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02/13/2007What Minneapolis’s Partner, US Internet, Learned Along the Way
Joe Caldwell, CEO and Cofounder of Minneapolis-based US Internet, participated at the 4th Service-Provider Executives and Local-Government CIOs Roundtable at the Digital Cities Convention in Philadelphia (Dec. 5–6, 2006). He spoke with W2i at the event.
Q: How did US Internet become engaged with Minneapolis’s wireless plans?
A: When the City of Minneapolis put out its RFP in April of 2005, we said, we think we can win this, because this is our back yard, most of the business in town is already our customer, from a corporate standpoint, so we have all the logos in town that are clients. And we understand this business. We’ve been doing wireless for a long time. So we decided to bid on it that April, and we were picked as a finalist in July of 2005, and it took over a year to actually be selected as the winner.
Q: What’s it been like working with the city? Any surprises?
A: We went through a lot of challenges as a company. One, we had never dealt with big government contracts. We’re used to going in, sitting down with a bunch of CIOs and CTOs and having a decision within a couple of weeks of the sales process — not having to deal from a political angle. So we learned a lot as a company. When we won the contract, the city said, Now the hard part begins, and we all laughed at each other and said, We just did the hard part. We know how to build networks. This is what we’ve been doing for 11 years. What we’re about to do is the easy part.
Our goal as US Internet is to make Minneapolis our showpiece, and to make it perfect. Because that will give us the ticket to go around the country. And if we have Minneapolis as a satisfied, happy customer that can’t shut up about us, that’s our goal — get them so all they talk about is what a smart decision they made. That will help us get these other cities sold.
Q: What do you think about the digital-inclusion aspects of the agreement?
A: We’d never been in a structure like what’s presented with Minneapolis, where a percentage of our net profit actually goes to a digital-inclusion fund. It’s not a matter of throwing money at the situation, because that’s one thing I thought was the answer. We’ll just write a check, and it fixes itself. But that’s what doesn’t happen.
What I learned from this whole thing, in dealing with the city, is what they really need is to put teachers into these communities so that they could bridge the digital divide. Any software company on the planet would give away a certain number of CDs. The hardware manufacturers will give away hardware. Corporations are giving their laptops to the community. But it’s not a matter of hardware and software, it’s a matter of education. And so this money, what it’s mainly used for, is educating and bridging the digital divide with knowledge — not a piece of hardware or software. So we’re excited about going down that way with the city.
Q: You’ve come a long way in a decade. What were your company’s early days?
A: US Internet is a company I founded back in 1995 with a couple of other guys — Kurt Lange and Travis Carter. And my role in the beginning was, they were very technical and they didn’t like to talk to people, and I was not technical, but I couldn’t shut up. So I was in charge of all the sales and marketing, and they were in charge of making sure everything worked.
In 1995 we started — basically, the day after Al Gore invented the Internet we got into the business. At the time, there were only 130,000 people on the Internet, and by 1998 there were 250 million — from nothing to something overnight….
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