The Risks of Starting Up – and of Letting Go

Episode 30 of Decision Dialogues features Michael DeNitto, the founder and CEO of MarketSight, which was acquired by Reimagine in 2018. Michael talks to Mark Willoughby and Victoria Consoles about spinning MarketSight as a company and product off from Monitor, the company he worked for—and the risks and decisions associated with that path, from leading a team as an entrepreneur, to ensuring the finances would work out for him and his employees, and more.

Listen here:

Transcript

The summary below has been created by a professional transcription vendor upon review of the recorded presentation. Please excuse any typos as well as portions noted to be inaudible.

Thanks for joining us on Decision Dialogues. We’re thrilled to have you along. My name is Mark Willoughby, and I’m a Principal and Wealth Manager at Modera Wealth Management LLC. Today, my colleague Victoria Consoles, Financial Advisor, and I will be chatting with Michael DeNitto, founder and former CEO of MarketSight, an executive at several groundbreaking content and technology companies such as ZDNet, Cahners Business Information, Revenio, and Consumer Reports.

Today, we’ll be talking with Michael about his decision to start MarketSight, the software company he founded in 2006, and the story of launching and growing that company for over 12 years, until it was acquired by Reimagine, which is now owned by Dynata. Welcome, Michael, and welcome everyone to the show, and I’ll hand over to Victoria.

Thanks so much, Mark. Michael, thank you for joining us today. I was hoping that we could start off with a little history of MarketSight and how you got started and then talk about what you’re doing now and your journey with MarketSight and selling the business as well.

Sure! It’s great to be here with you, Victoria. Just a little bit about MarketSight – MarketSight was a software company that I founded and ran for about a dozen years. And the software was a data analysis application for market researchers. It was a web-based tool, and it helped people analyze survey data.

And it was important in the marketplace, because at the time—we started it back in 2006—it was really the first SaaS, “software as a service,” or web-based tool to serve that market. There were some traditional players in the market that were big installs, and we really brought something new with an easier to use software application that was web-based.

So before that, I worked for a number of different companies that Mark mentioned, including ZDNet, which was really one of the early pioneers in web-based online information products. It was based on the ZD, or the Ziff Davis magazines, magazines like PC Magazine, PC Computing, and others. It was really one of the first publishers to go online back in the early days. Other companies like that were Cahners, who did that in different markets, but the same approach taking their their content assets that were typically print, and migrating them online. I also worked with Consumer Reports doing the same thing, as well as a number of other companies developing technologies for people to use online.

So have you always worked in the tech field?

I have. My first job was at a company called the Open Software Foundation, and I was an early player in the open software space. From there, I continued to work, essentially online businesses—basically the beginning of the internet, pre-web working on platforms like CompuServe and Prodigy, to bring information and decision tools to people.

I’m just curious actually what you majored in college to bring you into that field?

Well, it turns out that my major, which was psychology, was relevant in a general sense throughout my career, but not really applicable until I started MarketSight. As a psychology major, you tend to do research and analyze data, and that was very relevant when designing a data analysis platform. But for the rest of my career, it you know, provided some interesting analysis of my colleagues and customers that was particularly relevant.

There you go. So what got you started with MarketSight? How did you start your own business, or become the business owner there? I’m curious at what point did you decide to leave one company to start your own?

That’s a pretty interesting story actually. In 2004, I joined the Monitor Group, and Monitor was a consulting firm—a management consulting firm based in Cambridge. And I was hired by them to take a look at some of the tools they had developed for internal use—so software applications that their consultants would use during client engagements. And I was asked to see if any of those technologies could actually be sold directly to clients, so the clients could use them, as a way to make money from those assets, that intellectual property that Monitor had developed, and also as a way to extend their footprint into the client.

So there were a number of different tools that they had built, one of which was MarketSight. It wasn’t called MarketSight, it was called Profiler at the time, and it helped their consultants to analyze research that they did on behalf of clients. So fast forward—after a couple of years, looking at those products, marketing them to clients and selling them to clients, one, MarketSight emerged as the strongest product idea. And it was a joint decision by Monitor and by me to actually spin out that product as a separate company to give it the focus that it deserved, and the investment that it deserved to truly grow as a product company, as opposed to a service company, which Monitor was. So we spun out, and we took a number of the employees on the team to build that company.

