You know the feeling. That moment when it all makes sense, it all clicks, you finally get it. That moment while watching the Usual Suspects when you see the plot twist, when your bio-chemist friend explains some complex project and it finally makes sense to you, when you finally understand what the debt ceiling means to your wallet. There is such a pure sense of satisfaction, excitement, and relief, all rolled into the “Aha” moment. And if that moment can impact both your personal and professional life, well you might just have something great on your hands.
I had one of those moments, in the basement of Grand Central Station of all places. I was eating a rather average pastrami sandwich (should have gone to Katz Deli, but that is another blog post) while catching up with an old friend and former co-worker. He was explaining the technology behind the new company he recently joined, FirstRain. As he was filling me in on the details of the Web Graph, I started to put the pieces together in my head. I asked some questions that began with “does it really…” “do you realize…” and ended with statements that began with “wow…” and “holy…” Then something clicked. I had an “Aha moment!” I realized that I had been introduced to something new and amazing. At that moment I knew that I was about to begin the next phase in my life.
It was a sea change both personally and professionally. From the business side, I realized that FirstRain will impact how companies use and think about information. It would enable many people I know to move their business to the next level. I was convinced that companies needed the right business tool to use the web properly and efficiently. FirstRain is that tool to harness the power of the web.
As we talked, I tried to make sense of how this would be the right fit for me personally. It was a chance to use all the skills I have acquired over the years and help companies move forward. I was excited to begin working with one of the best teams I’d ever come across. I felt like Kramer from Seinfeld, ready to jump on board in exchange for free lattes.
So I was in, all in. I pushed all my chips into the middle of the table and went for it. And a funny thing happened. It got better, and keeps on getting better. I knew I was joining a great company but FirstRain has continued to beat all my expectations. This is the right company, the right technology, the right team, the right strategy, the right place for me to elevate my career.
As a sales professional, I am constantly striving to help my clients understand how FirstRain will impact their company so they will have their own “Aha moments”. With FirstRain, those moments will transform into real business value and a much greater return on their investment.
I’m still riding that “Aha” wave, right out of the basement of Grand Central. Like any “Aha moment”, when you get it, you want to share it. You want others to see what you see, not just because you think it’s cool, but because you know it’s a game changer.
We’re all very excited here at FirstRain, as we’ve just seen the product review of FirstRain published this month by VIP Reports and (in a slightly more condensed form) in the August 2011 edition of VIP Magazine. VIP Reports aim to provide product and vendor reviews of premium content products. We were delighted to have VIP’s report author Perrin Kerravala, Senior Librarian at Export Development Canada, analyze FirstRain and share an inside look into how effectively our solution can help deliver The Business Web to busy professionals. The Report walks readers through the basic workings of the product and offers a detailed product review (including screenshots and a step-by-step guide).
In short, it’s a great review, and the VIP Report highlights a number of the attributes that make FirstRain such an asset to businesses:
• “FirstRain is primarily a current awareness research tool that makes free, relevant web content easy to find.” (Emphasis theirs)
• “[FirstRain] Vastly increases precision when searching for quality business information on the internet, largely thanks to the FirstRain Business Web taxonomic system.”
• “FirstRain enables users to build sophisticated Monitors very quickly using a three-step process.”
• “Numerous mobile and enterprise integration options allow organisations to choose the method of content delivery that works best for them.”
• “[FirstRain] is suitable for users at all levels of research expertise—novice to expert searchers. The product’s customisable monitoring functions and content delivery options make it a good option for busy C-Level executives.”
A really positive review like this one provides just one more validation that FirstRain is a solution that can truly meet the needs of sales, marketing, legal, CI, research and many other professionals who need to find information to make business decisions. For example, selling and rolling out a solution is one challenge, but delivering a solution that people actually find value in and continue to use on a daily basis is quite another. Fortunately, we know how good the active usage by our customers of FirstRain actually is, but it’s wonderful to see this strongly supported, as when Ms. Kerravala suggests, “… FirstRain is effective and user friendly—ensuring that users will come back to it, time and again.”
Just one more exciting day at FirstRain! To see the full report, visit FreePint at: http://firstra.in/vipfirstrain
Everyone interacts differently in the office, based on their role and personality, but most people sort into one of two types with respect to their impact on other people: energy sources and energy sinks. The CEO has to be open to all, and to motivate and energize all, and so I become very aware of the net gain or drain of interaction with my coworkers – and everyone at all levels of the company is consciously or unconsciously impacting the energy level of the people around them.
Energy sinks:
- Bring you problems for you to solve. They’ll arrive with a problem, dump it on you and ask what you are going to do about it. Particularly sink-ish when they phone you up with the problem on Friday afternoon and get it off their chest so you can worry about it all weekend.
- Have a negative outlook. Every solution you come up with they shoot it down without chewing on it first, and they drag down other people in the discussion who are trying to find a positive solution. Some people are consistently negative – about movies, about food, about their spouse. It’s exhausting!
- Take cheap shots up. Some people think it’s OK to be positive down their organization, positive to peers and attack up. The logic is something like “well you wanted the job so you just have to take it”. Very negative to other people in the room and, inside, very tiring for the leader. Equally draining are people who are obsequious – also does not move the business forward.
- Are non interactive. They sit silent in a problem solving discussion. Especially frustrating when you know they are smart and have ideas to contribute so you work extra hard to help them participate and overcome whatever inhibition is holding them back.
In contrast energy sources:
- Bring solutions with the problems. Even if they don’t have a good solution to some killer problem you are facing together, they try get the brainstorming going until the team comes up with a reasonable idea.
- Bring smart, out of the box solutions. The people who are willing to listen to an issue, think and then take the risk of an unusual or creative solution are particularly energizing, even if half their ideas are bad ones. They open up the solution space for everyone.
- See issues as bumps in the road, not roadblocks.
- See you a fellow traveler on the road (whatever level of management you are at), working together to move the company forward. They don’t take cheap shots or kiss up.
- Have a positive outlook. Some people know how to look for the silver lining – it’s in their nature – and these people often become leaders of their teams, whether they have an official manager role or not.
- Understand that executives are human. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone gets stumped at times and energy sources know that and detect when to be demanding and when to offer an ear to listen. As CEO you can never expect support from below, you need to be self reliant, but it sure is helpful sometimes when it’s offered no strings attached.
Think about which are you in what circumstances – and is your behavior and impact on your coworkers conscious? And if you behave differently with co-workers who are at or below your level in the org chart than you do with coworkers above you why is that and is it justified or helpful to your company?
The top image is of Centaurus A which is two colliding galaxies around a super massive black hole. The bottom image is our Sun.
The FirstRain office has had a full house this week with members from our East Coast sales team in town for our quarterly sales kick-off. And last night, in the spirit of fun, culture and generally getting over ourselves, the entire sales team and most of the company, headed down south to Cupertino for the final Splash and Dash race of the summer. The race consisted of a one-mile swim in the Stevens Creek Reservoir, followed by a three-mile run. We are lucky to have 13 great (or at least enthusiastic!) athletes that competed in relays – so we had 6.5 teams in the competition. The less brave joined the superb cheerleading team led by Julie and her cowbell.
Splash and Dash race @ Stevens Creek Reservoir
Aaron and Ryan finished first for the team, crediting their win to the support from our star, 5-year old cheerleader Natalie. Natalie earned her prize, keeping the shiny blue pom-poms that she used to cheer on each rainmaker.
Natalie– our star cheerleader
After the race, everyone plus families and friends and headed back to my house for a team cookout – where Thomas, Carolyn and Doug dueled over the grill (I was happy to hand off the tongs, so to speak). It was a beautiful night out, with great food and terrific company. We finished the night by celebrating Rajiv’s birthday (he is visiting us from our Gurgaon office) using our best singing voices to serenade him (in and out of tune!).
all of our FirstRain racers (minus Eugene)
The Splash and Dash race has proven to be a great team building event for FirstRain and I’m very proud of my team. The encouragement and support they show one another builds the kind of relationships that make a company great. Their ability to congratulate each other for a job well done, to help each other, to care about each other independent of their work roles is part of what makes FirstRain such a fun place to be.
It’s another great day at FirstRain today – I’m delighted to announce that FirstRain has raised 6.4MM in new funding led by Oak Investment Partners.
This new round is just the latest in a series of exciting developments for us – you may have seen our latest release which is getting rave responses from our customers, and we’re signing up major new enterprise deployments and hiring aggressively in both sales and R&D. Interested in a job? – see our careers page.
This new capital is all about our growth trajectory: growing the sales team and investing significantly in product development. So watch this space as we continue to strive to bring the best business monitoring solutions to all our valued customers.
One of the most rewarding aspects of being a CEO is when you can see the hard work put in by you and your team really paying off.
For the last several weeks, everyone here at FirstRain has been putting in long hours in order to launch the next phase of FirstRain intelligence solutions to market, and so now I am extremely delighted to announce the release of the third generation of the FirstRain Web Application and our new FirstRain mobile apps for iPhone and Android (now available in the iTunes App Store and the Android Marketplace) today.
This important new release represents the third major step forward in FirstRain solution development, and provides our customers a truly unique and effective, role-based way of monitoring the critical developments impacting their business, industry, customers or competitors. In addition to these workflow enhancements and the new mobile apps, we’ve also now optimized FirstRain for use on tablet devices, all of which means that critical business intelligence can now be delivered to any place or time our customers most need to see it: whether it’s over their morning coffee, at their desk, on their company portal or out on the road.
