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Building a Successful Social Media Business from Germany: Moviepilot CEO Tobias Bauckhage (Part 4)

Sramana: Were you working only with German cinemas?

Tobias Bauckhage: Yes, we did all of this with independent films in Germany. The takeaway is that if you have a movie that works and you can get word-of-mouth publicity behind the film, then you can get 150,000 people to attend the film. That equates to €300,000 to €400,000 just out of cinema. If that happens, then there is also going to be interest in getting the DVD rights to the film. That will usually bring in another €100,000 or more. There can even be additional TV or distribution rights in other countries. When it works, it can be lucrative. >>>

Student Entrepreneurs Bootstrapping a Zero-Logistics E-Commerce Company to $19 Million: Wrist-Band.com CEO Azim Makanojiya (Part 1)

We’re seeing a real trend of zero-logistics e-commerce businesses scaling phenomenally well. Read Azim’s experience!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with the beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of educational path did you follow?

Azim Makanojiya:I am from India. My parents shifted from a village to Mumbai city for better opportunities. That’s where I was born. My father came to the US around 1984. My mom was still back there in India. Within two years, we came to Houston and settled down here. I was about a year old then. >>>

Bootstrapping to Inc. 500: Tallie CEO Chris Farrell (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How do you price?

Chris Farrell: We price based on activity. For an active user or somebody who uses our expense report system actively in a given month, we charge $9 per month.

Sramana Mitra: How big are your deal sizes given the segment that you’re going after is the top end of the QuickBooks customer base? What is an average monthly deal size? >>>

Building a Successful Social Media Business from Germany: Moviepilot CEO Tobias Bauckhage (Part 3)

Sramana: Somebody else made the film and you were distributing it. How did you get someone to let you distribute the film if you had not done that before?

Tobias Bauckhage: Nobody knew us so we went to film festivals and watched a lot of films and followed various films to see which ones would get picked up. We then evaluated the films that remained free to see if there was any potential in them. We were looking for a marketing potential idea around it. Word of mouth is everything for movies, so we needed to have some sort of marketing edge. >>>

Building a Cloud-Based Property Management Platform, Ric Leutwyler, President of SkyTouch (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: What is an average deal size for you?

Ric Leutwyler: For independent hotels, which average 80 rooms per hotel, the deal size is $5,000 a year or more. If you’re talking about a Choice hotel as a group, it is around $25 million. It depends on whether we’re selling to independent hotels, small group, or giant companies.

Sramana Mitra: So there’s no bias in there. It’s all over the place.

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Bootstrapping to Inc. 500: Tallie CEO Chris Farrell (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What did you do? then Did you put together some sort of a customer advisory board of people who were prominent leaders in the accounting space?

Chris Farrell: You’re right. It wasn’t anything as formal as a product counsel. It was actually a series of relationships. I began cold-calling a number of people in the industry introducing myself and the company and essentially engaging them in a dialogue. It was, at first, very informal. We just talked to the experts about how they saw the industry and how software companies could help.

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Building a Successful Social Media Business from Germany: Moviepilot CEO Tobias Bauckhage (Part 2)

Sramana: What year does that bring us up to?

Tobias Bauckhage: That brings us up to 2004.

Sramana: What happened next?

Tobias Bauckhage: The moment I decided to drop my mechanical engineering studies and go to Berlin, I had a partner in crime who I had met on my very first day of engineering studies. We spent a lot of time together during that year while we studied mechanical engineering and we became soul mates. He was also very number-driven but also had a tremendous passion for films. He wanted to combine those two worlds, and I was interested in journalism and writing. >>>

Building a Cloud-Based Property Management Platform, Ric Leutwyler, President of SkyTouch (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: In a 30-second elevator pitch, what would be the target audience where you really shine?

Ric Leutwyler: Our target audience is the hotels that are in the limited to full-service range. They are looking for an economical approach, which they get from cloud solutions. They’re looking for the functionality that they need today but are also looking for the commitment that the functionality will evolve and keep up with the industry. That’s our sweet spot. If somebody is looking for an old and basic solution, then we’re not a good fit, because we’re very focused  on evolving that platform. >>>