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“BIG LESSONS: STAY CALM & GET THINGS DONE FAST!”

This week, we interview a former BYU student entrepreneur who in 1996 began building websites at the dawn of the Internet, John Pestana. His earliest company was JP Interactive, a company that he sold all his (and his wife’s) wedding gifts to buy a computer for, a company that eventually became Omniture. John and Josh James, his partner, put everything on the line to survive the dot-com crash, raise money, meet payroll, and land Fortune 500 clients. Through sheer determination and grit, they built Omniture into a successful public company that was acquired by Adobe Systems in 2009 for $1.8 billion dollars. Early investors in Omniture enjoyed 100x+ returns and hundreds of others, became multi-millionaires! Most founders would have immediately retired. John, like Josh, did not!

John Pestana went on to co-found ObservePoint, a SaaS company based in Provo that improves the technology and data quality of clients engaged in online marketing. Even though he is very busy managing a portfolio of real estate properties that include apartment complexes and commercial office buildings, he still feels most comfortable running another high-tech, high-growth company with Rob Seolas his co-founder and CEO of ObservePoint.

We have had the pleasure of interviewing many of the best entrepreneurs and business leaders in Utah, but no one quite like John. He is versatile and well-rounded, focused but very eclectic, a real Renaissance man! He owns a model train company, writes and records music with his band, SilentMonk, has the best “man cave” in the country–complete with very cool car collection, an amazing aquarium, arcade, recording studio, spa, and two slides, etc. John is also very generous in spirit and deed. We hope you enjoy this illuminating podcast with John Pestana!