Posts Tagged ‘Austin-Business-Journal’

Awards, Community, Culture, New at Bazaarvoice

Brant Barton Brett Hurt, Our CEO, Founder & Friend, Named Austin’s Entrepreneur of the Year

May 31st, 2009 by Brant Barton Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer

It’s been an exciting couple of weeks at Bazaarvoice. First, on May 21st, Bazaarvoice was named the #1 Best Place to Work in Austin. We got a great photo of our entire team, including international team members who were in town for our quarterly company offsite at the Alamo Drafthouse, in front of our massive 52-inch Sabian Chinese gong in the Austin Business Journal.

Second, just one week later, our very own Brett Hurt was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Austin – one of four regional winners. The E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year awards recognize entrepreneurs who demonstrate extraordinary success in the areas of innovation, financial performance, and personal commitment to their businesses and communities.

Bazaarvoice CEO Brett Hurt named Austin Entrepreneur of the Year

I can’t think of anyone who deserves this honor more than Brett. In the description above, the word that I would emphasize most in describing Brett’s motivation as an entrepreneur is community. An Austin native, Brett is very mindful of the positive, profound, and multi-generational impact that a single entrepreneur and business can have on the prosperity of a community. He sees Bazaarvoice’s success and his own as a win for all of Austin, and he sincerely hopes that Bazaarvoice’s success will bring prosperity to our community not just in terms of job and wealth creation but in the form of many future companies that our team members will one day start.

When I worked for Brett at Coremetrics, the company he founded prior to Bazaarvoice, he was expecting his first child and was in the process of shopping for a new stroller. Like many first-time parents (I recently went through this process myself), he did a ton of online research, finally landing at Amazon.com and finding an extremely long and detailed review contributed by an aerospace engineer who had methodically deconstructed and reconstructed the stroller in question, documenting the process and his observations on the stroller’s design, materials quality, and workmanship at every step. This experience had a profound effect on Brett, as he imagined the power of this content for every shopper and purchase decision if it were available for every product and website. The idea for Bazaarvoice was born a few months later. Fast forward four short years and here we are – we have served 50+ billion reviews for 525+ global brands in 36 countries and we continue to grow (and hire!) like wildfire.

Please join me in congratulating Brett for his many accomplishments as an entrepreneur (Bazaarvoice is his fifth start-up company!), for the positive impact he has had within the Austin business community, and for being a genuinely sincere and humble person. He never fails to show his appreciation for the team at Bazaarvoice, our customers and partners, and the many supporters that have helped the company and Brett personally along the way.

So far, 2009 has been a big year for us – and there’s still six months left to go!

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Culture

Brett Hurt Bazaarvoice Named #1 Place to Work

May 22nd, 2009 by Brett Hurt Founder and CEO
The entire team at our quarterly All Hands meeting at the Alamo Draft House.

I’m thrilled and humbled to announce that we were named Austin’s Best Place to Work!  The full article in the Austin Business Journal (ABJ) is here (and you can watch my acceptance speech here).  It’s our third year on the list of best medium-sized companies to work for, and this year we are finally #1 (up from #2 last year).

When we started Bazaarvoice, Brant and I knew culture was important. Sam and Andy quickly came on board and embodied that same focus. We knew that we needed the smartest people available, with entrepreneurial spirit and tons of passion, and in four years, through massive growth, we have not let go of our high standards, and we have never taken our eye off culture.

Each year, companies are invited to enter this competition, where employees anonymously fill out a survey asking about things like their trust in management, the level of appreciation they feel, and if they feel they are making a real contribution to their organization. What’s unique about our company is that we, in essence, ask these questions every quarter. Our employees have comprehensive performance evaluations with their managers each quarter, and we use MBOs (Management By Objectives) that we build together with employees to ensure they always know how what they do fits into the “bigger picture” at Bazaarvoice. Managers have regular one-on-one meetings with each employee, with the goal being no surprises at that quarterly evaluation.

Bazaarvoice was voted Austin's Best Place to Work.

What’s more, every employee evaluates managers (including the executives and me) each quarter through an online survey where they rate us on whether or not we are living our culture. I’ve had managers tell me how much they appreciate this – it really uncovers blind spots for them (me too), plus it gives employees a great way to give feedback to their boss. There is no fear of repercussion and we regularly emphasize the lessons learned in the great business book, Fierce Conversations (required reading at Bazaarvoice).

I’m proud to say we got an amazing 96.81 out of 100 possible points on the employee satisfaction survey. It helps me know that the open communication and culture we’ve created at Bazaarvoice is working for our employees. But we never rest on our laurels here. As a matter of fact, we just concluded our two-day executive team quarterly strategy off-site meeting where we had an impassioned discussion (like usual) about how to take our culture to the next level. We have never missed our quarterly meeting and culture has always been a key focus of our agenda.

To celebrate this cultural milestone, I’m taking the entire Austin team to celebrate at the movies – in our own theater to see Terminator Salvation.  And at a theater equipped with motion seats, no less.  We’ll see if it is worth talking about (the pre-buzz has been “interesting” and we are the 4th city in the US to get these).

The ABJ photo above was taken at our quarterly All Hands meeting at the Alamo Drafthouse, and it really exemplifies the fun atmosphere of these meetings. That’s our CMO, Sam, about to hit our huge, 52” gong – another fun Bazaarvoice tradition (and supposedly this 52″ was only one of two left in China that was available for purchase). We gong for big announcements, like when we recently hit 50 billion pieces of  user-generated content served up for our clients. As CEO, I see myself as the Chief Culture Officer (if the CEO doesn’t set the tone, you could have a real cultural breakdown). But we all own culture at Bazaarvoice, and I’m so proud of what we have built together – as a team.

Bazaarvoice is hiring – big time. If you know an incredibly smart, passionate person that wants to join a company built to win, please send him or her our way!

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Awards, Community, Culture

Brett Hurt Bazaarvoice Philanthropy Recognized and a Call to Action

January 15th, 2009 by Brett Hurt Founder and CEO

When we received our 2008 copy of the Austin Business Journal’s Book of Lists, I was thrilled to see us listed as #15 on the list of Austin Corporate Philanthropists, based on 2007 participation.

What strikes me most about this list is that the companies ahead of us have hundreds or thousands of employees – we only had 88 at that time we filled out the survey.  And while our overall contribution doesn’t come near what the larger companies gave, it still shows that even small companies can make an impact.

While we certainly don’t donate time and money in order to make it on a list (this is about nourishing our company’s soul, not getting “recognized”), this is an important reflection of our culture.  Each month, the Bazaarvoice Foundation Team meets to determine which activities to pursue, based on input from the whole company.  In 2007, when were named to this list, we had less than 1/4th of the employees we have now, and we were really just getting started with our organized volunteerism and giving (I had been giving since the inception of our company, but not in an organized manner).

2008 marked the first full year in which the Bazaarvoice Foundation fully organized to deploy interested Bazaarvoicers to donate and volunteer, and the results were amazing.  My previous Bazaarvoice Foundation 2008 in Numbers post covered all we accomplished, and then the Bazaarvoice sales team and others funded the Grace Family Vineyard Foundation at the end of the year.

We are still going strong: 2009 kicks off with a blood drive for The Blood and Tissue Center of Central Texas on January 20th.

Why is this important to our culture?  We freely allow employees to volunteer on company time, and these activities allow us to bond and have fun outside our four walls.  As with almost everything we do, we listen and respond to the voices and opinions of our employees – anyone can suggest a cause or activity.  Our recent discussion of Seth Godin’s Tribes led several employees to elevate their own causes, to great results.  A new employee, Ashley Falvey, is organizing a Bazaarvoice Cycling Team to support charity rides, and Tony Capasso is bringing CEOs from local charity groups to the office so we can all learn more about why they are so passionate about their charity’s cause.   The first of these is Doug Ulman, the CEO of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and we are very proud that he is kicking it off.

I challenge all Austin – and technology – firms, large and small, to ask your employees how they would like to give back this year, then give them the flexibility and tools to do it.  There is no better way to nourish your company’s soul.  I hear about how well many small companies are doing in Austin, and that’s music to my ears.  Now it is time for you to give back to your local community – they need you in these tough economic times.

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Ask & Answer, Awards, New at Bazaarvoice

Brett Hurt Bazaarvoice’s view in this uncertain economy

October 18th, 2008 by Brett Hurt Founder and CEO

Things certainly change quickly – in the economy, in technology, and online – and I want to take a moment to fill you in on our outlook.

