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SDL
Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped, Went Public and Scaled to $450M
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. When we spoke with Founder Mark Lancaster in 2014, very few technology companies had been built from the UK. ARM and Autonomy come to mind. Here’s the story of a company called SDL. Sramana: Mark, let’s start with the beginning of your personal story. Where are
Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped from London, Went Public and Scaled to $450M
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. When we spoke with Founder Mark Lancaster in 2014, very few technology companies had been built from the UK. ARM and Autonomy come to mind. Here’s the story of a company called SDL. Sramana: Mark, let’s start with the beginning of your personal story. Where are
Bootstrapping a Language Product Company Using Services from London, Then Taking it Public and Scaling It to $450M: SDL CEO Mark Lancaster (Part 7)
Sramana: You have made a lot of acquisitions building your business. When did your rollup strategy start? Mark Lancaster: As soon as we floated. When you go public, you have to understand what the public wants. Most of our shares are held by large institutions. The London Stock Exchange is much different than NASDAQ. They
Bootstrapping a Language Product Company Using Services from London, Then Taking it Public and Scaling It to $450M: SDL CEO Mark Lancaster (Part 6)
Sramana: Let’s move our discussion forward to the product era of your company. What were some of the milestones in building that phase of the business? Mark Lancaster: We probably started very slowly on the software side. Over the first three years, in the 1999 timeframe, we were doing less than $3 million in software revenues.
Bootstrapping a Language Product Company Using Services from London, Then Taking it Public and Scaling It to $450M: SDL CEO Mark Lancaster (Part 5)
Sramana: The other side of that coin is that the UK does not have a lot of technology companies. VCs who want to invest in the UK are looking for strong companies and don’t have as many opportunities. Mark Lancaster: At that particular time, the company was all services and was just starting to develop
Bootstrapping a Language Product Company Using Services from London, Then Taking it Public and Scaling It to $450M: SDL CEO Mark Lancaster (Part 4)
Sramana: What is the composition of your business? Are you selling these products to software companies who do translation work themselves, or are you selling it to competing services companies who compete with you using your own products? Mark Lancaster: About 50% of our revenue is derived from technology. Since that very early translation technology,
Bootstrapping a Language Product Company Using Services from London, Then Taking it Public and Scaling It to $450M: SDL CEO Mark Lancaster (Part 3)
Sramana: Can you give us an example of the types of products that would be labeled as language technology products? Mark Lancaster: There are a lot of products that fit in this space. We started out by building products that would make translators more productive as they translate. We have gone on to create many
Bootstrapping a Language Product Company Using Services from London, Then Taking it Public and Scaling It to $450M: SDL CEO Mark Lancaster (Part 2)
Sramana: How did you get your first clients once you started this new company? Mark Lancaster: Most of my contacts were at large companies. I knew people in Microsoft, Computer Associates, and a company called Contact Software in Dallas. I was lucky because I am not really a salesman. We got our first big contract
