A CEO's Perspective on Utah Business

Qualified Address PAVE Certification

2009-06-16T13:13:00.000-07:00

I wanted to update our customers on where we stand with Pave certification. We are close to finishing our new software that includes PAVE, CASS, MOVEupdate, Label designer and more. Our new suite of products will allow us to provide a complete solution to our customers. As with all of our products, our new suite (not yet branded) will be completely web based. The first solution of its kind in the market. We are applying to the USPS for certification before we can launch our suite.

What is PAVE?

PAVE (Presort Accuracy Verification and Evaluation) is a voluntary program in which the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) tests presort software to determine its accuracy in sorting address information and in producing standardized supporting documentation. When the USPS refers to PAVE-certified software or PAVE-certification, it is referring to software that has been tested to verify its ability to sort addresses to USPS specifications. Presorting is the process of arranging your mail so pieces going to the same area are bundled together. This minimizes the number of steps the USPS needs to perform on a mailing and allows them to process the mail more quickly and less expensively. The savings are then passed on to you in the form of lower postage rates and faster delivery. (In essence, you are doing some of the work for the post office and they are rewarding you for it.) In general, the more levels of sorting you perform on a mailing, the lower the cost of the postage.

An address list must be sorted by a variety of criteria, depending on the type of mail being sent (e.g., letters or flats), the mail class (First-Class, Standard, Periodicals) and on the location of each address. As one example, the Postal Service uses what is called a Sectional Center Facility (SCF) that serves as a sorting center for groups of ZIP codes. Manual sorting of mail can be complicated, because mail going to ZIP codes serviced by different SCFs must be sorted into separate, unique mail trays. ZIP codes numerically "next to one another" may actually be sent to different USPS sorting centers and should be sorted into separate trays. For instance, you might have a mailpiece with the ZIP code 94299 and one with the ZIP code 94301. If you sorted your address list into ZIP code order, you would put these mailpieces next to each other in the same sorting container. However, these ZIP codes are serviced by different SCFs. The mailpiece going to the 94299 address is sent to the 942 SCF, located in Sacramento, CA. The mailpiece going to the 94301 address is sorted at the 943 SCF, located in San Francisco, CA – seventy miles away. Thus, presort regulations require that those mailpieces be sorted into different containers before being submitted to the USPS.

Because of the complex and labor-intensive nature of manual presorting, many companies offer software that presorts your address list for you, making the mailing more cost-effective. Different software performs different presorts, so it is important that you research to ensure that the software you are purchasing sorts for the type of mailings that you do.
Before you begin a presort mailing, make sure:

The software sorts for the type of mailing you want to do – First-Class or Standard Mail, postcards, flats, letters, Carrier Route, etc. Each presort class is unique in sort order, price and documentation.

The software prints the USPS-required forms. There are many different versions of the presort form – which form you need to submit depends on the presort being performed. In general, the software should print the 3600x and 3602x forms. These forms give the USPS a breakdown of the cost for the mailing, as well as mailer information (permit number, mailing address, phone number, etc.). In addition, Form 3553 is required to verify the CASS certification of any automation mailing.

The software prints the Tray and/or Sack labels (also called Container labels). These tags use a standard Universal Product Code (UPC) barcode and determine the destination of each mail tray or sack. Your post office can provide you with the trays and sacks you will need.

Utah Business's 2008 Fast Fifty

2008-09-23T12:58:00.000-07:00

Exact Wave has been named to Utah Business's 2008 Fast Fifty, highlighting 50 of the fastest growing companies in Utah. The Fast 50 program recognizes companies for their entrepreneurial spirit, innovative business tactics and skyrocketing revenue growth.

Exact Wave is honored to be among Utah's leaders in the fast-paced business world. Exact Wave attributes its success to its key ingredients: Great People, Great Product, Great Company.

All of the selected companies are featured in Utah Business magazine's September issue and were announced and honored in numerical order at an event on August 27th. in Salt Lake City, Utah.

http://www.utahbusiness.com/parser.php?nav=article&article_id=7386

By the way, We ranked #33. Not bad.

BYU Business Plan Competition Kicks Off

2008-09-21T13:12:00.000-07:00

It's a new school year and that means a new year for the Business Plan Competition. This year appears to bring a lot of new challenges and a lot of unknowns. So far, I have no idea who will compete and who seem to be frontrunners leading into the competition. Last year, we knew about Klymite and Qgia and a few other companies early in the year. As you know, Klymite went on to win our competition and place 2nd at Moot Corp (the world championship). Our 2nd place team, SchoolTipLine also place 5th at Moot Corp. Without question, last year was the most successful year for the BPC to date.

