FounderBuzz

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Scott: Hi, I'm Scott Olson with FounderBuzz, and I'm here today with Adam Caplan of Model Metrics. Thanks for being with us, Adam.

Adam: Sure, thanks Scott.

Scott: Why don't you start out and tell us a little bit about who you are and what do you do?

Adam: Sure, Adam Caplan, CEO Model Metrics. Started the business about eight years ago now. We have a focus on cloud computing and just really laser focus on helping enterprise companies leverage these technologies successfully.

We have really close partnerships with Salesforce.com and with Amazon Web Services and with Google and a few other guys. Salesforce.com is our key partner. We've been really just helping companies now for a while really find success with service applications, whether it's call center with sales force automation, with portals, really stretching what's possible with these biotechnologies, and our big focus now and for the past couple of years has been around mobile applications. We're really bringing the cloud down to mobile devices, whether it's iPad or Android or iPhone or whatever, to really enable these enterprise companies to find success from a sales perspective, from a service perspective, out in the field.

Scott: Yeah. I was actually taking a look at your website and some of the things that you guys are doing, and I'd love to hear you elaborate on that a little bit. How much are mobile computing devices driving web, basically, strategies with cloud computing? How much is this a driver? How much is this getting them to move quicker and adopt more and integrate the cloud more into their business plans?

Adam: That's pretty interesting. What we saw over the past few years is that as enterprises got more comfortable with the cloud from a security perspective, from all perspectives . . . really, we use to see rogue projects run by VP of Sales, and now the CIO is all over it and they believe in the cloud. They're making it happen from a top-down enterprise approach.

Really, where they started was with often sales force automation, sometimes from call centers, sometimes . . . some platform application, some custom build of X or whatever. But really, a lot of those things were just for internal use. The customer never was able to interact with them. So that's been a huge shift we've seen really, probably over the past two years from a mobile perspective. Ever since the iPad 1 came out, the acceleration is pretty incredible.

If you look at some of the Gartner and Forrester reports around iPad adoption and the enterprise or tablet adoption, it's pretty incredible. We're seeing it day-to-day in the street as well. There's no question. Really now, especially with iPad 2, for the first time I think the CIOs are really feeling like they can change the customer experience. They couldn't before. A lot of the applications were great for internal use, but now they can actually send their teams out there, into the field, and just wow customers. The customer experience, really, it's a huge competitive advantage.

We have one customer we're working with that is a med device company. They rolled out a content management application on iPads. Apple told us that it was the largest app rollout they've seen at the enterprise with the iPad. The success was just phenomenal. They were able to increase the time they spend with physicians from, almost double the time they spend with physicians, because physicians like to interact and play with the iPad. What we do is we bring the data back to the cloud. So, they're cloud apps. All the data stored in the cloud. It brings it to the iPad they can use online or offline, but really changed the whole customer experience.

I think that's been the biggest thing that's changed adoption is the ability to influence the customer and plus people are just excited about it. You know, the stuff is so cool. For the first time, the CIO and everybody else can really show the business how innovative they can be.

Scott: Right, and then the cloud being a key element of that as opposed to just trying to build this and host it themselves, is that they're looking to do these things all through streaming services and cloud hosted services?

Adam: Yeah, absolutely, and that's really the big differentiator for us. There are lots of creative shops out there that can build cool looking iPhone or iPad applications. Where we really are differentiated is we're building enterprise class applications with a robust database on the back-end.

For example, if we hook something to Salesforce.com on the back-end, it follows the same security rules that have already been established. The data is safe. All the applications they've already built that are leveraged from a laptop or whatever can then be leveraged offline or online from an iPad.

I think the differentiator for us is the database at the back-end and the ability to have a robust architecture that's safe, analytics, built in workflow, all the good stuff that's associated with Salesforce.com or Amazon Web Services. Not just a cool looking creative application on a mobile device that doesn't really connect to anywhere and that the CIO or the executive suite can't track.

Scott: Right. Certainly a requirement for things like medical which is so heavily regulated.

Adam: Absolutely, absolutely.

Scott: Well, maybe we could wrap up with just something about your business. One of the things that we always like to do is talk and give practical advice of what can other entrepreneurs do to be successful. I would love to hear about something that maybe you feel like you've done that has been a key to your success or something that's worked well that you think other entrepreneurs could learn from.

Adam: Sure, that's always  a tricky question. I would say one thing maybe to keep with the mobile theme here that we seem to be talking about, which is my favorite subject, I would say in terms of how you market your company, there are so many different things you can market, So our company, as an example, we do portals, we do all sorts of custom applications, all sorts of industries. Mobile is the fastest growing part of our practice, and it's a huge piece of our business now. But if you look back even a few years ago, we were just building the mobile practice.

When we went to market and we told people what the company did, whether it was partner, like a Salesforce or an Amazon or whether it was a customer or a prospect or the press, it's very easy, I think, to dilute your message by saying we do everything. Oh, yeah, we're the portal guys, we're the call center guys, we're the sales force automation guys, we're the best in that vertical, we're the best in this vertical.

I think what we did very consciously is we went to market with one message, which is mobile. Even though it's only a small percentage of what we did even a couple of years ago. But it really resonated and, obviously we picked mobile. One, the growth trajectory is huge. Everyone realizes that. But two, it's fun to talk about and people like to talk about it. It's something you can see. It's not just some internal application that doesn't get people excited. There's a creative and design element. We're really shifting our whole company into being a lot more creative with designers and UI and user experience experts. I think picking one thing to go to market with as opposed to diluting your message from a brand perspective is super important.

Even though mobile wasn't a big part of our business a couple of years ago, it was 100% of our marketing. I think it's really had a great halo effect on the business where it's led to all sorts of call center deals, all sorts of sales force automation deals, all sorts of custom dev deals. But the foot in the door and what people think of us first, top of mind, is the mobile stuff, and I think that's a great conversation to be in.

Scott: That's great advice, and I certainly appreciate your time today, Adam.

Adam: Sure Scott. Thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Scott: Thank you.

Adam: All right. Take care.