SM: In 2001 you were working with a handful of retailers, advising them on various channels. Did you have a product in place? SW: From 2001 to 2003, the bulk of what we did was helping folks to sell on eBay. It was going well, but we saw some clouds on the horizon. One year
SM: When you realized that large enterprises were willing to sell on eBay, what impact did that have on your strategy? SW: We decided to rethink our approach. We took a very small business application and stripped it down to the metal. We kept the architecture that interfaced with eBay that managed and scheduled auctions.
SM: How did you fund the AuctionRover.com? Did you bootstrap that as well? SW: We funded ourselves for a long time and eventually raised venture capital to try to sustain marketing as well as to scale faster.
SM: Did you bootstrap Stingray Software? SW: Yes we did. We eventually sold it for $12 million. SM: That’s sizable. Tell me about the journey of building a $12 million company organically in three years. SW: Stingray is when I officially stopped being an engineer and became a CEO.
Scot Wingo is the president, CEO, and co-founder of ChannelAdvisor. Prior to launching ChannelAdvisor, was a co-founder of AuctionRover.com, which was acquired by GoTo.com and became GoTo Auctions. Prior to AuctionRover he was the CEO and co-founder of Stingray Software, which was acquired by RogueWave. Scot received a BS in computer science from the University of
SM: Does the online environment change the social aspect of a course? CY: In a lot of our public school classrooms there is peer pressure towards mediocrity. By taking classes online, students can work to their highest level. That is very beneficial for kids who would otherwise be pressured into underperforming.
SM: Let’s talk about the final piece of your business, the curriculum licensing. CY: With Aventa we offer anything we do in our private and public offerings on an à la carte basis. We offer it with or without teachers. Our customers are school districts, charter schools, and some online schools.
SM: It sounds as though your private school is catering to a very non-traditional group of students. CY: In our private school that is very true. Many of our students are extremely accelerated. We have 13-year-olds taking calculus. It is hard to get calculus in seventh to ninth grade.