So, leading into this year, I'm not sure who the frontrunners are, but I look forward to finding out. We have some new perks this year. It appears our winner might have the opportunity to ring the bell at the Nasdaq, and we are working on as new partnership with a VC firm that would bring Seed funding to one of our winners each year. Talk about excititng news.

Being the entrepreneur that I am, I have several ideas that I want to pass along to students looking to enter the competition and start a company, but do not have ideas. Feel free to get in touch with me if you are looking for ideas or want to join a team.

V100

2008-05-12T13:13:00.000-07:00

I was voted to the VSpring 100 list for the third year in a row. The v100 was designed to help entrepreneurs and vSpring Capital locate and cultivate relationships among top CEO and CTO talent in the region. Members of the v100 are chosen through a peer-nominated and peer-selected process.

Basically, it is a CEO popularity list in Utah. At first I was not to keen on the idea, but I attended the luncheon and enjoyed meeting manyof the nominees.

I seem to get so tied up in my businesses that I rarely take time to socialize within the Utah tech community. The V100 gives me that opportunity.

Gruvie.com connects all your Social Network Sites with One URL

2008-02-19T13:20:00.000-08:00

A really cool new web 2.0 company is launching called Gruvie. Gruvie is a social community platform that enables you to organize your Social Websites and link to them from one location.

Gruvie also is a social community platformÂ that is jam packed with photos, friends, groups, videos, chat, games and much more.

What I like most about Gruvie is that you can get your own URL, (mine is james.surfsforlife.com) to promote yourself and your favorite links. I uploaded links to my favorite websites and when my friends visit me, they can easily navigate to my facebook page or my Yahoo page or my Blog. Gruvie also allows you to make any page your home page.

Check out Gruvie and let me know what URL you choose!

Exact Wave is ranked on the Utah 100 Emerging Elite

2007-12-18T13:22:00.000-08:00

Exact Wave, a leading provider of online address data management and enhancement solutions, has been recognized by the MountainWest Capital Network (MWCN) as one of the fastest-growing company in Utah in the Emerging Elite category for companies under 5 years old . Recognition is based on percentage revenue increases from 2002 through 2006. In 2004 - 2006, Exact Wave was also recognized by MWCN as one of the state's 15 'Emerging Elite' companies.

"We congratulate Exact Wave for continuing its impressive trajectory and making our Emerging Elite for the third straight year," said Todd Leishman, MWCN Vice President and Chairman of the Utah 100. "Exact Wave is a terrific example of a home-grown company that is really generating a lot of excitement, and we are pleased to include it among our winners.

"Exact Wave co-founder and CEO, James Endicott, accepted the award on behalf of Exact Wave. "We have received a lot of national recognition for our growth, but being recognized as an Emerging Elite is a great honor," says Endicott. "We love doing business in Utah. This state is a great place for entrepreneurs and business start-ups, to be recognized here in Utah as one of the fastest-growing companies in the state with the most dynamic entrepreneurial economy, is truly a great honor."

Side Note: Exact Wave is really growing very rapidly and we couldn't be more excited. The release of Qualifiedaddress.com has made Exact Wave the first address data management and enhancement solutions company with a complete SaaS offering.

Qualified Address Offers Free Service to Validate Addresses at Point of Entry

2007-11-26T13:26:00.000-08:00

Orem, UT -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/14/2007 -- Qualified Address announced today it is offering free point-of-entry address validation to businesses wishing to integrate its address verification software into their websites, databases or desktop applications.

The software, known as Address Entry Pro, can be implemented using either XML or JavaScript. Given an address, city, and state, it will return a ZIP Code, +4 Code, and county. The software will also standardize the address to the standards published by the USPS in Publication 28.

Address Entry Pro allows businesses to validate addresses by accessing the address verification technology that powers Qualified Address Certified Scrubbing. Certified Scrubbing was evaluated by the U.S. Postal Service and awarded CASS Certification in August 2007.

Point-of-entry validation is a useful solution for businesses looking to improve the quality of their address data, speed up data entry, and append county information to an address automatically. It is especially popular with businesses that are validating and correcting shipping addresses or calculating sales tax rates in their website shopping carts.

New customers have two weeks free access to the address verification software and can validate up to 500 addresses. Following this free period, subscription rates are as low as $19.95 per month.

Businesses are invited to take advantage of this offering by visiting

http://www.qualifiedaddress.com/Services/Address-Verification-API/.

With Qualified Address you can Dedupe your Mailing Lists

2007-11-26T13:24:00.000-08:00

Qualified Address has added free de-duping services to all its data scrubbing products. If you are a current customer, this service is already available in your account.

This is a really cool service that can save you tons of money on your mailings.

You can find out more about these services at QualifiedAddress.com.

PayPerPosters Lose PageRank Faster than You Can Say 'Google'

2007-11-19T13:27:00.000-08:00

Interesting how difficult it has become to get top search engine rankings.

