Way to 'pay it forward'

Andrew Eifler '07 still remembers when Ken Freirich '90 guest-lectured in a marketing class. "He talked about the importance of networking and relationship-building," he recalls of Freirich, who today is president of Health Monitor Network and the alumnus who launched the Kenneth A. Freirich Business Plan Competition.

Freirich suggested follow-up notes after networking, and Eifler says, "as something of a joke, I wrote him a follow-up thanking him for coming to the campus." That note led to a regular correspondence, and then to a job with Health Monitor after Eifler graduated.

"Ken coached me actively through college and in my early years of professional employment," says Eifler. So when Freirich asked Eifler to mentor students in the competition, "I immediately accepted," he says. "It's a great way to 'pay it forward.'"

Eifler and six other alumni with business backgrounds attended February's semifinals of the Freirich contest, and from the teams selected for the finals (to be held Friday, April 8), Eifler chose to coach LeMur Technologies, led by Derek Halden '16, Anh Vu Nguyen '17, Khalil Hall-Hooper '16, and Maya Reyes '17. Their mission: to help organizations improve employee evaluations by facilitating anonymous "360-degree feedback" from people who work all around the employee.

"There's definitely a market opportunity for their solution. With a team that includes two very good software developers, I have no doubt this will be a successful business," Eifler asserts. "My own company may even become an early customer," adds the vice president of product management at AppNexus, a platform that optimizes the purchase of digital advertising.

In fact LeMur already has its first customer, cloud storage firm Space Monkey, led by a friend of Halden's. Recently, Halden says, "we were playing racquetball, and he mentioned he was frustrated by not having a better solution for conducting performance reviews. He asked if I could make him one, and I said 'sure.' That's how this business started-out of one company's very real need."

"We started off as a group of engineers with little business experience," Halden admits, adding that Eifler's advice and connections have been helpful. And Eifler says, "The fact that LeMur already is prototyping its technology with Space Monkey is impressive. Nothing validates and motivates a team more than making that first sale."

The final round of the Kenneth A. Freirich Business Plan Competition will be held on Friday, April 8 at 5 p.m. in Murray Aikins Dining Hall, second floor.