If there is one thing Sean Ransom believes in as a programmer, it is the importance of designing software that is flexible and intuitive for users. “Even when they are telling you your software is [lousy] and to please cancel my account, take a deep breath and listen,” Ransom wrote in a 2008 essay on a local tech website. “There is always something you can find to improve upon. Always.”
Today, Ransom has the opportunity to put those beliefs into action as vice president of technology at BatchBlue Software, which makes Web-based software that helps small businesses and entrepreneurs manage their relationships with customers. He co-founded the company in 2006, and is the mastermind behind its marquee product, BatchBook, which helped boost BatchBlue’s annual revenue by more than 800 percent last year alone.
Like most of BatchBlue’s founders, Ransom joined the startup after working at Amazon.com. He spent eight years as a software-development engineer at the e-commerce giant, from the dot-com boom and subsequent bust through the company’s growth into a mature company. At Amazon, Ransom built customer service applications, including a phone-order tool that helped Amazon generate millions of dollars in revenue.
Now 33, Ransom traces his winding career path to the advice of a 10th-grade teacher who taught him the value of working outside the system. “You don’t have to take the defined career path you are expected to in order to be successful,” he said in his 40 Under Forty application.
Ransom shares something else with Amazon – a hometown, Seattle, which is where he developed a passion for fly-fishing. He has combined his expertise in technology with his passion for angling by co-creating and managing Speypages.com, a nationally recognized, online community for fly-fishermen.
He has also helped Big Brothers Big Sisters of Cape Cod and the Islands organize fishing events. •
