First Take: Parallax CEO Jeff Eckerle
In some respects, Edina-based tech firm Parallax is in the business of helping other businesses predict the future.
Founded by local tech industry vet Tom O’Neill, the 35-person firm uses technology to help professional services firms forecast future workloads. The idea is to help companies rightsize staffing and resources for projects.
It appears to have caught on: Since Parallax was founded about five years ago, the company has landed over 100 customers, says Jeff Eckerle, who took over as CEO on Nov. 11. He’s the first to take the top job after O’Neill.
Eckerle sees opportunity to land even more customers, and investors. To date, Parallax has raised $24.5 million to date. “Anytime I step into a new role as CEO, I think one of the most important responsibilities I have is to continue to paint a picture that has investors excited,” Eckerle says.
In an interview with TCB, Eckerle talks through his approach to leadership, the state of the Twin Cities’ tech scene, and what might come next for Parallax.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
How did the Parallax job end up on your radar?
It goes back to Justin Kaufenberg, partner at Rally Ventures [a Parallax investor]. I’ve known him for probably 12 years. When I first met him, I was at a company called Deltek. A lot of what Deltek did at that point is very analogous to what Parallax is doing now. So I’ve had a lot of experience in project-based accounting, resource management, et cetera. Justin remembered that, and when Parallax needed a new leader, he called me. The fit felt right.
You most recently worked as CEO of Colorado-based SubAssist. Tell us a little about that job and that company.
I was appointed as CEO by a founder of the company. He had written software for a plumbing business, and we brought that to market for any trades business to use, particularly in the new home construction space. It’s all around internal office efficiency – we automated things like receiving invoices, checking pricing on invoices, and so on. Think of it as office automation software for trades businesses.
You’ve been working in the Twin Cities tech industry for over a while now. How has the local tech scene changed over time?
To me, the community seems smaller now than maybe it did in the early 2000s. There used to be meetups everywhere, and all kinds of activities. I’ve talked to a friend about this, and he made a comment that Covid kind of shut a lot of that down. It just hasn’t regenerated in the same way.
What do you think can be done to reinvigorate the tech community here?
I think there’s an awesome opportunity to do that, especially given where we are in the tech innovation cycle right now. AI is the buzzword, right? But if you really understand what has started to happen in the last couple years, we’re all in for a very different future in terms of what the work world looks like. I think that creates a lot of opportunities to start new things. There’s room to leverage new tools and help business evolve. There’s going to be so much change, and usually that’s the time for tech startups to flourish. It’ll be up to local tech leaders to step up. One of the things I’m involved with outside work is MESA [Minnesota Emerging Software Advisory]. It’s a phenomenal organization that’s made up of a bunch of current and former tech executives and founders in the Twin Cities. They’ve had success doing pro bono mentoring for new startups and first-time founders. I see a lot of potential there.
Artificial intelligence does seem to dominate the tech headlines these days. What’s your take on AI, large language models, and the like?
As a software company, there are really two ways to look at this. First, we have to look at how we operate our business internally and do everything we can to leverage efficiency tools. We’ve got to find ways to do things faster, smarter, better. Second, we also have to think about how our product can change. We’ve got 100-plus customers doing activities on our application all day long. They’re trying to make decisions that best suit their business based off the data we’re showing them. I think we can help them be a lot more effective in those decisions by making them easier. Their interaction with the data can be a lot easier. These are areas where AI models and LLM models can assist: The intent is not to make decisions for humans in a lot of cases. The first step that we have to take is to be an assistant with our data-driven capabilities. That’s where I see opportunities for a company like Parallax
The announcement of your hire said you’re primed to “lead the next stage of growth and innovation” at Parallax. What might that look like?
When you grow a company to 100+ customers, you do it based on a certain segment and persona. You focus your product on serving those needs. I think there’s ways to continue to expand what we do for our current customers in a way that will bring more value to other segments that historically we haven’t served. We’ve had a pretty narrow focus on digital service agencies, but the reality is there are a lot of different professional services companies trying to figure out how AI is going to affect their businesses. There’s an opportunity for Parallax to help lead the way on how to best operate services-driven businesses in the future. It’s an area we’re well-suited for.
