David
Friedman is the young, hard-working CEO
of Boston Logic,
www.bostonlogic.com, a company that
provides SaaS software and services to
real estate brokerages to help them grow
their businesses and leverage
technology. Boston Logic serves clients
in 18 states; eight of the largest real
estate brokerages in Boston are among
David’s clients.
David comes from New York. But after
spending a summer during high school
studying architecture at Harvard, he
fell in love with Boston and decided to
attend Tufts University. David knew how
to use the tools on his father’s
workbench by the time he was 4 years
old, so it was no surprise he chose
mechanical engineering as his major.
Then as an undergraduate, he had a
self-revelation. He was working as an
electro-mechanical engineer making
temperature control devices used in the
testing process of semi-conductor
wafers. He had a great time. “But after
doing this for a summer, I came to the
realization that I couldn’t do it for
the rest of my life. I thought, how
could this get any better? And if this was as
good as it was going to get, while I
could see getting promoted and working
my way up to middle management and
probably getting cost of living raises,
I just couldn’t do it.”
David became very open minded about his
future.
“You’re obviously an entrepreneur.”
Then his good friend Matt asked David if
he would man the door at a networking
event the company he was working for was
planning. With free drink tickets as
part of the offer – a real enticement
for an under-21 college student – David
agreed to help. With door duty completed
and drink tickets in hand, David started
mingling.
A guest, seeing that David was the
youngest person there, said to David,
“You’re obviously an entrepreneur –
you’ve found your way here. I’d love to
invite you to an event I’m holding for
college-age entrepreneurs.” It was a
defining moment. “Nobody had ever called
me an entrepreneur before. I was 20
years old,” David says.
David accepted the invitation – complete
with an offer of free drinks – and was
introduced to The Seedling Group whose
mission was to accelerate
entrepreneurial careers by amassing a
network of young entrepreneurial
superstars that companies could then
market to, run ideas by and hire. The
Group offered David a part-time job and
he took it.
“That’s how I got my first job in a
startup. I was helping them grow this
network and very quickly became
infatuated with the startup environment.
I caught the entrepreneurial bug, as
they say,” David admits. “By the time I
was half-way through my junior year,
when people asked what I was going to do
after I graduated, I said I was going to
get a master’s degree and start a
company. I didn’t know what the company
would do, but I was going to figure out
a way to make that happen.”
Through the The Seedling Group, David
connected with Red Bull Energy Drink
where he worked as a “consumer educator”
driving the Red Bull promotion car,
handing out free samples, and telling
people about the benefits of the drink.
“That job had a huge influence on me. I
learned to talk to everyone – every age,
race, demeanor, gender. That’s part of
the reason I can do public speaking
appearances and communicate complicated
ideas using simple language,” David
says.
Through all of this, David stayed on
course, earning both his bachelor’s and
master’s degrees in engineering. As he
points out, “Engineering schools teach
the problem-solving, the systems work,
the way to work in teams, the way to
design things. All of that knowledge
transfers into knowing how to grow a
business better than anything you’ll
pick up in an actual business course.”
Creating Boston Logic
With David’s two degrees completed, he
and Matt spent the summer of 2004
working on a startup idea. But by fall,
they needed income. “We got wind of an
opportunity to do some work for ReMax of
New England,” David says. The friends
put in a proposal and won the project.
“So, two guys who had no income suddenly
had a mid-five-figure contract to
implement a web-marketing campaign for
one of the largest real estate companies
in New England!”
In early 2005, they thought other real
estate brokerages might want their
services. “So, we launched a consulting
firm, which was Boston Logic’s first
incarnation, to help real estate
companies leverage the web and
technology.”
After a few years of running Boston
Logic as a services and consulting firm,
David says, “It was clear that this
business model was not one we wanted to
be in forever. We came to the
realization that services was not the
future of implementing what we were
doing, but software was. So we built
software products and we integrated them
into one platform and made it a
multi-tenant platform, which allowed
rapid deployment and easier upgrades. We
launched the Sequoia Platform in 2009
and that’s when we officially became a
software plus services provider.”
Boston Logic is growing rapidly. What
David most needs now is “awesome” new
team members. “I need amazing Ruby on
Rails developers, database
administrators, product support people,
another project manager, account
executives. We’re looking for awesome
people. That’s my biggest challenge
right now and my request to the world.
Please introduce these people to me!”
As for the tools that put him on this
trajectory? While he acquired his own
tools working summers during college as
a finish carpenter, he felt a particular
sense of achievement when he bought his
own DeWalt miter saw. “If you buy a
miter saw you’re stepping onto another
level.” Plus he’s acquired other tools
like his Apple computer and his skis.
And, it will take more than free drinks
tickets to entice him to an event these
days. Instead, try Leffe Brown or a very
fine red wine.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
David Friedman
CEO, Boston Logic |
|
|
David has used the group
wisdom of CEO
Roundtable, LLC®, very
effectively to position
his company and expand
the vision of his
market. “CEO Roundtable
has been extraordinarily
helpful. I didn’t have a
board before joining CEO
Roundtable. Two of my
board members came from
CEO Roundtable.” They
were the ones who said
the company needed to
focus on software
development and guided
him through that
transition.
In 2008, those same
board members helped him
navigate the recession.
“I walked into a Q4
board meeting and said,
‘I’ve managed us into
this cash position and I
think we’re pretty well
set -up for the
downturn.’ They looked
at me and said, ‘Listen,
kid, it’s time to toss
people out of the
lifeboat, whomever you
can. It’s going to get
bad.’” David admits,
“They just scared the
wits out of me! They
basically said, ‘Get
serious!’”
David took the company
from 11½ employees to
eight over the next
three months by making
some of them half-time,
diminishing hours for
someone else, and not
replacing someone who
left. “We rode it out
for six to 12 months. By
the end of the next year
we were hiring again and
we’d launched the
Sequoia Platform. We
made it through the
recession. I owe that to
a number of people: hard
work by my employees for
sure and the guys on the
board.”
David says, “I’ve lost
count of how many things
like that have happened
where I can say CEO
Roundtable helped this
happen. I work very,
very hard, but there’s
no way you can do this
without a lot of help.
CEO Roundtable, working
with good companies and
partnerships, and
amazing, amazing
employees – that’s how
it’s done. It’s amazing
people.”
|
|
|
