Photograph by Kathy De La Torre

Dee DiPietro is CEO and principal analyst for Advanced-HR in the Village.




Saratogan saw a need for data on paying employees

By Leigh Ann Maze

Hidden behind the retail shops in the Saratoga Village is the small, modern, well-lit office of Advanced-HR. Dee DiPietro, who was raised in the Santa Clara Valley and has lived in Saratoga for the past 13 years, founded the Internet company in 1997.

Advanced-HR is a completely online company. It helps pre-IPO start-up companies determine how to compensate their employees with cash and stock options by allowing them access to data about similar companies.

"Since we are the first company to do this we really set the standard," DiPietro said.

The company launched the third and final phase of its main product on June 19.

At first, DiPietro operated the company from her Saratoga home, but by November 1999, it had begun to grow too big, so she moved it about one and one-half blocks down the street to its current location.

Basically, any company that partially compensates their employees with stock options, or the venture capitalists who support such companies, are potential clients for Advanced-HR. Advanced-HR is strictly a business to business ecommerce company and does not offer services to individuals.

Before a pre-IPO company can gain access to Advanced-HR's database, they must first provide their own company information through an online application The company data is then checked for quality assurance and included in Advanced-HR's database.

From this database, a pre-IPO company can look up a variety of information, such as what similar companies pay their vice presidents of marketing and in what ways other companies combine stock and cash payments. Clients can view an online report from Advanced-HR that shows the low, high and median salaries and stock options that similar companies pay their employees.

The third phase of the product, which was recently launched, allows Advanced-HR's clients to access their original online application and update it. This allows the companies to continue to manage their employee compensation through Advanced-HR and allows Advanced-HR to update its database.

"So we always have real-time data," DiPietro said.

DiPietro currently has about 520 clients from across the country who each pay about $1,400 for access to Advanced-HR's data. Some venture capitalists, however, can pay as much as $15,000 for access to the information.

DiPietro is single mom with a daughter who will begin the eighth grade at Redwood Middle School in the fall. Shortly after founding the company, DiPietro enlisted the help of systems architect Dave Carroll.

"It was my idea and my connections and his talent," DiPietro said about Carroll.

Now Advanced-HR has expanded to eight full-time employees and four contractors, DiPietro said, and is financially stable and growing.

After a fun afternoon at Fighter Town, USA Flight Simulation Center in Mountain View and a long weekend as a reward for launching the third phase of their product, the team at Advanced-HR will begin working on new products.

DiPietro said she hopes to expand the business to include other markets.

As with most Internet start-up companies, DiPietro said she usually works more than 40 hours per week, but the work is fun and the commute is great, a short one-and-a-half-block walk down the street.

DiPietro founded Advanced-HR after ten years of experience in the field of high-tech executive compensation. She previously managed a human resources consulting practice, among other ventures, before starting Advanced-HR. DiPietro said she realized there were no benchmarks when it came to compensating employees, "There was no published data," she said. DiPietro saw a need and has successfully filled the niche.

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