The product also has also had a bit of a make-over, with a fresh-new look and a streamlined design which our non-professional-searcher customers will find even easier to navigate—making it simple to get in, find what you need, and get on with your work.
All in all, we think it’s a big step forward in an already great product, and seeing this really sharp new iteration of FirstRain come to life has been extremely gratifying for me and everyone involved. And for all of you who are FirstRain customers, try out the new role-based monitor setup, download the new mobile apps, and please, let us know what you think!
Perfect, beautiful Cupertino evening last night. A few of us competed in the July Splash and Dash in the Stevens Creek Reservoir – a 1 mile swim and 3 mile run which is just the right distance to make you feel great! Aaron and Cory did both the swim and the run, Thomas ran in relay to my swim, and Doug completed the swim and decided he’d wait until next time to do the run….
I am a big believer that competing in sporting events is a great way to build teams and it’s something we do well together at FirstRain, especially within the sales team. We started with everyone participating in some way at the Aquabike in 2008 and now we not only compete in a couple of events a year together, we also train together, and eat and drink together!
David, Thomas, Jordy, me, Doug, Carolyn and Cory
Because the reservoir is only a couple of miles from my house we joined up with supporters, spouses and several kids at my house for a bar-be-que. The kids — and one of our dogs — spent the whole time in the pool and I gather everyone under age 10 slept like a log last night!
Having fun together in my back garden on a warm Bay Area night
This was a big week for FirstRain. We released a major software release which the team has been working hard on both in the US and in our Gurgaon office for several months. I am truly delighted with the impact of their work – it’s transformative for our customers – and so I decided we should get out of the office into the fresh air and celebrate together.
We rented the Bay Wolf for the afternoon and fueled with champagne, sandwiches, cookies and fruit we spent a wonderful afternoon on the Bay. I think our summer intern from Berkeley thinks working in high tech is a blast now.
FirstRain crew – in uniform (sort of)
Relaxing and bonding together
Ashutosh at the helm!
Day 1 iPad2 Winner: Rachel Eichen, Library Intern, Consumer Electronics Association (with FirstRain VP of Marketing, Ryan Warren)
FirstRain was an SLA newbie this year, attending the Special Libraries Association conference for the first time at this year’s annual gathering in Philadelphia, June 12-14. And although it was our first time, SLA’s attendees were gentle with us. 
We received an incredibly warm welcome and a hugely positive response to the FirstRain solution suite, meeting many wonderful people from the SLA community who visited our Info-Expo booth, who joined us for our Philadelphia-themed Cheesesteak and Beer cocktail parties, and who attended the SLA Midwest Chapter Event that we sponsored.
Overall, it was a wonderful SLA, and made even brighter by the excited winners of the three iPad2s given away by FirstRain to SLA attendees. Thanks for the warm reception everyone, we’re looking forward to seeing you all again soon!
Day 2 iPad2 Winner: Michelle Bing, Library Director, Miller-Motte Technical College (with FirstRain Sales Executive, Thomas Lai)
Day 3 iPad2 Winner: Janet Holly, Reference Librarian, Virginia Military Institute
One challenge of being an information solution that’s been designed from the ground-up to be easily used by business professionals who are not professional researchers, is the mistaken assumption that corporate libraries wouldn’t be interested in FirstRain.
So it’s always gratifying, then, when yet another customer comes along that helps us dispel this myth. We’re very happy to announce today that leading international commercial law firm, Bird & Bird, has selected FirstRain. And once again, it’s Bird & Bird’s Library and Information Services team that selected FirstRain as the solution to provide business monitoring to their organization, and assist with the dissemination of that intelligence across the firm.
Bird & Bird has integrated FirstRain into both their ad hoc research process, and is used to provide ongoing updates to their firm’s fee earners. FirstRain was selected, as Cecilia Cheung, Head of Library at Bird & Bird noted “In order to to give Bird & Bird Fee Earners competitive advantage …”.
We know that many info pros love FirstRain because of our unique and patented Business Web Graph(TM). Better than a conventional, linear taxonomy, FirstRain’s Business Web Graph takes traditionally hierarchical concepts such as sectors, industries and companies, and then creates live interconnections between them using our unique Business Lines and Dynamic Topics. The result is a dynamic graph of linked Business Web concepts we apply to all of our content–and continuously update based on the living Web. It’s the industry’s best collection of business topics, and is one of the many reasons FirstRain is the market leader in filtering out the noise of the consumer Web and delivering your users only highly relevant Business Web content.
We’re very excited to be working with the Library at Bird & Bird, and can’t wait for the next myth-busting customer to come along!
By the way, for those of you who will be at next week’s Special Libraries Association 2011 Conference in Philadelphia, stop by and see us at Booth 540! We’ll be giving away an iPad every day, hosting Beer & Cheesesteak cocktail parties, and our own Nima Niakan will be leading a session on developing effective Sales & Marketing triggers. Hope to see you there!
