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.” >>>

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Senraj Soundar, CEO of ConnectLeader (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What was the product? Can you talk a bit more about what was the product that you took that long to build?

Senraj Soundar: A good sales representative working hard typically makes 60 to 80 dials on average, but he could talk to only three to four decision makers or prospects. The challenge is that it takes about 20 plus phone calls to get one person live on the phone. All the remaining 19 won’t go anywhere.

If you do the math, about 90% of the phone time is all wasted time for the sales rep. Only 10% of that phone effort yields a >>>

Bootstrapping a Niche E-Commerce Brand: Big Barker CEO Eric Shannon (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: From a consumer’s point of view, it’s confusing. How do you convey that there’s something that is worth paying a premium for?

Eric Shannon: We just have a standard reply. We’re not going to reference any competitor directly here. All we can say is do your research, check their warranty, do they have any background in the pet industry? It’s the whole private-label thing, which I think is a scummy business to be in because you’re not really adding any value to the world whatsoever. This is going to be one of Amazon’s biggest problems going forward. You have 45 people all selling the same rubber spatula just with different brand >>>