Building a Mid-Market Security SaaS Company from Canada: J. Paul Haynes, CEO of eSentire (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: When you looked at your business through that lens, what were some of the salient points? J. Paul Haynes: Our retention rate was 99%. When I shared that with our next investor, they had never seen anything that high. Our customer acquisition cost was too low. From our perspective, you got to get

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Building a Fast-Growth Marketplace: Stefania Mallett, CEO of EZCater (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What happened to that company? Stefania Mallett: That worked really well. We had multiple clients. Then we sold the company to SILKNET Software, who merged with Kana Systems in California. It was a merger of two public companies. I think Kana has since changed its name to Kana Software. Honestly, my product disappeared. It was

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Building a Mid-Market Security SaaS Company from Canada: J. Paul Haynes, CEO of eSentire (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: What was the growth rate from there on? Once you got to building the SaaS business, you zeroed in on the mid-market financial services vertical. You’ve defined your target audience very precisely. You’ve got this whole community of influencers around you. What kind of growth rate were you hitting? J. Paul Haynes: This

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Building a Fast-Growth Marketplace: Stefania Mallett, CEO of EZCater (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What year does that bring us up to? Stefania Mallett: That was 1989. Sramana Mitra: That’s still pre-Internet. Stefania Mallett: It was still pre-Internet. I worked there until 1993. Then in 1993, I decided that it was time to try consulting. I had always worked for companies. I had never done any consulting. I

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Building a Mid-Market Security SaaS Company from Canada: J. Paul Haynes, CEO of eSentire (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How long did it take you to launch the SaaS version of this product? When did you start selling that product? J. Paul Haynes: A year. Sramana Mitra: We are talking 2011. J. Paul Haynes: Yes. Sramana Mitra: So in 2012, you were a SaaS  company?

Building a Fast-Growth Marketplace: Stefania Mallett, CEO of EZCater (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  Two-sided marketplaces are perpetually difficult to build and scale. EZCater is approaching a billion dollars in gross marketplace value of transactions. Learn more from Stefania about working through the chicken and egg challenge. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are

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Building a Mid-Market Security SaaS Company from Canada: J. Paul Haynes, CEO of eSentire (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Where did you raise money? You said you worked with some investors that you had prior relationships with and who wanted to get in early. Are these Canadian investors? J. Paul Haynes: The first investor was Venture Link, which was Toronto-based. They came in fairly early. They have another affiliate firm. The government

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Bootstrapping to $10M+ from North Carolina: Carl Ryden, CEO of PrecisionLender (Part 7)

Carl Ryden: Andi is every relationship manager’s dream analyst. She’s there with you in every deal. She sees what you’re doing. She sees your entire portfolio. She’s there with you to help you find ways to make that work better for the customer and the bank. How it came to be is, we had a

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