Suleman Ali - Co-Founder of EsgutThis is a tale of two companies -- one that decided to stay and one that got away.Their stories are unique. And like the issues I discussed in my profile on Paul Stamatiou, their success points to the opportunities and challenges of being a technology company in Atlanta.
Today, I look at the one that got away.
For weeks I tried to track down the names of the founders of Esgut, an Atlanta based company responsible for some of the most popular applications on Facebook. It was part of my quest to chronicle social media success stories here in Atlanta. Their web site said little, and Google searches yielded no clues.And then in April I got a tip from a local entrepreneur. Esgut had been bought by northern California based Social Gaming Network. A quick search on Google led to an Inside Facebook entry, and there I had it -- a name of its co-founder, Suleman Ali, Suli for short, a 26 year old graduate of Georgia Tech.
I sent an email and within an hour or so, a response - "You found me," Suli wrote jokingly.
Mystery solved, but not exactly. The bigger mystery was why another promising young entrepreneur had left Atlanta for the lure of Silicon Valley.
Suli's career path began with a BA in Computer Science from Georgia Tech in 2003. Ironically, he didn't think much of computer science geeks while in high school. But the riches of the Dot Com era proved alluring and reading a bunch of books on the subject was "intellectually interesting."
While working as a developer and program manager at Microsoft in Redmond, he discovered a passion for creating products. After a Microsoft product launch at the Computer Electronics Show, he sold everything, intent on moving to Palo Alto and doing it on his own. But before he made the move, FaceBook launched its open platform to developers, and Suli saw an opportunity.
He teamed up with Jamal Ashraf, moved back to Atlanta, and together they formed Esgut. (That's German for it's "all good." Apparently, Jamal took German in college.) Of course, as Suli confided, he now had two difficult names to pronounce - his company's and his own.Superlatives was their first success - a Facebook application that let's "you tell friends what you think of them" as in who is most likely to...
The goal was to attract a couple hundred to a few thousand total users. At its peak, Superlatives was growing by 150,000 users per day. And it eventually grew to nine million total users. Revenue was ad generated.
They turned down funding, worked under the media radar, hired a band of young and ambitious coders from Argentina and found a really talented intern from Georgia Tech.
With the success of Superlatives, they created other applications including Text Twirl and Entourage, which enabled Facebook users to create a collage of their friends on their profile. The more friends, the cooler it looked which is what viral is all about.After initial success, however, they noticed some trends that made them reconsider their next move.
From Suli's perspective, the Silicon Valley investment community he spoke with was more aggressive and on board with Facebook fever than the folks he met in Atlanta. They definitely could have raised money. And given their market position, he felt there was opportunity to take the business to the next level.However, as Suli wrote me, he realized that there were several inherent risks in getting there--the Facebook platform was changing. As Facebook "dialed down virality on channels," Fortune 500 and VC backed companies were entering the space and driving up development times and costs, and Esgut's success on Facebook would not necessarily translate into success on Myspace, Hi-5, and other social networks.
Of course Atlanta was a nice place and offered cheap rent. Along the way they developed good relationships with folks like Dave Williams co-founder of 360i, who was very helpful. But in the end, they agreed to be acquired by Creative Gaming Network. They liked its commitment to high production values and immersive experience.
And so Suli is now in Silicon Valley where he had intended to be all along with the greater opportunities he thinks it presents for him. His goal is to start another company. It appears to be in his DNA.His advice for would be entrepreneurs:Hire really smart peoplePick opportunities based on your assessments of the upper limits within a marketplace dynamicLive in Silicon ValleyFrom his perspective, Silicon Valley is more conducive to partnership building and multiple investments. The investment community has deeper contacts to promote relationships. From an educational perspective, Suli felt Georgia Tech encourages students to join large companies. Stanford on the other hand encourages students to be more entrepreneurial and join startups.
While we lost a promising entrepreneur, his experience is encouraging for fellow Georgia Tech grads. It demonstrates that in the age of social media, it does not really matter where you start your company. Talent, drive and vision know no boundaries. What is far more challenging is how to keep that talent, drive and vision here.Later this week, I will look at a company that stayed.Let me get back to you.Technorati Tags: Suleman Ali;Facebook;Jamal Ashraf;Georgia Tech;Esgut;Social Gaming Network;Text Twirl;Entourage;New South Media Buzz;Bernaise Source Buzz;Save to del.icio.us
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