From 2002 through 2006, my life was nearly singularly consumed with building GetActive Software. Sleep, health, sanity, love, and reason all seemed to take a back seat to what was “best for GA”. I’ve since co-founded my own startup and now help run yet another company, yet I still need to remind myself almost daily to not answer the phone “This is Greg from GetActive”. It is that fundamental to who I have become as a professional.
GetActive ultimately merged with our biggest competitor, Convio, in January of 2007 and the combined company went public earlier this year. It makes for a great startup story and in so many ways it really is as good as it sounds. We were a scrappy team fighting two better funded competitors, but we woke up everyday focused on trying to do the best things we could for our clients. We were a software company that wanted to be so much more to our clients than just a software company.
I can’t think of a better testament to what we built than this site, www.getactive4ever.com. On December 1, 2010, GetActive’s old service, which has been kept alive for migrating Convio clients, will finally be shuttered for good. The wonderful folks at Watershed (which in my day meant Madeline at DonorDigital) built the site as a memorial. It literally brought a tear to my eye.
I think the memorial site says so much about what building great companies is all about. Find great people that you trust like family and that inspire you to be great. Put clients first, second, and third on your priority list… listen to them closely and work your heart out for them. Do work that you deeply believe in and has a positive impact on the world, it’ll get you through the toughest days and longest nights.
RIP GetActive. You’ll be missed, but never forgotten.
