Celebrating Thanksgiving at Trade Ideas means reflecting on many things – like our loyal customers. Over 50K in over 75 countries around the world. Wow. With us since 2002. In what seems like a blink of an eye nine years has come and gone. I recall our first Trader’s Expo in 2003 in Las Vegas where we stayed at the Hotel Boardwalk and Casino for $45.00 dollars a night!

That year Vegas was freezing in November. We weren’t quite thankful then, but just the opposite: hopeful.

At that time we hoped that our innovative technology, forged out of 10 years of bloody noses in the “e-pits” of the SOES, SNET, and SuperDot, a $50 million dollar education courtesy of Menlo Ventures from a previous market technology experiment, and the dot.com bubble would give us the kind of product that could change how people sought to capture alpha. We knew what traders and investors needed to see because we were also its intended audience.

This philosophy holds true to this day.

Our own initial feedback drove changes back then, today it is our customers who give us valuable feedback. With our technology customers often become partners and partners become customers too. Our customers and partners are our lifeblood and we thank you for all of your support!

The world is littered with good ideas but many of them never see the light of day. In order to bring a good idea to market you have to have a great combination of different talents. In our case you have to have nothing short of incredible software development. Initially there was just one. The man himself, Philip Smolen. We don’t joke around when we say we have the “Good Will Hunting” of code writing. Simply put this man is a Juggernaut. And now he leads a team of Juggernauts as he’s learned to identify, attract, and nuture others with similar talent. So many props go out to our development team who make the magic happen.

Everyone who actually has done a business deal can tell you that the art of the deal is an art. To an extent you have to be born with it. Enter my good friend David Aferiat. Here is a man who took a leap of faith at the perfect time. Learned all there was to know about the trading business and put his talent of relationship building and deal closing to work! David’s ability to communicate the value proposition of our technology at both the executive and management level of business was instrumental in us forging long lasting mutually beneficial enterprise licenses. Cheers, sir!

The next bit of thanks goes to our COO Mr. Brad Williams. It takes a very unique individual with the skill set that allows him to speak business development, sales, and be able to distill requirements into a language that software development can take and make into a product. There is a notion that the customer is always right, but as we all know from business sometimes, you can’t take anything literally. Brad engages customers and understands not only their words, but their unspoken desire and needs.

Every customer that needs support comes in contact with different members of the team. Marissa Hill is our point for internal and external communication – relaying waves of information to the appropriate team members. For your educational needs Jamie Hodge is our resident expert on getting started with the software and building your alpha hunting strategy. You can have the most amazing software but unless there is support to help you get started it can be like that piece of gym equipment that serves as a coat rack in your garage 🙂

Thanks to our amazing support team that helps customers get the kind of user experience that makes them see why Trade Ideas is the leader in the field. So there you have it. Thanks to all of you, customers, partners, and team members new and old.