MEMBER SUCCESSES

Growth Companies

Council’s Belief in Web Helped Guru.com Persevere

Guru.com

Inder Guglani, CEO of Guru.com, applauds the PTC for having the foresight to promote the Web back in the early days.

Guru.com provides a platform to connect and perform transactions with freelance professionals locally, nationally, and globally.

Challenge

Starting an Internet company shortly before the dot com crash can have a major impact on the morale of current and prospective employees, and even a company’s CEO. Guru.com (which began business as SOFTmoonlighter.com) felt confident they had a solid business model when they opened for business in 1998. After the tech bubble burst, however, they had to fight the ongoing negative perception that any company involved with the Internet would soon be shutting their doors.

Solution

Guru.com entered the Pittsburgh Technology Council’s Tech 50 Awards. Being recognized as the Rising Star category leader for 2002 made them realize they were doing better than most companies, across a number of business sectors. Since then, they’ve been named the service provider industry leader in the Tech 50 Awards in 2003 and 2004 and have been named a finalist in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Results

While Guru.com competes on a global level, their local profile is important for recruiting. The company has been experiencing steady growth, which means a demand for new talent. The company measures revenue in terms of transaction values, which rose from $13.2 million in 2006 to $18.5 million in 2007. This year, the company projects a transaction value of $26 million. The firm has 20 employees, and wants to increase that number to 28 within the next year. The Tech 50 recognition has raised their local profile considerably. Inder Guglani, CEO of Guru.com, applauds the PTC for having the foresight to promote the Web back in the early days. Bringing in Tiffany Shlain, founder of The Webby Awards, as the keynote speaker for the 2002 awards ceremony showed those in attendance to focus on the long-term possibilities. Inder credits that advice with helping him keep his company on track for steady growth.

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