The story behind Adteco

Around 2000 we started a dot com.... launching a B2B marketplace startup. Realizing we had some missed assumptions, we quickly pivoted to a business model that worked. Our agile approach worked and over the next 17 years, our satellite communications marketplace would become the leading online destination for satellite communications equipment.

Armed with a simple idea, we started building a website that would allow customers to find the configure and price complicated products exploring their options. In those days, it was called a choiceboard. Customers loved it and it became a lead generating machine.

We rolled our own CRM and Sales Force Automation. It worked. Our sales people could churn our complex system quotes while on the phone with clients. The company became synonomous with quick response, customers were delighted and sales people were empowered.

Our success landed us on INC 500 as one of the fastest growing companys in America. We'd go on to be featured the next four years in a row, and over the course of 17 years, we would generate over $200M in sales and deploy tens of thousands of satellite terminals.

Too fast of growth had taken it's toll on the our companies cash position. With the underlying technology going through a massive shift, it would require a new bold bet with the capital to fund it and we did not have it. For the stakeholders, Customers, Employees, Suppliers...it was time to hand the company off to someone who could take it to the next level. We sold, signed a non-compete and decided to start fresh and focus on helping companies with their IT needs.

A friend called us and asked for help. They had a high volume ecommerce website that had just launched and was having multiple issues. We advised we knew nothing about it, but knew our skills and insisted we could fix it. They were right... in three long days it was stable and problem free. Systems engineering is systems engineering. The principles are the same. And with our first forray into D2C, AWS, and high volume ecommerce, we were fascinated and energized.

We were offered a position to manage integrations at a large consulting outfit. We were tasked with operating an IPAAS platform.... it was an eye opening experience. The solution was just clunky and expensive. Furthermore, the customers were paying an arm and a leg, and the larger systems they were integrating with were not working.

We were again tapped to fix a system that was maxed at performance. This time it was a large ERP system. It was a mess. After careful analysis of the system, we concluded the developer had a short memory and did not understand how computers process data. We took a process from 27 hours to 3 by moving a few lines of code around. When we moved the process outside of the ERP, it ran in under 10 minutes.

We were contracted to help another large entity with their systems. Another Rube Goldberg machine. The problem was simple, the intentions excellent but they had the architecture wrong and layers of management that did not understand the details. We had a solution in a weekend. 16000 man hours and millions spent, they were stuck in quicksand.

Copilots had intrigued us early on, and we were no strangers to complex models, systems dynamics and how they worked from our days as economists.

Intrigued, we started to push on the models, they just accepted. First it was code generation. Next we trained models on business documents, and finally were able to get the models to execute processes based on outcomes.

It was time to show people how to leverage this technology. The models fundamentally changed how we approach problems from a rules based approach to a goals and guardrails based approach.

Eventually we began talking more and typing less. While supervision was required, the productivity gain we were seeing was unlike anything we had seen in the past. People were questioning the impact and the return on investment, yet what we were seeing from the front lines was incredible. There was a lot to it, but it was time to show companies how to apply AI.