Getting to Three Thousand Customers in Legal: iManage CEO Neil Araujo (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Did you get this off the ground with some funding or bootstrapping? How did you get going and who were the first customers?

Neil Araujo: It was through a combination of primarily bootstrapping and some funding. It was very hard for us to raise money at that point in time, particularly in the Midwest. We spoke to a bunch of venture capitalists and none of them invested in technology in the Midwest. It was just too risky. A lot of them were in manufacturing, process engineering, and things of that nature.

When you take a combination of tech and legal, which is our primary vertical, it makes it even more difficult because legal is one of those markets where it’s not as big as finance or retail. It was hard for us to sell this idea that we can become a multi-billion dollar company. We are, primarily, self-funded. >>>

Bootstrapping from Ukraine: BPMOnline CEO Katherine Kostereva (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: When it came to a head-to-head with Microsoft, how did you win?

Katherine Kostereva: I win against Microsoft now in America as well. First, what is the differentiator. The differentiator of BPMOnline is that it is built on BPM platform. Even mid-size companies who value Business Process Management as the core of CRM application see this value. I would say that any strong company will value this engine below CRM functionality. They, obviously, prefer BPMOnline.

We provide the agility to our customers to change processes in CRM faster than any CRM solution. Why we’re winning deals from Microsoft and Salesforce today is because of our BPM engine. Let’s put it into two parts. To be successful, we need great technologies and need great sales and marketing. >>>

Bootstrapping with Affiliate Marketing: Zeeto CEO Stephan Goss (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How did you utilize this data? What did you do with the data that you were accumulating?

Stephan Goss: We never did any bulk data sales. We would use the data to then start showing ads against that data. For example, if somebody told us he’s a diabetic, then we would show an advertisement about diabetes. We had a lot of inexpensive traffic that we were able to up value into high quality traffic.

Sramana Mitra: How do you show them ads based on email addresses? Do you do retargeting?

Stephan Goss: We would buy traffic. People would come to our website. They would answer questions and then right in line we show the advertisement.

Sramana Mitra: How did that ramp in 2011? >>>

Getting to Three Thousand Customers in Legal: iManage CEO Neil Araujo (Part 1)

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

Focusing precisely on designing a product strategy always helps scale. iManage has focused steadfastly on the legal process and the workflow thereof.

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

Neil Araujo: I was born in Goa. It was a Portuguese colony in India. I was raised there and had a great time. I left Goa to do my undergraduate degree in a different part of India. For the first time, I was exposed to people from 26 states in India. I got my undergraduate in EE and moved to the US to get a Master’s in Computer Science.

Sramana Mitra: Where did you do your EE? >>>

Bootstrapping from Ukraine: BPMOnline CEO Katherine Kostereva (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: We need to go from 2004 to 2015. In the context of what happened as you were growing within Europe, were you following the customer acquisition strategy using cold calling?

Katherine Kostereva: Yes, for outbound marketing and inbound marketing as well.

Sramana Mitra: Specifically, what marketing strategies worked for you that helped you generate the right leads? Is Russian language software a big deal for your customer base?

Katherine Kostereva: Our primary marketing channel was outbound campaigns. >>>

Bootstrapping Using Services From Sweden: Dapresy Founder Tobi Andersson and CEO Rudy Nadilo (Part 7)

Rudy Nadilo: I have a thought that is separate from what Tobi just said. A lot of people told me I was crazy to go work for the Swedes. When I joined, it was probably $2 million. There were more than 30 clients. I looked at this, not as a risk, but as a gift. I built companies from scratch and knew what it took. When you think about Tobi’s journey, he was all in. He put the horse, the farm, the pig, and the cow on the line.

I’m now launching into North America and I’ve got a list of clients that I can go to and say, “Hey, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Hilti, and KLM are using this software.” I’m actually able to show them examples of that. To those people, I was never that guy who could invent the thing. Tobi is the inventor. I have always prided myself in being able to take a product and figure out a way to package it, sell it, and grow it. For those people who are more on the marketing >>>

Bootstrapping from Ukraine: BPMOnline CEO Katherine Kostereva (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What did you need to do in terms of sales and marketing? Precisely, what were the hires assigned to do?

Katherine Kostereva: Since the beginning of the company, we invested heavily into both inbound and outbound marketing. We always had sales development. In 2003, we managed to do it just through cold calls. It doesn’t work nowadays. We use completely different tools for the outbound campaigns. When we started, I was making cold calls as well.

Sramana Mitra: You were actually calling people to sell $10 a month solution.

Katherine Kostereva: I was calling people to find the opportunity, then I’d visiting people to sell them the product for as many users as they have. One of >>>

Bootstrapping with Affiliate Marketing: Zeeto CEO Stephan Goss (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back to the very beginning. I’m going to step you through the process of how you put one foot before the other. How did you get the business off the ground? Who was the first client? How did you win this client? How did the business start to unfold?

Stephan Goss: I had gotten decently good at buying ads. I started buying ads for a company. Basically, it was just affiliate marketing. I was getting the deals through a network. I wasn’t doing any of the sales directly myself. I was just finding the people who had the offers that I could piggyback on top of. I would buy ads. I would spend $1000 and hopefully make $1,200 back. It was an arbitrage play. The nice thing is if you’re good at doing that, you can be profitable. We had the opportunity to be profitable from day one.

Sramana Mitra: What kind of a client did you have? What kind of affiliate segment was this company trying to reach?

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