Sramana Mitra: This, by the way, is also a trend. For the longest time, the buyers of IT were IT departments of corporations. Today and going forward, the buyers are much more going to be the business users. The marketing department, for instance, is becoming a huge buyer of IT and other departments as well.
Sramana Mitra: That’s the beauty of this bootstrap first, raise money later model. You’re going out to raise from a position of strength as opposed to weakness. You’re not begging for money. You’re in the negotiating position. In any given time in the market, there is more money chasing fundable deals than fundable solid deals
Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about sales. How did sales ramp at that point? John Rauscher: Of course, it was not easy. I cannot remember that it was a big start. We had to convince a lot. We had to be passionate. We had to be very good at delivery. My philosophy is we cannot lie.
Sramana Mitra: You got your first customer in 2007. How much money did you put into this? John Rauscher: A few millions. Sramana Mitra: Right at the beginning, you put a few millions in the company, right away? John Rauscher: No, not right away. We stopped looking for customers when we understood that people didn’t
Sramana Mitra: What was the customer segment that you were going after and what was the pain point that you were solving for them? William King: We’re a technology company first that is focused foremost on life sciences. Simply put, we wrangle this universe of Big Data and put it to use for pharmaceutical companies. What
Sramana Mitra: Can you give an example of something that was not possible for a salesperson to do before you introduced your product into the process? John Rauscher: Let’s take an example of a financial adviser in a retail bank branch. Customers enter from time to time. You go to your bank and look for
Sramana Mitra: What year does that bring us up to? William King: I left London at the end of 2008. It was great to learn about business, marketing, and management. The other thing that I’ve always been interested in is the world of technology, given all the devices that we have. The thing that really
Sramana Mitra: Tell me a bit about where exactly in the chronology of the industry you were coming out of college? What did you do at that point? William King: I finished school in 2002. It’s an international business degree. Sramana Mitra: Where were you geographically at that point? William King: I was in Denver,