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Long Journey Over 20 Years: Paula Tompkins, CEO of ChannelNet (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: How did the revenue move from a million dollars in ’87. Where are you now?

Paula Tompkins: We have been through three major downturns. The first in the 1990’s where we had to reinvent ourselves. Then there was the 2001 dot-com collapse where one of my major clients came to me and said, “We need to reduce our spend by 33% in five days.” Literally, I had to lay off hundreds of employees. Then in 2006, three major clients of ours – General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler – got into major trouble. By the time the bankruptcies were done and the dust settled, we were pretty much starting over. I had reinvented the company three times over its history and we are now over $20 million in revenue.

Sramana Mitra: Is there anything else from your journey that you want to share? >>>

Long Journey Over 20 Years: Paula Tompkins, CEO of ChannelNet (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: When you moved to create this platform, what year was it and what was the competitive landscape into which you were coming with this platform?

Paula Tompkins: It was non-existent at that point.

Sramana Mitra: What year was it?

Paula Tompkins: 1999. What you really have to understand is, we have always done the same thing. We’re an enabler. Our job is to help bring a buyer and a seller together through technology. What we’re about is helping a consumer and a business user go online and research. Most of the work we do is in conjunction with sales channels. This is  all about working in an industry where they have a direct sales force, where they have a distribution network, where >>>

Long Journey Over 20 Years: Paula Tompkins, CEO of ChannelNet (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What was the sweet sauce in your digital marketing offering?

Paula Tompkins: I like to call it the next best thing to a sales call at a fraction of the cost. If you look at the shopping process for a car, as an example, you want to see how the vehicle looks, you want to read all the specs and features and you want to compare that vehicle to other vehicles. Then you want to find out where to purchase that vehicle, very much like what people do today.

What we did in that case is we replicated that process and put it online so you could see all the features of the vehicle and experience it. For example, one of the clever things we did is you could put your skis through the trunk into the front of the car and then you could place the people in the car. Then the dog would have to get in the car. When you put him in, he would bark. It was like a little game. That was to show the fact that even though it was a small car, it had lots of capacity and you could put a lot of suitcases in it.

We had all the competitive comparisons. We had the lease versus buy calculator. >>>

Connected Medical Devices from France: Visiomed CEO Olivier Hua (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about from the point of view of building this company. You said the company started in 2009?

Olivier Hua: The company started in 2007.

Sramana Mitra: At that point, the product was the thermometer?

Olivier Hua: Correct.

Sramana Mitra: How long did the company function in that one product mode and what revenue levels did it reach? >>>

Long Journey Over 20 Years: Paula Tompkins, CEO of ChannelNet (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What year is that?

Paula Tompkins: 1985.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us a bit about the idea and how you came up with it.

Paula Tompkins: As I mentioned, the idea was that personal computers were gaining popularity. In 1985, there were about 10 million personal computers. There was the Macintosh, which had just emerged on the market, and then there was the IBM PC. Most of the IBM PCs were used in the business environment and about 50% of IBM PCs had a color card that would allow the computer to display four colors. >>>

Connected Medical Devices from France: Visiomed CEO Olivier Hua (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How do you go to market? Are these sold as consumer devices? Are they sold as devices to doctor’s offices? How is the go-to market strategy structured?

Olivier Hua: Initially, our products were sold through pharmacies.

Sramana Mitra: A thermometer being sold through a pharmacy makes sense, but you’re talking about ECGs and stuff. That’s not a pharmacy product, right?

Olivier Hua: We had been selling essentially direct to consumers so far. For some of the products, we go to physicians and doctors who prescribe our medical devices. We can talk about the ECG for instance. It’s a mobile ECG. It’s a very small device. It’s something that can be carried by anybody. Typically it’s for >>>

Long Journey Over 20 Years: Paula Tompkins, CEO of ChannelNet (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What was the startup in 1981 and what was the environment in which that startup was coming together?

Paula Tompkins: It was a very interesting time, around the birth of the personal computer. Adam Osborne had introduced his luggable computer. It was a CPM machine. The man that I went to work for made the circuit boards for Adam Osborne who was very wealthy and was very jealous. He hired an engineer and he decided he was going to one-up Adam Osborne. He was going to make a luggable computer that was all inclusive. >>>

Connected Medical Devices from France: Visiomed CEO Olivier Hua (Part 1)

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

Connected Medical Devices is an emerging trend in Healthcare. Read on to see how a company from France has been navigating and pushing that trend.

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?

Olivier Hua: I was born in France 58 years ago. I started my career as a banker. After seven years, I decided to become an entrepreneur. We actually bought three companies in the automotive industry and I stayed there for 12 years. Back in the early 2000, the automotive industry was a very traditional business. I wanted to be part of the new things that were happening. I then changed careers and became an investor. I was an investor for 12 years and during that time, I’ve helped several companies grow. >>>