The following editorial is actually a thesis written by Josh Lavine, a student at Princeton University who’s 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.
We recently upgraded our logo to represent our new direction towards being a product-focused company. The logo is courtesy of Brandstack, who we happen to co-office with – so it worked out great! The process was super easy. Wes and Robert showed me a couple of logos from one of their designers who does great “web 2.0″ brands, and I was hooked. So I got in touch with “voxsix” on Brandstack and asked him to do several renditions of our existing logo, as we progress into being a product company. About three days later, he came up with about eight different designs, and we went around and got votes on what the best one was. The best part of the whole thing was that I only paid $350 for the logo, instead of the usual 10x that at a fancy “design shoppe”.
Why the pear?
Almost everyone I meet asks me “why a pear?” and what the original logo really means. The pear represents the organic, fresh and crisp nature of what we do. There’s no “auto-pilot” here, and everything we do requires interpretation and analysis to develop real insights. That’s why in the original logo, half of the pear is gray, blurry and out of focus – that’s everyone else; whereas the other side (us), is in-color, clear and crisp.
The new logo expands on the same concept, but with a few subtle changes. First, instead of the straight line down the middle, we now have a sort of this ying-yang effect of bringing balance and equilibrium to your marketing activities. I also like to think of it like Pear Analytics is seeping over the “dark side”, so as the color side infiltrates, there is more clarity now in the entire marketing equation. The logo is now in full vector format, since the last version had an image as part of it, so it was difficult to blow it up to anything bigger than a business card.
So that’s our story – what do you think? If you need a logo upgrade, head over to Brandstack and check out their inventory. Even if you don’t find something exact, just contact the designer directly and they will usually modify it to exactly your needs.
We were recently interviewed on Blog Talk Radio by my good friends Luis Sandoval, Jr. and Jennifer Navarette. Listen as we discuss how Pear Analytics was born, where we are going with our products, and some SEO tips useful for any business.
My friend Alan Weinkrantz shoots a quick video to capture some of the things Pear Analytics is up to. In this video, I talk about the importance of measurement to achieve better marketing performance, in addition to some of the tools we are building to help clients track real-time results.
My friend Alan Weinkrantz shoots a quick video to capture some of the things Pear Analytics is up to. In this video, I talk about the importance of measurement to achieve better marketing performance, in addition to some of the tools we are building to help clients track real-time results.
