New Relic: Fast-growing startup thrives in cloud
New Relic: Fast-growing startup thrives in cloud Scott Witucki joined New Relic Inc., a startup that tracks website performance, after six years on the road peddling bottled tea. "The product sells itself," said Witucki, 36, who booked more than $400,000 in sales in his first quarter on the job without hopping on a plane or playing a round of golf - the way software used to get sold. New Relic, whose Web-based products help companies monitor the speed of their websites and pinpoint bugs in applications, is among a host of startups trying to make complex technology as easy to use as e-mail or Facebook. Wily sold software the old way, sending representatives out to try to persuade executives to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on multiyear licenses to install it on in-house servers. If a site is slow, the company can determine the cause of the problem, whether it's a failed server, slow database or a sudden surge in Internet traffic. New Relic's chief competitors are older technology companies such as IBM, HP and BMC Software, which have been slow to develop Web-based offerings. Envato, a 6-year-old Australian startup that owns a suite of websites focused on education, technology and employment, was "in the dark" before using New Relic, said CEO and co-founder Collis Ta'eed.
