Dyn
Careers at Dyn
Mission
Dyn’s mission is to be the company connecting people, content, and commerce through a single global Internet.
History
In the early 2000s Jeremy Hitchcock was a student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, MA. The town gets very cold in the winter, which posed an inconvenience for him. Whenever he needed to print out a paper that was on a computer in the school’s lab, he would have to go to the lab, then go to the next location to turn the paper in. He felt there had to be a better option.
Along with schoolmates Tim Wilde, Tom Daly, and Chris Reinhardt, he developed an open source software program called “Dyn“ that enabled remote access of the school’s computer labs through the Internet. This way, students could print documents from their dorm rooms, saving themselves a trip. The guys began making the program available to the campus, and it became popular.
Eventually, the team began using the soluton to offer domain name system (DNS) services – specifically, a dynamic DNS service called DynDNS. While initially free, the group determined that it would require $25,000 to stay running. It hosted a donation drive on campus and raised $40,000. The guys began treating the service more seriously, and bought several new computers for the operation.
The success of the effort made it clear that the team had what could be a viable business on its hands. As such, the guys began brainstorming ways to make their current effort more sustainable. They settled on building a premium version with additional features, such as the ability to set up offices in different places. In 2008 they incorporated a company, Dyn, to release this version.
The next few years saw a number of milestones. In 2010 Dyn acquired three firms. In 2011 it founded an office in London. In 2012 it raised $38 million in a funding round led by North Bridge Venture Partners. That same year it generated about $30 million in revenues. Dyn now describes itself as a cloud-based platform that optimizes online infrastructure for a better end-user experience.
Benefits at Dyn
Business model of Dyn
Customer Segments
Dyn has a niche market business model, with a specialized customer segment. The company targets its offerings at companies that want to monitor, control, and optimize their online infrastructure. A sizable portion of its customer base is represented by Internet firms such as Zappos and Netflix.
Value Proposition
Dyn offers three primary value propositions: accessibility, performance, and brand/status.
The company’s solution creates accessibility by giving customers more visibility into and control over website performance. For example, it provides over 200 billion data points (BGP, RUM, etc.) each day, offering a comprehensive view. This enables users to identify critical Internet paths that affect customers, reducing overall time-to-resolution. Dyn also provides total control over how customers’ site traffic is routed, ensuring that online infrastructure is ready to scale as the business grows.
The company has demonstrated strong performance through results for clients. Specific positive outcomes include the following:
- Twitter used Dyn to increase its traffic and its queries per second (QPS) to 1,000
- Zappos used Dyn to achieve 100% availability and increase scalability and reliability
- CNBC used Dyn to shave one second (30%) off website page-load times
- SoundCloud used Dyn to accelerate DNS resolution and scale its business globally
- Etsy used Dyn to increase response time and decrease latency
The company has established a powerful brand as a result of its success. It bills itself as the leading Internet Performance Management (IPM) provider in the world, with over 65,000 domains and more than 13 million individual users. Its clients include several members of the Fortune 500, including six of the top 10 entertainment firms and eight of the top 10 Internet services and retail firms. Specific prominent clients include Pfizer, Sodexo, Visa, LinkedIn, and Salesforce. Lastly, Dyn has won many honors, including placement on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 (2015), recognition as one of the “Hot 100 Software Companies” by JMP Securities (2014), and a Manchester Award for “Best ISP” (2013).
Channels
Dyn’s main channels are its website and its direct sales team. The company promotes its offering through its social media pages, webinars, trade shows, and conferences, including an annual one-day conference it hosts for new and potential customers called “TechToberFest”.
Customer Relationships
Dyn’s customer relationship is primarily of a personal assistance nature. The company assists clients in the following ways:
Support Services – The company provides phone and e-mail support, with the extent of support increasing with upgrades to the service program (the highest level is 24/7 assistance).
Professional Services – The company offers the “QuickStart Onboarding Service” for a one-time fee. The program includes account and security setup, troubleshooting, and further consulting for specific areas such as API enablement.
Training Services – The company offers remote and on-site training programs that cover its solution, associated technologies, best practices, and advanced features. The on-site version enables more interactive learning and hands-on use of the product.
Despite this orientation, there is also a self-service component. The company’s website features the “Dyn Content Hub”, which includes self-help resources such as white papers, eBooks, reports, webinars, case studies, videos, and analyst reports. It also features a “Help Center” with a glossary and answers to frequently asked questions. Lastly, it provides developer resources such as software development kits and APIs. There is also a community element in the form of a user forum.
Key Activities
Dyn’s business model entails maintaining and updating its software platform for its customers.
Key Partners
Dyn maintains partnership programs for two groups:
Solution Partners – Partners include service providers who incorporate its solution into their technology stacks and firms that want to co-promote their offerings with Dyn as part of an end-to-end customer solution.
Network Partners – Partners include web and technology firms that benefit Dyn customers by collecting data for its Internet Intelligence services and hosting its edge notes.
Program members receive the following benefits:
- 24/7 support
- No upfront equipment costs
- No ongoing network operations expenditures
- Short selling and implementation cycle
- Low overhead costs
- On-site sales training
- Access to various resources and updates through the Partner Portal
Dyn’s partners include e-mail service providers, managed service providers, and CDN/hosting firms, as well as technology consulting companies and resellers. Specific partners include Redapt, Pressable, Firehost, Fastly, GlobalDots, Sitecore, VMware, and AT&T.
Key Resources
Dyn’s main resource is its proprietary software platform. The company also depends on its human resources, namely its engineering staff to maintain the platform, its customer service staff to provide support, and its training/consulting staff to give more in-depth guidance. Lastly, as a startup it has relied heavily on funding from outside parties, raising $88 million from two investors as of May 2016.
Cost Structure
Dyn has a value-driven structure, aiming to provide a premium proposition through significant personal service and frequent solution enhancements. Its biggest cost driver is likely marketing and sales, fixed costs. Other major drivers are in the areas of customer support/operations and infrastructure, both fixed costs.
Revenue Streams
Dyn has two revenue streams:
Subscription Revenues – Revenue generated from fees charged for access to Dyn’s cloud-based platform.
Service Revenues – Revenues generated from fees charged for the training and professional services Dyn provides for new and existing customers.
