Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Zairo.
Hi Jessica, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
The seeds of ByWater Solutions started back in 1982 when Nathan Curulla and Brendan Gallagher first met at the age of 3. Growing up on the same street in a remote town in Connecticut, the two friends had ample time and space for their imaginations and mischief to flourish. Both were brought up on the works of JRR Tolkien, and often named the things young kids name (people, places and things) after characters or places in those books. Naturally, when it came time to name the company the two friends started together their first thought was Tolkien, hence the name “ByWater Solutions”. Bywater was a town in the Shire of the Lord of the Rings where travelers would meet to share the news of the day.
In September of 2008, having spent four years in the library world, Brendan learned about and had become part of the Koha community. Brendan immediately saw the benefits and impact this would have on the library world and decided to form a Koha support and implementation company. He then offered his lifelong friend a partnership in the enterprise. Nate started with the company part-time, juggling both careers by hosting many of the sales calls, telephone meetings and new staff interview calls in the supply closet of his day job, until coming on full-time 3 months later. In June of 2009 our first client, Goodwin College, was signed, and since then ByWater Solutions has grown to a staff of over 40, and a partner base of over 2,500 libraries, making them one of the largest open-source support service providers in the world!
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Like with all start ups, the early days of ByWater were fast and furious. Despite the pressures and challenges all start up companies have, ByWater relentlessly focused on their core mission, providing top notch service to libraries at a discount. This resulted in explosive growth for the company and the customer base for the organization went from 40 to 400 library sites and 4 to 12 employees in the matter of one year. This was all without any start up capital or investors. At that time our biggest challenge was handling all of the interest we were getting in the library world. While this is a good problem to have, if not managed correctly too much business can be just as bad as too little business. Because of our focus on service and making sure that our internal growth stayed ahead of external we were able to successfully manage the early years and grow into an even more stable and sustainable organization.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
ByWater Solutions is made up of a diverse group of librarians, book lovers, technology and data geeks, and most importantly, open-source fanatics who share our culture to positively impact our clients and our community. Our strong focus on service and support coupled with the fact that the majority of our full time staff are MLS/MLIS librarians or have worked in libraries ensures the passion we feel will always be carried on to our library partners regardless of how much we grow. ByWater Solutions was created with the express goal of changing the way libraries interact with their software systems and the vendors who support them. We believe that an ILS vendor needs to constantly work to keep their partners happy and not rely on long contract terms to maintain a strong partner base. The libraries we work with are considered partners in this journey, not just customers. Libraries stay with ByWater because they want to, not because they are legally bound. We believe that libraries deserve to have access to a personalized, comprehensive support system at a reasonable cost. Our service solutions are all-inclusive and are tailored to take the complexity out of interacting with an open-source vendor. This approach is rare in the library technology sector and leading with empathy is core to our beliefs both now and in the future.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
Nate Curulla, CRO, says “The biggest thing I have learned is that people do not like change, but with the right communication you can turn a stressful situation into an exciting new experience. It just takes empathy and a true desire to make things better for your customers.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bywatersolutions.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bywatersolutions/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ByWaterSolutions
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bywater-solutions/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ByWaterSolution
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/bywatersolutions
Image Credits
Caitlin Alohilani Photography LLC
