selling in global markets - taking your business to the us
TRANSCRIPT
ISSUES DISCUSSED Building Great companies
Product – Market Fit
Positioning
Winning Early Customers
Building Early Sales teams
Marketing
Geographies
Funding and Valuations
SELL SELL SELL
STEP BY STEP START-UP BUILDING
Initial Validation
Customer Feedback
Pitch to Investors
Build the product or
service
Beta Test with
Customers
List Early Adapters
Sales and Mktg
Strategy
Grow BusinessCycle Repeats. New
Products, expanded mkts etc.
BUILDING A GREAT COMPANY …
Identification of problem and ability to solve
Eco-system – Investors, Mentors and others
Market adoption / Execution
Build reliable and cost effective product
4 Key Pillars of a start-up success
EARLY STAGE DESIRED TEAM LEADERS
• CEO
• CTO
• Product Mgmt
• Engineering
• Business Development / Sales
• Marketing
ROLES OF EARLY TEAM MEMBERS
• CEO:
1. Great execution, understand market, optimist + realist
2. Ability to attract talent,
3. Go in front of customers, Early stage validation, First sales
person for the company
4. Delegate, Lead team, Honest, Strong values
5. RAISE MONEY
• CTO:
1. Market vision + customer needs
2. Competition
3. Technology differential
ROLES OF EARLY TEAM MEMBERS
• Product Management
1. Clearly define market segments, identify targets
2. Understand key features per target segment
3. Work with Engineering to commit + deliver product/s that generates revenue upon FCS
One of the most critical positions in a start-up company.
ROLES OF EARLY TEAM MEMBERS
• Engineering
1. Building world-class team
2. Work closely with CEO/CTO/PM + customers to properly architect /design/ deliver quality product in timely manner
3. Work with field to quickly turn around + enhance product to close sales
ROLES OF EARLY TEAM MEMBERS
• Business Development / Sales
• Identify initial customers per direction of CTO/CEO/PM
• Help bring first 10-15 customers
• Constant Interface between Customer and Company
• Feedback on Pricing and Product Features and Quality
• Get PO’s from these early customers.
EARLY STAGE DESIRED TEAM MEMBERS
• Hard to build a team with all needed functions 1st few months
• Founding team needs to wear multiple hats…depending on expertise + background.
e.g. Founding Team A – Sales + Eng’g background
Sales: CEO, BD, fundraising
Engineering: CTO, Prod Mgmt, help CEO in funding
e.g. Founding Team B – Eng’g + Prod Mgmt Background
Prod Mgmt: BD, PM, fundraising, acting CEO
Engineering: CTO, Eng’g
Hiring Someone
1. Just because you know them
2. To “help them out”
3. As partner because you can’t afford them
4. To do a bit of everything
5. Top-down vs. bottom-up
6. Not knowing what jobs you want the person for
7. For the job you hate
Pitfalls to Avoid when Building a Talented Team
HIRING TIPS
Do’s
1. Build your company brand
2. Get concerned people involvement in hiring process
3. Recruit constantly
4. Do things professionally
5. Focus on personality + cultural fit
6. Take fast action when hiring mistake is made
Don’t
1. Don't oversell stock options
2. Don't over hire
1993 Today
Founded Fouress Merged into Exodus
Exodus IPO
NetMagicAcquired by NTT
Ankeena Acquired by
Juniper
3Leaf
Inabling
NetScaler Acquired by Citrix
EduriteAcquired by
Pearsons
Ocarina Acquired by
Dell
Arkin Rakya Cloud Vel
Attivo Whodini
ScaleArc
MobileForce
Fine line between Success and Failure
Televital Numerify
Nutanix
Woxi
Fine line between Success and Failure
Is it Technology?
Is it Execution?
Is it the Market?
Is it the Luck?
Is it the Attitude?
Is it the Money?
Is it the People?
What’s the Fine-Line?
“It is mainly the People with the right
Attitude and ability to Execute what the
Market wants with an Innovation and
some amount of Money and Luck’’
What Clicks Between Success and Failure ?
Navigate during changing markets
Assign right resources to better execute
Manage finances at all times
Change the priorities based on Needs
Hire best people without just money
Lead and bring right leadership
People Figure Out how to
PRODUCT MARKET FIT
Who’s your customer
What problem are you solving
What is the value of your product to the customer
ROI ?
customer willing to do a POC?
Willing to write a check for POC
Go beyond POC to production?
Is the product ready for main stream?
