Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2004 (No. 46)
Editor & Publisher Milt Capps
For previous issues or date of next issue, visit the news archive.

Agility: Nashville's SmartDM survives and thrives in Database Marketing space

SmartDM President Jay Graves says that thanks to the crucible of the Dot.com Bust that began in Winter 2000, his 34 years on earth must be translated into "dog years." By the time the Internet meltdown was recognizable, he says, "We watched 99 percent of any market value we would've seen disappear in a 90-day period."

Faced with industry-wide calamity, SmartDM quickly reoriented itself from internet data-collection services to database and e-mail marketing services for its clients, drawing on the previous direct-marketing experience of founders Graves and CEO Rich Maradik.

While the past four years have been a wild ride, the company has emerged among what Forrester Research (SmartDM release, Aug. 3; June 30 FR Wave report) describes as "The Best Email Marketing Service Providers." The company is much-studied in business and academic circles, and as Graves made clear during his recent NTC Tech Roundtable appearance, the company also intends to be a leader in confronting the Spam challenge.

A steady stream of press coverage of the firm during the past ten years suggests that the founders learned early-on to quickly leverage advantages and to cut their losses. A SmartDM office in Las Vegas opened with a flurry, reflecting sights set on the Gaming and Energy sectors, but the office was subsequently closed. A once-touted partnership with a company in the People's Republic of China, as well as SmartDM's SmartReminders.com sister company have quietly "gone away," says Graves. Meanwhile, other SmartDM offices have opened (New York City, Dallas, Little Rock); and, partner-or-no, SmartDM now e-mails thousands of messages per year to China in behalf of the National Basketball Assn., an anchor client in their sports-marketing division, thanks largely to the popularity back home of the Houston Rockets' Yao Ming, the 7'6" 24-year-old.

SmartDM was founded in 1995 as DataMark Inc., with $15 in cash and a PC bought with a credit card. Graves was 23, not long out of Vanderbilt political-science studies, and Co-Founder/CEO Richard Maradik was 25. The pair had just left the staff of the Tennessee Republican Party, where Maradik led fundraising and Graves managed technologies.

By leveraging their political track-record and adding a couple of Nashville business clients, by 1997 the firm had 10 employees and $1.8 million in sales. Today, Graves estimates political accounts amount to no more than 1 percent of the company's annualized revenues.

In 1998, the same year the company boasted 200 customers and $4 million in revenues, Graves explains they barely survived a time-consuming, humbling and ultimately fruitless attempt to bring investors into the company. Graves and Maradik regrouped, and by late 1999, they had 26 employees and were lionized in Inc. Magazine's (Aug. 99) report, "Great Companies Started for $1,000 or Less." The next year, they were listed 127 among the Inc. 500, with 40 employees, and $9 million in revenues.

State RFP 335.02-535 for review of corporate IS and automated financial-examination systems, by Dept. of Commerce & Insurance.

(Dec. 15) Chatta. Tech Council Luncheon: Network Security and Information Security Management, Joseph Dell, Chief Technology Officer for Vigilar, Inc., 11:30 a.m., info here or (423) 755-7481.