Today, Joe Colopy, co-founder of Durham email marketer Bronto, which sold last year to California tech giant NetSuite for $200 million, is taking a break. But come fall, expect him to plot an entrepreneurial plunge.
Colopy and Chaz Felix, the pair who founded Bronto over beers in 2002, have officially both left the company.
In their stead, Carolyn Sparano has taken the reigns as general manager.
“I’m taking a little break until getting back into, oh, I don’t know, something,” hinted Colopy on Friday in an interview. “I am consciously trying not to do anything until the fall, not to even think about anything. … But come fall, I’ll start thinking about doing something.”
And that “something” will probably be starting another company, he says.
“I love the entrepreneurial startup scene,” he reiterates. While some entrepreneurs may hit the beach or leave it all behind via yacht post-exit, Colopy, who didn't raise any institutional capital while building Bronto, says he got the tropical urges out of his system while in the Peace Corps. “We’re just enjoying our day-to-day life and taking it a little bit slower.”
Sparano, who started at Bronto in 2006 as a short-term consultant, is the perfect fit to take over, he says.
“Our co-founders’ vision of building a ‘different kind of company,’ a company that would put employees at its center while making waves in the market place, remains today,” Sparano said in a prepared statement. “We will continue to focus on providing a superior product to our customers, helping to build a stronger local tech community and inspiring our employees to build the best commerce marketing automation solution in the world.”