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Bootstrapping Using Services: InRule COO Rik Chomko (Part 6)

Sramana: In that timeframe, what kind of numbers were you doing? Were you still operating organically? That’s one million in financing and then you’re operating organically, what are the metrics of the business at this point?

Rik Chomko: Back in 2005, we were operating organically. But 2005 and 2006 was quite a big jump for us. We increased our revenues by almost four times. Now, we’re starting to track into millions in revenue and it was a good launching point for us. Then we continued that growth, so we had about 287% growth in 2006, 79% growth in 2007, and then in 2008 were hit by the great recession. It’s kind of a disappointment. We felt like we’re on this great trajectory and things were going great when the recession hit and we were required to batten down the hatches. >>>

Building a Global Software Company From Australia: Bigcommerce Co-Founder Mitch Harper (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: By now, you are now in your Series B phase. You have already leveraged your install base from your previous company. What has been the primary customer acquisition strategy in the scaling phase? I do see you advertising a lot online.

Mitch Harper: I wouldn’t say there’s one main channel. I’m really good at optimizing – using Google AdWords, using retargeting, using content marketing through the blog and YouTube, and working with design agencies as well. We work with 2,500 >>>

Bootstrapping Using Services: InRule COO Rik Chomko (Part 5)

Sramana: What was the number of customers? What were the major milestones in 2004? What were you able to accomplish?

Rik Chomko: We had about 10 customers in 2004 and then probably another 15 in 2005, so we were starting to really get some momentum. We also started getting some bigger blue chip customers and a lot more attention from overseas. This was mostly at that point when we were funding the business through organic growth and were tracking along very well. We also started competing against some of the larger players in our market. >>>

Building a Global Software Company From Australia: Bigcommerce Co-Founder Mitch Harper (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What was your revenue level in 2010? The 9,800 customers translated into what kind of revenue level?

Mitch Harper: Our average per user back then was about $40 per month. It was somewhere around $5 million to $10 million at that time.

Sramana Mitra: What were the milestones that you set for yourself with your Series A financing?

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Bootstrapping Using Services: InRule COO Rik Chomko (Part 4)

Sramana: That year in 2003, how many customers were you able to bring on? I assume you were targeting the insurance industry and all the customers who are from the insurance industry.

Rik Chomko: Yes. Interestingly enough, while we were targeting people from the insurance industry, the customers we actually landed were completely outside of the insurance industry. While we thought insurance companies were more likely to jump on-board, we struggled, like probably a lot of other entrepreneurial companies, to convince them about us despite a great reference. Our next customer was a company that did roommate matching for students going to college. They found us through the website. >>>

Building a Global Software Company From Australia: Bigcommerce Co-Founder Mitch Harper (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Do your merchants have $100,000 in revenue or are they $2 million in revenue? Is there any kind of cut-off there?

Mitch Harper: Our customers’ revenue typically ranges from $1 million to $30 million of revenue per year.

Sramana Mitra: Your customer base is more in the $1 million to $30 million range. Then, the customer base with revenue of $30 million and above goes to Magento and below $1 million is with Shopify and GoDaddy.

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Bootstrapping Using Services: InRule COO Rik Chomko (Part 3)

Sramana: What I’m trying to understand is how did you manage to bootstrap the Version 1.0 piece of your journey? Was there some of the services money that this company was paying you that went into building the product?

Rik Chomko: Yes. That’s exactly how we did it. So we bootstrapped it and were trying to do double duty. There are three of us. Two of us were focusing on the services work while our chief technical officer was focusing on the development of the product. Well, all three of us contributed to it. So during the day, we did the work on the services side and then at night, we worked on the product.

Sramana: Okay. How long did it take you to bring the products to Version 1.0? >>>

Student Entrepreneurs Bootstrapping a Zero-Logistics E-Commerce Company to $19 Million: Wrist-Band.com CEO Azim Makanojiya (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: The competition for keywords has gone up in the course of this, right?

Azim Makanojiya: Significantly. What we used to pay 20 cents for, we now pay $6 to $7.

Sramana Mitra: How has that impacted the business?

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