Sramana: By the time he invested in your business, had he already sold the business in England? Brian Requarth: Yes, he already had an exit in 2007, three weeks before the financial crisis. He was 27 years old. He sold it for a lot of money and when he came down to Colombia, I told him
Sramana: Tell me more about financing, what was the financing strategy that you followed in the company? Brian Requarth: We decided to bootstrap for a long time. Sramana: How long did you bootstrap? Brian Requarth: We started in 2007. We didn’t have cash flow to support the expansion to Brazil in 2009. In 2010, my family invested a little
Sramana: How long did you do a critical mass of a particular listing such that the marketplace on the other side would become interesting? Brian Requarth: During that time, we didn’t have enough listings from customers that we were offering free trials to. So we actually built a robot to go out and get the listings
Sramana: What did you find to take feedback from him? Brian Requarth: He was just Brazilian. Sramana: That’s it? That’s the qualification, that he was Brazilian? Brian Requarth: The other qualification was that his family had a simple construction company. It had nothing to do with home-building, but I thought he perhaps knows something about real estate market.
Sramana: What’s the name of your German friend? Brian Requarth: His name is Thomas Floracks. Sramana: So Thomas was doing the technical work, you were doing the sales and marketing work in this little web development business that you put together? Brian Requarth: Yes. He built the first couple of websites. I would sell the
We’ve done Entrepreneur Journeys stories on a few Latin American entrepreneurs like Marcos Galperin (MercadoLibre), Ricardo Villadiego (Easy Solutions), Rodrigo Teijeiro (Sonico), and Martin Migoya (Globant). In this story, we bring you Brian Requarth, whose scrappy maneuvering has resulted in a $10M+ business with $30M+ in financing – a tough act in Latin America. Sramana:
Sramana: What does the business look like today? Where are you now? Rik Chomko: Last year, we had one of the biggest revenue growth we’ve ever had. We grew revenues by about 45%. We’re feeling very good about our business in Europe and North America. We have good traction in the market. We’ve done a great
Sramana Mitra: So merchants in India can pay in Indian currency to subscribe to Bigcommerce? There is a problem in India with currency as you know. Mitch Harper: They have to pay us in US dollars, but they can accept in their local currency. Sramana Mitra: That’s an issue in India. A lot of people