iContact Honored at Entrepreneurial Excellence Awards

Tonight I attended the Council for Entrepreneurial Development's 2008 Entrepreneurial Excellence Awards in Bay 7 at the American Tobacco Campus in downtown Durham, NC along with 15 of our closest friends from iContact.

We had two full tables and a few people even overflowed to join nearby groups for dinner. iContact was a headline sponsor of the event so we were able to bring a ton of people. It was great to have a great showing from our team at the dinner. The event was as it always is, one of the best I find each year to network with business people, entrepreneurs, vendors, supporters, and friends from the Triangle who support iContact and Preation and Ryan and I personally.

I mentioned to Ryan as we sat down for dinner that it was amazing how many more people among the total attendance I knew and had relationships with than just four years ago when we first began to get involved with CED and really with any people outside of the UNC community.

We speculated that we could together name 50% of the people in attendance and probably had established relationships with at least half of those. There are few regions of the country that I feel are as full of people as passionate and motivated and willing to help than as in the Triangle area of North Carolina.

iContact was honored with the CED Growth Company of the Year distinction for 2008 which was truly an honor. CED's website provides the following description of the award: "The Growth Company of the Year award is presented to an entrepreneur of a high growth company who has successfully navigated the early stage waters and had a large impact on maximizing long term value for the company.

The nominee should have played a major role in the company’s success and have a large part in crafting the company’s strategic focus for the future." It's hard to believe that we're being considered a Growth Company now. For five years straight we've been called and proudly called ourselves a startup. I guess we've recently grown enough to graduate to the next level. Very cool.

Ryan and I had the pleasure of accepting the award on behalf of the iContact team. Video of the award announcement is now on YouTube. In our audio presentation, that we recorded at CED in advance, Ryan and I spoke about our strategy for success, how the team has contributed (as if any of this could have been possible without an incredible team), and our unique culture that values fun.

It was a nice opportunity to speak briefly about the company and hit some of the high points in front of a local crowd that's followed our progress for many years now. It's incredible to think that we've been running iContact solid for nearly five years now... although I guess it's only been called iContact for 12 months.