Louisville-based startup Forecastr has named Eric Shriner its chief technology officer.
Forecastr, founded by CEO Steven Plappert and COO Logan Burchett in 2019, offers financial modeling software that helps companies forecast their revenue, predict runway and understand their numbers.
Shriner spent the last nine years working for Capture Higher Ed as its vice president of information technology. Capture Higher Ed, which has been among Louisville's fastest growing companies, is an enrollment management and marketing firm that helps higher education institutions make personalized, data-driven, timely and measured connections with prospective students and donors.
Prior to Shriner's stint at Capture, he was the director of technology for the Learning House. He's also an Endeavor Entrepreneur.
Stepping into the CTO role at Forecastr excites him, Shriner said in an interview with Business First. He calls himself an “early-stage business person,” noting he loves being part of the beginning of a company’s process.
He was also interested in joining a company that was competitive, he said.
“I think that Forecastr has identified a persistent problem that needs to be solved, and I think that they have begun the process of solving that and are getting some good traction on it,” Shriner said. “…The problem they're solving is real, and it will persist.
"The opportunity is now and it's large. The team is great and experienced. Those are my reasons for wanting to be here. That's how that came about.”
Plappert said the company is in a unique position now where there is a lot of demand for the product.
But, “we still don't feel like we really have product market fit. Our product in the market, there's still issues with the solution in terms of just rough edges to polish,” he said.
Plappert said the next step is for the company to scale the product up to reach that market fit and raise a Series A funding round. Forecastr raised a $2.5 million seed round this time last year and had previously raised a $750,000 pre-seed round in early 2020.
“A large part of bringing Eric in was to help us get [to the Series A],” Plappert said.
Shriner said his experience at Capture, all the way from its concept to its product market fit, was very valuable to him.
“I think that particular experience that I have, in doing integrations of multiple systems, is going to be an asset here,” Shriner said. “That and the potential for pulling large data out of this feed of data that can help the industry learn more about it.”
During the rest of 2022, Forecastr is focused on growth in terms of revenue and customers, Plappert said. The company doesn’t have plans to drastically expand its workforce — it currently employs about 24 people, which includes six in Louisville and nine in Kentucky, and Plappert expects to end the year with 28.
Forecastr is nearing $1 million in revenue on an annual recurring, run-rate basis. Plappert said he wants to have a revenue of $1.5 million by the end of the year.
The company has more than 400 customers, and it expects to reach 700 by the end of the year. Some of its local clients include Amplify Louisville, EZ-Chow, GoodMaps, Timeout and Symba.