Bazaarvoice's logoI’m extremely bullish on Bazaarvoice, as I have been all along. We have always spent judiciously and balanced between high growth and cashflow neutrality, and our current investments have enabled us to rapidly grow our Client Services team to best serve our more than 280 clients globally. We are 375 people strong and will continue to hire engineers to continue our development of ROI-driving products, features, and programs. You won’t find another company that has consistently developed as many new offerings – we have consistently delivered new features every seven weeks across 6 (soon to be 7) products in 20 international languages, and this will not slow down. Our culture is stronger than ever. It is truly humbling (and exciting, every day) to work at such a special place.

In the midst of the global economic uncertainty, I want you to know that we will continue to thrive as a financially viable, rapidly growing organization by staying focused on our most important job: effectively and passionately servicing our clients to deliver measurable results. You will see many companies with unproven business models fold over the next year, as I witnessed happening around us at Coremetrics during 2001-2002. But our business, and our business model, are very solid:

  • In our most recent quarter, we saw a 148% increase in signed clients and a 229% increase in revenue, compared to the same quarter a year ago.
  • We now serve more than 280 clients globally.
  • Currently, 90% of the Internet Retailer Top 50 and 80% of the National Retail Federation’s Top 100 who outsource reviews choose Bazaarvoice.
  • We have served over 17 billion product reviews to date, across 20 international languages.
  • We were voted one of Austin’s Best Places to Work this year for the second year running.
  • This week, we won the 2008 Marketing Excellence Award from ClickZ for our Ask & Answer solution.

To us, user-generated content must deliver a real impact to our clients. Here are some recent benefits they have seen:

Now, more than ever, social commerce can have the greatest impact on the bottom line, including reducing support costs and product returns, and increasing site traffic, conversion, advertising ROI, customer satisfaction, and loyalty. In this economy, consumers will scrutinize their purchases more than ever, driving an increased need for user-generated content. They will reward businesses that help them make more informed and satisfying purchase decisions. Businesses that step up their pace of customer centricity will emerge as even stronger leaders after these challenging times turn.

We will continue to be the leader in social commerce. Our entire company is focused on our clients, and it excites us to see so much innovation and success from the smart people that choose to partner with us. Please let us know how we can help your business.

As always, keep an eye on this blog for more real-world ideas from our clients about how user-generated content works for them.  Here are a few of my favorites from just this month:

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New at Bazaarvoice

Sam Decker Bazaarvoice Awarded Best Place to Work in Austin (Second Time)!

June 11th, 2008 by Sam Decker Chief Marketing Officer

As chief marketing officer you might think I'm most interested in excellent whitepapers, PR, events and such. Well…ok, I am. However, our culture and our people are a much higher priority for our success and our brand because our employees ARE our company. Your employees ARE your company. There are studies that prove employee satisfaction is directly correlated with customer satisfaction, and customer satisfaction is directly correlated to company growth. When it comes to marketing, I believe the best companies don't try to create a perception of what they want to be, they just ARE. They just be who they are and the rest is amplification. Taking a spin from a quote from Richard Edelman, marketing today is about becoming masters of reality, not masters of spin or hype. And it's our team that makes our company great and a place where they and we all want to work.

So you can imagine my excitement when we were voted one of the Best Places to Work in Austin (second year in a row) by Austin Business Journal. This win was even sweeter for us, because we "moved up" to the mid-sized company category. Keeping our open, entrepreneurial culture is a challenge as we grow, but our employees are telling us that we are still succeeding at creating a great environment for them. And our solid growth in all areas of our company proves that, when you hire excellent people and give them a great place to work, anything is possible. Some of our team members shared why they love working at Bazaarvoice…

"The most exhilarating, energetic, dynamic, creative, professional and driven organization I have ever been part of it.  We are reaching for the stars and I can’t wait to touch them!" – Zach, Sales

"The true test of any job is whether or not you wake up in the morning excited to go to work.  Bazaarvoice’s talent, culture and the opportunity it presents make it the best place I have ever worked." – Chad, Sales

"Bazaarvoice is unique because of the amazing amount of talented people that work for the company, coupled with a fun and rewarding culture.  It is by far the best place I have ever worked." – Kim, Sales

