Josh James

Josh James was the co-founder of Omniture with John Pestana, which he founded while he was a student at Brigham Young University in 1996.  At BYU he served on the Brigham Young University eBusiness Advisory Board and is a Platinum Founder of the BYU Center for Entrepreneurship.

James sold Omniture to Adobe for $1.8 billion in 2009 and served as the senior vice president of Omniture after the sale.  Adobe announced in July 2010 that James would leave his post at the company.  Omniture is the leading company for software tools and services to track web page traffic and improve online marketing.  In 2010 Omniture was bringing in about 10% of Adobe’s revenue. [1]

James took Omniture public in 2006, [2]  the decision raising the stock’s price up 117.8% to $14.16 in afternoon trading Dec. 15, 2006, after opening at $6.50 on June 28. On October 26, 2006, the company reported record quarterly revenue of $21 million, up 83% over the same period a year earlier.

General Motors helped the company establish itself after changing its name to Omniture in 2002.  Other clients have included Walmart,  eBay, AOL, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Toyota, Gap, JetBlue, and BusinessWeek.com. 

James has stressed that an effective CEO should never be too confident to ask for help. In fact, he says it’s important for chief executives to surround themselves with people who may be more talented than they are in many areas. 

James is the son of an airline pilot.  The family moved seventeen times, from which James gained the ability to adapt.  He developed a desire to make commercials at age 4 and did so by the eighth grade.  Once he makes a decision, James takes off and does things quickly.  He served a full-time, two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Tokyo, Japan.  He claims the missionary experience matured him greatly.  James married in 1995 at age 22, while still at BYU.  He claims to have decided on seven different majors.

“On the first day of info systems class, this kid corrected the teacher three times. I said, I have to get to know that kid. His name was John Pestana, and we became friends. One day, he said, ‘Why don’t you make webpages with me?’ I said, ‘K; sounds fun. Sure.’ We ended up charging 125 bucks an hour.” [3]

James quit school after he started his business.  His customers needed to know how many people were visiting their websites and whether traffic was increasing.  That’s when James’ fledgling company went into web analytics.  In 2000 the company decided to sell to NetObjects.  The deal fell through, and although there was a safety net, there were layoffs.  The situation was emotionally difficult and challenging for James.  However, he claims to make mistakes so fast, that the cure is not far behind.  “While you’re figuring out what to do, we’ve tried two different things and have figured out the right one.” [3]

Omniture, based in Orem, Utah, grew out of James’ and Pastana’s web analytics company.  “More than half our employees are Mormon, but I grew up in Chicago, where there were, like, three Mormons in my high school. I don’t care what religion you are. I don’t care what color you are. I don’t care what sex you are. All I care about is that you close deals. And that you’re a good person.” [3]

Interview from May, 2009: