 Kevin Sproles
Looking past the frenzied rush of venture capital infused into the market in the late '90s to build internet businesses based on nothing more than a thinly veiled idea, the true essence of a startup conjures visions of passionate and hard-working entrepreneurs determined against all odds to make their mark. Although started in 1999, during a time when so many internet based businesses were cratering the landscape with their firey crashes, Volusion is exactly the kind of passion-driven startup that you just love to see succeed. With their marketing, sales, creative design, SEO, and customer service teams calling Austin its home, the company’s shopping cart technology is one of the most feature-filled and powerful, self administered tools on the market today.
You're never too young to be an entrepreneur
Started by Kevin Sproles, who was barely out of childhood at the time, the company was built upon the concept of giving internet businesses exactly what they needed in a cart solution. As the primary software coder, Sproles regularly interacted with customers to understand what new features they wanted to see or what parts of the tool weren’t working the way it should be. Powered by his passion to develop the best solution on the market for small internet businesses to build their dreams upon, he spent nearly every waking hour converting these requirements into code. The timing of his hard work could not have been better. A few years after the company had its solution out on the market, Volusion’s current number two guy, Clay Olivier, had just decided to leave a successful career at Dell. His goal was to start his own business or to invest in a startup that could benefit from his strong business background and experience. While evaluating shopping cart tools for his new online business, Olivier happened upon Volusion a few pages deep on a Google search. Having limited technical skills of his own, he found himself phoning the company on a regular basis for assistance with his store. Time after time he would end up getting the very same individuals on the line, including the company’s founder himself. With every question and comment, Olivier became even more impressed at their responsiveness and in their ability to continue making the tool even more powerful. This was precisely the kind of business he was interested in becoming involved with. So, the Austin based Olivier connected with Sproles, the two hit it off and he subsequently became Volusion’s Chief Operating Officer.
Austin has the goods
Soon after, the awards flooded in. Best eCommerce solution, best customer service team, and highest sales growth rate are just a few of the coveted trophies they have piled up, and all for good reason. The tool simply puts some amazing power, flexibility and ease of use into the hands of the business customer looking to expand their reach to the internet.  Obama store-Powered by Volusion Now venturing further up the chain into the enterprise business space, Volusion boasts a client list including both Barrack Obama and John McCain’s campaign sites, Disney educational products, Crutchfield Canada, Ed Hardy and the Chicago Tribune. Also, in a highly innovative move, they released their APIs to third party developers. For the non-techies in the crowd, that basically means that other companies can develop their own tools and applications based upon the Volusion engine. One great example is the iPhone friendly Volusion store called iVoloo. Take the Internet for everything it's got
If you want to see how a Volusion store can work for your site, just go ahead and set up a store for yourself. Take it from first hand experience, they have an incredibly easy trial process that will have you up and running with a test store in a matter of minutes. Try it out for 14 days and then flip it over to a live store with hosting, chat, SEO and a lot more, priced from $30 to a couple hundred bucks a month depending on your need.  Volusion's Austin office Rounding out their solid product and service offering, Volusion fits nicely with Austin’s strong philanthropic vibe as well with their one-one-one program. This is where they give back one percent of revenue, one percent in product, and one percent of their time to the community. Great to see a company actually making an effort to share the fruits of their vibrant success with others. Steve Muccini is president of SpotEdge Media, an award winning video production company that produces TV commercials and films. He is a film editor, cameraman, actor, and writer in Austin, Texas. You can view his profile and contact Steve here. |