Breaking the Norm: Maxine Manafy, CEO of Bunndle (Part 4)

Sramana: What was the beginning of Bunndle? What made you start the company?

Maxine Manafy: It was the idea that we would help developers acquire new users. I saw a need to help developers get into an area that was dominated by big brands and big money. I raised some seed funding from a few angels in the area for a combined $1.5 million. It was very difficult because I did not have a co-founder at the time. Although I had a technical background I was not a coder. I had my MBA and had worked in business development so nobody wanted to talk to me. Nobody wanted to talk to an MBA.

Sramana: Did you have anyone else on the team when you raised the $1.5 million from angels?

Maxine Manafy: I did not have anybody on the team when I got my first $500,000 from the investors. I did not have an engineer in-house for a year.

Sramana: This is rare because it was concept financing. What year was it?

Maxine Manafy: This was in 2010.

Sramana: That is extremely rare these days. What did you do with those funds?

Maxine Manafy: I spent the first year trying to recruit. I decided I was not going to wait to bring on someone else to start development so I started working with contractors. I built the product specifications myself and I focused on continuing to move the business forward. If there is anything I have learned it is that you have to keep moving the business forward. You cannot stop. I had customers before I had a business. I had customers before I had a website.

Sramana: Did you have customers before you had the financing?

Maxine Manafy: They were in the process of signing. That is part of the reason that my investors were interested in the business. If a customer signed an agreement with me then I had something that proved I had a business. I had some type of traction.

Sramana: Before you talked to the investors and you were approaching potential customers, what did you tell them?

Maxine Manafy: I described the idea and the business. I asked them if they were interested in it. I asked them if they would sign up if I had a solution to offer them that day. I asked them if they would sign a contract and they said yes, so we wrote a contract and I had them sign it. I developed a method to do this manually until I had the solution in place. Once I had clients signing contracts, I was able to go to the investors and show them that I had proof. My investors actually talked to my customers before they gave me money. Once they saw that they realized that I had something that companies were willing to pay for.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Breaking the Norm: Maxine Manafy, CEO of Bunndle
1 2 3 4 5 6 7