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Morphing a B-to-C Idea to a B-to-B Business: Andrew Witkin, CEO of StickerYou (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How did you get it off the ground? Did you bootstrap it, did your raise money, or use your own money?

Andrew Witkin: I realized that I wasn’t in a position to self-fund this. I was not technically smart enough to code this. I needed to hire a development team. I wrote a business plan for it. Obviously, I showed all the business metrics and what have you to show how this could be a successful business in my mind. I was able to attract around six initial investors for about half a million dollars. That allowed us to have enough capital for about nine months.

Sramana Mitra: Who were these people? Why were they investing in your company? Did they know you before? What were the circumstances in which you were able to raise half a million dollars? >>>

Bootstrapping to $23 Million: Michael Nemeroff, CEO of RushOrderTees (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How much did the equipment cost you?

Michael Nemeroff: I remember the bill was about $10,500 for the initial investment. Then there’s all the ancillary stuff like the inks. I couldn’t tell my friends about it because I didn’t know if you’re allowed to have that equipment inside the house. We just kept on printing and learning how to market online. We went to forums and marketed to business people. The next step was moving to a facility and starting to hire people.

Sramana Mitra: While you had the printing equipment in the dining room, did you reach the $1 million a year number?

Michael Nemeroff: No, I think we were just a solid $25,000 to $30,000. >>>

Morphing a B-to-C Idea to a B-to-B Business: Andrew Witkin, CEO of StickerYou (Part 2)

Andrew Witkin: I was fascinated with the experience of building blocks and observing the behavior of children. I was fascinated with digital marketing because of all the customization that you could do. Facebook had just started to come. This was 2007. We also owned a craft company that did coloring crayons, markers, and stickers.

I was walking along the beach and noticing the cool surf culture. I was taken back by all the stickers that I saw everywhere. I looked around and said, “How do people make custom stickers?” It was after that when I started doing research on my own. Personalization was becoming big. People were starting to do their own custom calendars and custom t-shirts. I realized that you couldn’t make die-cut stickers – the one that contoured around the image as opposed to just a one by two inch rectangle. >>>

Bootstrapping to $23 Million: Michael Nemeroff, CEO of RushOrderTees (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Who was making these t-shirts?

Michael Nemeroff: They had a friend in the industry who did the printing for them. It wasn’t a partnership. It was like, “I have my own business. Do you want to start your own?” They went to the same guy to do the printing.

Sramana Mitra: You decided that this needs to go online and take orders online?

Michael Nemeroff: Yes. There was no automation. There was no e-commerce. It was just a website. It had blinking images and was a very old school website. The biggest thing was I made a big investment in advertising. Luckily, we closed a big tech school. They placed a big order with use and that allowed us to >>>

Morphing a B-to-C Idea to a B-to-B Business: Andrew Witkin, CEO of StickerYou (Part 1)

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

Andrew started with a B-to-C idea but has built a business that is primarily B-to-B from a revenue standpoint. Learn more about the nuances.

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?

Andrew Witkin: I was born in Toronto, Canada. My mom was a German immigrant and my dad was a Canadian citizen who happens to be Jewish. I grew up in a pretty loving family. I went through school and then decided to enter into an undergraduate business program because I was most intrigued with business. I went out to a school in eastern Canada.

In my final year, I actually went to the US and attended a US school. I was in Providence, Rhode Island in my final year. I found the pulse of >>>

Bootstrapping to $23 Million: Michael Nemeroff, CEO of RushOrderTees (Part 1)

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

From setting up a printing machine in the dining room to $23 million in revenue, Mike’s RushOrderTees journey is one of steady, diligent execution.

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

Michael Nemeroff: I was born and raised right outside Philadelphia. That’s where I’ve lived my whole life. It all started in high school. My parents were entrepreneurs. They owned a clothing line. It’s a lot different from what we do today.

Sramana Mitra: Having an entrepreneurial family is a very big driver in a lot of people becoming entrepreneurs because you grow up in >>>

Scaling a SaaS Business to 11,000 Customers: Booker.com CEO Josh McCarter (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: What are some of the inflection points in the business when things started clicking in gear? We’ve talked about one of the key issues which is really turning into this metrics-driven organization. What other inflection points have you experienced in building this business?

Josh McCarter: I think there are a few. The early stage was just pulling the company out of the original parent company because that gave us the opportunity to go out and create our own business, our own P&L, and the ability to raise capital by ourselves. Being able to go out and start generating our early sales was very important.

Sramana Mitra: I’m asking a very specific question. It’s about an inflection point about customer adoption. As you trace the graph of >>>

Scaling a SaaS Business to 11,000 Customers: Booker.com CEO Josh McCarter (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What is your conclusion about where you wanted to pin your customer acquisition cost? How does that correlate to your lifetime value for your SaaS business?

Josh McCarter: All of the benchmark studies say that you need to be north of three times LTV. That seems to be the number where people feel like you’ve got your acquisition cost in line. Obviously, when you’re in enterprise sales, your months-to-payback are sub-12 months. When you’re in SMB SaaS, they’re usually sub-20 months. One of the things that we’ve really focused on is how to change some of our go-to market strategies so that we are less reliant on direct sales and more reliant on channel partners. >>>