The Big Shot

Drew Ermenc

September 12, 2008

Steve Youngblood understands the value of entrepreneurial experience. The co-founder of Salestrakr.com, a local tech startup marketing Web-based contact management systems, has seen both sides of the fence when it comes to successful small business. His resume reads like a small business wizard, having worked on multiple startups with varying degrees of success. "Some have gone public and some have gone bust," he says with a laugh. With Salestrakr, he says, it's learning how not to create the same mistakes. Drew Ermenc sat down with Steve to talk about his latest company and why he thinks he can compete with larger-than-life Goliath's operating in the same space.

Drew: Give me your 30-second elevator pitch for Salestrakr.com.

Steve: Salestrackr is a completely online Web 2.0 sales force automation and contact management system. We used AJAX technology to make it very easy to use and limit bandwidth. We were able to build a user interface for salespeople that is an application that they didn't hate; it was actually something they loved to use. We built it using technologies in such a way that we were able to offer it at a cost far below other technologies on the market today, including client applications as well as other Web-based sales automation process. We have something that sales people will want o use and that sales management will get excited about because their sales people will want to use it and it will be simple and fast.

How was this idea born?

youngblood With my co-founder, Paul Freet, we were looking for applications that lend themselves to greater ease of use, applications that would help companies, particularly technology companies, do better in the marketplace and be more efficient. After looking around, we realized that contact management and sales force automation for small and medium business has been underserved. The Oracle's, the Siebel's ... these folks have underserved the small business and the salesman, really. They've thought more about Fortune 500 and sales management and forgotten [about small-and medium-sized business]. At the end of the day, salespeople have to organize your life. And that's really where the idea was born. How can we use new technologies to lower the cost of entry and to make this fun, exciting, efficient and profitable for the salesman?

Tell me about funding.

We funded the company ourselves. So we're having to do what other entrepreneurs do and that's spend a little time during the day earning money, so that at night and other parts of the day, we can put it back in the business. Fortunately, open source and some of the new paradigms around Web 2.0 technology have enabled us to launch at a low cost and rapidly develop. We are looking at funding, but in fact so far we have 500 paying customers and haven't taken a dime of outside investment and there's still food on the table.

Would you welcome an injection of capital?

We would welcome an injection of capital, but we want it to be strategic as opposed to monetary. We'd rather like to keep going like we're going. We find the right investor and we could use the money for sales and marketing. We are launched now, so we would welcome the right strategic investors, not only someone who could provide us capital but could help steer us with advice and wisdom.

We would like to go from 500 users to 2,000 users. Customers could have many heads. When I say customers, that doesn't mean subscriptions. We are looking to grow by customer count and multiply that by two to 10 in user count.

Any tips for other small business regarding bootstrapping techniques?

As entrepreneurs, some of us are first timers, but many of us are multiple timers. Look for consulting work; there are lots of businesses all across the U.S. and here in Atlanta that typically need what an entrepreneur has and are willing to pay you on a consulting basis. It's a good way to fund your company while not having to borrow money. It's exactly what we've done at Salestrackr and it's what I do during the day. I help a lot of other people who are also entrepreneurs and already have cash or funding and I'm helping them get launched while I launch my own. And I fully divulge that. But that's a good way for entrepreneurs to move forward. Much like what actors do; they work at the bar and other places while they try to launch their career. That's a good way to get going.

I would suggest entrepreneurs to find your talent, utilize it to outside people who already have their funding and help them get going, usually in a non-competitive industry, and use your extra time to launch your business to keep in the black right away.

Are you in the black?

We are in the black, although not our salaries. We have enough revenue and our operations are completely profitable. But we're not taking monies out of our pocket to keep the operation going. It's self-perpetuating.

In your space, who are your competitors? ACT and GoldMine?

ACT and GoldMine have been in the space a long time, and they have pioneered the contact management space, but they need an injection of new technology. The six or seven million of those users are looking elsewhere. And they're looking at Salesforce.com. But now their people are looking away and saying that it's expensive. It's all Web 1.0. It's not fun and not easy to use. It was fantastic, but the world is progressing quickly. We're an iPhone generation now and we want it even simpler. And Salesforce is moving upstream and they're competing against Siebel and Oracle and other large entities that are selling sales force automation. So we believe there is an underserved small and medium business market.

What has been your biggest challenge with Salestrackr?

Our biggest challenge has been the hurdle of getting your first customers. We've done that now. They will typically give you that first feedback: where the bugs are, where the additional desires are, and it's taken us a little bit of time to get past that hurdle. But that's typical of what any business runs into. Finding those alpha and beta customers that will lend you support and recommendations and ultimately, lend you their testimonials. And that's what we're getting right now. We're getting those first testimonials that let us talk to investors. It's let us post these testimonials on our Web site. And we'll talk to other people. Just last week, we got a number of orders that came from referrals. And you're heading down the right way when you start getting referrals.

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The Big Shot

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Drew Ermenc

September 12, 2008