She's fresh.

Donna Auguste of Freshwater Software provides Web-monitoring solutions for e-businesses

It was as early as age 4 that Donna Auguste developed a passion and curiosity for science. Although she started out taking things apart trying to figure out how they worked--she used a butter knife as a screwdriver to disassemble doorbells and toasters--she eventually learned how to put them back together again. Auguste, who grew up in Berkeley, California, and was raised in a single-parent household by her mother, recalls how, during her preteen years, she would ride the bus across town with her older sister to attend science fairs. Auguste is the second of four girls.

In 1969, she witnessed something on television that would change her life forever. It was the Apollo 11 moon landing. "That's when I decided a life and career in science and technology would be fun for me," explains Auguste, who went on to study electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California at Berkeley. She was the first person in her family to graduate from college.

Today, Auguste, 42, is the co-founder, president, and CEO of Freshwater Software Inc. in Boulder, Colorado, which provides solutions for maintaining and monitoring business-critical Web applications. Auguste launched the company four years ago with the help of John Meier, the company's chief technology officer. The two business partners have transformed Freshwater from a tiny start-up into a rapidly growing and nationally recognized software provider. Among its clients are Alta Vista, Microsoft, Go.com, and Merrill Lynch.

Freshwater was selected as the second fastest growing private company in Denver, based on revenue growth between 1997 and 1999, which was up 1300%. Sales revenues topped $2.8 million in 1999, and are expected to reach $15 million this year. The company has grown from five original staff members to 47 today, and Freshwater plans to have 100 employees on the payroll by year-end. The company's customer base has grown to 2,300 e-businesses.

Freshwater's suite of software and services include SiteScope, SiteSeer, and Global Site Reliance. "Clients use our Web-monitoring tools to make sure that their systems are up and running 24 hours, seven days a week," says Auguste. "They can download SiteScope from our Website and install it on their local server and configure it easily to monitor their systems internally within their own data center. They can also opt to use Global Site Reliance to have our network operations center monitor their sites around the clock." Global Site Reliance managed services ensures that every aspect of an e-business is working correctly by monitoring it at intervals as frequent as every 60 seconds. This means that the client will be notified within 60 seconds if there is a problem on their site. SiteSeer offers remote monitoring from 12 locations around the world.

"Our main competition is what we refer to as home-grown solutions," says Auguste. "System administrators often like to write their own tools and monitoring solutions that are customized to their environment. But over time they realize that they need a robust commercial solution for their e-business Websites." Freshwater also faces competition from companies offering similar products, including Service Metrics, Avesta, and BMC.

Auguste's career in technology began after her third and final year in graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University, where she studied applied science and artificial intelligence. "I was part of a fellowship program sponsored by Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. Each summer I would go to work with some of the scientists there," she recalls. "When a couple of them [launched] a start-up company [called Intellicorp] doing commercial artificial intelligence, I decided to join them? She stayed on for six years.

In 1999, Auguste landed a job at Apple Computer Inc., where she was instrumental in leading the team of scientists and engineers who developed the Newton Personal Digital Assistant. She has her name on four patents to prove it. Before her stint at Apple, Auguste worked for U.S. West's Advanced Technologies in Boulder, Colorado, from 1993 to 1995. There she managed an engineering team that created and deployed broadband media applications.

John Meier was part of my team at Apple and U.S. West. We decided to start a company together in 1995," says Auguste. "We had complementary technical business, and leadership skills. We thought that we could create a compelling product in the marketplace. We wanted customer service to be the focus."

Meier and Auguste explored various possibilities before settling on Internet applications. "We tried to find a pain in the market for which we could provide a painkiller," she explains. "In the case of Web technology, we realized that there were quite a few areas there that called for technical innovation and problem solving. The Web was still emerging as a platform and infrastructure for consumer and business interaction."

Auguste headed out to California in February 1996 to raise venture capital to jump-start the business. It only took her three months to get the first round of seed money, $250,000. She secured the second round, $1 million, four months later.

"We had to plan out incremental execution of the business; we wanted to build on cycles of development, sales, and deployment:" says Auguste. "A lesson that I have learned again and again is that delivering value for the customer is pivotal. It determines your relationship with that customer--whether or not they will come back or recommend us to another [potential] client."

A real people person, Auguste's management style is characteristic of GenXer CEOs. A gym for employees is located behind Freshwater's main building, dogs are welcome in the office, and a pool table has become a permanent fixture--a reward for the staff achieving record sales results in the first quarter of 2000.

The Catholic schoolgirl, now all grown up, continues to do good works. Through Cure d'Ars, a Catholic parish in Denver, Auguste is involved in an effort to bring technology to parts of Africa using solar energy, laptops, and satellite communications connectivity. The ultimate goal is to provide electricity, e-mail-based telecommunications capabilities, and Internet access to schools and hospitals. This past March she went on a fact-finding mission to Tanzania. July marked the beginning of a pilot project, with the first solar-powered laptop placed in a school in a rural town near Kilimanjaro.

In addition to being scientifically and spiritually inclined, Auguste is musical. A gospel band musician, she plays bass guitar, but she's also very comfortable tickling the ivories for the church choir.