Celebrating 5 Years at iContact

The team at iContact celebrated the company’s 5th anniversary and reaching over 100 team members on Friday afternoon at our offices in Durham. We had BBQ from Thrills from the Grill underneath two large tents in our parking lot with bluegrass band Second String Fiddle adding to the sounds. Aaron and I went up in a hot air balloon to unveil our new sign on the building as the team sang “Happy Birthday” below. Magicians, balloon makers, bouncy castles, dunk tanks, and a few gusty winds added to the excitement.

Getting iContact to 106 employees and 29,000 customers would not have been possible without a supportive Triangle community, our wonderful team, investors who believed in us when few others would at NC IDEA, and our wonderful Series A backers Updata Partners. Thank you to everyone who has helped make iContact what it is today. Here’s to the future and the opportunity and many challenges ahead.

Thanks especially to Christina Jaromin and Chuck Hester and to our team members who helped organize the event!

Picture courtesy of We Love Durham NC Blog

Great Office Space in Durham

If you’re looking for cheap short to mid term office space (with furniture included) a company in our building is currently making two suites available on the first floor. It’s class A office space at a very reasonable price that includes utilities, taxes, etc, probably the best value available in the Triangle area right now. The building address is 2635 Meridian Parkway, Durham, NC 27713. The suites are sized 1,333 sq. feet and 1,124 sq. feet and may be available individually. For more information please contact Aaron’s assistant Kelli Connors at 919-459-1394 or kelli[at]preation.com and she can get you the information you need.

Ernst & Young Carolinas’ 2008 Entrepreneur of the Year

Aaron and I won the Ernst & Young Carolinas’ 2008 Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Emerging Category tonight at the ceremony in Charlotte. We were up against Virtual Heroes and Canvas on Demand, both from RTP.

The winners will be going to Palm Springs, California in November for the Ernst & Young 2008 National Entrepreneur of the Year Awards to compete against the other regional winners.

We’re really glad, and humbled, to have won. We are very appreciative of the support North Carolina and the Triangle community has given us the past six years and have to thank our family at iContact and our families at home. We have a lot lot lot more work still to do.

The full list of winners is below.

Ernst & Young Carolinas 2008 Entrepreneur of the Year Winners

Lifetime achievement. O. Temple Sloan. General Parts, Inc.

Financial Services
Robert Hatley
Paragon Commercial Bank

Health Services
Willam Cobb
JM Smith

Industrial Products
Christopher Kearney
SPX Corporation

Real Estate Hospitality Construction
Patricia Rodgers
Rodgers Builders

Retail and Consumer Products
Thomas Millner
Remington Arms

Emerging
Aaron Houghton
Ryan Allis
iContact

Software and IT
Matthew Szulik
Red Hat

Telecommunications
Eugene Johnson
FairPoint Communications

iContact Wins CEDs Growth Company of the Year

Last night iContact was honored by the Council for Entrepreneurial Development as the 2008 Technology Growth Company of the Year at Bay 7 at American Tobacco Campus.

Aaron and I accepted the award on behalf of the iContact team. You can watch a video of the award announcement.

On ‘The Big Idea With Donny Deutsch’ CNBC 10pm Tonight

Hey everyone. I was in New York today visiting with partners and customers and filming for The Big Idea With Donny Deutsch. I was glad to be on the show again for the first time since I was on last May 31. I’m told the episode will air tonight at 10pm on CNBC.

I think I’ll be on for about 3-4 minutes about halfway through the show around 10:30pm. The topic of the show will be ‘how to prepare your children to be driven, be passionate, and follow their dreams.’

They have an expert from NYU Dr. Harold Koplewicz and a guy named Troy with seven kids who debate the various methods of encouraging and supporting children and then bring on Kimberly Burleson Spinks co-author of the book ‘Prepare to Be a Teen Millionaire‘, me, and 25-year old artist Amanda Dunbar.

Hey everyone. I was in New York today visiting with partners and customers and filming for The Big Idea With Donny Deutsch. I was glad to be on the show again for the first time since I was on last May 31. I’m told the episode will air tonight at 10pm on CNBC.

I think I’ll be on for about 3-4 minutes about halfway through the show around 10:30pm. The topic of the show will be ‘how to prepare your children to be driven, be passionate, and follow their dreams.’

