Data180 started when two college professors joined together to solve a problem. The College of Business at Morehead State University was going through its initial accreditation process from AACSB International. College administrators realized the need to create a database solution to manage faculty resources and to comply with accreditation reporting requirements. Dr. Scott Wymer, Assistant Professor of Computer Information Systems, and Dr. L. K. Williams, Professor of Accounting and Assistant Dean of the College of Business, developed a database solution - Faculty180.

Their Web-based solution was a huge success. Administrators within the College of Business used Faculty180 for making faculty deployment decisions, for faculty annual evaluations, and for tenure and promotion decisions. Outside reviewers noted Faculty180 as a strength of the college with regard to its performance as a faculty management tool.

Based upon the success of the software application, professors Wymer and Williams concluded Faculty180 could be developed into a valuable product for other academic institutions. They also saw that their expertise in database systems and Web-based technologies could be coupled with their over 30 years experience in higher education to build other products that would benefit higher education. As a result, Data180, LLC, was formed to develop data solutions for academe.