John Pestana: focusing on success.(Around Utah)

If the name John Pestana sounds familiar, think Omniture. Pestana was a co-founder of the company and executive vice president until 2009, when Omniture was acquired by Adobe for $1.8 billion.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Having "always been an entrepreneur," Pestana is wired for success in business. He has learned that adaptability is a valuable trait for any business leader. He explains, "Sometimes in business you realize that you've been focused, but focused on the wrong thing. Once you realize that, you change your course direction. You course correct and then focus on the right thing."

Pestana founded JP Graphics in 1996 with Josh James and quickly developed it into JP Interactive a few months later. In searching for the right focus, JP Interactive became MyComputer.com and then Omniture. SiteCatalyst, Omniture's main product, developed out of SuperStats, which developed out of the websites Pestana and James were building when they first started their business.

Since his huge success with Omniture, Pestana has changed his focus to something that combines his expertise with a passion: he is now CEO of ExactRail, a web-based model train company that he co-founded. "This is a cool opportunity to do something tangible and something fun, something that actually does really well on the internet, which is my expertise."

He also likes that customers are prone to love the products ExactRail makes. "Nobody gets super excited about online marketing software and business optimization analytics. With ExactRail, we get this really fun almost fanbase. Almost every single person I've ever talked to has somebody really into [trains], and everybody has some interest in it."

Pestana's advice to entrepreneurs is to simply jump in head first and leverage opportunities as they present themselves. "Just get out there. Do it. You'll learn and make mistakes," he says. "What's interesting is that once you do start something, it's like your eyes are opened. And all of a sudden you start seeing opportunities that you would never see if you hadn't started."