Woman Entrepreneur Building a Successful, VC Funded Business: Olivia Skuza, CEO of NuORDER (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How much of this thesis did you get validated before you went to raise money? What was in the business by the time you went to raise money?

Olivia Skuza: We had a prototype that worked. In August of 2011, we used a trade show environment as the first way to validate that product. People do most of their buying and selling at trade shows. They are able to use our product in that environment. At that time, it was only a web application that was used on laptops. We have a mobile app today.

At that time, you’ll be using our product to process orders, show them your product catalog online, and essentially do a presentation with a retailer. Before we decided to go out and raise money, we probably had tens of customers who were active.

Sramana Mitra: The retailers and the wholesalers were transacting and ordering through your platform before you went to raise money?

Olivia Skuza: Correct.

Sramana Mitra: How long from founding to this point where you went out to raise money?

Olivia Skuza: We raised a few times. We did our first seed round in 2012. I told you earlier on that in our previous business experience we found that money aren’t created equal. It was incredibly important for us that we found business partners that believed in what we were presenting and were aligned in terms of where we wanted to take the company in the future. We raised it from one of the best VCs in Los Angeles. Upfront led the round. We decided to go with them. They were most aligned with us and felt like partners going into the business.

Sramana Mitra: How much was that round?

Olivia Skuza: $3.6 million.

Sramana Mitra: What was your revenue level at 2012?

Olivia Skuza: That’s something that we don’t talk about.

Sramana Mitra: Tell me about your business model.

Olivia Skuza: We charge the brand. It’s a annual license fee. It’s on a per seat basis. The brand will pay us a subscription based on the number of users they need. For some small brands, you may only have four or five sales rep. For large brands, we have the likes of Levis that have hundreds and hundreds of reps. That’s a different scale. For retailers, it’s free. Right now, they don’t have to pay. They get invited by the brand to use the platform.

Sramana Mitra: Give me a sense of how long it took you to hit the million dollar ARR mark.

Olivia Skuza: It would have been several years. What we were focused on the first few years was proving product market fit and focusing a lot on modifications of the product. We needed to bring the best brands into the product.

Sramana Mitra: In many SaaS businesses today, these revenue run rate numbers have become very critical. Today, you wouldn’t even be able to raise a Series A without a million dollar run rate. That’s where we are in the industry. You’re a little bit before all this settled into this mode. You probably got away with less specific metrics. Today, this situation is completely different.

Olivia Skuza: I agree. The environment has changed a lot in the past few years.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Woman Entrepreneur Building a Successful, VC Funded Business: Olivia Skuza, CEO of NuORDER
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