Featured Videos

Managing a Successful Pivot from B-to-C to B-to-B: Jifiti Co-Founder and CMO Shaul Weisband (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What was the thought process in your pivot? How did you arrive at whatever was the pivot strategy?

Shaul Weisband: The pivot happened in two stages. The credit mainly goes to the team that was able to roll the punches and figure out exactly what was wrong and the Board. We have one of the most incredible support from the Board who realized that we were still onto something. The number one thing we did was cut the gap between someone downloading the app or interacting with our platform to the actual gift purchase.

Instead of asking the initial consumer to share a wish list and hope someone buys it, we allow them to purchase gifts and send it via email to a friend wherever >>>

Managing a Successful Pivot from B-to-C to B-to-B: Jifiti Co-Founder and CMO Shaul Weisband (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What about your co-founders? How did the three of you come together?

Shall Weisband: One co-founder, who’s now the CEO, comes from the retail space. Similar to me, he was born in the United States and moved to Israel. We went to school together a long time ago but lost touch. I happened to run into him in a shopping mall. I told him about this idea. He said, “Shaul, you won’t believe it. I had something so similar. I even have a business plan for it.”

He came to my house that night. We jumped into it full time. Our third business partner was born and raised in Israel. >>>

Managing a Successful Pivot from B-to-C to B-to-B: Jifiti Co-Founder and CMO Shaul Weisband (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Talk to me about things in a sequential order. Let’s go to the beginning of the company. How did this company get off the ground? How did you pull this together? What worked? What didn’t work? Tell the story.

Shaul Weisband: What encouraged us to start the company was the gift registry. This was 2011. If you remember, one of the hot topics in e-commerce space was Amazon and how brick-and-mortar companies are going to battle Amazon, and what was called showrooming where people walk into a store, use the sales people to learn about the items that they like, and then end up buying online on Amazon.

We came to realize that the link between in-store and online made a lot of sense was in the gift registry space. We noticed that the gift registry >>>

Managing a Successful Pivot from B-to-C to B-to-B: Jifiti Co-Founder and CMO Shaul Weisband (Part 1)

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

Jifiti started life as a B-to-C gift-giving service. That didn’t work. Read how they maneuvered their way to a successful B-to-B business.

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

Shaul Weisband: I was born the United States. I moved with my family, when I was seven, to Israel. Israel is pretty much where I was raised and went to school. That’s where I founded our company Jifiti at the end of 2011. Our development and operations teams are still there. Our US office is based in Columbus. That is where I relocated with my business partner around four years ago to head our local offices here in the US and focus on our business development and marketing. >>>

Raising Funding on AngelList: Contactually CEO Zvi Band (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: You talked about working with a syndicate on AngelList. Did 500 Startups introduce you to the AngelList syndicates personally, or did you do that cold?

Zvi Band: We did a very good job of building relationships with our customers. One of our customers said, “Hey, I actually know someone who’s a part of syndicate on AngelList. Could I introduce you?” We got connected that way. I always recommend to entrepreneurs to look at your own users and customers first because, oftentimes, there are some well-connected people who already believe in your mission.

Sramana Mitra: In general, you have to be introduced. That’s the experience we have. So in 2015, you raised $8 million, and you now have $2.5 million in ARR. Is that a VC round? >>>

Building a Fast Growing FinTech Company from Utah: MX CEO Ryan Caldwell (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Who was this angel investor?

Ryan Caldwell: I don’t have the permission to mention him by name. He’s a rather private person. I had worked with him in the past. He invested in a previous startup of mine. We had a good working relationship. He was familiar with me and my management style. He’s invested in a few companies but keeps a low profile.

Sramana Mitra: Which venture firms and which banks did you raise money from in your series A?

Ryan Caldwell: USAA was part of leading that round. Digital Garage (DGI), TTV Capital, and Commerce Ventures also came in.

Sramana Mitra: What was the total round? >>>

Raising Funding on AngelList: Contactually CEO Zvi Band (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Let me get a couple of specifics there. What was the price point that you settled on?

Zvi Band: We’ve continually changed our prices. When we first launched, we charged $10 a month. By the beginning of 2014, we charged $20 and $40 a month.

Sramana Mitra: What does that mean?

Zvi Band: We had two different pricing plans. What we’ve learned is that customers were not just willing to pay one price. There were customers who were a little more budget-sensitive who didn’t care about all the functionalities we had, and who were willing to pay a lesser price for lesser functionality. That was our $20 a month price point.

Then we had a price point for people who were wiling to pay us more, and they were willing to pay for some of our power functionality. We actually started off >>>

Building a Fast Growing FinTech Company from Utah: MX CEO Ryan Caldwell (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: The first hundred that you closed, were you able to close them on the phone?

Ryan Caldwell: Yes. We had to visit some people but, we were able to close most of them over the phone.

Sramana Mitra: Teleweb sales, yes. Of the people that you closed in that first wave of going after the smaller financial institutions, how did those accounts grow from those couple of thousand dollar accounts? Did they grow to become larger accounts?

Ryan Caldwell: A lot of them were buying the first product. Not a huge percentage of them grew into larger contracts. The most significant of those grew rapidly through “land and expand”. Some deals that were $20,000 to $100,000 a year would grow to $2 million a year account. >>>