Bootstrapping to $10M+ From Australia: Financial DNA CEO Hugh Massie (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What did you price it at?

Hugh Massie: There are three pricing levels. The bottom one is $1,500 a year. The top one is $3,995 a year depending on what components of the system they buy.

Sramana Mitra: What was the mix of customers? Were you still selling largely to the small individual advisors or were you now selling to the larger financial institutions? >>>

Bootstrapping to $10M+ From Australia: Financial DNA CEO Hugh Massie (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How long did it take you to reach a million dollars in revenue?

Hugh Massie: We were about two years into it before we got to that level.

Sramana Mitra: That was still based on the product sales model, right?

Hugh Massie: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: What was the next major strategic thing that you did to grow the business? >>>

Bootstrapping to $10M+ From Australia: Financial DNA CEO Hugh Massie (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Whom are you selling to? Are you selling to financial advisors?

Hugh Massie: We sell a subscription package to financial advisors. We have a SaaS revenue-based model.

Sramana Mitra: Got it. What is the source of the data based on which you’re developing these models?

Hugh Massie: We have built psychometric systems using research techniques that drive the outcome. If somebody answers from three words put together – most like and least like – that will give us a behavioral insight about them. We have our own recipe >>>

Bootstrapping to $10M+ From Australia: Financial DNA CEO Hugh Massie (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: When you decided that this was the mission around which you were going to create an offering, what did you decide to do? What was the product or service? What format did it take?

Hugh Massie: I realized that it needed to be a product that was scalable. It could be done by any person in the world regardless of their age, race, culture, or belief systems. That meant two things. It needed to be a very good technology system. Two, from a human behavior point of view, it needed to be validated. I needed to develop from the outputs that we needed to know about a >>>

Bootstrapping to $10M+ From Australia: Financial DNA CEO Hugh Massie (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Wonderful story of yet another Australian founder who has diligently scaled to $10M+ in revenue.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Hugh Massie: I was born in Sydney, Australia. I was privately-educated at a very good private school. When I finished that, I did a degree in Commerce and Economics at the University of New South Wales. Following that, I became a Chartered >>>

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Senraj Soundar, CEO of ConnectLeader (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How much is the deal size now?

Senraj Soundar: Close to double. We have multiple products, but they are priced at a lower level.

Sramana Mitra: All through this evolution, have you continued to bootstrap or have you brought in any financing?

Senraj Soundar: Till now, we’re bootstrapping because we were able to, in the last couple of years, manage the company’s cash flow. We are continuously taking every dollar and throwing it to engineering. >>>

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Senraj Soundar, CEO of ConnectLeader (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What were the revenue levels in 2013 and 2014? How was the company growing?

Senraj Soundar: We were staying somewhere around 80% to 100% growth for the next two to three years.

Sramana Mitra: When did you hit $5 million in revenue?

Senraj Soundar: In the last two years.

Sramana Mitra: What else have you done in this time frame between when you started selling the product in >>>

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Senraj Soundar, CEO of ConnectLeader (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What year did you start building this product?

Senraj Soundar: In 2008. It took several years to get it right because there’re a lot of moving parts. You have to seamlessly optimize your calling agent’s time. The calling agents are navigating the call. While they’re navigating the call, you have to show the sales rep what is going on. Sales rep has full visibility. The sales rep can tell the system, “Do not call this particular individual in the list.” >>>