I used to consult for many companies as a SEO. Up until 2003, I had no trouble getting my cvlients top rankings.

I actually stopped taking on new clients because Exact Wave was growing so rappidly, but I wouldn't be very interested in consulting today simply because the landscape has changed so much.

Come to think of it, things are so difficult today, I could probably charge alot more money for my services.

Her's a nice little article about PayPerPost, a company trying to cheat the google system.Â You can't fool Google, eventually they catch up to you.

Some bloggers participating in PayPerPost's program have found their site PageRanks lowered to virtual obsolescence by Google in the past week.

The news came from a report via TechCrunch, which was recently called out by CEO Ted Murphy of IZEA, PayPerPost's parent company.

Murphy asserted PayPerPost suffers because it is "a very attractive alternative" to Adsense. He added that sites like TechCrunch should also be punished for posts that, for example, thank and link sponsors.

PayPerPost connects advertisers that are willing to pay for blog mentions to bloggers willing to make company mentions for money.

The company has oft suffered critique for polluting the blogosphere with inorganic content since its launch.

A lower PageRank means affected sites will no longer appear anywhere near the top of relevant search results. Indeed, many harmed bloggers have been relegated to the hinterlands of last results, where no searcher goes.

Last month Google began penalizing sites that appeared to be selling links or which linked heavily within their own networks as part of efforts to make search results more relevant to the end user.

MarketingVox.com

Qualified Address Receives USPS CASS Certification for New Online Software

2007-08-20T13:29:00.000-07:00

Orem, Utah, (August 17, 2007) Qualified Address, an Exact Wave company specializing in address verification software and mailing list services, today announced that its address matching software, Qualified Address Certified Scrubbing, has been awarded CASS Certification by the United States Postal Service. This certification is an indication of the softwares quality and means that business mailers using the software can qualify for discounted automation and presort postage rates.

Qualified Address Certified Scrubbing is the industrys first CASS Certified software-as-a-service (SaaS) mailing product.

The SaaS model provides users with benefits such as faster list processing speeds and lower software and hardware maintenance costs while maintaining the necessary functionality of the software. In the coming months, Qualified Address plans to release additional products and services using the same model to compliment its address matching software.

The CASS Certification program was developed by the USPS to verify the accuracy and quality of third-party address matching software. Annual recertification is required in order to comply with new USPS requirements. Starting in August 2007, the Post Office now requires that CASS software include LACSLink and DPV processing. LACSLink processing allows Qualified Address to provide corrected information for addresses that have been renamed or renumbered. DPV identifies whether or not the USPS recognizes an address as a valid delivery address and flags invalid addresses. Together, these services will help mailers significantly reduce mail that is Undeliverable as Addressed.

Many mailers have been reluctantly awaiting the new CASS requirements because of worries that the addition of DPV and LACSLink will results in slower processing speeds and higher costs, said Exact Wave President and CEO James Endicott. The new software from Qualified Address tackles both of these issues and still allows mailers to remain eligible for automation and presort postage discounts. Certified Scrubbing will verify, correct, and add five-digit ZIP Codes to batches of addresses. It also standardizes the street addresses, cities, and states to the USPS guidelines, adds ZIP+4 codes and carrier routes to addresses, and provides customers with the PS 3553 CASS Summary Report. Depending on the list size, customers can have their list updated and returned within a few minutes.Â Qualified Address Certified Scrubbing is available immediately at http://www.qualifiedaddress.com/ About Qualified Address: Qualified Address, an Exact Wave company, specializes in address verification software and mailing list services. The software and services developed by Qualified Address enable customers to effectively manage communication with their contacts without costly investments in IT infrastructure. Services are flexible and developed so that they can be completely integrated into existing systems. Qualified Address prides itself in being an industry leader for software as a service (SaaS) mailing list solutions. More information on Qualified Address is available at http://www.qualifiedaddress.com/About Exact Wave:
Exact Wave provides innovative online addressing software and postal data to customers throughout the world. More than 80% of Fortune 500 companies are current clients of Exact Wave or have purchased Exact Wave products since the companys inception in August 2002. Exact Wave (formerly Veevix) was ranked as one of the â€œTop 25 Under 5 by the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum in 2004, 2005, and 2006. More information on Exact Wave is available at http://www.exactwave.com/.Â Media Contact:Â Jon MilesÂ Business Development Manager (888) 628-2601 ext 708

Customers Report on their Satisfaction With Qualified Address

2007-07-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

This is out latest press release

Orem, Utah (July 16, 2007)

Exact Wave, a leading provider of on-demand data management solutions, today announced the results of a recent customer satisfaction survey. The survey, conducted with customers who have purchased from Qualified Address in the last six months, shows that customers are overwhelmingly satisfied with the services they received. All customers were invited to participate in taking the online survey between July 11th and July 13th.

