By Jim Lundy
We just celebrated 10 years since the start of Aragon and it has been an incredible journey. Looking back, ten years seemed to go by very quickly–and for many who have been in startup land, you can relate to what I mean. So, as a founder, I’d like to take a quick look back at the last ten years of Aragon Research.
We celebrated at ARHQ with cookies and champagne!
Founding Aragon
When a client tells you to do something, like leave your current employer and start your own company, it is important to listen to what they say. That happened to me–a legend in Silicon Valley inspired me to take the leap of faith, leave Gartner, and just do it. So I did. With the help of my Co-Founder, we launched Aragon Research on August 16th, 2011, and never looked back (see my blog about founding Aragon from 2011).
Building Aragon
As with anything, the early days of building Aragon were challenging, but we had many friends and family members that jumped in to encourage us, or, in many cases, to become involved. It is important to thank those that helped when our brand was new and unknown. Some may not know, but my wife, Patricia Sweeney, our SVP and CFO, was our third associate and she has helped to run and scale our operations ever since.
I’d also like to thank Patricia (Lundy) Knedler–who from the time she graduated from UCLA in 2013, was a force in Marketing. She helped to single-handedly build our brand, while also building a world-class marketing team. Patricia has moved on to pursue her dream of becoming a Hollywood screenwriter, but her impact is still felt.
The Aragon Team Today
Today, at Aragon, we continue to grow due to our sole focus on helping clients. We have many team members who have been with us for years. Our Growth team, led by Bob Sweeney with help from James Lundy III, continues to be there to lead existing and new clients through their journey with Aragon.
We have incredible associates here at Aragon. We believe in employee engagement and continue to invest in the training and development of our associates.
Innovating at Aragon–Visual Research
If you haven’t seen our Visual Research, it is time to check it out and make the switch. Every single research note we publish comes with a video that summarizes the written note in two minutes or less. We spend a lot of time on the quality of each video and that is why more clients are adding more users–so they can log in and watch the video summary to stay ahead of the competition.
Aragon Cares
I have always believed in giving back to the community, and besides the individual volunteering that so many members of our team are involved with, we also have organized efforts to help people in the community as a company. Check out our Aragon Cares page to learn more about our monthly volunteer efforts.
Continued Growth
Aragon continues to grow year over year. We just introduced our newest service Aragon Foresight, which includes Visual Forecasts and Toolkits to help executives understand the growth potential of a market. Our Visual Forecasts include a Visual Research video for every market forecast.
Here’s to the Next 10 Years
I personally want to thank all of the people who have helped Aragon Research over the years– Our clients, our friends, and our associates. We are making a difference in the research and advisory landscape. We invite those who have not talked to us yet to reach out and start the conversation. I’m very proud of what we have accomplished, but we are just getting started.