Ten Years at Analytics8!?

It doesn’t feel like it’s been ten years, but it must be true since the LinkedIn anniversary congratulations are coming in. I started Analytics8 in the US ten years ago when I merged the one-man shop I had just opened with a small BI consulting company from Australia. Today, we’re experiencing a “growth spurt” with about fifteen open headcounts and planning a West Coast presence, among other growth plans.

Ten years ago, I had recently left Business Objects.  I was doing independent contracting and had just formed an “S-Corp” with plans to grow.

I got a call that modified my plans and led to the founding of Analytics8 LLC.

Alex Brown, a good friend and colleague from both MicroStrategy and Business Objects, called. He had relocated to Australia a couple of years prior and had become a partner in a BI consulting company called Analytics8. By the time he called me in 2005, they were doing pretty good business and were looking to expand.  Alex asked me to join.

Alex: “Dave, I want you to move to Australia and join my company.”

Dave: “Thanks, but I’m not interested. I don’t want to move outside the US, and I just started my own BI consulting company anyway.”

Alex: “Can I buy your company?”

Dave: “Why would you want my company? I have one customer, no employees, and a box at the UPS Store.”

Alex: “How much would you sell it for?”

Dave: “One million dollars.”

Alex then said one of the smartest things anyone has said to me. “I don’t know about a million dollars, but we have a pretty good thing going here, and we’d like to extend it to the states. If you think there is a possibility of making a deal, I’ll buy you a plane ticket.”

I accepted his offer and flew to Sydney, where I met Alex and his two partners, Jean-Christophe and Hedde. I was impressed with Analytics8 and the three partners. They were doing exactly what I wanted to do in the States, only they were three years ahead of me and halfway around the world.

We made a deal. The deal was that I would turn my company into the Analytics8-US branch. They would get to expand into the US, get a major piece of my fledgling company. I would get some start-up cash and a name that I would use to convince employees to join and customers to buy.

We each talked to our lawyers. Their lawyers told them that it was a horrible idea. My lawyers told me it was a horrible idea. So we agreed that it was probably a pretty good idea.

In retrospect, it was a crazy idea that had a very high chance of failure. I was a good consultant, but I’d never run a company, and the amount of startup cash was dangerously low. However, things started coming together. Within a couple of months, I hired another good friend and colleague from BOBJ (Steve Ligeza), who was a key part of our early growth. We picked up a few customers, and within a year, we had five employees.

The fifth was Brian Yaremych, the first employee we hired whom I didn’t already personally know. Brian now runs our central region. On Brian’s first day, I decided that we needed some more customers, so I told him to get a plane ticket to Detroit for the very day, as we had some prospects there. Over a couple of days, we met with six or eight prospective customers and ended up closing two deals out of it.

That’s how we used to do it at Analytics8… and it seems like yesterday, not ten years ago!