Young Entrepreneurs: Cliff Duffey Nashville Business Journal June 24, 2005

Founded in February 2001, Cybera delivers high-speed, private net-working solutions for businesses. Cybera is able to provide optimal cover-age and maximum band-width for a client’s unique business require-ments by combining DSL, SDSL, T1, frame relay and ethernet connectivity into a customized, private net-work that never travels the public Internet.

Before founding Cybera, Duffey served as chief technology officer at BlueStar Com-munications in Nashville and built the company’s engineering, network operation and product and business development departments.

Before Bluestar, he was a senior engagement manger in Ascend Communi-cation’s Professional Service consulting department. Previous employment with Intermedia as a senior program manager and as a software engineer with Harris Corp. enhanced Duffey’s understanding and expertise in private network technology.

Cybera was founded as a result of the purchase of BlueStar by Covad Com-munications in 2000. Duffey opted to leave the combined company to work on an improved real private network, a solution the he created at BlueStar. Duffey, along with two other BlueStar executives formed Cybera and ran it out of Duffey’s home. The company was financed initially with Duffey’s own assets as well as contributions from friends and family. The company has remained privately fund-ed through a small group of personal investors and small investment organ-izations primarily in Nashville.

Cybera has moved into permanent offices in Grassmere Park and was cash flow positive in December 2004. It’s customer base includes familiar names such as Dollar General Corp., Central Parking Corp, Krispy Kreme and MAPCO Express and franchise groups including Applebee’s, Wendy’s and Burger King.

Cybera markets primary through case study referrals from anchor clients in key verticals such as specialty retail, dine-in restaurants, convenience stores and quick-serve restaurants. Duffey says growth at a steady pace and remaining fiscally conservative are key components of the core business strategy.

The company’s main challenge has been to educate its target market on the benefits of outsourcing network services and the advantages in security and reliability of its products. Duffey says Cybera has shifted its sales strategy to more of a consultative sales focused on enabling applications that a retailer is rolling out or plans to roll out in the near future.

“Cybera does not intend to be the largest managed network provider but we do intend to be the most profitable,” Duffey says.

© 2005 American City Business Journals Inc.