Of those customers who responded, an overwhelming majority indicate they are "very satisfied" with their purchase from Qualified Address. Customers also indicate that they are very likely to recommend Qualified Addresss products and services to others.

Ease of use, cost effectiveness, and speed are the most common reasons customers give for why they liked the services. With Qualified Address Scrubbing, the companys flagship product, customers can have lists of thousands of addresses in a mailing list standardized and validated in less than five minutes. Customers also praise the accuracy of the address matching software and the excellent customer support.

James Endicott, President and CEO of Exact Wave, is pleased with the findings. "The entire team has worked diligently to develop a high-quality solution that is fast, accurate, and easy to use. Iâ€™m happy to see that these efforts were recognized by our customers. I was also glad to see that the few concerns raised by our customers had already been addressed and corrected."
Qualified Address was launched by Exact Wave as the core of its Direct Marketing and Data Services division. In March 2006, it released its first product, Qualified Address Scrubbing, an online software service that standardizes and validated address data. The company will release additional data tools and software, including a much anticipated Address Verification API, in coming months. For more information, please visit http://www.qualifiedaddress.com.

About Qualified Address

Qualified Address, an Exact Wave company, is a leading provider of online address data management and enhancement solutions. The mailing list software and services developed by Qualified Address enable customers to effectively manage communication with their contacts without costly investments in IT infrastructure. Qualified Addresses services are flexible and developed so that they can be completely integrated into existing systems. Qualified Address prides itself in being an industry leader for software as a service (SaaS) mailing list solutions. More information on Qualified Address is available at www.qualifiedaddress.com and www.exactwave.com.

New Qualified Address Services Make Mailing List Management Easier

2007-03-08T13:33:00.000-08:00

PRESS RELEASE - QUALIFIED ADDRESS SCRUBBING For Immediate Release
Contact: Jon Miles Exact Wave
581 E Technology AveOrem, UT 84097
Phone: (888) 628-2601 ext 708 Fax: (888) 628-2601
Web: www.ExactWave.com New Qualified Address Services Make Mailing List Management Easier

Orem, Utah (March 7, 2007) Exact Wave, a leading provider of On-Demand data management solutions, today introduced Qualified Address, an innovative line of services aimed at providing businesses with online access to robust mailing list software. In conjunction with the release of its new services, Exact Wave has also launched a new website: www.qualifiedaddress.com.

Qualified Address Scrubbing, the core service available from Qualified Address, enables users to standardize their address databases without any additional investment in software or hardware. Using proprietary technology, the software compares addresses in the users list with official mailing data. If inconsistencies are found between the user submitted data and official data, Qualified Address Scrubbing will update the users list with corrected information. The end result is a list of addresses that are standardized to the USPS requirements.

Exact Wave is pleased to offer the first On-Demand, web based mailing list management solution. Explains Exact Wave President, James Endicott. Qualified Address will save companies time and money while providing a solution that can correct, validate, and enhance their data at an affordable price.

Customers who participated in pre-launch testing with Qualified Address were most impressed with the speed in which Qualified Address was able to process and return their lists. Depending on the size of lists being processed, most are returned with the updated information in just a few minutes. Qualified Address has set a new standard in speed for the mailing industry as most competitive list processing companies require hours, days, or even weeks to process and return a list.

Qualified Address Scrubbing will be available online at www.qualifiedaddress.com starting March 7, 2007.

Additional mailing list software services will be released over the next few months.
About Qualified Address Qualified Address, an Exact Wave company, is a leading provider of online address data management and enhancement solutions. The mailing list software and services developed by Qualified Address enable customers to effectively manage communication with their contacts without costly investments in IT infrastructure. Qualified Addresses services are flexible and developed so that they can be completely integrated into existing systems. Qualified Address prides itself in being an industry leader for software as a service (SaaS) mailing list solutions.

More information on Qualified Address is available at www.qualifiedaddress.com and www.exactwave.com.

e-business Success in the Philippines

2007-03-06T13:37:00.000-08:00

A few months back when I was in the Philippines with ACE (Academy for Creating Enteprise), I met a dynamite business owner in Cebu City names Wilson NG. Wilson is the owner of several very successful companies including a medical transcription company, a web and software development company, and a floor plan layouts design company. He also teaches business classes at a local college. You can read about Wison on his blog at Reflections of a BizDrivenLife.

Wison is great example of what can be achieved with hard wrok, smart, and a drive for success no matter what country you live in. I hope to collaborate with Wilson on some future projects and see if we can't create jobs and even more importantly, entepreneurship opportunities for ACE graduates in the Philippines.

Great job Wilson!