Sramana: How would you handle very small startup companies? Would you like to hear from them? Maria Haggerty: Absolutely. If there is a small company with a great idea, then we would love to talk to them. We have a very small company that was founded by young woman with no VC backing. She is
Sramana: How have you ran your sales operation? Do you have telesales or some sort of sales force? Maria Haggerty: We are putting a lot of focus on growing our business this year, which has resulted in us developing our first real marketing and sales program. Up until 2012, every customer that we have brought
Sramana: How did you manage the financial engineering of the company? Maria Haggerty: We raised $5 million in the early stages from angel investors. Our angel investors put money into the company through 2004. Sramana: Raising $5 million from angel investors is quite substantial. Who did you raise that money from? Maria Haggerty: We started
Sramana: How did your third and fourth years of business look? Maria Haggerty: As we continued to build the business and grow, we continued to build out our sales team. Our first real break came in 2004. Bill had served as chairman of the board of Lighthouse International, and I was a co-chair of a
Sramana: Let’s bit about that first customer and how you got up and running. What were the dynamics of getting your foot in the door in that industry? Bill Follet: Our business plan had to be adjusted almost immediately. We decided that if we were going to attract the right kind of customers, we would
Maria Haggerty and Bill Follett are the founders of Dotcom Logistics, the premier distribution partner for dot-com businesses. The company was founded in 1999 when online distribution was a significant challenge. Maria is a graduate of the University of Houston and spent five years at Arthur Andersen prior to founding Dotcom Logistics. Bill is a
Sramana: If there is a small company looking to launch a new game on your platform, what kind of terms would you offer them? Lon Otremba: I won’t go into specifics, but we will offer a more favorable revenue share. They get greater than 50% of virtual goods revenue share, and we will share ad
Sramana: What are you doing to be a game changer in this space? Lon Otremba: We are introducing the idea of how brands can live in our environment in ways which are appealing beyond games. We could introduce a major brand like American Express into our environment through a payment mechanism or through a virtual