BatchBlue
Pamela O'Hara remembers the exact "ah-ha" moment for her company BatchBlue and its flagship online contact manager called BatchBook. It came while she was painting Disney characters on a refrigerator-box-turned-princess-castle that she was creating for her daughter's birthday party. Having just finished a consulting job for a local publishing business, O'Hara thought about how unsatisfied she was with the expensive and challenging customer relationship management solution that the company jerry-rigged to fit its specific data needs.
What kept nagging at her was that she knew exactly what they needed, but she couldn't find it in the micro-business market. And then, "ah-ha." O'Hara decided to pull together a top-notch team and deliver an easy-to-use fully customizable and affordable contact organizer for micro-businesses.
Now president of BatchBlue, O'Hara keeps the company focused on meeting the data needs of companies with less than 20 employees. Prior to BatchBlue's software, contact management systems were designed for large corporations with large sales teams and had to be custom-built at great expense. BatchBlue's BatchBook online service made it possible for micro-businesses to put a contact management system in place that caters to their specific needs.
A micro-business has a different set of needs than a large company, yet, too often, they are forced to use one-size fits all solutions. By their very nature, micro-businesses are focused on a niche market that determines the type of data that needs managing. And that data isn't always the same kind of data that another small business collect.
Rhode Island-based Ole Spain, an online travel site that offers cultural tours in southern Spain, is one of BatchBook's users. BatchBook's customizable software works for Ole Spain because Ole Spain's growth depends on its client relationships — about 70 percent of their business comes from referrals. Ole Spain needed a system that could store data that would help the company manage their relationships and fully leverage the connection between clients. But they needed this without the hassle and expense of building a system from scratch. BatchBook made that happen.
The launch of BatchBlue's BatchBook software is a great example of how entrepreneurs can use Rhode Island's size and unique ecosystem to innovate. BatchBlue uses Rhode Island's compact geography, diverse population, and well-networked communities to test products and ideas prior to national rollout. In this scenario, they can quickly test their assumptions about the product, its users, and its marketability in a real world environment, but with significantly less risk and cost.
"Rhode Island presents BatchBlue with ideal conditions for product development and product testing," says O'Hara. "We have access to a cross-section of users, easy networking and a wealth of micro-businesses."