Bootstrapping Using Services: eMazzanti CEO Carl Mazzanti (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: In terms of your current business, what percentage of that is selling your own product versus selling other people’s products?

Carl Mazzanti: 60% to 70% is our own.

Sramana Mitra: But Infrastructure-as-a-Service, right?

Carl Mazzanti: Let me answer your first question. Your first question is what percentage of it is selling your own service that’s unique to yourself. Somewhere between 60% and 70% is our own intellectual property. The remaining 40% is when someone comes up to us and says, “I don’t want your black box, but I know you’re the best. Can you do this for us?”

Sramana Mitra: What would be an example of that?

Carl Mazzanti: We’re WatchGuard’s number one worldwide partner of the year. Someone comes up to us and says, “I don’t want to use your service for your on-going monthly maintenance support. I just want to buy the appliance and have you install it.” We’ll do that. It could be someone who says, “I just want you to move us to Microsoft’s cloud. We’re going to pay Microsoft for the platform. We want you to be the one who takes our firm on the journey to get there.”

Sramana Mitra: When you’re asked for something like that, does that mean that you are competing against something that you have in your own portfolio?

Carl Mazzanti: I don’t think of it as competing. The sales team does what’s best for the customer.

Sramana Mitra: In terms of the product that you offer, are you selling products that are competitive with WatchGuard or is your product portfolio built such that you are orthogonal to WatchGuard?

Carl Mazzanti: Whether it’s WatchGuard, Microsoft, or various other partners that help us build what is our black box solution, we offer the customers a cafeteria plan. They can ask for what services they want from us and if they don’t want the services from us and they want just a point solution, we’ll deliver that to them. It’s the have-it-your-way methodology of sales. If you want this predictable defined results or solution for your organization, we’re happy to deliver that to you. If you want something customized for yourself, that’s what we’ll do.

Sramana Mitra: What has been the financing strategy behind building this company?

Carl Mazzanti: Zero debt.

Sramana Mitra: All your own? Self-financed?

Carl Mazzanti: Yes.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Bootstrapping Using Services: eMazzanti CEO Carl Mazzanti
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