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StratQor achieves milestone for YBI
YOUNGSTOWN
Ken Zebracki still is unpacking after moving to Youngstown two weeks ago.
“I never thought I’d move from Cleveland,” he said.
It does, however, make the commute much shorter.
Zebracki is the founder of SalesKatz Inc., a portfolio company of the Youngstown Business Incubator, 241 W. Federal St., and developer of the business-to-business software StratQor.
Though SalesKatz has been a portfolio company for a year and a half, it recently achieved a milestone for the business incubator.
“It’s the first firm ever to land a substantial investment abroad,” said Jim Cossler, CEO of the incubator.
A private investor from the United Kingdom is investing $200,000 in the company, said Zebracki, who developed the software in 2008.
At that time, he owned another company called CAD Ventura LLC, which provided CAD software for mechanical engineers. The software originally was intended as a knowledge-based tool for engineers, but Zebracki didn’t think the market was worthwhile, and the technology was shelved.
It wasn’t until the fall of 2011, when Zebracki came up with a new direction for the technology, which was to improve the sales productivity of a company. Zebracki sold CAD Ventura and focused his energies on developing the new company in 2012.
“What we do is to give that salesperson a definitive reason to call,” Zebracki said.
The software monitors the Web for its clients and provides updates on profiled companies that clients market toward.
“Information [about companies] changes daily,” Zebracki said.
Additionally, StratQor provides a rating system so that it can adjust to the client’s preferences.
SalesKatz also works in partnership with IQware, a data-management system, which helps augment StratQor’s functions and provides security from cybercriminals.
“IQware can’t be hacked,” Zebracki said.
So far, the company has a team of four members plus eight from IQware who work closely with the software.
“We work as a collective,” he said.
Aside from the team, Zebracki considers YBI the company’s biggest advocate.
“There is a certain vibe and energy going on in this building,” he said. “Jim made us a believer in Youngstown.”
Zebracki said he expects his company to bring high-paying tech jobs to the area and generate revenue of $30 million over five years — a conservative estimate.
The company will launch into the market April 30.