A Case Study In SEO And Affiliate Marketing: MyCorporation CEO Deborah Sweeney (Part 4)

Sramana: Tell me more about how you go to market. How do you market and acquire customers? Deborah Sweeney: We have a couple primary methods. One of the most obvious, which has become less significant in our overall growth, is Internet search. Search engine optimization and search engine marketing are important to us because it’s

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A Case Study In SEO And Affiliate Marketing: MyCorporation CEO Deborah Sweeney (Part 3)

Sramana: How many customers do you have that are using your services? Deborah Sweeney: We started in 1999 and have just under 500,000 customers who have used our services or incorporated with us. We have ongoing communications with 250,000 of them via newsletters, service offerings, and other communications to ensure renewed services year after year.

A Case Study In SEO And Affiliate Marketing: MyCorporation CEO Deborah Sweeney (Part 2)

Sramana: If I were a small business and I wanted to use your services to incorporate, what would it cost? Deborah Sweeney: For a basic filing which would include articles incorporation for your state, it would be $49. Each state has a filing fee, which ranges from $30 to upwards of $180.

A Case Study In SEO And Affiliate Marketing: MyCorporation CEO Deborah Sweeney (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  Deborah Sweeney is the CEO of MyCorporation Business Services, Inc. (“MyCorporation.com”). She has extensive experience in the startup and industry as she has been involved in the formation of hundreds of thousands of MyCorporation.com’s customers. Ms. Sweeney joined MyCorporation in 2003 after serving as outside general

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Bootstrapping To $1 Million, Then Growing to $40 Million: iContact CEO Ryan Allis: Chapel Hill, North Carolina (Part 7)

Sramana: How do you see the competitive landscape evolving? Ryan Allis: Microsoft left the market in 2005 and sold their customers to Constant Contact. They came back into business in 2007 and then left in 2008, that time selling their customers to us. Today we are the largest private company doing e-mail marketing. Our largest

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Bootstrapping To $1 Million, Then Growing to $40 Million: iContact CEO Ryan Allis: Chapel Hill, North Carolina (Part 6)

Sramana: How long did your Series A funding last? Ryan Allis: We ran on that money for three years. Last August, we closed a $40 million round of funding. My philosophy on venture capital is to never raise more than one time your annual revenue.

Bootstrapping To $1 Million, Then Growing to $40 Million: iContact CEO Ryan Allis: Chapel Hill, North Carolina (Part 5)

Sramana: What was your strategy for raising capital? Ryan Allis: I was 20 at the time. I had lunch with a friend who was a co-founder of PinPoint, which he merged with PowerByHand to form Motricity. He had raised a couple hundred million dollars for Motricity, and they were one of the most sought-after venture-backed

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Bootstrapping To $1 Million, Then Growing to $40 Million: iContact CEO Ryan Allis: Chapel Hill, North Carolina (Part 4)

Sramana: When did you hire your first employees? Ryan Allis: We hired our first employee in September 2003, three months into the business. He was an intern for the first month, and then after that we paid him $1,000 a month which was all we could afford. He did customer service and marketing, and he

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