Bob Hale, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Alterian, came to visit in June. It was obvious he had done his research and was asking good qualifying questions about our business.  He decided to stay for dinner at Barolo Restaurant that night rather than flying back home.

Everything just made a lot of sense. Alterian had a great suite of marketing products, including SM2 (social media monitoring software) that needed services support. A large part of their revenues came from their channel and we had a model with our research center in Ho Chi Minh that could complement, rather than threaten such partners. Also, we could help pull in Atlerian’s platform into our research and strategy engagements.  Intrepid had a global reach which matched Alterian’s need for services throughout its 14 offices.

The negotiations went quickly and were finalized by end of July. It helped that we had executives experienced in transactions like this. I hired my brother, Paul Song, to do the final negotiations because he is very knowledgeable in these matters, but also because I didn’t want to be negotiating with my future bosses.

Then, the due diligence started with a tight deadline to close the deal by the end of August. I must admit I was not quite as prepared for this process as I had thought. Given that Alterian is a public UK company, there were a lot of laws and regulations that I was not familiar with. Additionally, I had under-estimated the rigor of the due diligence process.

In order to protect my team from being too distracted from running the business, I took on most of the due diligence effort myself with the support of a fantastic attorney, Daren Nitz, who had supported me though previous transactions.

The deal had some dramatic twists and turns, but the business executives at Alterian would always help put the business objectives in perspective when things were at an impasse. They gained my respect through the process, re-affirming our decision to join forces together. Never did I have a backroom discussion about corporate politics with any individual executive. They were aligned in vision and on how to execute. This has not always been my experience with these deals.

I’m extremely optimistic about our future. Misia Tramp and Liz High are already incorporating Alterian suite of products into some of our solutions. Warren Sukernek, Wilson Raj and Ed Kim are preparing for the expected increase in demand for social media services from Alterian’s channel and direct sales force.

The decision to join Alterian was relatively easy. The process to complete the deal was very intense and challenging but well worth the effort. The momentum we are creating reassures me that our initial vision to help define the social media analytics market has just become much more probable.

So, thirteen months after starting Lift9, I was in the Alterian Bristol UK office signing the Stock Purchase Agreement with David Eldridge, having scarfed down some late night Dominos pizza, feeling relieved that the due diligence was finally over…  and looking forward to the future.

We met at Wild Ginger for the first time in December, 2009. Misia Tramp and I talked about leveraging the available social media data for market research projects. She obviously knew her subject matter as she had been providing market research services through her company, Intrepid, for more than 11 years.

Misia had charisma that was further enhanced by her proper British accent. I was intrigued about the rigor of market research methods that could be used with social media data to gain truly useful insights. We left that lunch with just a promise to reconnect, but my mind was already racing ahead about the possibilities.

Lift9 had expertise around social media data and analytics. We had an improving team of cost-effective analysts at our research center in Ho Chi Minh. Intrepid had agro rhythms, methods and rigor from market research projects that could potentially be applied to social data. They had a bigger revenue base, but struggled with margins that would be improved with Lift9’s cost structure and focus on accessible digital information.

My first proposal was to merge Lift9 with only the US entity of Intrepid. In the end, however, we decided to merge both the UK and US operations of Intrepid with Lift9.  Misia’s business partner, Liz High, had been running Intrepid UK.

We put together an operations agreement in late January, 2010 to test whether we could merge the two companies’ products. Meanwhile, we concurrently kicked off the due diligence of the deal.

The signs were encouraging from the start. Misia was able to get more attention from her client base by incorporating social elements into her pitch. In many cases we were able to deliver faster, better and more cost-effective outputs right away.

The biggest challenges were at the speed we needed to improve our cash flow, which had been a deteriorating issue for Intrepid, and how to effectively merge the two different cultures into working cohesively together. We allowed some turnover of people in the beginning, and focused on driving sales and improving margins and cash flow.

On May 3, 2010, we finalized the merger with Lift9 taking controlling interest, but keeping the Intrepid brand. From there, the financial performance began to improve so dramatically, I started to think about raising capital to acquire additional boutique market research companies that had solid client bases. We now had tangible proof that combining social elements with traditional market research methods provided compelling insights that resulted in better sales traction and improved financial results.

The management team approved plans to raise money for acquisitions, which included up to 11 potential transactions within a three-year period.

Right about then, I received a call from an Alterian senior executive about a possible service partnering deal using its social media monitoring tool, SM2. When he asked to come visit us, I had an inkling our world was about to change yet again.

My advice to entrepreneurs is to keep improving your companies’ stories through different possibilities. Don’t get too stuck in just what you are trying to do with your current resources. Understand what’s happening in the market around you and find ways to improve your story within that context.

Everyone loved the idea conceptually, but securing client contracts was a whole another matter.