PRODUCT MARKET FIT(SLICING AND DICING THE MARKET )
F500, High Value, High $$, More complex environment ( 1B+ )
Mid Size Business( 500 – 1+ B )
Small/Mid Size Business
Small Business
Very Small Businesses
Size of Business Vertical Markets
MFG High Tech
Oil &Gas
Health Care
Web Centric
Auto Retail Fin Media
& Ent
POSITIONING
Know how and when to say NO
Know what markets
Know what features are needed for that market
Focus on few things and do it right
Know who the buyer is
Let it be large Market
Avoid trying to satisfy every customer – you will become consulting company
HOW TO WIN EARLY CUSTOMERS
Your or your board/investors contacts
Hiring Sales/BD
Domain expert or hunting sales guys
Smart ways of finding customers
Work through product deficiencies
Offer good discount for being an early customer
Use LinkedIN, Hotjobs, Monster
Google Ad words, SEO
Case Studies – Exodus, NetScaler, Nutanix, Netmagic
PRODUCT CONTINUITY
Every Market you pick the product has to go deeper
At some point of time you have to expand into other markets
Don’t ignore the first market – product needs to evolve constantly
Packaging of your product with engg changes can take you to new opportunities
Acquisition of other companies – Company culture, product integration, people continuity is very important for a better success
MARKETING
Lead Gen Programs
Marketing Collateral – Case Studies – Public/Private without revealing names
Analyst influence
Pricing
Packaging
Company launch and Product launch
Events.
EXODUS REVENUE GROWTH
1994 – 200K
1996 – 2M
1997 – 12M
1998 – 48M
1999 – 200M
1995 – 600K
2000 – 800M
Uncertainty Phase ~ 3.5 years
Winning Hotmail
Aug ‘94- first Sales/BD VP
Nov’93 Birth of Company
Start Channel Operations
EXODUS TIMELINE
Internet Data Center evolution
Founded by2 people with
~10K personal $
1993
OctoberKicked Off Business
Internet Solutions
1994
IntroducedInternet Consulting, 1st form of Hosting
Still No funding, House Mortgaged, Loans from
other companies
1995
August - Built 1st ever Internet DataCenter)
Feb’96 Series A- $3.5MOctober’96 Series B - $7M
1996
Got rid of various consulting business, ISP. Focus on IDC mkt.
Web centric companies early customersMay - Raised another 20M Mezzanine round
1997
IPO in March350M mkt cap. Raised
75M
1998
NetScaler Confidential
NETSCALER REVENUE GROWTH
1998 – 0
2000 – 200K2001 – 700K
2002 – 2M
2003 – 10M
1999 – 0K
2004 –20M
Uncertainty Phase ~ 4.5 years
2005 –50M
Winning Webex
Hired VP Sales
Hired 1st VP Sales
Hired BD
NetScaler Confidential
NETSCALER TIMELINE
Web Application Delivery Innovation
Angel Investment
3M
1998
World’s Fastest Load Balancer
$37M
Load BalancingContent Switching
2000
2-4x fasterSecurity & AppCompress
AppCache
First Accelerated Web ApplicationDelivery System
13M fromSequoia Capital
2002
5-10x fasterAppCompress MP
AppCache (dynamic)
Continued raising the bar
20M Late Stage
2004
15x→AppCompress Extreme
AppCompress MP (bi-directional)
Application Firewall
Citrix bought at 325M
2005
SSL-VPN and WAN Optimizationn
2006
NetScaler Confidential
6,000+Enterprise Deployments
75%of Internet Users
PROVEN IN WORLD’S MOST DEMANDING ENVIRONMENTS
Magic of Marketing
PARTNERSHIPS
Two small companies partnering is generally hard and risky
Partner with a big company – do it when you don’t have to allocate all your resources to that one company.
Investment needs to be well thought out – what the implications are with other similar companies
Case Studies – Ocarina – Dell, Exodus- Akamai, NetScaler – Juniper
GEOGRAPHIES
West Coast – California and East Coast NY are generally the first mkts to go after
Depending on the product you expand next locations into Texas, LA, Chicago, DC
Next cities would be Seattle, Detroit, Boston
UK and Japan first international countries UK similar culture to US. Easier for market adoption
Japan – love to have US references. Slow to adopt. Once loyalty is built lasting relationship
Very expensive proposition – make sure to have good valid points
Other European countries – preferred to start as consultants
Other Asian countries – Korea, Taiwan, HongKong, Singapore
Channel/Distribution would be ideal in most countries.
INVESTMENTS AND VALUATIONS
Seed, Angel, Initial services revenue, VC funding, Strategic investment
No standard formula for valuations
First time entrepreneur – most often takes hit.
Let the market set the valuation
Pedigree Helps
Have some revenues and customer validation. Seek money for expansion
Don’t overly worry about valuation - 100% of 0 is 0