Infusionsoft Gets Funding: Goal is to Transform the Way Small Businesses Market and Sell

Infusionsoft Gets Funding: Goal is to Transform the Way Small Businesses Market and Sell
Looking to Grow From $500k to $1M in 2013
Lawton Ursrey of SageOne: Connecting the Ends to Improve Small Business Efficiency
Expand Your Piece of the Pie
Study Says Youngest Companies Are Top Job Creators

Posted: 11 Jan 2013 01:47 PM PST

This week, sales and marketing software company Infusionsoft announced $54 million in growth capital financing from Goldman Sachs.

Customers use the Infusionsoft online software as a service platform to capture leads online, and follow up and convert those leads to sales. The software includes CRM, email marketing, lead collection and ecommerce capabilities.

In fact, the company intends to be number one in its niche serving this market. "Our mission is to create and dominate the market of all-in-one sales and marketing software for small businesses," said Infusionsoft CEO and Co-founder Clate Mask.

“All-in-one” is software that performs a variety of functions. It eliminates the need to cobble together an array of single-function tools from various vendors. The more tools from different sources that small businesses need to sign up for, learn to use, figure out how to make them all share data and connect seamlessly — the more time consuming. Deploying one product that performs multiple functions to handle a process end to end, is typically easier and more efficient on a business and the employees who have to learn to use it.

Infusionsoft plans to use the investment funds to invest in and grow its product and presence in the small business market.

The Infusionsoft Customer Target

Infusionsoft’s entire focus is the small business market, and it has a specific sweet spot. Its primary target is the small business that has outgrown the simplest entry-level tools and now needs solutions that are more robust — yet isn’t ready for mid-market or enterprise level solutions.

Mask said: "Of the 27 million small businesses in the U.S., five million fit into Infusionsoft’s target market of small businesses with two to 25 employees. These businesses are owner-operated, lack IT support, follow their buyers online and desperately need effective sales and marketing tools to succeed. Mid-market software and IT support is too expensive and complicated for small businesses, but simple sales and marketing tools can’t effectively manage their growing businesses."

Growth Plans

According to Mask, the company will use the funds to ramp up product development, accelerate marketing and sales, grow its partner program and expand education efforts in the U.S. and internationally. In the process the company will be hiring. It intends to nearly triple its current workforce, bringing it to 1,000 employees over the next three years.

The company reports it had a banner year in 2012, even in the weak economic recovery.

This is the third round of funding for Infusionsoft, which along with two prior rounds totals $71 million. Current investors include Arthur Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures and Signal Peak Ventures. Infusionsoft came to outside funding later in its lifecycle, after already proving viability. Initially it was bootstrapped from its launch in 2001 until 2007.

Infusionsoft currently has about 44,000 users in over 12,000 small businesses, located in more than 70 countries. The Chandler, Arizona based company recently moved into a new headquarters and has 350 employees today.

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Looking to Grow From $500k to $1M in 2013

Posted: 11 Jan 2013 11:00 AM PST

A computer science background and a passion for information technology started Atul Gupta in Bhutan, India, in 2003.

But it was a move to Kolkata in 2006, and the vision to serve local Indian small businesses, that was truly the start of his business. In 2009, after acquiring over 500 domestic small business customers, Gupta's venture shifted focus from services to product, and InSync as it exists today was born.

InSync, and its flagship product SBOeConnect, helps eCommerce merchants worldwide increase efficiency through their integrated solution. In a market lacking in integrated solutions, SBOeConnect, helping to bridge the gap between Magento and SAP Business One, has been the company's focus for the past three years.

After establishing an initial partnership with SAP and an agreement to resell their product as part of an integrated solution, InSync made the results of a successful integration project with an individual customer public online – and received a positive response.

To date, SBOeConnect has already garnered 80 paying customers.

Through a focus on both service and product, Atul was provided unique insight into the needs of his customers. In serving his customers, he found that after a certain volume, it becomes impossible to manage an eCommerce business without an integrated ERP system – the very niche that SBOeConnect sought to fill. Leading industry competitors, such as eBridge Connections, zedSuite, and Orbis Software, lack back office ERP capabilities and none present a strong eCommerce solution; InSync provides the best of both worlds.

Available as a free trial, SBOeConnect is inexpensive in comparison to a typical integrative project approach. Implementation is $7,400 plus an annual maintenance fee of $900, all subject to variation based upon bundled services.

Initially, the finances for Atul's venture came from family funds – InSync now operates on organic cash flow. And with a potential total addressable market of $95 million and a target of established and emerging eCommerce merchants, InSync is already profitable in the realm of $500,000.

The InSync team is nearly complete, with the possibility for expansion in the Technical realm and the need for increased strength within the Marketing Team. Fund raising may be on the cards in 2013.

As for future offerings, Atul hopes to add additional products to InSync's existing repertoire, as well as adding products for the same market segment. With an average of one to two leads generated per day, and sales stemming equally from partner channels and direct leads, Atul and his team have no plans for exit any time soon.

InSync is set to touch the elusive $1M mark in 2013.

Improvement Photo via Shutterstock

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Lawton Ursrey of SageOne: Connecting the Ends to Improve Small Business Efficiency

Posted: 11 Jan 2013 08:00 AM PST

Streamlining processes is important for business efficiency. However, many times people find that their attempts to do so still require a little bit of this here and a little bit of that there and so on. Wouldn’t if be nice to have workflow efficiency instead of work segment time suck? That’s what Lawton Ursrey – Product Marketing Manager of SageOne and Founder of Indie Peace feels. Tune in as he discusses this concept and his solution with Brent Leary.

* * * * *

workflow efficiency Small Business Trends: Can you tell listeners exactly what SageOne is?

Lawton Ursrey: SageOne is a SaaS application. The gist of it is you have a lot of small businesses that need time tracking. They need project management, task tracking and they need to manage expenses – pretty much the usual suspects.

They are using a widget here and a desk top application there. They are using an online application and it is just a mix of things. So we went out into the field and the problem that we found instantly was a lot of the business owners are considering what they have set up to be workflow.

But it ends up to be work segments. Their segments are breaking down in the process between the applications, because many of the applications are not communicating and are not sharing things that happen to be related.

We really believe that your projects are connected to your tasks. Your team has the assigned task, they are able to track their time, that should flow straight into an invoice, and we believe you should minimize the amount of time and the clicks that it takes for you to land the job and get paid for the job.

That's pretty much the gist of what SageOne does.

Small Business Trends: You’re a serial entrepreneur yourself. Can you tell us a bit about the other role you have as the CEO and Founder of Indie Peace?

Lawton Ursrey: There are a lot of similarities in working with Sage, on SageOne.com. It really helped me analyze my processes internally. I have the same problem, but the issue for a lot of business owners is that there isn’t a real solution that is truly connecting all of these pieces together.

For instance, our invoicing process within Indie is terrible.

Small Business Trends: Can you tell the folks what Indie Peace does?

Lawton Ursrey: Indie Peace is an organic clothing line. We are exclusively picked in the U.S. and made in the US. Right know, we sell all online at IndiePeace.com. It’s all water based prints, low impact dye, and organic cotton.

Small Business Trends: How many people are employed by Indie Peace?

Lawton Ursrey: Lawton Ursrey.

Small Business Trends: And you have had this business for a while?

Lawton Ursrey: Yes, we are approaching our fourth year now.

We shipped to Nordstrom the first year out of the basement. Now I have rented out an extra room at my home. It's challenging, but I wouldn't trade any of it. It’s fun being an entrepreneur.

Small Business Trends: How has your entrepreneurial life impacted the way you go about getting SageOne running for small businesses?

Lawton Ursrey: Immensely. It definitely fixes the focus when there is any doubt. It helps to mitigate the risk. Because you have been on that same path and you have scars from it. You know where the real work is and what the reality is for the majority of entrepreneurs. It’s not necessarily what you have read in books.

Small Business Trends: How has your experience working on SageOne impacted your entrepreneurial endeavors?

Lawton Ursrey: It keeps me focused on the biggest issue that we found- work segments, not workflow. Making sure that related things flow into the next process.

Small Business Trends: Work segments and workflows?

Lawton Ursrey: Work segment being, you've got a project management application online. You set that up and then you're managing personal tasks for yourself, business tasks, and then you are working with another group on a task management application. Let's say there is some collaboration to it. Then you have two apps at that point.

The accounting has to be done typically, it is a desktop application. We are going from project task to accounting. Most of the time they are not talking. The majority of the time, with all of the businesses we have met with, it was the same issue.

Then you move onward. You have the task taken care of. But you need to track your time. This will eventually flow into an invoice so the business owner and their collaborators are tracking their time. A lot of times, it does not flow into the invoicing aspect of that. There is a lot of redundancy. When you add collaborators, there is a lot of time wasted.

The quickest way we had seen, with business owners right now, is they are creating the invoice. They are numbering the sequence, attaching it to an email, and a lot of times they just track it in their calendar. Then if they haven't been paid they just resend it. But when they resend it, they are opening it back up. They are finding their invoice folder, which a particular person is associated with.

That is not a crazy primitive process. It's about as fast as you can do it right now. But the way that we did it within SageOne is, if you're not paid, it basically pops up as an unpaid. You click it and you hit resend.

What's the real issue? A lot of times it's the ends of work segments not being connected. The business owner really needs awareness to resend it, and they don't need to continuously monitor these things. This ultimately drills down to one thing – the entrepreneur is spending more time on administrative stuff. It's getting worse and worse.

What happens when you connect these essential functions together? That is what SageOne is really about.

The answer is not in another SaaS application that can perform one or two functions. It is really the SaaS application that needs to move in two areas. Multiple SaaS applications need to communicate better. Then you will see the rise of your all-in-one application. Where it keeps the business owner and their collaborators in one place.

Small Business Trends: Where can folks learn more about SageOne?

Lawton Ursrey: SageOne.com.

This interview is part of our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This interview has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click the right arrow on the gray player below. You can also see more interviews in our interview series.

The post Lawton Ursrey of SageOne: Connecting the Ends to Improve Small Business Efficiency appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Expand Your Piece of the Pie

Posted: 11 Jan 2013 05:00 AM PST

business meeting cartoon

You never know what you’re going to have to research when you’re a cartoonist. One day you’re looking to see what “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots” look like, the next it’s some sort of chemical formula.

For this cartoon, I had to look up pictures of pastries and spent a long, long time drooling over all manner of beautifully flaky confection before I got down to drawing them.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that later whhile grocery shopping, I picked up a loaf of french bread, some bagels, donuts, a few rolls, and a croissant. For research. Just for research.

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Study Says Youngest Companies Are Top Job Creators

Posted: 11 Jan 2013 02:30 AM PST

Small business advocates and government leaders have long argued that small businesses are key to economic recovery. It’s a dramatic change in lip service, if not necessarily in actual policy, from past emphasis on larger businesses and the “too big to fail” rhetoric used to justify bailouts following the economic downturn in 2008. But it turns out a more specific kind of business tends to be most important for job creation. In this roundup we look at the kinds of businesses that really make a difference and how your company can be numbered among them.

The Best Kind of Business

Room for growth. Both leading economists and a recent study based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau suggest the most important businesses to the economy aren’t necessarily small, despite popular opinion. But before you take the headline in Adam Ozimek’s piece “There Is Nothing Magical About Small Businesses” the wrong way, read on. You may be surprised about the kind of company that fits the bill. Forbes

The young and the restless. Turns out it may not be the size of the business but its age and scalability that makes the most difference. Simply put, younger businesses create a disproportionate number of jobs in the economy. As the authors of a recent study explain “Firm startups account for only 3 percent of employment but almost 20 percent of gross job creation. The fastest growing continuing firms are young firms under the age of five.” The National Bureau of Economic Research

Words of wisdom. In a recent survey of leading economists, the majority strongly disagree that focusing on small businesses to the exclusion of everything else is most important for the economy. The question centers not so much on whether small businesses are important for the economy, but rather on if public policy should focus on small businesses specifically. Small business owners are used to doing it on their own, though. Chicago Booth

Time to Grow Up

Outside the comfort zone. If you want to grow your business and become one of those companies critical to the economy, you need to start by getting outside your comfort zone. Bernd Geropp gives us a pep talk about moving beyond the place where you feel comfortable in your business and trying instead to do things you are afraid of doing. These are the things that will make your business better, but you will only realize this by abandoning the illusion of security and striking out in a new direction. More Leadership, Less Management

Very influential. You’ve heard how Facebook can help you grow your business and your brand. Ultimately, this comes down to expanding your influence, says brand evangelist Cindy Ratzlaff. One great technique for doing this involves using Facebook interest lists to increase your page and social influence. Ratzlaff shows you how to build your influence strategically while getting the results you want. Brand New, Brand You

It’s all about you. When you build your personal brand, you build your business too. Holly Hanna lists eight things even the smallest business owner can do to grow a business. These are daily habits Hanna says will nurture your business on a regular basis. The tips are simple: things like connecting with one new person daily, embracing your weaknesses, reflecting upon your successes, and more. But Hanna insists they will bring big results for expanding your business. The Work at Home Woman

Better together. When resources are scarce, small businesses can continue to grow through strategic partnerships. There are at least three ways these partnerships can help, says Adam Gotlieb. They include reducing overhead costs, engaging in joint marketing efforts, and otherwise expanding your business. If you can think of any other ways partnering can help small businesses grow, please share them in the comment section below. The Frugal Entrepreneur

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