So you really believed in the product, they’re wanting to launch it on its own then with some of your colleagues—what did that look like? Did you move offices, or did you stay within that same office and kind of just spin off on your own and work with some of the same people? Did you, when you left on your own, were you still in communications with your former company there?

In order to do something like that, you really have to believe in the product. So yes, you know, with myself and the team, we really believed that we could make a go of it make a successful business from what we had started as part of Monitor. And part of our agreement with Monitor to spin the company out involved continuing to use their office space in Cambridge continuing to leverage their IT resources—so internet phones—and also a short-term contract for some software development assistance from the team.

But we did in fact, take a team of five people initially who were all part of the Monitor team. So it was me, two sales people, a customer support representative, and marketing, finance, HR kind of administrative person, to help with all those other pieces. And that was our initial team. And ironically, we started a software company without a single software engineer. So that was, after we spun out, that was our first hire was to find someone to lead our software development efforts and get ourselves off of the Monitor system to do that.

And Victoria, if you don’t mind me interrupting here, there’s a couple of questions I’d like to post and, Michael, along the lines of—when you chose to start MarketSight, Michael, were you able to keep your personal finances separate from your business finances? That’s the first thing I was thinking of. And were they somewhat entangled?

The company was an LLC, so there’s a connection there. I mean, it’s pretty personal when you do that. So there were definitely considerations and you know, as we, as we made certain decisions.

And what sort of financial runway did you give yourself when you were starting out? You know, we talk to different business owners who either are getting investors to help fund the business or they’ve been saving for years to be able to quit their corporate job and start their own company. I’m curious if you were prepared for this, or if it was more of a sudden decision along the way that just had great timing where you were at Monitor before?

I think it’s a little of both. I’m not an extravagant person. I don’t tend to live an extravagant lifestyle when it comes to spending. I like to have fun adventures and do fun things, and you know, as someone with three kids, you have to be thinking about paying for college. So you do have to plan. I think it depends for everyone on their situation. If their spouse or partner is working, that makes a big difference. What’s your, you know, what’s your monthly burn rate? How much are you spending that you just can’t not spend? And how much money have you made so far in your career? So some of that depends on how old you are, how long you’ve been at it, how you save.

So, you know, at the time when we were considering spinning this out, I certainly had enough runway so that I didn’t need to make the paycheck right away, and if I had to skip one or two to make it through a challenging month, I could do that. But I certainly wasn’t independently wealthy—I wasn’t set, and just doing this for fun. It was my job, right?

Yeah.

So it was important for me to continue to pay myself, you know, as regularly as possible, and to pay all the remember the team because people won’t stay, if you don’t pay them, I mean, unless they own a huge piece of the company, they just won’t stay, and even then they may not be able to.

So advice I would give someone who’s thinking about starting a business—lower your burn rate personally, because that just gives you the runway that you need so you can keep trying.

I like that.

And it gives you a longer amount of time to be successful with the actual business.

You know, my philosophy has always been to be a little more conservative in your personal finances, so that you can take risk in your business, because your personal finances are a lot about spending money, right? Your business is where you can make money. So if you get your burn rate down, and give yourself the ability to be more aggressive with the business you’re trying to build, then you could have a chance for much bigger success down the line, instead of some of the luxuries that you might want. Maybe defer that until later, after you’ve you know, after you’ve been successful with your business.

Yeah, it’s pulling the different levers of things you can control, whether that’s—you know, we can control spending to a certain extent, and then income, like you said, you know, we can’t necessarily control our income, but you can make choices that hopefully grow it, which would probably be along the lines of taking the risks, like you said, to be able to make more profit within the business that is connected to your personal finances in the long run as well.

Right. Yes, it’s interesting, I had a conversation just a couple days ago with a good friend of mine. He called me up and he was telling me about this great opportunity that someone had called him about. It was a startup, and he was going to be a key guy, he was going to get a good percentage of the company. But, he wasn’t going to make as much money in this new role as he would if he just continued where he was at the larger company.

And we talked about it, we talked about, like, how much he’s spending to live his lifestyle, and it was a lot. And I don’t know to what extent he can reduce that, given the kind of lifestyle he’s built. At the end of the call he was like, “You know, it just sort of makes me wish I’d been a little more prudent over the last five or ten years, because now I’m faced with this opportunity, and I’m not sure that I can take advantage of it because I got to make money to sustain this, you know—real estate and the taxes and my kids college education, all that.”

