Canadian Real Time Big Data Company’s Excellent Thought Leadership: Terapeak CEO Kevin North (Part 5)

Sramana: What kind of intelligence is the analytic engine capable of producing? I imagine the merchants are the paying customer so I am interested in what you can do for them and what the engagement or pricing model is.

Kevin North: The customers are the merchants that are selling on eBay. We have a range of customers, some are small and some are very large. They pay either $30 a month or $240 a year to get access to our analytics. We provide analytics around product trending, competitor behavior, and anything else around product behavior.

We can help understand product behavior in different regions. We have merchants who use us for cross-border trade. Anything that shows you the way a product behaves in your competitor’s environment as well. We can show them what options perform better and what other inventory competitors are selling better. We have complete visibility not only over what you have, but over what you don’t have as well.

You can learn about things you don’t know as well. You can learn about what is very hot on eBay. You can learn what makes other sellers on eBay successful. You can also get a much better understanding of what is going on in your specific region.

Sramana: Are you selling primarily to eBay PowerSellers? How many customers are we talking about now?

Kevin North: We have thousands of customers. If you combine all of our products, we have vast coverage. If you go to the eBay website and you see their listing analytics product, then you are looking at a Terapeak product. We are serving out millions of eBay customers through that product.

When you look at our customer numbers in terms of people paying us directly we have several thousand customers and growing at a very nice rate. We have a paid subscription rate for those users.

Sramana: What was the scale of the company when you joined in 2012?

Kevin North: Terapeak had gained some early success between 2004 and 2007. They had seen slowing growth through 2011 but they were still growing. They had hit the point where they were looking for some more momentum and reasons to grow. The board and investors wanted to bring in a new management team to take a fresh look at the business. The investors were not worried that the company was going to fail, they just really believed in the potential of the business and felt that it could do even better. That is why I was brought in.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Canadian Real Time Big Data Company's Excellent Thought Leadership: Terapeak CEO Kevin North
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