Sramana: Is that what drove you to become an entrepreneur? Jana: As I drove away, I realized that I was a capable, smart girl who had been through harder things in life. I was perfectly capable of coming up with something that I would be able to do from home and make enough of an
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Jana Francis is the co-founder of Steal Network, an interactive marketing company that delivers top-quality brands and products one day at a time to their online communities of women through the websites babySTEALS.com, scrapbookSTEALS.com, kidSTEALS.com, and sheSTEALS.com. Before founding Steal Network, Jana spent her career specializing
Sramana: How does your affiliate market help entrepreneurs grow their business? Carl Theobald: Affiliates are really a reflection of how this new online world is not only leveling the playing field for start-ups, but providing the resources for entrepreneurs to focus on what they do best and outsource the rest. In this case, they can
Sramana: It seems that many of your mid-market customers could be coming in through the self-service channel as well. Have you found that to be the case? Carl Theobald: That is a very good point. Our self-service channel is a very good sales tool. Software AG is a customer of ours that came to us
Sramana: Let’s talk a bit more about how the company is being built. How do you build and scale from here? Carl Theobald: The company had focused on the self-service market, which meant we had a very small direct sales organization. Once we realized the solution was acceptable for larger customers, as well as the
Sramana: What kind of customers are you working with? Carl Theobald: Starting back in the early days, it was all about very small startups. They were software companies that wanted to sell downloadable software such as anti-virus. These were companies that sold games or PC performance tools. The other set of companies that used Avangate
Sramana: How did Avangate get started? What was the genesis of this company? Carl Theobald: It started in 2006 in Europe. The founder and a very bright technical team built the core platform and got a good solution up and running. They grew 75% a year and achieved profitability in 2010. Sramana: How did Avangate
Sramana: This is a very crowded space. How do you differentiate yourselves from others? Carl Theobald: There are a lot of different companies in our space. There are billing companies that solve part of the problem by assisting with subscription management and billing. We provide a complete solution that goes beyond subscription management and billing.