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Bootstrapping Eloqua, Crowdfunding Influitive: Lessons From Mark Organ’s Entrepreneurial Journey (Part 1)

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Raised in an entrepreneurial home, Mark was encouraged to become a doctor or professor and delighted his parents when he went to Northwestern to earn his PhD in neurosciences. In no time he was incubating Eloqua from within Bain and Company during the Internet boom years. This is a unique and rare story of bootstrapping, crowdfunding, struggles and ultimate success.

Sramana: Mark, you have an incredible entrepreneurial journey. Let’s start at the very beginning. Where do you come from?

Mark Organ: I was born near Hamilton in Ontario, Canada. It’s a steal town. My father was an entrepreneur and my mother was an entrepreneur after her homemaker career wound down. My grandfather also came to Canada from Poland very poor and built a nice entrepreneurial career for himself. I was exposed to the idea that it was completely acceptable to be in business for yourself from a very early age. >>>

From The Seedy Underworld of Drugs and Prostitution To Entrepreneurial Success: David Sharpe’s Journey with Empower Network (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: I’m going to get into a granular line of questioning so that we can extract the real story here. When you decided that you wanted to start a company, what did you do first? I imagine you incorporated, but was there any savings? How did you put this business together?

David Sharpe: We started with very little startup funds. We basically had an idea about the company and we put our heads down and went to work. Yes, we incorporated and set up bank accounts and so on and so forth. For the first 90 days since the inception of the idea until the date that we launched that company, we were on phone calls. My business partner for this company lived in Costa Rica. We actually lived in different countries.

Sramana Mitra: Who is your business partner and how did you meet him?

David Sharpe: His name is David Wood and we were in the same industry together. He was somebody who was producing a lot of sales and results. He had been in the industry for a little bit longer than I had been. I came into the industry and started producing as well. We just noticed each other and got on the phone, made a connection, and started a conversation.

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How An Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapped to $5M: RuffleButts CEO Amber Schaub and COO Mark Schaub (Part 7)

Sramana: Are you still working with the same factory in the Dominican Republic?

Amber Schaub: No. After all the mistakes that we had to deal with in the first order, we had to make a change. We worked with them for a short period of time. Over the years, we have developed relationships with manufacturers. Our product line has expanded significantly and we have different manufacturers in different locals.

That being said, our bows are still hand-made by the same lady who started making them on day one. They are hand-made here in the US. Our apparel products are made primarily overseas. >>>

From The Seedy Underworld of Drugs and Prostitution To Entrepreneurial Success: David Sharpe’s Journey with Empower Network (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How old are you now?

David Sharpe: I just turned 30 last November 17.

Sramana Mitra: How does this bridge us to your entrepreneurship? Where does your entrepreneurship begin – more of the kind of entrepreneurship that we cover? 

David Sharpe: Certainly, you guys didn’t contact me because of my entrepreneurship in the street.

Sramana Mitra: No, that’s not our specialization.

David Sharpe: Yes, there’re other people who specialize in that. When I went through a 15-month treatment program in 2008 and 2009, it was the first time that I was introduced to being with myself and being clear-minded. I immediately got a telemarketing job. When I went in to that telemarketing job, I was only looking for a job; I wasn’t looking for a career. But what I found was, I was good at talking. I was good at connecting with people. I was good at adding value on the phone. So I became the top producer in this telemarketing company. I didn’t know how to show up on time though, so I eventually lost that job.

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How An Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapped to $5M: RuffleButts CEO Amber Schaub and COO Mark Schaub (Part 6)

Sramana: How have you expanded your team from 2010 onward? What has your recruitment philosophy been? What positions have you hired for and how have those people helped you scale the business?

Amber Schaub: Throughout the process, we have hired on a need basis. We are a family business and we did as much as we could before we hired anyone else. We would almost be bursting at the seams before we brought on another team member. I suppose that is an entrepreneurial manner of working because the budgets in a bootstrapped startup impose that reality. Today we have 18 employees, including Mark and I. >>>

From The Seedy Underworld of Drugs and Prostitution To Entrepreneurial Success: David Sharpe’s Journey with Empower Network (Part 1)

From drugs, sex, prostitution, David Sharpe has seen it all. Hopelessly lost since his teens, a father at 15, jailed in his twenties, David has found his way back to a healthy life through entrepreneurship. Enjoy reading one of the most unusual stories we’ve done in the eighth year of Entrepreneur Journeys.

Sramana Mitra: Dave, tell us where you’re from. Where were you born and raised – what kind of circumstances?

David Sharpe: My name is Dave Sharpe. I was born in Clearwater, Florida which is right outside of Tampa Bay in 1983. I turned 30 last November 17.

Sramana Mitra: Tell me a bit more about the circumstances. Where did you do school? What did you study? What kind of mental set are you coming from as an entrepreneur? What’s your family background?

David Sharpe: The fascinating thing is I don’t come from an entrepreneurial family. My mom was very involved in a lot of what I did, extracurricular wise. I was a sports player. I was an athlete. By the age of five, I was on a baseball field throwing the baseball around. My parents divorced when I was 2-years-old, but my dad always showed up for my baseball games. Then I had a stepfather, still do. My mom and my stepfather are still married.

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How An Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapped to $5M: RuffleButts CEO Amber Schaub and COO Mark Schaub (Part 5)

Sramana: Did you gain traction with the brick and mortar retail stores?

Amber Schaub: We did get some good success early on. Nordstrom contacted us in late 2008.

Sramana: How big was your first Nordstrom order?

Amber Schaub: They did a 5 store trial order, which at the time, seemed huge to us since no stores had put us in. They ended up putting us in 50 stores and I thought that order was just incredible. Today that is pretty standard. >>>

How An Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapped to $5M: RuffleButts CEO Amber Schaub and COO Mark Schaub (Part 4)

Sramana: How did you handle such a big event so early on? I imagine it was quite an ordeal to get ready for celebrity exposure.

Amber Schaub: I only needed 300 pieces to be able to do the event, so I had the factory send the completed work out to the hotel in LA. I was crossing my fingers that everything would be OK, and of course when I got there that was not the case. When I arrived and started going through the bloomers, I saw that half of them were made perfectly and the other half were a mess. I went through and found the best of the best so that the celebrities could represent our brand well. >>>