Dean Wiltse

I was encouraged to write this book by many people. I hope you enjoy it. We changed the entire marketing research industry during an economic crisis “The Early 2000’s Recession”. The book is my story about how a great team of people collaborated to change our business entirely and how the marketing research industry changed forever. After Greenfield Online went public on NASDAQ and completed a secondary offering and 5 acquisitions, I eventually left and joined Austin Ventures. December 2007 until June 2009 was the next major down economy. That time period is now called “The Great Recession”.

Austin Ventures acquired Perseus and Websurveyor in 2006 and we renamed the newco "Vovici". I was CEO of Vovici from 2005 until 2009, another successful venture with strong growth during a recession. The company was eventually acquired by VRNT after I left for in 2011. At Vovici we created a new industry "Enterprise Feedback Management". Gartner coined the label, but Jeffrey Henning co-founder of Perseus invented it.

During 2015 I joined FoodLogiq as CEO. During my time there as CEO we established Foodlogiq as the global technology provider for Food Safety, Quality Management and Traceability solutions. I have included a little of that story too. FoodLogiQ was nominated twice by the state of North Carolina for technology excellence, 2017 by Forbes Magazine as being one of the Top 25 most Innovative AgTech Startups.

I have been nominated twice for Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” award and Research Magazine’s “Marketing Industry CEO of the Year” honor. The lessons we learned and the steps we took at each company I hope are helpful to every entrepreneur in all industries.

This book is for EVERY entrepreneur and is a TRUE story. The United States of America has experienced two recessions during the last twenty years and as of this writing is amid a third.

Dean Wiltse is now an advisor to owners, CEO's, Boards and Private Equity firms. Expert at implementing operational change to gain competitive advantage and deliver game-changing industry leadership. Skilled in translating vision into strategy and planning and executing multifaceted market expansion programs. Equally successful within start-up, rapid growth, turnaround, pre-IPO and public company situations.