Jason Atkins: 360insights Founder | Early Life, Career
Jason Atkins is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of 360insights, an enterprise SaaS that helps its clients create, measure, and manage their employee incentive and consumer rebate programs, and process those payments reliably on a single platform.
Jason has grown 360insights into a $25-50 million ARR machine over the last 10 years. He lives in New Orleans with his wife Brenda, and 2 kids.
Early Life and Education
Atkins was born in Ontario, Canada. From a young age, he knew how to use tech to solve problems. He started his first tech company when he was just 17 years, while still at North Park high school, and sold it in 2002. Jason has an Executive MBA from the University of Toronto.
Career
Entrepreneurial baby steps
While still in high school (and at just 17 years of age), Jason launched EcomLogic Inc. in 1996, a secure Information Management company focused on technology outsourcing and app development which he grew through bootstrapping before selling it in 2002.
You might think Jason would jump straight into his next venture. But he felt he wasn’t quite ready to start a new company yet. So he chose the employee route for a while, working for Distributech Inc, his biggest client at the time he was running his company. He was in charge of developing and running their complete technical infrastructure.
After nearly 3 years there, he left Canada for the USA and joined TMR, a marketing company, first as VP of Business Development, then later as President & CEO from 2006 to 2008. This would be his last time working for someone else.
Founding 360insights
Jason started his current company 360insights in July 2008 to resolve the issue of fake checks and other fraudulent activities after someone tried to cash a fraudulent check for $50k instead of $50 at his old company. As the company grew, it expanded its service to help brands modernize how they execute promotions and engage their partners: from retailers to direct consumers.
360insights Investors
The company has raised $47 million in venture capital funding from investors like OMERS Ventures, Klass Capital, SageView Capital, and EDC Equity.
The company has grown quickly since then through strategic acquisitions and partnerships expanding operations in the US and UK. In 2021, 360insights’ revenue run rate hit $32.4M in revenue.
Jason’s business philosophy is grounded in workplace happiness and having a strong commitment to community. Mr. Atkins is also a founder and principal investor in the City Flow Project, a venture capital and tech incubator in Durham.
Highlights
- Started EcomLogic in high school. Sold in 2002 for an undisclosed fee.
- President & CEO of TMR, a marketing agency, in 2006.
- Started 360insights in 2008
- 360insights hits $32.4 ARR in 2021
Quotes by Jason Atkins
- “Happy employees lead to better client service, more innovation, productivity, winning, more sales, and back to making a difference in the employees’ lives, their families, our communities, and the world.”
- “You don’t need to choose between work or life when you can bring them together and have a work environment that encourages people to be the best version of themselves every day.”
- “You only live once so you better do the things you love every single day.”
- “Part of the reason I’m building a company is that I want to change the world, change the way people look at organizations, change how people create their cultures and their businesses, and how they give back to the world.”
- “Culture is the belief system you use to hire the people.”
- “Figure out the practices your best person does, and bring it to the masses.”
- “Channel marketing has matured beyond demand generation and the focus is shifting to data-driven decision-making.”
- “You make money based on what you sell, so you can leverage data to sell more so your customers sell more. Everyone makes more money.”
