Cataphora, the industry-leading provider of software for analysis of individual and organizational behavior, today announced that the University of Michigan’s Center for Entrepreneurship will be releasing a case study about the company as part of the curriculum for a course called Entrepreneurial Ownership. Scheduled for Winter 2011, the course is designed to equip University of Michigan student entrepreneurs with the frameworks needed to evaluate various ownership models – including employee, angel, venture, and public. Cataphora’s bootstrapped financial structure functions as the primary focus of the case study, exposing students to the unconventional model as an alternative to taking venture capital funding.
Moses Lee, an Academic Program Manager and Lecturer at the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan, comments: “When I came across Cataphora, a nine year old technology company based in Silicon Valley that decided to forego any venture capitalist money, I was both surprised and intrigued. This story contradicts what you traditionally think of when you hear ‘Silicon Valley’, and ‘technology startup.’ I knew that the company’s experiences and lessons learned would be worth sharing with our students – many of whom are wrestling with whether or not to take outside money for their own start-ups – and I reached out to CEO Elizabeth Charnock immediately.”
Lee visited Cataphora’s headquarters in Redwood City, California to conduct extensive primary research for the case study. Throughout his visit, he gained a deep understanding of Cataphora’s business model and uniquely transparent culture by interviewing more than twenty Cataphora employees, many of whom were company founders. The interviewees’ narratives provided insight into what makes the company tick and which factors contribute to Cataphora’s success, as well as the obstacles Cataphora encountered and overcame along the way.
Since this initial visit, select Cataphora employees and Lee have been working collaboratively to create a successful case study. Cataphora CEO Elizabeth Charnock comments, “No one is trying to say that bootstrapping isn’t a tradeoff or full of challenges. At the same time, by bootstrapping, we’re able to realize a variety of benefits; otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it. For one thing, it focuses us very clearly on providing products and services that our customers want, in return for the revenue that keeps us going. Our customers know we are here for the long term, and not for the benefit of VCs who will want us to flip the company in short order. We believe this case study will provide students with an understanding of the nature of the tradeoffs and introduce them to the possibility of taking this less well-traveled entrepreneurial route.”
Once the case study is finalized, the Center for Entrepreneurship hopes to make it available to entrepreneurs and educators outside of the University of Michigan community.
About Cataphora
Cataphora Inc. is the creator of core information retrieval technology that provides clear and accurate insight into individual and organizational behavior. Cataphora’s patented technology— the first to discern context across multiple sources of electronic data—can be used a wide variety of applications including litigation, investigation, workforce restructuring, insider threat detection, post-merger integration, and enterprise governance, risk management and compliance.
Founded in 2002, the company is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., with offices in Washington, D.C., Frankfurt, Germany, and Mumbai, India. For more information please visit www.cataphora.com.
