A business often starts with an idea, some funding, a few clients and a handful of employees. Not for Matthew Calkins. The 33-year-old Dartmouth graduate was at Microstrategy when he decided to start Appian, a software firm based in Vienna, around a small group of people he thought would be really successful. The business plan could come later, he thought. He was even offered $1 million in venture capital but turned it down. Since launching Appian with three friends in 1999, the company has grown to nearly 200 employees and has attracted customers such as the U.S. Army and General Motors. Not bad for a guy who thought he would become an economist or an investment banker. Technology executive was far from his mind, even though he had grown up around computers and was fascinated with programming at the age 6. Calkins, who grew up in Wallingford, Conn., and Mill Valley, Calif., came to Washington in 1994 when Microstrategy moved here from Delaware.

Tania Anderson, for Bisnow on Business: Appian’s become fairly well known in the Northern Virginia tech community. What exactly does it do?
We’re in what we call business process management. All companies and all organizations are made up of processes or methods. Sometimes they use software for them but more often these days they don’t. Appian gives you a software interface that allows you to execute processes using a Web-based drag and drop program. Once you’ve drawn your flow chart, the process will be automated and jobs will be handed from one person to another automatically through your organization. We also track how the jobs are going and we re-route. We automate and we verify that it’s working.

What gave you the inspiration to launch Appian?
A lot of people start a business with a business plan and funding. I did everything backwards. I started with a set of people and decided what sort of people I wanted to work with in the future. And my next question was, ‘What are these people good for? How can we make money? How can I make a living working with these people?’ It was always what I do and who I do it with that was the driver for me, not so much the compensation. I left what was a perfectly interesting and lucrative position at Microstrategy to run Appian. I thought there was an opportunity to shape my own circumstances, not necessarily to make more money.

But obviously you had an expertise in this industry?
I didn’t actually. I had some software knowledge. I certainly knew the business intelligence space and data warehousing. BPM hardly existed at the time. It’s just the sort of market that a company of young, ambitious, creative, opportunistic, hard-working people ought to do well at because it’s new. Because nobody else has that much of an edge on us. It’s pretty much a standing start. So why can’t we run faster and be a leader in this new space?

You have big government clients. Did you start out that way?
Almost all of our early deals were commercial. After reaching 30 employees, I thought I couldn’t possibly be the sales force and the CEO, so I hired somebody and that was just when the bubble was bursting in technology. Tech companies were failing in all directions and some of those were our clients. They defaulted on big chunks of money. That was disturbing for a little company like ours which was trying to fund its own growth. We had to retrench into an industry we knew would pay its bills and would spend despite a recession. That was government. We hired a sales expert who knew government very well. So the pendulum swung the other way. We were in government and we did such a good job that we got a lot of momentum. As a result we’ve been more government than commercial ever since despite the fact that we’re aggressively moving into commercial. Who would want to turn off the government money?

How did you get the company off the ground?
I remember the first time I went to see a venture capitalist. I didn’t do this because I wanted the money. I decided that the character of the company had to be independent and able to chart its own course and be appropriately opportunistic about the markets we moved into and through. I knew from the beginning we didn’t want to go to venture capital but I did meet venture capitalists in order to make an alliance or a connection. They offered excellent advice. This was before the bubble burst and one of them predicted it. I was impressed. By the end they wanted to fund us with $1 million. I was very pleased because it meant we had a good story. They wanted to put restrictions on how we spent the money. If I hadn’t been convinced already, I would know at that moment that this is not the kind of funding I wanted to get. We went first into consulting, partly because it has the shorter work-to-cash cycle and allowed us to pay our bills. Secondly, it would give us the insight to understand the industry to the point where we could develop software pertaining to that industry.

What are some of the business lessons you’ve learned?
I interview every person who gets hired at Appian. That gives you control over what will eventually be the biggest lever to change your company that exists. Secondly, practice the way you want to play. If you want to be a profitable firm, be profitable form the beginning if you can.

Did you have technology in your life growing up?
I did grow up with technology. But as an explorer not a professional. My father was in real estate development for many years. He liked to talk business. I’ve still got an eye for what makes good real estate development. Our family loved technology, particularly my father. We would have the latest computers. Probably when I was 6 years old, I thought programming was fascinating. But in college, I took the first few courses along the computer science track at Dartmouth. I thought, ‘I’m not going to make a career out of this. I’ve given it a shot and I’m going to do something else.’ Professionally I thought it was unsuitable for me. Funny I would come precisely back to it.

What did you think you were going to do?
I literally considered being an economist. I thought of getting an advanced degree. I thought I would go to law school. I took investment banking seriously for a time. Business consulting was the one I was most excited about.

What was one of your first experiences with technology?
I remember trying to program my TRS-80 and being really frustrated that I couldn’t save a long enough program. It would wipe out the entire memory when you turned off the computer. If you wanted a long program, you had to be willing to type it all every time you turned on the program. Programming has always fascinated me. I love processes and rules. It’s similar to my hobby right now. I write war games, military simulations. I love history. I’m fascinated by the mechanics behind history as a teaching mechanism and also as a challenge or game. I’ve written one recently on the campaign that unified Japan in 1600. I’m considering having that published.

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve done in the last year?
I climbed Mt. Yakedake in Japan last Fall. It’s in Kamikochi. It’s one of the best hiking places I’ve ever seen. It’s remarkable how few non-Japanese go there. You have to take a bus to this alpine valley in the Japan Alps. From there you can walk up the sides. One of the highest mountains is Yakedake. I hiked to the top. At the top there is sulfurous gas coming out. The view from the top is breathtaking.

How long did it take you?
I did it in a day. I was so sore that my legs would go into spasms if I tried to sit in a Japanese style, which I’m no good at in the first place. I was so bad at it that the people in the next group were laughing at me.

[This interview conducted by Tania Anderson for Bisnow on Business.]