Schuck said meeting that need has made all the difference for DiscoverOrg. Even though there are plenty of high-tech data-mining tools, nothing has turned out to be as accurate as the company’s low-tech solution: picking up the phone. DiscoverOrg runs a call center, with employees constantly calling to confirm, correct and update their data.
“It’s where we made the difference,” explained Schuck, “The ROI is so simple for our customers, too. You sell one extra deal from using our service, and it pays for itself multiple times over. One of our case studies did 15 times ROI on the service in two months. And this is common across our customer base.”
When Schuck and his business partner, Kirk Fox, relocated to Vancouver in 2009, they had six employees. Today, the company employs 65 people and they just bought a building in the East Ridge Business Park.
DiscoverOrg brought in $5.5 million in revenue in 2011, and this year is on track to “do over $13 million,” according Schuck. The company just made Inc. magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing companies for the second year in a row, placing at #188. They placed at #2 in the Portland Metro area, and #11 in the “Business Products and Services” category.
Companies want what DiscoverOrg is selling, and moving to Vancouver has allowed them to thrive.
“The tax and business structure here is much better,” said Schuck, “especially for a company organized as an LLC with an S-corp. That, and an office lease was much less expensive here than in Portland.”
DiscoverOrg has also taken advantage of local economic development resources. On recommendation from the Columbia River Economic Development Council (CREDC), DiscoverOrg participated in a WorkSource Vancouver job training program. The program used federal funds to provide on-the-job training to qualified workers.
“It allowed us to hire more people than we would have been able to without it,” said Schuck.
Moving forward, DiscoverOrg doesn’t appear to show any signs of slowing down.
“We’re going to continue to build out this core focus of what we do, adding more companies, expanding our customer base and adding more products for our existing customers,” noted Schuck. “We’re also talking about looking into adding other departments within the corporate sphere that would be a natural extension of the data we already offer.”