We started selling our social media solution in late October, 2009. This had given us time to set up and train our researchers in Vietnam. When presented with our sample Lift9 reports on social media, people in the industry seemed genuinely impressed. We secured a few quick contracts, making us extremely optimistic about our future.

The market was young and immature, and a lot of bad social media reports were being delivered by agencies, setting the bar low.

Our research center was getting better with each report. These researchers in Vietnam were smart and were able to apply new learning to each and every new report.

Then, we hit a slight wall. We had a stretch where the sales cycle seemed to take longer. We discovered the following problems:

1. We secured the “low-lying” fruit opportunities within our personal networks, which explains the initial success
2. We had trouble competing against agencies that were burying their social media monitoring cost into their retainers, thus making cost-savings a difficult benefit to sell
3. A lot of organizations didn’t appropriately budget for social media intelligence, so internal groups had a hard time securing money for such support
4. The insights in our reports were interesting to start, but we even had a difficult time articulating the value of such reports on an on-going month-to-month basis

The last point (#4), in particular, bothered us. My background was in Business Intelligence before Web Analytics. I knew that data could give invaluable insights if one KNEW which business questions to ask. We had been too focused on our cost-effective and speed-to-report competitive advantages. We needed more compelling insights than just the monthly change in the volume of a brand’s mentions on social media.

If we had better applications for social data, the potential truly would be tremendous. Lift9 was already getting a lot of attention just because we were in the hot space of social media. We now were looking for something more disruptive to the market than the general social media monitoring efforts. What would it be?

It was around this time in December that I was introduced to Misia Tramp, President of Intrepid US.

We had gotten to near break-even business relatively quickly because of our low-cost model. It would have been easy to just focus on getting to a good cash flow business, but we wanted to build something bigger than that. Such perspective forced us be extremely honest with ourselves and realistic about our situation.  It kept us motivated to find that “disruption” factor, and would not let us be content with our initial progress.

My advice to entrepreneurs (or businessmen) is to be honest with your situation and realistic about what still needs to be done.  Acknowledge the challenges ahead so they become less daunting and you and your team can prepare to overcome them. A lot of people at this stage tend to bury their heads in the sand.

It was shortly after we signed on as a customer of Techrigy’s SM2 last year that we heard about Alterian’s acquisition of the social media tools company.

Now, our company, Intrepid, has just been acquired by Alterian as well. Obviously, I applaud Alterian’s vision. Together, we will be able to provide a very compelling solution around social media intelligence.

The growth in the adoption of social media has been astounding, yet we’re still just in the beginning stages. Social data is growing exponentially, and buried in it are gold mines of insights. I believe getting at them properly requires both a robust platform as well as good human effort.

Alterian offers a world-class integrated marketing platform. Intrepid offers services that provide insights around social data. Together, we extend each other’s reach and complement one another’s strengths. Alterian customers and partners now will have accessible support around how to use social data.  Our analysts can do the digging of the data that uncovers the gold mine of actionable insights.

As part of our integrated launch plan, Alterian has prepared service packages that will immediately add value to those deploying Atlerian’s SM2.  Once customers and partners understand what and how to ask compelling marketing and research questions around social data, the platform will become much more valuable. I’m confident that our social media expertise will be a welcomed augmentation to Alterian’s marketing platform for both customers and partners.

For Intrepid, we now have a solid marketing platform behind us. This allows us to be a legitimate player in coming up with over-arching social intelligence solutions that are more efficient and eloquent.  Alterian’s global reach really offers a tremendous opportunity for all of us to push thought-leadership in social data solutions across different markets.

It’s still a brave new world in terms of social media intelligence. And I’m very excited to have joined forces with Alterian to make our impact.

Here is a link to our video about the acquisition:

http://www.yourbusinesschannel.com/vip/9a55f630-8afa-4703-8f4b-0ab2842a001a/bf4469d8-4da4-45bc-9ab0-43d153257422/540

Done deal. David Eldridge, CEO Alterian

Front entry into Yonsei University Campus

Twenty-four years ago, I was but a young man just finished with college in the states, studying at Seoul’s Yonsei University to rediscover my ethnic culture and learn Korean.

Korea, at the time, was just developing into one of the Asian “Tiger” economies, and preparing for its coming out party, the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics.  The country was bustling with rapid change, but persevering poverty and third-world status was evident everywhere.

At the time, I was a poor student, living on my parents’ generosity and by teaching English here and there. As a young man, I was a bit awkward, lacking self-esteem and confused about my identity as a Korean-American. While the Korean people were curious about me, my Western attitude and poor Korean language skills made me an outsider. Still, being able to lose myself in a sea of black-haired people, all around my height, was an amazing and uplifting experience. My personal growth in Seoul established a solid foundation for building my self-esteem in the ensuing years.

