Ten Years Service As A Software

As we head into the new year, 2018, we hope everyone finds it a transition to newness.  A time to say goodbye to yesterday’s mistakes and hello to tomorrow’s possibilities.

For us, it is also a time to be grateful for ten years of service.  It was January 1, 2008 when UserTutor Corp. was officially registered.  The company was always meant to lend support to those learning to navigate technology, and evolved to encourage those working to build a business.  It was a natural fit for founder and CEO, James Hill, who has volunteered many hours in service to others and whose professional background included website development in addition to computer service and network management.  The title of our post is a little word play on SaaS – Software as a Service – to better reflect that UserTutor Corporation is service oriented first with software the tools used to deliver that service.

We published an article from Mr. Hill in 2016, UserTutor Corporation CEO, which shares his insights on the company and glimpses to the future.

For the past ten years we have enjoyed amazing highs and devastating lows.  We have had the privilege of working with some amazing individuals and business operators, and have witnessed UserTutor evolve as a result.  What started as computer tutorials in the High River office grew to the development of online learning resources, white label websites, eFranchises, and eCommunities.  Website development was actually an unforeseen but serendipitous endeavour where we had opportunity to stretch our skills in serving a growing marketing company with website programming.  We not only honed our approach to website development but we also learned a ton from their ongoing service to their clients in promotion, marketing, and client service.  Those years were ones of amazing growth and expansion for UserTutor.

It was spring-boarding from that early relationship that we developed the eCommunity model for hosting websites and supporting them online.  We also had the opportunity to extend our service to photographers and graphic designers to help them extend their product line while giving us opportunity to learn from them.

It was in 2013 that we experienced a major upheaval – literally – as the now famous High River flood tore through our town and office and brought all business to a standstill.  While the rest of the world continued business a usual we found ourselves in a position of being unable to keep up with our service work and clients’ needs.  All our projects and information were in our office in a town evacuated by authorities and inaccessible for what seemed an extremely long time.  It was actually less than two weeks but for deadlines it may as well have been a year.  At that time we were also fully invested into growth with a new, larger office and improved server and data management equipment – much of which was damaged.  It closed as a very tough year for UserTutor Corp.

We have gained some new clients since that time, and welcomed the return of a few others, but our focus and primary investment has been the NoSiteUnseen Network (nositeunseen.com).  Much time and effort has gone into developing the system for online communities.  As a software platform it has developed through a few iterations, and even more as a model of support service and business collaboration.  For us it is now a time to review how it has fared and what we can do next to take this project forward to its fullest potential.  Although to date the return has not matched the investment we intend to thoroughly evaluate its progress and set our goals for 2018.

To all those who have been part of our amazing ten years of service, thank you!  We hope for you a 2018 filled with promise and realization.  To everyone, dare to dream, and all the best for 2018!