A Silicon Valley start-up veteran like Cesar Nerys never saw himself launching a new business in the Midwest, let alone Michigan. But as luck would have it he is gearing up to bring Boomdash, a product of Ann Arbor Spark, into the mainstream later month.
The downtown Ann Arbor-based company will work with small and mid-sized telephone directory publishers to create an online presence for small businesses. It will unveil its new technology later this month at an industry trade show in Florida and expects to take the market by storm.
"It delivers more than what is offered by our competitors and for less and it requires little capital investment," Nerys says.
The company's five employees have been working with their customers to learn their business, while designing and customizing the new software from the inside out. The idea is that by taking the time to learn how the companies do business will make for superior product.
"We have spent the last six months or so in the trenches with our customers learning how they do business and seeing what the challenges are," Nerys says.
Experience that Nerys expects will pay big dividends in the near future. He expects Boomdash to achieve $50 million in revenues within three years and hire between 20 to 30 people by the end of this year. But these aren't expectations as much as practical certainties, or as Nerys boasts, "not a question of if as much as when."
Bold words from an entrepreneur, but Nerys and his partners (Doug Neal and Jack Horner) are not new to this. All three have helped create wealth and jobs from new economy start-ups in the past and cashed in.
But why the middle of America? The former western regional director of e-sales and service for AT&T based of San Francisco relocated to Michigan in October. His wife, a Michigander, wanted to be closer to her family and Nerys was fine with that as long as he lived close enough to a major airport to continue his business and travel when needed. In many ways, Nerys is an example of Aerotropolis culture realities.
What surprised Nerys was the resources already on hand here. Looking around and getting to know the people at Ann Arbor Spark changed his view. He saw that Ann Arbor had the tools and the talent pool to incubate a new economy start-up successfully. He is so impressed that his business is looking for more office in downtown.
"The talent pool in Ann Arbor is the best in the state," Nerys says.
Source: Cesar Nerys, CEO and co-founder of Boomdash
Writer: Jon Zemke
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