A few years later, Korea hosted a successful 1988 Summer Olympics. Sure, there were some strange manifestations of the country’s insecurities during the ’88 Games, such as protesting against American teams because of Hustler magazine’s write-up on Seoul’s red-light districts and a reference to  ”kimchi-breath” ladies of the night. The most embarrassing moment was when a Korean boxer lost to an American fighter, but protested by sitting in the middle of the ring, which incited local fans into nearly storming the ring to assault the referee.

In the end, however, the positives far outweighed the negatives. Seoul never looked back and continued on a torrid pace toward modernization.

It was during this awkwardness in my life and the development of Korea that I met Shari, a Korean-American from Chicago also studying Korean at Yonsei University.

In general, I’m not a very romantic person. However, on a rather chilly day, I ventured into one of the wooded areas on Yonsei campus to carve our names on a tree, and to hide a picnic basket full of  fruits. When I finally lured her to the magical spot, she laughed, telling me that I had misspelled her name.

Through fate, good luck, along with lots of effort on both our parts, we’ve survived 23 years of marriage and raised two  college-age sons. I’m definitely less awkward now.

Last week, I was in Seoul again to visit my sister who lives there now. Seoul, I must say, is no longer awkward either. It is a city that has come into its own. Its people are now chic and cosmopolitan. There are no signs of the old poverty. Everything is new and modern. Seoul boasts one of the best road and mass transportation infrastructures in the world.

In the 80′s people blatantly stared at every foreigner. Now, most foreigners are pretty much ignored. The hip places now cater to the young locals. There are many promenades of boutique shops, hopping cafes, chic bars and people strolling in the latest fashions from Europe, America and Japan.

More than one million foreigners now work in greater Seoul, many filling jobs that the locals are no longer willing to do.

While modern Seoul is truly impressive, I was at times nostalgic for the “old awkward” Seoul. One day I visited Yonsei campus, secretly looking for my tree from 24 years ago. I wanted it to know that Shari and I are still together, that the markings still meant something.  Try as I might, I could not find the tree.  In the end, it mattered not, as the journey itself stirred so many amazing memories of my awkward and naive youth.

I left Seoul for Seattle the day of our 23rd wedding anniversary. I shared with Shari my adventure looking for “our” tree and how I wanted to bring back a picture of it as an anniversary present. Then, we reminisced together and laughed and laughed.  It was quite enough, really.

You will “Meet Anil Batra” in a later post.

Almost a year ago, I walked into my own INTERVENTION. It was after a team meeting at ZeroDash1. As I walked out, feeling good about my presentation, Josiah Johnson and Rachel Cascisa asked to have a word with me.

They were nice about it, but basically told me that I was not dressing for success. As the executive representative of ZeroDash1, I needed to present a more professional and fashionable image. Gulp. Totally speechless.

Looking down at my favorite cotton knit sweater (with an awesome fly fisherman on the front), I couldn’t fathom what they were trying to tell me. I’d been wearing this sweater for almost ten years! You couldn’t find sweaters like this anymore. Apparently, that was their point.

After letting me know that the “Bill Cosby” sweaters are out, they moved the intervention to the next stage: A Banana Republic website. Boy, they were prepared.

I realized then that there were age-appropriate business casual attire out there that is more modern than my baggy carry-overs from the 80′s and 90′s. And most of all, if these employees cared enough to have an intervention for me, I needed to make a better effort representing them.

In our industry, business casual sometimes leads to casual to sloppy casual. Now that I’m paying more attention, I can see that appropriate dress codes in the work place can have a real positive impact. It shows respect for oneself as well as for others. A group of well-dressed people have an energy about them.

So again, I’m humbled and learn another valuable lesson from those close to me. But hey, that favorite sweater… it’s still in the closet. Those are going to make a comeback.

1. You have to have an attractive business plan. We focused on talented people in a highly desirable, up-and-coming field. We had picked the right business.
2. With a service company, you must have a stellar reputation. Build brand and not just resumes. We continued to do this even when cash became tight.
3. Must be able to articulate your value from the potential acquirer’s perspective. It matters little what you think of your value.
4. Be reasonable in determining valuation. It has to be a win-win.
5. Be open as possible from the beginning. Eventually, all truths will come out anyway.
6. Keep liabilities to a minimum. No complex corporate structure.
7. Don’t want it TOO much, but want it bad enough.
8. Negotiate for the team, not just the shareholders.
9. Realize luck is involved. Be humble.

Looking ahead, I’m very excited about what ZeroDash1 can do as part of Ascentium. It truly seems to be a tremendous match. And the web analytics space still remains fragmented, and ready for some market leaders to emerge. Our vision remains to become one of those leaders.