he wrote, as part of his speech on the transformative Web.

"Dave is definitely an abstract thinker," said Earl Mann, a Washington, D.C., marketing consultant who has worked with Copps for a dozen years. "He sees a different angle in something common. His gift is that he can see things clearly and he can communicate that vision ultra-clearly. Most of the things he's talking about don't exist yet."Copps is a champion of local entrepreneurs, mentoring at Tech Wildcatters, a new seed-fund incubator program in Dallas.

"Dave got what we did from the beginning and gave us really good insight from technology to marketing to sales," said Vickie Morris, a principal of Brand Protection Agency, a 2-year-old Dallas company that just graduated from Tech Wildcatters. "He's been a serial entrepreneur so long that he knows all the ups and downs."

Last year, Copps co-founded CoHabitat, a co-working space for entrepreneurs in Uptown Dallas, which houses PureDiscovery's eight employees. But PureDiscovery is growing so fast -- Copps hopes to double his staff in the next year -- that he's looking for new office space. Copps expects to break even on $1.5 million in revenue this year and to double or triple revenue next year.

He recently hired a president for PureDiscovery to free him up to focus on what he does best -- creating a vision for the future.

"I need the operational people," Copps said. "I'm not the payroll guy. I'm the guy who gets out in front and moves the company toward great things."Birthplace: Dallas

Education: Hillcrest High School, 1980; bachelor's in industrial anthropology, University of North Texas, 1986

Family: wife, Margot; sons Austin, 11, and Spencer, 8

Biggest inspiration: My mom. She let me know there's nothing I can't do.

Biggest challenge: My life is not big enough to fill with all the things in my mind.

Biggest leadership lesson: You need to create something, instead of reacting to what's around you.

Best asset: Looking for the best in people.

Most extravagant purchase: My house in Bequia.

Favorite flick: The Jungle Book

Drives: Lexus SE 430