The following editorial is actually a thesis written by Josh Lavine, a student at Princeton University whose task was to interview a start-up company, preferably in the hi-tech area for an Entrepreneurship class. It is quite long, but describes how Pear Analytics was started and where we are going, the challenges we face, and more. I’ve also left out the Appendix due to length, which you may see notated throughout the report. This is Josh’s final thesis, and frankly I was impressed by how much he learned about our business and industry in the mere 4 or 5 hours he interviewed me. I also plan to implement several of his suggestions for improvement which he notes at the end of his report. Josh is personally invited by me to come join our team at Pear any time. Enjoy!
It is December 23, 2009, noontime. I smooth my shirt and try to lick the tomato sauce stain off my sleeve, then open the door to the office of Pear Analytics. What I saw surprised me.
The office, located in San Antonio, TX is quaint, but strangely chic. It is only one big room with no walled-in spaces, except for the two small conference rooms in back. Large neon green and blue balls are rolling around the floor (I would later find out that instead of buying expensive chairs, the team realized they could just sit on cheap, cool colored exercise balls). Ryan Kelly, founder and CEO of Pear Analytics is presently standing (towering, really—he’s must be 6’6”) at one end of the room, watching one of his office mates from BrandStack, the company he shares office space with, play tennis on the Nintendo Wii on an enormous flat-screen TV—probably the most expensive piece of equipment in the room. If Kelly turned his gaze down and to the right, he would see Romy Misra, his senior analyst, writing equations in dry erase marker on a large glass table. She records her calculations on her laptop. Kelly’s other employees—just three web developers—were out for the day. I follow Kelly into one of the back conference rooms. We sit down and start talking.
A Man with Many Interests
It is about 18 months since Kelly founded Pear Analytics, now a Web-based company that helps websites with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and things are going well. But a decade ago he probably never thought he’d be doing something like this. In 1998, a recent graduate from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a BSME in Mechanical Engineering, Kelly got a job in the aerospace industry working for Pratt and Whitney, designing and managing jet engine production for the U.S. Air Force. During his first year there, he developed a new kind of airliner turbine foil, for which he received a propriety design patent in 2002. At Pratt and Whitney, Kelly was frustrated by the non-linear way engines were produced on the floor. He described the production floor as vast and organized by an arbitrary positioning of part manufacturing booths (so to speak). Kelly observed that oftentimes a part or an engine in production would take days to get from one stage of production to the next because the booths were on opposite sides of the room, and transportation required trucks that had to be reserved in advance. As an engineer he had little influence in getting the floor rearranged for smoother production. Wanting to become more involved in management, in 2001 Kelly entered business school at the University of Hartford, where he studied Marketing Management. In 2002, Kelly transferred to the University of Phoenix, where he finished his MBA in 2006. For the last year of his 5 year stint at Pratt and Whitney, he acted as the sales and marketing director of Pratt and Whitney’s $20 million spare part business in San Antonio.
In 2003, Kelly moved from Pratt and Whitney to Blue Clover, a creative design firm in San Antonio, where he served as general manager and partner. At Blue Clover, Kelly managed all business processes and the company’s investments, and oversaw all of the production staff. He also oversaw all financials, budgets, legal contracts, and company proposals, provided key web strategies, SEO and marketing techniques for many of the company’s clients.[1] With Kelly there, Blue Clover became distinguished as an award winning design firm. In 2006 it was honored with 16 Addy awards, including 5 gold for elements of advertising, interactive media, and collateral material; and in February 2008 it was named one of San Antonio’s best places to work.
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