Our historic milestones

What comes of growth and then contraction, then growth again? Years of celebrations and some grief, for ourselves and our clients? It yields a rich soil for us today. There’s a time and place to grow in summer, rest in winter, then emerge in springtime again. Enjoy these highlights from our history. We look forward to learning your story…

May 2000

Our founding

Patrick Pitman started E-business Coach, Inc. from an office on Main Street in Livingston, Montana with capital scrounged from selling his Ford truck. That gave a few months of runway.

Nov 2001

Ecommerce early days

We help Redoxx.com with email marketing for the holidays, the first ecommerce client. This DTC manufacturing relationship grows to the present day.

2002

First SaaS products

We create Total Blue Survey, a survey software tool. Then extend this to Total Blue System, a turnkey ecommerce platform with CMS, Email Marketing, Shopping Cart and hosting.

2005

First international merchant

Total Blue System, our SaaS ecom product, powers up a .co.uk domain for a children’s clothing catalog company based outside London.

2005

Hacked

Our ecommerce SaaS product suffers unauthorized root to a backup server. Credit card fraud at risk, millions in fines pending! Investigation unfolds with Visa and we hustle, hustle to become PCI compliant.

Holidays 2006

Ecommerce growth leader

Ecommerce clients grow 4x the e-retail industry average with SEO-friendly ecommerce platform and efficient back-end integrations.

2008

Certified Secure

PCI Data security breach from 2005 resolved, no fraud, no fines. We’re secure, exhausted and nearly broke.

2009

Retire SaaS, crash and burn

After key clients go bankrupt after Christmas, suffering from the recession, our SaaS product runs out of gas. We migrate hosting clients to new platforms. Tears of despair, and relief.

2010

Ecommerce academy

Partnered with a client, we develop an edutainment online training experience called Frankly eCommerce. Learn how to grow sales online.

2011

ATX

We open a consulting office in Austin, Texas and build a practice helping established B2B companies shift to a B2C ecommerce model.

2014

Luxury Retail

We go on a deep dive into luxury retail at a hand-crafted scale. Many flights to London in a consulting effort to modernize an emerging brand.

2016

Customer service

We rebuild a client’s customer service operation from the ground up, serving a tough industry with a deservedly bad reputation. Hiring, SOP’s, multi-channel ops. Hello angry customers, we’re no longer scared to help you!

2018

Attuned CX

Running CX operations for ecommerce clients, and a tranformative Intensive Care Unit hospital experience, inspire the ATTUNED method for customer experience teams.

2020

Shopify Top 1%

We support a 40-year-old niche B2B brand in its transition to DTC ecommerce. It earns top 1% of all Shopify merchants in sales growth.

June 2021

ebusiness pros

We reorganize our consultancy. The ebusiness pros help product companies sell on-line, easier. A focus on customer service ops and email marketing.

Sep 2021

ebusiness brands

A new name for our company that forecasts our growth for the next 20 years! We redefine ebusiness, seek an easier way, and acclaim our new hippo mascot.

Dec 2021

ebusinessWP

We organize our wordpress clients of the last 12 years into a simple support package offering at ebusiness WP. Call it the chill website owners club!

Mar 2022

easier business

A new publishing and training resource for people who might feel overwhelmed at work. Entrepreneurs, marketers, operations and customer service pros start with listening to our podcast.