Terry Cunningham’s Adventures: Crystal and Coral8 (Part 3)

SM: Did you have the same business model approach with Microsoft as you had with Borland? TC: Yes. We put some ‘nag ware’ in the product to check for updates. When you started Crystal Reports it said ‘Welcome to Crystal Reports, please register now or later’.

Terry Cunningham’s Adventures: Crystal and Coral8 (Part 2)

SM: What was the first product you built for your customers? TC: We built a little product called Quick Check, which was an instant check writer. The existing accounts payable function only let you write a batch of checks, which was problematic when the courier showed up with a COD. Our little product allowed small

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Terry Cunningham’s Adventures: Crystal and Coral8 (Part 1)

SM: Let’s start by talking about your background. Where are you from? TC: I am from Vancouver, Canada. My family grew up in Montreal and my father moved to the west coast in the 1960s. In Montreal there was a group called the FLQ [Front de libération du Québec] that started to terrorize the city

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Prospering Amidst the Real Estate Meltdown: Trulia CEO Pete Flint (Part 7)

SM: Are you seeing a lot of transactions in very inexpensive real estate? PF: The annualized transaction rate is 5 million units right now. That compares to 7 million at the peak. It is a fairly steady pace. In certain regions 80% of all transactions are distressed, meaning they are either short sales or foreclosures.

Prospering Amidst the Real Estate Meltdown: Trulia CEO Pete Flint (Part 6)

SM: Newspapers are definitely struggling, especially with their top classifieds such as jobs, travel and real estate. PF: That market is absolutely gone for them. Most of it has moved online; some of it has evaporated. Total spend has come down. We provide free to list.

Prospering Amidst the Real Estate Meltdown: Trulia CEO Pete Flint (Part 5)

SM: How many consumers are you touching right now? PF: Over 5 million unique users monthly. Trulia is one of the largest real estate sites in the US and is growing very rapidly. We want to grow more.

Prospering Amidst the Real Estate Meltdown: Trulia CEO Pete Flint (Part 4)

SM: You were also providing information regarding the price surrounding properties had sold for. Where was that data coming from? PF: Initially it was coming from listing agents who said they sold a property. They were promoting the fact that they had sold the property, so we simply tagged the property as sold and gave

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Prospering Amidst the Real Estate Meltdown: Trulia CEO Pete Flint (Part 3)

SM: When you launched, what was your thesis regarding your ability to solve the various problems you identified? PF: Initially we were very focused on the consumer side. That was our perspective, and we felt it was the primary problem which needed to be solved. We approached the challenge from two key perspectives.