Entrepreneur says 'let's do this'

In January 2009, John Meyer was less than a year out of college nevertheless ready for a change.So, he made his business idea a reality.By June 2009, he'd quit his corporate job, and with a $15,000 grant, he and his brother Scott started 9 Clouds out of their parents' house in Brookings.

Since at that time, 9 Clouds' success has led to a second-place honor in the Governor's Giant Vision Business Awards and John Meyer being named one of 25 finalists in 2010 for Bloomberg Businessweek's America's Best Young Entrepreneurs competition.Question: What was it like to leave your corporate position with Accenture to start your own business?Answer: It was nerve wracking. I think a lot of people questioned what I was doing. I got my job actually early while senior year, I had it all lined up and was getting paid actually well and loved Minneapolis. However I just wasn't happy, and I thought if there was ever a time to go for this, it would be now. So many people say they want to start something once they have enough money, or once their family is in order, and you'll never at heart be ready to start your own business. So I figured, "Hey, I don't have a lot of commitments, we see a big possibility for this, and we got money, so let's go for it."

Q: Describe what your niche is, and what you do.A: We like to say that we teach people how to use research; we do that in a couple of different ways. If you work with 9 Clouds, we do consulting, so that would be the strategy, monitoring conversations online about your brand, competitors, any mention of your name, tracking the analytics to make sure there's a return on your investment and that you can see growth.

A: The big trend online is cloud computing, where all your data is on the web, so like gmail, you check your email at the library or at home, all your data is in the cloud. That was kind of the trend. At the time we said we wanted to put our customers on cloud nine and just flipped it around.Q: Talk about where you've come since starting 9 Clouds in June 2009.

A: We've learned a lot. We've made a lot of mistakes, and from those we've learned lessons. And it's a lot of figuring out what it is you're best at, where your sweet spot is in the market and who you want to work with. It's tough to say no in business, nevertheless I think that's a good lesson to find what you do best and stick to that, and that's our calling card or our advantage. As a small company, we can do one thing or a couple things in effect well. We're not trying to be the one-stop ad agency. We want to help you online, use these tools.Reach reporter Sarah Reinecke at 331-2326.