Chattanooga firm grows big data into $11 million business

Staff Photo by Danielle Moore
EPB has started to install "smart meters" in the Chattanooga area to more efficiently record and store power data. The meters send information over fiber optics and facilitate more control over usage by allowing consumers to view energy distribution in real time.
Staff Photo by Danielle Moore EPB has started to install "smart meters" in the Chattanooga area to more efficiently record and store power data. The meters send information over fiber optics and facilitate more control over usage by allowing consumers to view energy distribution in real time.

Keeping a lean operation and being good to employees have helped Market Street Solutions prosper. That's according to CEO Jeff Wade and evidenced by the company's appearance on the Inc. 5000 list every year since 2008.

"We've really focused on trying to take care of our folks," says Wade. "We really don't try to burn people out."

Following sane business-travel schedules, for example.

"One of the things we're most proud of is we have employees who have been with us for a long time," Wade says. "We've had really low turnover."

Wade and Bill Smith, who retired late last year, founded and headquartered the company in Chattanooga in 2002.

"I am moving forward with the business and we continue to grow," Wade says.

Will Thrash, Michael Donan and Rob Baierle are account managers. Bob McEuen is a support manager. Located on Chattanooga's North Shore, Market Street Solutions has 30 employees.

The business analytics and big-data consulting firm helps companies make better decisions through strategies based on facts and insights learned by data, everything from customer-service and social-media data to a power company's outage reports. "Everybody has got so much data these days," Wade says. "What they really want to do is take that data and information and understand it so they can run their business better."

Market Street Solutions made last year's Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the nation, at number 1,936, up from 3,511 in 2013 and 4,330 in 2012. Revenue was $11 million in 2014, according to Wade, up from $7 million in 2013, as reported by the Inc. ranking. In 2010 it was $2.3 million.

The company has been profitable since its launch, Wade says. "We're pretty lean in terms of the way we run the business. We didn't take any outside money, didn't have any debt on our books. We don't make lavish purchases."

This story appears in Edge magazine, which may be read atwww.meetsforbusiness.com

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