EchoCurrent Software

She blinded me...with Science! (Thomas Dolby - great 80's tune)

One of my challenges over the past few months has been how, exactly, to classify our software. How do I answer “what is it?” in just a few words.  Well, the CEO from WidgetBucks, Matt Hulett, recently wrote a good post on adotas.com, an interactive advertising blog, about ad optimizers.  And it appears the the EchoCurrent Affiliate Product Optimizer (although not on his list) falls into this category of products.

http://www.adotas.com/2009/03/ad-optimizers-blinding-me-with-science/

Specifically, it appears that Matt would most likely classify EchoCurrent as a contextual or interest targeted ad optimizer.  Nice!

Now if we could just get onto his list…

It’s getting a little more crowded in the behavioral advertising space suddenly.  Google has announced that they are going to target individual consumers with advertising starting in beta immediately.  

Read the TechCrunch Article

My commentary on the article:

I’m just surprised that it has taken this long for Google to move in this direction. It points to the fact that they really just don’t care about the consumer at all. As long as they are fulfilling their impression contacts for their advertisers (who continue to pay), why would they care?

They try not to be “evil” at Google but brazenly ignoring website visitors and hitting them over the head with non-relevant ads time after time does, at the very least, show a casual disregard for us humans!

At my company, EchoCurrent, we use behavior and contextual targeting to make affiliate product offers to site visitors. By focusing on the CPA (affiliate) market, we are not held accountable by brands and their contracts and so have the ability to truly attempt to show the best products at the best times to the right consumers. We need more competitors doing the same!

We’re lucky at EchoCurrent that due to our business model we do not have to factor in things like contractual obligations to show certain products (or ads).  We fully control what we want to display to individual consumers.  This results in higher click-through rates for our customers and a much better advertising experience for site visitors.  Happier consumers, higher ad revenues (through higher commission-based rates) for our customers and a brighter future for EchoCurrent…it all sounds good to me.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to participate in an Entrepreneur’s Roundtable hosted by DimDim web conferencing and Sramana Mitra.  Sramana is a respected technology writer (for Forbes), consultant and past founder of multiple Bay Area technology companies.  The round table gave 5 start-ups 3 minutes each to pitch their company and ask questions to Sramana.  I’ve read her book (Entrepreneurs’ Journeys) so I was excited to talk with her and get EchoCurrent in front of some more people.  If anyone is interested in how it went, please check out the audio and video recording:

http://www.sramanamitra.com/2009/02/18/feb-18-roundtable-recording/

Or you can go to DimDim’s blog and listen in there.

To summarize the results, she believes that EchoCurrent needs to find a way to penetrate the Online Retail Market with the technology.

As fate would have it, the conference slides died ONLY during my presentation so I was riding blind for a little while. But those old BS skills learned on the rock n roll stage (hated waiting for guitar players to tune up!) paid off.  My segment starts around 30 minutes in.

The launch of EchoCurrent’s Affiliate Product Optimizer went great last week.  I’m not going to say it went flawlessly but we were able to  get everything live and in fantastic working order after ironing a few “issues” out.  Thanks to everyone who is out there giving it a try!

Not ones to sit on our laurels, Dave and I are already popping in a few new things.  Specifically, we are adding a number of new features that will allow Product Zones to be more completely integrated into the WordPress blogging platform.  We initially launched with support for WordPress widgets, which appear in a blog’s sidebar.  We now have a WordPress shortcode which is meant to be embedded within a single blog post through the WordPress post editor and a template tag which can be inserted into any WordPress template files.  In order to make the insertions as easy as possible, we have also updated our APO Zone Generator to spit out shortcode and template tag  formats along with the current HTML version.  I’m also happy to report that these changes were based on input from one of our early users (thanks John!).  There is absolutely nothing better than direct customer feedback!

Here’s an example of a rectange text ad dropped into this post with a shortcode
(it’s to the right of this comment): 

by EchoCurrent

Also, there is an example of a skyscraper zone with product images in the sidebar on the left side of this screen.

You can get our WordPress Plugin from the WordPress Plugins catalog.

By the way, what, exactly is a “laurel”?  And why would one want to sit on them if one had some?

Big day for EchoCurrent today.  We just released our first product, the Affiliate Product Optimizer (we just call it the APO). Thanks to everyone for their help and thoughts and thanks to Dave for his god-like coding prowess (and military precision).

