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HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
Niche E-Commerce to $5M: Dan Dillon, CEO of CleanItSupply.com (Part 6)
Sramana: Who was your third hire? Dan Dillon: Someone to manage content. We realized how important search engine optimization was and how dirty the content was that we received from suppliers. The janitorial supply business is very old. We had to convert the information from fliers and info sheets that manufacturers had into content that
Niche E-Commerce to $5M: Dan Dillon, CEO of CleanItSupply.com (Part 5)
Sramana: Given your business model, where you do not have to deal with the logistics of the shipments, what kind of margin do you do? Dan Dillon: We have a floor of between 8 and 9 margin points when marketing via comparison shopping engines. If people are coming in organically or directly due to our
Niche E-Commerce to $5M: Dan Dillon, CEO of CleanItSupply.com (Part 4)
Sramana: When it comes to your commercial business, who are you selling to? Are your primary customers janitorial suppliers, or are they building managers? Dan Dillon: We certainly have an audience of building contractors, maid services, and cleaning services that travel from location to location. The larger audience for us is the facility or office
Niche E-Commerce to $5M: Dan Dillon, CEO of CleanItSupply.com (Part 3)
Sramana: How much volume were you able to generate with search engine optimization as your primary customer acquisition strategy? Dan Dillon: From October 2006 through the end of the year, we did a whopping $30,000 of business. In 2007 we did $300,000 of business. In 2008 we did $600,000 of business, and in 2009 we
Niche E-Commerce to $5M: Dan Dillon, CEO of CleanItSupply.com (Part 2)
Sramana: Was the premise of CleanItSupply.com to sell cleaning supplies to companies like your family business? Dan Dillon: Yes, we wanted to sell to janitorial services companies as well as the suppliers of janitorial services companies. The experience I had in the trenches let me know my space and my vertical very well. I had
Niche E-Commerce to $5M: Dan Dillon, CEO of CleanItSupply.com (Part 1)
Dan Dillon is the founder and CEO of CleanItSupply.com. He was born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia. After completing his studies, he worked in his father’s janitorial supply business and helped grow it from 18 employees to 150 employees before the company was sold. Today his niche e-commerce site, CleanItSupply.com, has revenues in
How to Sharpen Focus and Own a Market: Imprivata CEO Omar Hussain (Part 7)
Sramana: Your goal is to become a billion-dollar company. It sounds like one of your primary strategies for reaching that goal is the introduction of new products. Omar Hussain: Absolutely. There are a lot of problem areas in healthcare right now. Things like secure printing, secure electronic information exchange, electronic prescription authentication, and patient identification
How to Sharpen Focus and Own a Market: Imprivata CEO Omar Hussain (Part 6)
Sramana: Did you take a major hit in 2008 that drove this decision? Omar Hussain: We slowed down on growth. In 2008 we ended at $18 million, and in 2009 we only grew 10% to $20 million. The market had shifted slightly. We did not raise money because we already had capital. Once we decided