My Interview with Phoenix Business Journal

My interview with Angela Gonzales appeared in the July 1, 2005 edition of the Phoenix Business Journal.  It is not online, so here is the text of the interview.

ACT! Founder ventures into health arena with new firm
By Angela Gonzales

The entrepreneur who created ACT!-the software that organizes your contact and customer information-now wants to help you with your chronic illness.

Pat Sullivan, who founded, took public and sold ACT! and SalesLogix to Sage Software in the U.K for about $300 million in 2001, just launched a company called Jigsaw Health, and he’s written a book to offer hope to the more than 125 million Americans suffering with chronic illness.

His new health company will be a resource to people with chronic conditions, offering information about mainstream and alternative medicine options.

While Sullivan was successfully running his two Phoenix tech companies, he suffered major chronic illnesses, from irritable bowel syndrome to heavy metal poisoning. 

“Since I was a sophomore in college, I have wrestled with various chronic conditions that have come and gone throughout my entire career,” Sullivan said.

But he took charge of his health, and now wants to share what he learned with others.

“Many people are sick, and they don’t know why. The biggest problem is that most chronic conditions usually have more than one thing going on. Uncovering all the issues and the pieces related to the chronic condition is a puzzle. You have to find the pieces to the puzzle and put them in place.”

“It actually is very similar when you approach it from a marketing standpoint,” Sullivan said. “We built a brand around ACT! and SalesLogix so when people heard the word ACT! they knew what it meant. We’re doing exactly the same thing with Jigsaw Health.”

ACT! is a contact management system used by more than 5 million sales people and managers to track their contact information. SalesLogix is a corporate version of ACT! and can be used to build a database of a company’s customers.

Sullivan said he intends to raise money through private investors, which is how he grew ACT!

He’s not sure if he will take Jigsaw Health public or sell to another company, saying that kind of decision is anywhere from five to nine years away.  “Who can predict what the environment will be then?” he said.

The company also will serve as a distributor of nutritional supplement products, food products and a line of testing that most doctors don’t typically use. One of those is functional metabolic tests such as an organic acids tests to measure what the kidneys are getting rid of.

“It can uncover hidden infections and things that are metabolically wrong,” Sullivan said.

Jigsaw would sell these types of tests, which would be administered by a doctor in a network the company is building nationwide.