So it’s not for everybody. Doing startups isn’t for everybody. And I think you have to live and spend money leading up to it in a way that’s conservative. So you do have a cushion. Yeah, I’m more conservative in that way that a lot of people are people just say, “Hey, what the heck, let’s do it. And if doesn’t work, we’ll just go do something else.”

It’s not always easy when you have three kids!

Right. There are a variety of different considerations that you want to take into account, one of which is your family and your personal appetite for living in a certain way that may be well below your means for a period of time, until what you’re trying to do takes off. So you need to think about that, and what’s important to you.

The flip side of the coin, I think a lot of people think “Well, I work for this company, it’s a secure job, and you know, staying there is less risky.” That’s not always true. In fact, it’s often the opposite is true. And if you’ve lived through any kind of startup or any kind of a layoff, or even a large company, you know that if you’re not the owner, if you’re not the one making decisions, your job is not secure. You could be let go at any moment. And then you’re basically where you’d be if your business if you tried it failed, you’re starting over. Which is okay. But I think the myth of a job that you have today being secure—one thing that prevents people from going out and following their dreams as a “Hey, I’m going to start this company, I’m going to give this a try.”

It’s a level of comfort for people, I think too.

Right. Don’t fool yourself into thinking your job is secure. Because it’s not, right? So why not start something new that you actually can control, and you can drive to success on your own—or failure. You never know. But I think, really evaluate the risk of staying, as well as the risk of taking on something new and exciting. You know, I think that helps people make a decision.

And hope that they can all do as well as MarketSight did for you, too.

Right. Yeah, that the happy ending is good, but it doesn’t always, you know, doesn’t always work out that way.

Mmm hmm. How big did that company grow? How many employees did you end with before you sold the company?

We were close to thirty people when I sold it, and many of those people were actually offshore software engineers.

Okay.

You know, that was one of our competitive advantages, to be able to hire people not in the US, who were highly skilled, highly productive and far less expensive than a US-based engineer would’ve been. 

And what was it like to, you know, run your own company at that point? Because you went from working at Monitor to all of a sudden being CEO of a five-person team, growing a business, to nearly six times the size, your team there. So what did that look like for you? What challenges did you face along the way?

Well, that growth certainly didn’t happen overnight. It took many years to get to that size. But it was a big change. I went from, you know, being part of a company of 1,500 people to leading a company of five. And that had plenty of challenges. You know, certainly the on-ramp provided by Monitor to continue to operate out of their space, and leverage their technology, was very helpful as we got started. And having them as you know, one of our principal investors, and on our board—that helped in the early days.

But I think, you know, when I look back on the various roles that I had at different companies leading up to my experience at MarketSight, I was always a part of an entrepreneurial group within a large company, or at another startup. So the startup world and that kind of scrappy mindset you need to start something, was really something I had been doing all along. But this was the first time where I really took on responsibility for five different people, and, you know, paying the bills, making payroll every two weeks.

So it was a change. But we, you know, we tackled it, everybody in the team was committed, and we tackled it together. And ultimately, we were successful. It doesn’t mean that was without a lot of hiccups, and a few missed paychecks here and there, which we eventually made up. But there were challenges along the way, for sure.

What were some of the biggest, most challenging decisions you had to make as a business owner?

One of the big decisions that any owner or manager faces is around hiring. People are the most expensive, biggest asset you have. The decision to add a role to the company and how you’re going to pay for that and how you’re going to find somebody to do that—those decisions were always very challenging. So hiring was a big one.

And firing, of course, something that nobody wants to do, is also a decision. It’s not always a good fit, and sometimes you have to let somebody go in order to move in a different direction or to achieve your objectives. And when it’s not a good fit for either person. So those are the tough ones that you have to make—typically involving people.

So what gave you the drive to actually take this risk? Because you talked about, you know, you’ve been part of the sort of startup company and things like that, but this seems to be, you know, you’re taking the risk of all these people into your own hands at that point, and starting a business, and like you said, the human part of it was the most challenging.

So now, these four people under your wing, where essentially you’re taking a bet against yourself and them that you would come out successful. So what drove you to make this decision? And can you talk about some of the challenges along the way? Like, did you ever give yourself a time that said, “If this doesn’t work out in X amount of years, then maybe we’ll go a different route, or I’ll go work for another company?”

I think there were a lot of factors that went into the decision to spin out and to take this on. I think we had a fair degree of confidence that the product, MarketSight, that we had developed, was valuable, and it had potential in the market—because we had sold it to a number of clients already.