This is the press release that went out today:

EchoCurrent Software, Inc. Announces New Affiliate Product Optimizer™

Intelligent web plug-in tracks customer intent in real-time and optimizes delivery of product offers from affiliate networks

NEW BOSTON, New Hampshire - February 10, 2009 - EchoCurrent Software, Inc. today announced the availability of the Affiliate Product Optimizer™, a software service to enable web publishers to better optimize product and ad targeting from affiliate networks. This product is free of charge and initially available for new or existing users of the Commission Junction® affiliate network.

Web publishers are increasingly relying on affiliate networks to source products and offers in support of their topic-based web sites, blogs, or online stores. Unlike Google AdSense®, which will automatically match ads to the content of each web page, sites which rely on affiliate networks have lacked the ability to do automated matching of customer interests to products, or have been forced to build custom solutions.

With the introduction of the Affiliate Product Optimizer™, publishers gain the ability to understand their visitors’ interests in real-time and display optimal, personalized product offers from affiliate networks. By truly listening to website visitors’ words and actions, publishers can increase their revenues by showing their customers the most relevant products at just the right time.

The Affiliate Product Optimizer™ goes much further than standard search or page ads by building a unique profile of each web site visitor as they interact with the web site, a “Customer Echo”. The Echo is continually refined over the life of the user session. Rather than using static page content to match offers, the Customer Echo is used to select the most appropriate offers from the affiliate network, specific to each visitor. This provides each visitor with a unique and optimized experience based on their personal browsing interests and exhibited site behaviors.

Initially released with support for the Commission Junction® network, and using the Commission Junction® Web Services, the Affiliate Product Optimizer™ easily plugs into a publisher’s website by adding a pre-generated piece of javascript to the page. In addition, plugins are available for Wordpress and the Joomla content management system, allowing this new capability to be easily added to these popular platforms without touching any code.

“Coming from a background in business intelligence technology at the enterprise level, it was clear to me there was a big opportunity to make affiliate sites smarter” says Mike Ruggieri, founder and president of EchoCurrent Software, Inc. “By combining our Customer Intent Engine with the Commission Junction Web Services, we were able to build a powerful affiliate optimization widget that can drive higher revenues for site publishers while simultaneously improving the customer experience for all visitors.”

The Affiliate Product Optimizer is being initially released free of charge and operates in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. Website publishers sign up at http://www.echocurrent.com, add the plugin to their web sites, and the EchoCurrent servers handle the rest. EchoCurrent provides tools and reports that make the publishers’ lives easy, tracking, for example, trends in the Customer Echoes, products of highest interest, and what web content is driving the most product click-throughs. With this valuable information, publishers optimize their site content to generate more revenue.

About EchoCurrent Software, Inc.

Founded in 2008, EchoCurrent Software is dedicated to delivering technology that makes web sites smarter. EchoCurrent has developed a proprietary Customer Intent Engine that can track user behavior in real-time, identifying patterns, capturing data, or reacting to events as they occur. The company has released its first product, the Affiliate Product Optimizer, which utilizes their Customer Intent Engine with affiliate network services to enable web publishers to make more effective use of their affiliate product catalogs and create higher value customer experiences. For more information, visit http://www.echocurrent.com.

Sweet… (I left that part out of the actual press release — MR)

 

 

Freak Out

I’m not sure if this phenomenon is specific to EchoCurrent or not but in December, we totally Freaked Out. We had been plugging along on our software. The underlying platform (we call it the Customer Intent Engine) was mostly in place. We had made initial investments in building a few small applications that sit on top of the Engine: an ad optimizer using OpenX, a product offering panel using osCommerce and a few more pieces. But we couldn’t figure out how to make those product offerings equal us paying our mortgages.

So, we Freaked Out.

The entrepreneurial roller coaster went into hyper mode (think multiple twists, loops, darkness, feet dangling over the Vegas strip, etc). It seemed that every idea we had was alternated between brilliant and retarded. We questioned our skills, intelligence, courage, drinking habits…everything. We’d go in one direction and feel good for approximately 2 hours before stopping, ditching the idea and trying something new. And I’m not talking about small alterations in plan here either. I think in the three week span that went from mid-December to just after the new year we decided to 1) get paying jobs, 2) build iPhone applications, 3) become Joomla consultants, 4) join the military (OK…that was just Dave) and 5) start contracting for our old company, Chordiant. We were crazed.

In retrospect, it reminded me of when I first started dating my wife. I liked her…a lot. And after about a half-year I knew that she was probably “the one”. So, like any good man, I broke up with her. Then I spent the following week drunk and crazed out of my mind followed by about two months of begging to get her back. Basically, I Freaked. Big time. Thankfully she finally took me back and I’ve never looked back and here I am twenty years later, still with her. Of course, the shocking part is that she is still with me but we’ll leave that one alone for now.

