In April, we began the process of a new venture that will offer employment-related services to people with disabilities returning to the workforce.  We will also be offering representation and the other services previously offered, but will be utilizing the employment-related services as the core revenue and cash flow provider.  It is funded differently and paid differently, and has no distinction between provider types.  With the current financial and credit situation we are in the position of “boot-strapping”, something I have done before with this 15 years ago, and a previous company in the late 1980’s.  If all goes as planned, by the end of year 3, we should be around $14-18M, 150 employees, 2,000-3,000 partners, and 13,000 - 15,000 clients.  The key to the growth is that although the administrative structure for the program has existed, it has never been marketed.  The number of people who become eligible on a weekly basis is around 9,000 nationally - and we will receive all of their demographic, disability, and work history.  The business is substantially different, and revenue-per-employee is more significant - although it does not compare with the RPE of the representation services when fully integrated into the cash flow.

Now for the IT part.

I have been involved in IT in different ways, including a summer stint at Apple in 1978 - I only hauled boxes, but got an Apple II.  In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s I worked with the language labs at Stanford and MIT on computer-assisted language learning and used the University of Utah’s “supercomputer” to analyze Carlos Fuente’s novels.  I am an anthropologist by training and started a business doing social impact assessments in Latin America which used large databases to find outliers and other tasks.  In the middle 1990’s I worked with the School of Nursing, and implemented new computer-assisted and supported learning that integrated media, etc. ... , and worked closely with the university there in Calgary - they were world leaders at the time.  I was headhunted out by Ovid Technologies, now part of Elsevier Publishing, to be their director of sales and marketing for emerging markets (third world).  That was where I was fully introduced to the power of private subscription networks, and web-based delivery of content.  In 1995-1996 it was rudimentary but had potential if PointCast would stop hogging all of the bandwidth in the world.  In 1996 I left Ovid and started the not-for-profit working on disability issues.  We focused on tech-centric and lean methods to better deliver services and develop policies for people with disabilities.  We were early adopters of RIM technologies - 1997, visualization analysis tools from Xerox PARC, etc. ... .  We used multiple platforms to accomplish a wide array of tasks.

In 2004 as we were preparing for the conversion to a for-profit operation we began using Salesforce.  It is a great product, but very expensive, and would only become more expensive as time went on.  At the point where we closed the business it was out of control.  Think of paying for 140 unlimited licenses, which were the only way to get the features we needed because of how they were broken up.  Also, giving clients access to data was $3.25 per access and we were ramping toward 50,000 accesses per month within the following two years.  Not to mention including partners in the process was even more expensive.  In addition to being very expensive it is also very, very complex - requiring a dedicated person or everyone putting so much time into “tech tasks” that the value plunges immediately.  Their customer service was phenomenal, but again, not worth the price.  As we were going under in February 2009, we talked with everyone through Vice-Presidents and their major partners to try renegotiating our contract - 2 years.  There was an absolute unwillingness to work with us.  We had been a customer since 2004 - 5 years - had a contract for another 2, and were giving them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.  Their unwillingness to work with us directly contributed to the failure of the business.

As the business was failing we looked for alternative systems that we could put in place, or prepare for what we knew would be a regeneration - I can’t stay out of the game.  Site-based systems were a non-option, Sugar needs a team of programmers, NetSuite is another Salesforce trap, Salesboom is complex and limited, and 37Signals is an excuse for a business product maybe OK for education of freelancers.  We settled on ZOHO.  They have some great tools and a great vision.  I talked with Sridhar for a couple of hours to get a bigger picture of where they are going and how they would meet our needs.  Even if we are starting small we will most likely become a major account, and once we commit to a system, changing midstream will take us away from our business - we use technology, we are not technology.  We started using ZOHO in April, it has been an unmitigated disaster.  None of their products functions as advertised, most not well enough to depend on.  Fixes and announced product delivery dates slip with no mention or notice.  Email or the various services are unstable - we have extensive medical and legal records, access and security are paramount.  Customer service is completely atrocious, completely atrocious, completely atrocious (I think that describes it), with emails and calls going days, or even weeks without response.  They are great people, nice, caring, etc. ..., they are just trying to be too many things to too many people and are falling flat on their face.