So we had the product, which took a fair amount of resources to develop initially by Monitor. So we had that intellectual property, which was owned by MarketSight—it was no longer owned by Monitor. So that was something that I insisted on earlier that we actually own the IP—it wasn’t a license, it was, we owned it. So whatever value we were driving in the company would be, you know, was owned by MarketSight and not by Monitor.

So we had the product, we had a good market, understanding of the value of that product, people were paying for it—not a lot. I mean, we certainly weren’t making enough money to cover our expenses when we spun out. So that was the gap we had to cross—we had to sell very quickly and get to the point where we could pay our salaries, and pay for whatever we needed to run the company.

So you had to just increase your client base from the start immediately?

Right. Which we did. You know, as I say, it wasn’t without some hurdles and hiccups along the way, but eventually we did it.

I think having a team of people that was willing, you know, each person was willing to take those risks and could say “Okay, it may get pretty lean during some of these coming months, but I believe in this and I’m willing to do my part to make it happen”—that’s critical. If there were people on the team who either weren’t in a position to do that, or didn’t have the appetite for that kind of risk and that kind of hard work, then it would have been difficult. But everybody was on board, everybody was confident that we had a shot to make it. So I think that gives you what you need to get started. 

As far as a timeline, you know, when do we call it quits? We just never did, we kept going. And we would say, “Okay, we can close this deal. We can make these changes these improvements to the product, and then we can close more deals,” and we just kept going. And some of the people that we started with did not all stay until the end for a variety of reasons. But you just keep going. I’m sure that in many cases, you can’t keep going, right? You just, it doesn’t sell or you can’t make enough money, and you have to go get another job. So I think, you know, we worked really hard, and we had some good fortune along the way. And we made it and not every company does. But we did. And I’m very grateful for that. And I certainly recognize the hard work by lots of people to make that happen.

Can you talk about what it was like when you sold the business?

We’d been at it for a while, and we had taken the company a long way from where it started. And in 2017, 2018, I think we knew that in order to really grow it beyond where it was, it was going to require a significant additional investment. And that investment came in the form of an acquisition. I stayed on for an additional two years to run the company under the new owner, then eventually transitioned out. We spun out because we wanted to give this product and business a life and a chance. And we did that and it grew, and we had thousands and thousands of users all around the world. We were in 25 different countries.

It was a great run, and I think everybody had a lot of fun doing what we did. But we wanted to keep it going and have it grow. So we made the decision to sell. And obviously there were some you know, financial benefits and reasons for doing that. But it made sense for the business as well.

Were you the sole owner of the business at that point still?

No. Every employee—prior to the acquisition, of course—had meaningful equity in the company. It was one of the principles that I had going into it—that was very important to me. I wanted to make sure that everybody who was working on the team had a real reason to continue to work hard and stick with it.

Yeah, you talked about how much work everyone put in. So that helps drive the momentum with everyone wanting to be a team player and wanting to be successful for the business, but it benefits them in the long run as well.

It really does. You need to pay people market rates. You can’t starve people, you need to pay them a fair salary. And I also believe, give them incentive compensation each year. But the—coming into the office every day, you know, day after day, week after week, year after year, in many cases—has to have some additional benefit to an employee or a teammate down the road, because there are other opportunities out there. So to give someone ownership in the company makes them think differently. When you think like an owner, you don’t waste money. You don’t waste time, right? Because if it’s your money, then why would I, you know, why would I waste it? You think twice about you know, whatever it is that you’re going to do, where it’s an opportunity to spend money or to spend time on something.

So that was important to me, and it’s something we did right up till the end.

So did you know when you sold it that you were going to stay there for two years, and then leave? Or were you expecting to stay at the new company for a while? Or were you just to set them up for success and then kind of be done with it and find out what’s next for you?

I knew at the outset that I would be there for two years, but you know, there was nothing saying “I’m quitting after two years.” There was no commitment on either part to continue there.

I think running a company for twelve years is a long time. And at some point, you want to do something different, you want to do something new. So it was a natural choice to go our separate ways. But I did, I really did want to be there immediately after the acquisition in order to continue the direction that we had taken and and continue to drive the company in the beginning stages of that next phase.

Victoria if you don’t mind me interrupting again, there’s a few questions that are occurring to me here. Firstly, what were those two years like working at MarketSight after you sold it Michael? Was it transitional, and more you grooming another CEO to take the reins over from you during that period?

