The real history of Zeryn probably began in a small college town where Joe and Dave Free, two of the founders, grew up and first caught the entrepreneurial bug. Their father taught mechanical engineering at the local university and encouraged creative projects of all kinds. It didn’t take much encouragement--model volcanoes with real flames, homemade aquariums with tadpole escapees, and a zip-line with the world’s first toilet-seat attachment device--to name just a few. Understandably, delivering papers and picking cherries in the local orchards didn’t provide enough creative challenge to keep the brothers motivated so they turned to planning their own businesses. One of the first things they learned is that they needed more education.
Joe studied mechanical engineering and earned a Master’s degree with a thesis entitled “Function Approximation Using Statistical Experimental Designs For Constrained Nonlinear Optimization.” No kidding! Sounds kind of computer-ish, doesn’t it? Dave went the business route, got a degree in accounting and then went on to earn an MBA with honors. Perhaps even more important than the book learning they picked up, was a friendship with Dan Crites, the third founder of Zeryn.
Dan was also working on a Masters degree in mechanical engineering. He and Joe started studying together and became fishing buddies (one of those more important things in life). No better place to talk over, um, well, … fishing, than lounging in a canoe with a line in the water and a bag of Tootsie Pops between you.
When Joe and Dan graduated they both headed to a company called Garrett Turbine Engine Company (now part of Honeywell) where they worked on the design of jet turbine engines. In the process they both became experts and promoters of the Apple Macintosh computer. It was only a matter of time till they were both working for Apple as system engineers.
In the mean time, Dave went to work for Intel as a financial analyst, spent a couple of years overseas in Singapore with the company and ended his ten year Intel stint as controller of one of their software development divisions.
At the time Dave left Intel, Joe was running his own multi-media development and consulting company and Dan was working at one of our premier national laboratories as a development engineer and staff member of the University of Chicago. A strong desire to work together and a venture called GeoDiscovery brought them back together. GeoDiscovery was a pioneer in location-based technology. The vision was a handheld device that could tell you both where you were and what was around you. The first implementation was a GPS device called the Geode that snapped into Handspring’s Visor. Think of Google Earth in the palm of your hand. You can view an early promotional video here.
Thanks to an amazing group of creative and dedicated people, great things were accomplished at GeoDiscovery. Dave served as the President and Joe and Dan lead the “customer evangelism” group--a group that developed loyal relationships with nearly 10,000 beta testers before the product was even launched! The product launched to great reviews but terrible timing. GeoDiscovery became a casualty of the bursting “internet bubble.”
Some very important things happened at GeoDiscovery for the founders. First, they met Chris Coberly, the fourth founder of Zeryn. Chris was a member of the customer support team and had a natural ability to understand people and meet their needs. And second, they all got a taste of what it felt like to work in a creative, energy-filled organization and there was no turning back.
In the fall of 2001 they joined with some other smart people and founded a venture, Content Connections, which built a system for textbook publishers to gather feedback from their customers and promote their offerings. The innovative company services higher education textbook publishers and grew quickly.
In the spring of 2005 the four founders left Content Connections and founded Zeryn. The goals for Zeryn were simple but not easy: 1) Use everything they had learned about small business, customer evangelism, and online technology to deliver products that would help small businesses grow, 2) Create an energy-filled, creative work environment, 3) Generate more than adequate income and 4) Leave enough time to focus on the important things in life.
And what are the important things in life? To the founders, things like family, god and service are at the top of the list. Between the four families there are twenty-two children. On any given afternoon chances are someone has a football game, a soccer game, a cross country meet, a school musical, a concert, or a parent-teacher conference. Important things.
In addition, the founders are all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Also known as Mormons (learn more about the Mormon church), the church provides countless opportunities for service such as working with scouts, caring for neighbors, taking meals to the elderly, working in a cannery, teaching a Sunday school lesson, or helping a neighbor move. More important things.
So stay tuned. The founders of Zeryn aren’t done yet. Promoterz™ is just the first of many planned products that will help small businesses grow (read the Promoterz™ story here). More great things are in the works and there are still lots of important things to do!