They have an expert from NYU Dr. Harold Koplewicz and a guy named Troy with seven kids who debate the various methods of encouraging and supporting children and then bring on Kimberly Burleson Spinks co-author of the book ‘Prepare to Be a Teen Millionaire‘, me, and 25-year old artist Amanda Dunbar.

Two New Podcast Interviews on Entrepreneurship from Stever Robbins and Jim Blasingame

Podcast Description: Ryan Allis is the 23-year-old co-founder of iContact.com, a 95 person email marketing company in Durham, NC. Ryan spoke in this podcast with Stever Robbins about how he ended up where he is and the role passion plays in business.

Download/Listen Now (21:37, 9.9MB)

Podcast Description: When the economy is soft, we have to maximize sales opportunities with marketing campaigns that don’t break our budget. Ryan Allis talks with Small Business Advocate Jim Blasingame about how to use email marketing to pull off maximizing sales while minimizing marketing expenses. Ryan also explains his company’s capitalization strategy, including how he acquired venture capital.

Download/Listen Now (15.26, 7.1MB)

Slides for Presentation: Insider Secrets to Email Marketing

Today I was in Los Angeles presenting at Derek Gehl’s Internet Entrepreneurs Club seminar on email marketing. I had the chance to give a 90 minute presentation on the value of and best practices for opt-in email marketing to the more than 400 attendees. I mentioned I’d put the deck on the blog, so here are the slides.

Presentation: “The Insider Secrets to The Most Effective Form of Online Communication”
Date: April 12, 2008
Location: Internet Marketing Center Seminar,
Hyatt Regency Orange County
Size: 12.4MB
Download: Download Here (uploading, should be available by 6pm ET)

Cheers,
Ryan

Two More Interviews on Entrepreneurship

Here are two more recent podcast/radio interviews on entrepreneurship done by Dr. Alvin Jones and Start-Up Spark. Enjoy!

Dr. Alvin Jones Radio Interview with Ryan Allis - (9min 17sec, WMA file) - A March 26, 2008 radio interview on WCBQ-AM 1340 and WHNC-AM 890 with Dr. Alvin Jones from the Paradise Radio Network about:

• Starting in business
• Going to UNC
• Being the son of a priest
• What iContact does
• The quote about taking action by Scottish Mountaineer W.H. Murray
• Setting big goals
• Understanding the entrepreneurial system
• Evaluating business ideas
• The three questions to ask prospective buyers
• Accessing the world of equity capital

Start-up Spark Interview with Ryan Allis (17 min 38 sec) - A discussion with Shannon Cherry from Start-up Spark about:

• Growing up in Florida
• Advantages/disadvantages of young entrepreneurs
• The MAR system
• Bootstrapping and living in the office
• Doing whatever it takes to keep expenses low
• How we hired our first employee
• Using equity initially to reduce cash burn
• The importance of systems and building a team when scaling
• How to avoid creating a job for yourself
• Why hiring people smarter than you is critical
• The definition of an entrepreneur
• Figuring out the purpose of your life
• What will motivate you to get through the hard times
• The mission of The Humanity Campaign

Podcast Interviews on Entrepreneurship

Here are two recent podcast interviews on entrepreneurship done by Written Voices and Daxle. Enjoy!

Written Voices Podcast Interview With Ryan Allis (17min 38 sec) - A discussion with Allan Hunkin from Written Voices about:

• Building a team
• My personal motivation
• The importance of finding mentors
• An overview of Zero to One Million including opportunity evaluation, raising capital, marketing and creating sales, giving back, and setting goals
• Finding your core motivation
• Focusing on providing a great product
• Social responsibility
• The Entitlement Generation vs. The Enlightenment Generation
• The Enlightened Entrepreneur
• Finding Your BHALG - Your Big Hairy Audacious Lifetime Goal

Daxle Interview with Ryan Allis (17 min 02 sec) - A discussion with Brian Oates from Daxle about:

• The entrepreneurial itch
• Finding a partner
• Evaluating entrepreneurial opportunities
• Ensuring demand for your business idea
• The value of teamwork
• How internet sales are different from door-to-door sales
• Generating leads from the web
• Bootstrapping and doing what it takes to keep expenses low

CEO Profile on Carolina Business Connection

Jonathan Yeomans from Carolina Business Connection came on out to my office last week to do an interview. You can check out the interview at http://carolinabusinessconnection.com/cbc/editorial.html?id=95.

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