I wouldn’t say it was transitional in that way—I was not grooming another CEO. In fact, the company after I left really became more of a department or a division of the larger company. It was run pretty differently. So it was a transition in that, you know, we were this small startup controlling our destiny and going whichever direction we thought made sense—but once you’re part of a larger company that owns you, you lose that ability to do that.

So I think we all were getting used to that new model over time. And by the time, you know, my commitment had ended to the company, it was a different feeling, and it was a different place to work. So it was natural for me to move on.

But it wasn’t—the company as a company didn’t persist. The product still exists for sure, and it’s still an important part of their overall offering. But it’s not the way it was.

So what was the next chapter for you after selling the business? Are you still figuring that out?

Well, I’m still figuring that out. I’ve got a couple things that I’m thinking about. But, you know, I’ve spent a lot of time in the last few years decompressing a little bit from the experience, as well as focusing on my family and other things. But I’ll be getting back into things soon. Watch this space.

Do you have any interest in running a business again, or creating a startup or anything like that?

I do. And it’s certainly something that resonates more with me personally than going to work for another company again. But I wouldn’t rule that out at this point. You know, I’m not certain you know, which direction I’ll go. But I think once you’ve run your own company, and had that freedom to do that, it’s hard to go back to working for a larger organization. But, you know, I certainly wouldn’t rule that out.

So we met through Toastmasters. Did that help you at all running a business? Because I know a lot of people who are part of this public speaking group—you know, use it for things, whether it’s talking to a big group and being able to communicate well with other people. So I was just curious if that’s where your interest in the group came from.

I think public speaking is a skill that is relevant and important. No matter what your job no matter where you work—if you broaden it, from public speaking to communication, and think about the things that you know, we’ve done in Toastmasters that every Toastmasters Club offers, it’s the ability not just to get up on stage and give a speech, but also to listen, and to give feedback and also to have conversations. So I would absolutely say that Toastmasters has been important for the last half a dozen years or more in my career, and just in life. I think being able to communicate well is an important skill. So it’s been a great organization to help develop those skills.

I agree with everything you just said. I found it to be such a wonderful tool in terms of communication—whether it be a presentation in front of a large group, or just with two clients, reviewing a financial plan. It has also been a fun way to meet people and connect with others in the community as well.

So Michael, I want to pivot now and ask you to share some advice you would pass on to someone looking to make a decision on the next up in their career, whether it was one of your kids or you know, just anyone out there?

Well, that’s a big question. I can probably share a lot of my thoughts there.

I think, when I look back at the the progression of my career, that one of the things I always tried to do was to always be learning new things, and trying to help move whatever organization I was working with forward—whether it was their product offering or service offering—and the ability to go out and sell that. There’s an old adage, if you’re not making something or selling something, then you’re not really a vital part of your organization. So whether it’s a product or a service company, I think being as close to the creation of that product or service and as close to the selling that to a client or bringing on new customers or clients, that those are the most important places to be. And they give you a security and a confidence that you might not have if you’re on a more peripheral part of the business.

It’s not to say that there aren’t other careers that are just as important. But for me, I’ve always tried to be very close to the product and the customer. And I say product, I mean product or service. Whatever it is, whatever solution you’re providing to your clients that they are willing to pay for, that is the most essential thing you can understand and know, and be able to bring to the client and say, “Hey help me understand your problem, and I can try to see if our solution can help you solve that problem.” That is the essence of business, in my view. So being as close as possible is important.

And this is something I’ve told my own kids who are grown now, and something that I’ve shared with people I’ve worked with—if you can do that, it gives you the confidence to know whether an idea is good or not. So when you think about starting your own company, you want to do that, knowing that you have a good idea and that people want it and that people are going to be willing to pay for it.

You have to believe in what you’re selling, or what you’re doing.

Right. So the closer you are to that problem solving part, that role a company plays, the more likely you are to understand that well and to be confident. Because if you’re not, if you don’t believe in it, then you shouldn’t be doing that.

And I think to the extent you can bring yourself into a business with your ideas, your creativity, your direction—that, for me, is more satisfying than being one of many people who are each contributing a little piece.

I think teamwork is essential in any big undertaking, so I don’t minimize the importance of the team and the role that a group, small or large, can play in bringing about success. None of us does this alone. But when you think about your day, and what you do, and how you contribute to an organization—for me, bringing myself to it, and my thoughts and my views, and having that shape in some way, what an organization does—that was important to me.

