Swimming in a Sea of Data: John James of Acumen Brands
This week, Innovate Arkansas adviser Jeff Amerine welcomes Acumen Brands founder and CEO Dr. John James to Swimming in a Sea of Data, part of 8th & Walton's weekly Saturday Morning Meeting show on KNWA.
James, a medical doctor by training, started Acumen in Fayetteville in 2010 and has grown it into a multi-million dollar e-commerce enterprise. Acumen perhaps is best known for CountryOutfitter.com, one of the nation's fastest growing brands.
Since its founding, Acumen has attracted $101 million in VC funding which accounts for about 90 percent of all the VC funding in Arkansas over the last decade.
From humble beginnings -- five employees working in space above a Jason's Deli, Acumen has grown to 215 employees in a 220,000-SF, state-of-the-art facility on Shiloh Drive that includes a fleet of Kiva robots to fill orders.
Plus, it has a brick-and-mortar home for Country Outfitter inside the Old Post Office on the Fayetteville square. The Fayetteville Flier had a good pice on Acumen's growth this past spring.
James joined Amerine Saturday for Swimming in a Sea of Data, where he shared Acumen's "rifle shot" data mining strategy that has positioned the company as perhaps NWA's No. 4 behind the giants -- Walmart, Tyson and J.B. Hunt.
(Both John, the Doctorpreneur, and Jeff, the Techpreneur, are former INOV8 blog contributors. Just sayin'...)
The roughly 6-minute segment below begins at roughly the 4:30 mark.
Great stuff. Enjoy: