Idealog.co.nz | The Transformation Issue
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IDEALOG:
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FORD: One thing I think we’ve done extremely
well is we’ve always had a real handle on the ROI on
every single dollar that’s been spent. We religiously
measure cost of acquisition, lifetime value of our
customers, churn and we live and die by our metrics.
They’re updated multiple times per day and looked at
monthly, quarterly and on an annual basis.
Because of that, when we had investment and
acquisition opportunity, we had everything ready to
go right there and then. I could state what all of our
metrics were, down to the last dollar. I know that our
acquirers were looking at other companies and while
other people they were talking to had to go away and
check the numbers and come back two weeks later, I
could answer those questions then and there on the
phone. That’s something I think we did extremely well.
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We’d managed to bootstrap the company to a million
dollars ARR (annual recurring revenue), so we’d had to
grow within our means. Every new hire we had to earn,
and every new dollar of marketing spend as well. When
you’re working like that, your confidence builds as you
scale. When it comes to getting investment, there’s that
level of confidence that you can manage finances, and
you have a business humming, as opposed to just
drawing down from a big pot of money and hoping to
become cashflow positive before that pot is empty.
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Personally, I’ve seen it as an advantage. We’ve always had
to think globally because, with our product and placement,
it’s a far more sustainable business being global from the
start. So we targeted and planned to expand into the US
and UK from the beginning and literally from day one,
the product was available in those jurisdictions.
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Oh yes. We were burning the candle at both ends in the
beginning, up early supporting the US and then up late
at night supporting the UK. When there were only two or
three of us, we just took shifts. One person would go to
bed at 11pm or midnight and the next one would be up
at five or six in the morning – and there would be a four-
or-five-hour gap where there wasn’t live support.
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Now that I’ve sold the business and weighed into the angel
investment space, one thing I’m seeing is that pitches or
ideas are often very broad and not
particularly concise, often trying to
offer twelve different things instead
of doing one thing extremely well. At
SwipedOn, we’re replacing visitor books
on reception with a nice, efficient sign-in system. That’s our
market and that’s where the growth is. You just really need
to be able to be concise. That elevator pitch needs to be
able to be explained only a floor or two in.
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We’re selling offshore but scaling locally, so we’ve just
secured a long-term lease here on the waterfront in
Tauranga. As part of the acquisition process, it was
absolutely clear from both sides that we are to continue
growing scale from here in New Zealand. There was no way
they were going to mess with the magic we had created,
we’ve got a good team in a good environment.
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Well, they actually call it a ‘maritime adventure’ in legal
terms when a vessel departs port, and you could say that’s
no different to a start-up. It’s an adventure. »
how we exited
to an
feature