So as I said, I’ve always been part of entrepreneurial groups within larger companies or smaller startups in their own right. And I think I prefer that—the excitement that comes from being able to move quickly, being able to solve customer problems in a dynamic way, and being able to kind of bring a small group of people together to solve those problems. It’s just, it’s more exciting. It’s more fun for me.

Yeah, you talk about being a part of that and making the changes that lead to successes. But what about, you know, any downfalls along the way? Have you ever been part of a group where it wasn’t working out and you put all your effort in, and then realized that, especially as an entrepreneur, maybe this isn’t the best route? Have you ever had to kind of start over?

Absolutely. I’ve been part of teams whose product was a good idea, but it wasn’t a business, and you couldn’t make money by selling that product, no matter what we tried. It just wasn’t going to happen. That’s bound to happen, right? If you do a number of startups, you know, they’re not all going to succeed. And there have been a few times in my life where the idea was great, and either the execution wasn’t done well enough, or it was just too early, and the world hadn’t quite come around to that way of thinking.

And I think to be successful, you have to have a lot of things go right: You have to have a great product, you have to have a market need that you’re meeting clearly, and it has to be the right time. There has to be the technology in place to deliver that or to provide that. If it’s a, you know, as is most often the case a product, to make it happen. So you have to get pretty lucky for all those things to line up, but the more attempts you make, the more at-bats you have, the more likely you are to have, you know, to have some success.

 So clearly, not everything is going to work, and sometimes it’s a matter of knowing when to walk away and say, “You know what, we gave it our best, but this isn’t going to happen.” So you stop and you regroup and you try something new. And I’m sure there’ll be more of those in my future, hopefully more successes, too.

There you go. No, that’s great.

When you look back from the start of the twelve years of owning the company, is there anything you really regret or are you happy with how it ended? And you know, where brought you now I’m just curious if you wished you grew it a little bit longer. Or if you look back and think that was the right time and the right decision for me.

I don’t have any big regrets about what we did and how we did it. We had a great team and many of them are still there as part of new owners. I think the timing was good when we sold the company and enabled it to go on, to continue to grow, and enabled me to benefit from a lot of hard work and a lot of people, frankly, to benefit from the hard work we had done.

So I don’t look back with any regrets. Do I miss the team? Absolutely, I miss the collaboration we had, and the process that we went through to continually improve our product, I miss talking to customers and hearing about how what we’ve created and what we deliver to them actually helps them in their jobs. I miss what we were doing at MarketSight for sure. But you know, you have to keep going and come up with the next thing. You can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again. And it was, I think it was good for the company, and it was good for the team to start to do things a little differently. And it’s part of the natural evolution of a company, of a product, of a business. So I think the timing was right, and it went well, and I certainly don’t have regrets for selling it.

Thanks for sharing all of that. It sounds like you had a great run and an exciting chapter of your life there with MarketSight. And I know I’m looking forward to hearing what’s next for you once you’ve taken the time to figure that out.

Me too.

Well, so we ask every guest, what’s the last non-financial decision you had to make?

(laughs) Oh, I don’t know. Let’s see. Well, when I want to go for a cup of coffee, I always have to decide whether I’m going to go to Starbucks, or Cafe Nero, or Tatte.

You’ve got, you know, tough decisions each day.

Yeah! Very tough decisions. It’s pretty hard to resist the all the wonderful pastries at Tatte so I find myself there more often than not, but…

There you go.

Michael, thank you so much for joining us on the show and sharing your journey and all the different chapters of your life, getting you to where you are now. We appreciate it and appreciate you sharing all the details with us.

Well, it’s been a pleasure, Victoria. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation.

So thanks very much to Victoria and Michael for letting us listen in on their conversation. We appreciate their time and perspectives. And thank you for tuning in. We hope you’ll join us next time on Decision Dialogues for more stories from successful business owners. So long for now.

About Michael

Michael DeNitto was the founder and CEO of MarketSight and ran the company from its spinoff from Monitor Group (now Monitor Deloitte) in 2006 until its acquisition in 2018. MarketSight was designed to help stakeholders choose the right SaaS platform based on detailed product information, unbiased reviews, SW score and recommendations.

Michael worked in business development for a variety of companies prior to founding MarketSight, such as Consumer Reports, Revenio, Cahners, and AT&T. He earned his BA in Psychology from Dickinson College in 1988.