"Working at Bazaarvoice has been an amazing experience for me. I enjoy the company's open and collaborative culture, and it's refreshing to connect with fun, well-rounded, and passionate people every day. Also, the opportunities to learn and grow at Bazaarvoice have been second to none. I truly believe that we're building something that's built to last." – Tung, Community Management

"I love working for Bazaarvoice because this company feels more like a family. Never have I worked at a place where I look forward to going to work every day and am welcomed by warm, smiling faces. The BV culture is also an experience you won't see anywhere else. From a sweet game room to monthly massages to company-wide leadership training, there's not much you can imagine that we won't try for the betterment of our quality of life!" – Sherrie, Community Management  

"Passion — it is a pleasure to work with a group of individuals who share a common trait: passion for their work. It’s the passion each of us brings to this job every day that has fundamentally changed the way consumers shop all over the world." – Greg, Sales

"It is infinitely rare to find the perfect storm of incredible leadership, rock solid product, perfect market timing, and an immensely talented team. Bazaarvoice truly embodies this." – Snow, Sales
 
"When you work in a place where the word ‘blame’ doesn’t exist, you’re able to do your best work, free from the fear of failing alone." – Leigh, Marketing

"Everyone ‘gets it’ here. We set the bar high when it comes to hiring — deliberately seeking out passionate, talented, team-oriented individuals. No matter how difficult a challenge is, I rest assured that my peers have a high sense of accountability, trust in each other, and are aligned with the larger goals of the company. Everyone sees the bigger picture and works together to achieve common goals.  At the end of the day, it feels more like I’ve been collaborating all day with friends rather than with coworkers." – Andrew, Product Management

"Bazaarvoice is an excellent place to work because we have cultivated together a home-grown corporate culture that promotes excellence in each individual, and in how we work together as a team.  It’s very rare you find a workplace where each and every individual is a rock star, and contributes the best aspects of all of their strengths into their daily work. I am energized by working in this environment and I’m excited to come to work every day!" – Crystal, Community Management

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New at Bazaarvoice

Sam Decker Ask & Answer Awarded “Most Innovative” Software (Austin Business Journal)

December 6th, 2007 by Sam Decker Chief Marketing Officer

We are thrilled that Austin Business Journal readers awarded Bazaarvoice the Most Innovative Software in their recent Tech Innovations awards for our Ask & Answer hosted application.

Here's the press release, and a snippet:

Bazaarvoice, the market and technology leader in hosted social commerce applications that drive sales, today announced that it has received an Austin Business Journal “Tech Innovation” award for its hosted Ask & Answer™ service. The award recognizes Bazaarvoice for pioneering an important new way for multichannel businesses to tap into the social nature of the shopping experience to drive sales, satisfaction, and loyalty. Bazaarvoice manages social commerce capabilities for more than 150 leading online businesses including Bass Pro Shops, Dell, Macy’s, Overstock.com, PETCO, QVC, Sears, and ZipRealty.

Bazaarvoice was presented with the award, sponsored by Eureka Software, on Thursday, November 29 at a ceremony held at the Sheraton Austin Hotel. Bazaarvoice was selected as a finalist for the award from among dozens of Austin-based software companies, and then chosen as a winner by the public.

Let us know if you want a demo. Email info@bazaarvoice.com. We already have conversion and call reduction case studies…very exciting!

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New at Bazaarvoice

Sam Decker Bazaarvoice Voted “Best Places to Work” in Austin

June 23rd, 2007 by Sam Decker Chief Marketing Officer

bestPlace_1.gifRecently we were awarded by the Austin Business Journal one of the Best Places to Work in the small business category.

I reflected on this last Friday when we had our monthly “Grill-o-Rama”…where Bazaarvoicees eat, drink and socialize. It was the end of a great day and a great week. What makes Bazaarvoice great, every day, is the people who are there. The sales team, client services, development, business development, my marketing/product management team, and (yes) even finance. Everyone in the company seems to reflect our five core values. We believe that client satisfaction (which makes my job easier) is the result of employee satisfaction.
Creating a great place to work is not just the job of the CEO or the executive team. It is the result of input, participation, and involvement from every team member. Becoming one of the greatest places to work in Austin is the collective result of everyone in the Bazaarvoice family, and I’m proud and excited to be part of that.

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