thedatabank's mission is to create positive social change through technology.

thedatabank Celebrates 10 Years in Business!

As we celebrate thedatabank's 10th year in business, our founders are offering their reflections on the first nine.

Chris Hanson Remembers Our First Client

Mark and I began working on the Databank system in early 1998. The first version of the Databank was based on a direct marketing database system that had been developed at Direct Expressions in the early 1990s. Initially, the Databank used a Microsoft Access database and was hosted at a ISP somewhere in Florida. We quickly changed this to use Microsoft SQL Server and a local hosting company which we still use today. After several months of development, using a couple of contracted developers that Mark had worked with in his previous job, we had a prototype system that was ready for testing.

At the time, I was still doing some direct mail work for a couple of local organizations and felt that one - IATP, the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy - would be a good candidate to test the new system. After discussing it with IATP, they agreed to be our beta-tester and on November 1, 1998 we put them up on the Databank. A couple of days later, Mark and I went over to IATP and demonstrated the Databank for them.

Today, over 9 years later, IATP is still a client, and the Databank has expanded to a level that we never dreamed of back in 1998.

Here's Chris Hanson, explaining how he got the idea to start thedatabank:

In 1997, I was a managing director at Direct Expression, a full-service direct marketing company working with a number of national nonprofits. We had a hosted database system that was used by several of our clients. When we decided to close down Direct Expression, I took the database part of the business and started a company called Response Group.

In early 1998, I decided we needed to build an entirely new version of our database tool. I thought the web would be an ideal way to access the system as it was rapidly becoming common place. I called Mark Paquette and began talking about this idea. A few months later we had the concept worked out and started development.
We saw three main advantages of what was then called an Application Service Provider (ASP) model:

1. Easy access from any internet connected computer
2. Shared infrastructure, making it affordable to smaller organizations
3. Integration with websites

All of these are still true today.

Co-Founder Chris Hanson muses on our first year:

As I think back on the first year of thedatabank a few things come to mind:

It's difficult to put things into perspective but 1998-1999 was the height of dotcom mania.  During that first year Mark and I met a lot of people who offered a lot of “interesting” advice such as, ”the Internet is changing the basics of business. Revenue no longer matters, it's all about market share”.

Two years later, Mark and I were at a luncheon with many of these advice givers where a well-known venture capitalist started her talk with, “I see dead companies”.

Late in our first year of operation Mark and I headed to Washington D.C. to exhibit at a nonprofit technology conference. We had spent a fortune ($100) on a banner to hang in our display and had our desktop computer, with 17” CRT monitor, shipped to DC because the cost for Internet at the conference was way too much. As far as I can tell, of the 2 dozen dot.com companies at that conference only 2 are still in operation, thedatabank and an online giving company called Entango.

In many ways that period of dot-com craze seems far away, and yet you still see reminders like companies that have spent millions of venture capital funded dollars on flashy advertising campaigns to promote their “greatest thing since sliced bread” product. They continue to spend millions more each year than they make, in a vain attempt to be the “market leader” whatever that means.

I feel fortunate that I was too old, and perhaps too experienced, when we started thedatabank to think that there was anything more to running a good business than providing a quality product that customers wanted, and making a little bit more money than you spent.

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