Building an Analytics Company to $10M+ in Revenue: Mode Analytics CEO Derek Steer (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: The methodology that we follow is, bootstrap first to raise money later. Get to validation and then raise money, partly because this option of raising money remains only if you can raise friends and family money somehow.

For the numbers that we work with, most people don’t have those options. That’s why, pragmatically, it’s not very doable for most people. We are in 2013. How much money did you raise from your Yammer bosses?

Building an Analytics Company to $10M+ in Revenue: Mode Analytics CEO Derek Steer (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the beginning. How did you start? What was the first product? What customer did you go after? Talk about your entrepreneur journey.

Derek Steer: The first thing we did was our first mistake. We knew what the product should look like for companies to use themselves. We had a good understanding of the toolset or workbench for the day-to-day data analyst or scientist.

Building an Analytics Company to $10M+ in Revenue: Mode Analytics CEO Derek Steer (Part 2)

Derek Steer: I worked in the analytics team under Pete who was an absolutely fantastic leader. He taught me a lot about businesses, how to operate within businesses, and think analytically about advancing businesses. He also ended up connecting me with the people who I eventually would start Mode with.

Building an Analytics Company to $10M+ in Revenue: Mode Analytics CEO Derek Steer (Part 1)

Analytics has been one of the most active areas of entrepreneurship in this past decade as data has exploded up and down the value chain.

This is an exciting journey of a company in the space.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background did you have?

Bootstrapping to $10 Million: Coalition Technologies Co-Founder Jordan Brannon (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Your primary business has been the e-commerce services business. You sunsetted the call tracking business. Then the rest of the product portfolio supported your services business. There was no other product that really took off, but you have more products that you have introduced to the market.

Jordan Brannon: Yes. We have a couple of smaller paid recurring apps. We have automated backup solutions for both Shopify and BigCommerce stores. Then we also have the LMS platform. We also have that recruiting software, which is now being used by about 800 companies. 

Bootstrapping to $10 Million: Coalition Technologies Co-Founder Jordan Brannon (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What revenue level did you close 2012 at?

Jordan Brannon: We finished 2012 at $1.5 million at about $125,000 per month. 

Sramana Mitra: What happens in 2013?

Jordan Brannon: 2013 was another growth year for us. We finished the calendar year just under $2 million. We had about 30% growth that calendar year. The product solution was incrementing close to 20% of our revenue.

Bootstrapping to $10 Million: Coalition Technologies Co-Founder Jordan Brannon (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Was there dominance in the platform? 

Jordan Brannon: Magento was the dominant platform at that time simply because of market demand. Shopify and BigCommerce were small players in e-commerce in the small to mid-sized space. They weren’t as well-developed.

Bootstrapping to $10 Million: Coalition Technologies Co-Founder Jordan Brannon (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What kind of customers were you able to attract, and how did you attract those customers?

Jordan Brannon: We primarily attracted businesses that were manufacturing products and selling through traditional retail channels. A company making garments and selling through a larger retail chain like Nordstrom was our early-stage target customer.