I believe that I needed that Freak Out. It made life much clearer afterwards. I knew what I wanted. When I saw all the other options out there, the one I wanted was the one I had thrown away. Then all my energy went towards returning my life to the path that I wanted.

EchoCurrent was just like that. We needed to step away from our path momentarily…it was all getting very serious and the questions were all very big. So we stopped, lost it, tried on a bunch of new ideas and when it was all over, we saw that our original path was actually the right one. So now our heads are down. Code is flying. The release of our first product is only a few weeks away. Our path is set and we’re happy and productive…for now…

As a final note:  while in the midst of my freak out, I found this great article:

http://www.ideasonideas.com/2009/01/startup_fail/

It was just what I needed to read at the right time and made me feel like I wasn’t the only one crazy enough to create a business from nothing.  Thanks Eric!

So, I wanted to be a rock star.  And I don’t mean that figuratively as in “that dude who worked all weekend to crank out ten thousand lines of code is a rock star.”  I mean I wanted to actually rock out for a living.  After multiple vocal chord blow-outs I realized that I was no Eddie Vedder (still not sure how that guy can scream through a three hour set and talk afterwards) and had to set my sight on other goals. 

My partner Dave wanted to be a professional soccer goalie…sorry, a “keeper”.  Or he wanted to be some kind of special services sniper/commando.  I think it depends on his mood.  He’ll need to chime in for more specifics.

Regardless, we are both accidental entrepreneurs.  Software guys.  I’m not sure how it happened, exactly, but somewhere along the way I found I had an aptitude for designing software.  And at some point, I thought I could do this as well, if not better, than the people for whom I was working.  That irrational confidence nagged at the back of my mind for years; years spent “working for the man” and moving through numerous enterprise software gigs.  I learned a lot, met a bunch of cool people and made some nice change but that stupid thought wouldn’t leave me alone: “you could do this”.

Well, here I am: president of EchoCurrent Software and on the cusp of our first product release.  And I have no freaking idea whether or not I can actually “do this”.  Dave and I have been at it since September and we’ve made some good progress on the software.  But, I guess, that was the easy part.  Other things have not gone as planned.  If you haven’t noticed, there seems to be something of an economic crisis and we couldn’t have timed it better.  Angel funding is hard to find.  Our initial plan had us connected to an angel “fund” that would have at least paid a few bills for a year or so.  But that fell through when the potential fund investors decided to keep their cash in pocket.  So we’re kicking it old school…bootstrapping.  Thank god for open source software.  Honestly, our only real expense seems to be legal fees for incorporating and what not.  I guess lawyers have to make their money too but they’re killing me.  But that’s a post for another time.

The “funny” thing that I’ve found about bootstrapping a business is that when you think about it beforehand and try to figure out how long your cash reserves are going to last you it all seems great.  You’ve got x amount in the bank and need y amount to survive per month…divide x by y and you know how long you can go until you absolutely positively need to start bringing cash into the business.  However, when you’re living through it…it sucks.  I mean, some days I just want a freaking eggnog latte from Starbucks, you know?  But $4 for a cup of coffee?  That is not bootsrapping, my friend.  And pressure builds up every day you aren’t making money. 

I worry about my business model which is predicated on “selling” free software.  I did not want to be one of those entrepreneurs who build a product and hope it gets picked up.  I said to myself, “find a need, fill a need.”  Now, I think we’ve found a need and helping people’s bottom lines in this economy seems to be a good play.  But who knows?  That question sounds rhetorical but it actually isn’t.  Customers know.  People who are trying to make a living through online advertising know.  We’ve heard crazy reports of peoples’ ad revenues being way down in the online publishing world.  I want to feel their pain.  THAT is my rationale for having a business model that puts customer uptake over revenue initially.  By giving away our software for free, we can build a proving ground.  If it doesn’t solve anybody’s problems, we ditch it and try again.  If it does, could it do it better?  Is it making our customers more money?  Could it make them even more somehow?  And, of course, will it bring enough value that people will pay for expanded functionality and new products in the future.  It’s scary…and exciting…and nauseating…in equal measure.

So, while my day to day emotional well-being remains hardwired to the minor wins and losses of EchoCurrent, today I’m hopeful.  Today I’m glad that I decided to jump on this roller coaster.  Check back with me tomorrow…I might be crying and dusting off my bass guitar to get back in the rock n roll saddle.  And I’m keeping an eye on Dave just in case he decides to go Navy Seal on me or something.