Startup of the Day - Exceedra

The BizSpark startup of the day is Exceedra, based in England. You will find below an interview with Dan Zywicki, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Exceedra. All the best to them and congrats for being the startup of the day!

Website: www.exceedra.com.

Interview with Dan Zywicki, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Exceedra

Tell us who you are and your role in the company:

Managing Director and Co-Founder.

What did you do before creating your company?

I worked for a number of the large consultancies specializing in Business Intelligence for consumer goods and entertainment sectors.

How do you feel being the most promising ‘Startup of the Day’ per Microsoft BizSpark?

It’s great to be recognized by Microsoft for the work we have been doing over the last year.

What is your company’s mission?

We provide a product suite that uses advanced demand intelligence to drive better forecasting and insight for our clients. Our mission is to ensure that we always deliver value for our clients.

How did you get the idea for your company?

We have worked in the Consumer Goods market for over the past 10 years, witnessing the lost opportunity caused by sales and supply teams not being as consumer driven as their data could allow. The only companies to bridge the gap successfully had done so via large scale multi-year bespoke implementations. We saw no reason why that should be the case so we created Exceedra to provide software specifically to enable consumer driven processes to be implemented quickly driving increases in customer services, sales and margin.

Tell us about your funding history. Are you currently looking for funding? If so, how much?

We were initially funded entirely by the founders but a number of VCs have approached recently and we are currently looking at two offers which provide significant opportunities for Exceedra and its clients.

How many employees do you have? How many developers?

We are currently 10 employees with half of them providing development.

Are you hiring? If yes, what are you hiring and where?

We are currently looking for an experienced marketing manager to drive our branding across Europe and another C# / Silverlight developer. We have two locations across the south of England which options to work from either.

Which platform are you building on? Why?

To date our solutions use SQL Server 2008, SharePoint and .NET applications. However we are currently co-developing an Azure version with Microsoft which we see as our long term platform.

Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/internet area?

At the moment we’re still seeing technology produce more and more amounts of data. I believe the many opportunities exist for companies that can consume this data from both a commercial and personal security aspect.

What do you think about the BizSpark Program?

The BizSpark programme provides startup companies with a fantastic opportunity, we were able to work directly with the Microsoft programme teams to ensure our software utilised the best available technology. We were also introduced to our potential investors through a number of events hosted by Bindi and the UK BizSpark team.

Do you have any advice for young Software entrepreneurs?

I’m not sure I have any real advice but I do feel that technology should always be about the process it solves and business value it generates and never about the technology itself. I see far too many developments projects consumed by the development rather than the end goal.

Who’s your role model?

I don’t follow any one role model but I aim to emulate those who treat people fairly and with respect.

What’s the ONE THING you would like readers to take away from this interview?

I would want readers with forecasting and demand management issues to come knock on my door.