Trackvia Inc.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: TECH STARTUP OF THE MONTH

INITIAL LIGHT BULB:

In the wake of selling his second startup, Golden-based Senware, to a Florida software and services firm, Matt McAdams was consulting from his home in the Sunshine State.

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"I was looking for an excuse to come back to Colorado," he said. "And my wife was tired of me not having a job."

In 2005, an old contact in Denver approached McAdams with a project to make a Web-based database to keep track of public comments for RTD's FastTracks initiative. That project soon snowballed into a brand-new startup. By 2006, McAdams and the Trackvia team were taking its eponymous flagship database to the broader market.

Another software entrepreneur, President and Chief Operations Officer Chris Basham, came aboard last year, with McAdams serving as chief technical officer of the four-person company.

"Growth is rapid," said McAdams, noting that the company has hundreds of paid users.

IN A NUTSHELL:

For many of its users, Trackvia's scalable online database replaces the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, which McAdams labeled "the de facto database" for recording and sharing information in corporate America. "That leaves a lot to be desired," he noted: Excel spreadsheets are not searchable or flexible.

Trackvia's technology allows administrators to upload their spreadsheets to be converted into customizable "Google-ized" databases that are easy to search and much more flexible and efficient than the original spreadsheets.

Companies can give any number of users various levels of permission to enter, edit or search data. Other features allow users to create e-mail lists, pinpoint entries on a map, and otherwise utilize their databases.

"This is actually a huge deal for companies that are used to using Excel for these purposes," Basham said. "All of a sudden life has changed. It's a true innovation."

McAdams described Trackvia as "priced to move" at $9.95 per user per month after a 14-day free trial, with additional fees for various special features.

"We have a real down-to-earth, nuts-and-bolts business model," he added. Customer acquisitions require an up-front investment that is gradually paid back by monthly fees.

RTD remains a key customer, along with Aurora-based Circulation Service America, a publications distributor. Other clients run the gamut from...