Houses of Information: For M1 Data, Four Million Daily Bits Feeds Appetite for Growth

When Greg Ashe is asked about the data aggregation business he cofounded with Andrew Marcus 6 years ago, he begins by assessing the middle-market firm’s current data supply pipeline.

“We probably take in 4 million bits of information on individuals on a daily basis, of which net unique pieces of information account for probably a quarter of a million to 300,000 per day,” explains Ashe, who says that the $10 million firm known as M1 Data & Analytics then simply funnels out its data to corporate clients of all shapes and sizes.

“There are roughly 26 million businesses in America, and every single one of them needs data to market if they want to stay in business,” says Ashe, who estimates that M1 Data has a data offering well suited for 90 percent of the 26 million.

“Essentially, the growth path we’re on now is about user technology and interfaces, where we allow our customers to easily log in to one of our portals and process their own files, which allows them to prospect individuals based on demographic and lifestyle attributes. We want to make it easy enough so that a 5-year-old can do it,” explains Ashe, who says that starting out, the firm determined that it did not want to have middle men or data brokers involved in its data aggregation, allowing M1 Data to become more focused and confident about its own aggregation processes.

“We clean our data religiously — and we do it all in-house with a solid and small staff. Because of this, we are very nimble and often can do within 2 to 3 hours what it takes larger companies 2 to 5 days to do,” says Ashe, who chooses M1 Data’s automotive offering over the firm’s consumer and political databases when asked where his own expertise may lie.

“Auto is essentially my baby in-house. I built that file, and I maintain it. Each month, I try to make it larger and larger” says Ashe.

Yet, politics is clearly one of M1 Data’s cornerstones in light of the firm currently housing the entire voter registration file for all 50 states.

“The DNC, the RNC, PACs, advocacy groups of all kinds — as long as they’re a legal body, they can use our data,” explains Ashe, who says that the political realm is still rich with telemarketers eager to rent lists since political activity has not been blocked by the national Do Not Call Registry .

According to Ashe, M1 Data could have sprung up just about anywhere in the United States, and the fact that it calls Fort Lauderdale, Fla., home has more to do with the two founders’ fondness for warm weather than the city’s business climate.

As the years passed, growth came in fits and starts, and like many other fast-growing firms, M1 Data had to rethink its approach when it came to allocating resources and new hires.

“Once we realized that we were hurting ourselves by random hiring, we got focused on internal communications and on a strategic business plan that led us to downsize to the correct number of people — and we became far more efficient with fewer people,” explains Ashe, who says that the firm’s employees now number 38 — down from a high of 61 in 2010.

In the end, more people equaled more confusion, says Ashe:

“When you are growing at a rapid pace, it’s almost as if you are overwhelming your employees, so the response is often to put another body in place, but what we realized is that the more people we had, the greater the chance there was for miscommunication.”

He adds: “We cleared up the communication and made ourselves a thousand times more efficient with fewer people.”

As we advance into the second half of 2013, there are growing indications that business sentiment is improving despite nagging unemployment numbers and a shortage of merger-minded CEOs.

Cindy Crotty, middle-market business watcher and head of KeyBank’s commercial banking segment, once more shared with Middle-Market Executive the findings of a KeyBank’s middle-market business sentiment survey, which reveals that merger-minded business leaders remain a minority in 2013. Download report here.