Bootstrapping with Services to $20M: Visiquate CEO Brian Robertson (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What revenue level are you operating at now?

Brian Robertson: Our revenue is over $20 million and growing at a range of 25% to 40% with our current platform. We are at the point of raising now and growing equity. I wanted to skip the traditional VC phase. I never saw a term sheet that I liked. I always told the VCs that it wasn’t about us. Our clients want us to be in control, so we are going to bootstrap the company and hang on to it for as long as we can. We’re very attractive to growth and private equity right now. 

Sramana Mitra: In terms of customer acquisition, has it all been direct sales? In the previous company, you had a partnership with the Advisory Board that was crucial. Is there anything else here that you should discuss in the storytelling?

Brian Robertson: This one has mostly been organic. We’ve chosen to grow organically up to this stage. We have a few network colleague referrals here and there, but it’s been largely our relationships.

We were a founder-selling model until a year ago. We now have an AVP of growth and three full-time salespeople. Now, we are getting into predictable growth patterns. 

Sramana Mitra: That’s the beauty of large enterprise deals. You don’t need that many customer relationships to get to a sizable revenue number. You just need to manage a few relationships, and you could get to a solid revenue number. 

Brian Robertson: I would say to other entrepreneurs that even in your best relationships, the ones where you are on their Christmas card list, never take anything for granted. We work for our clients on day 1,000 as hard as we work for them on day 1.

We are sometimes more passionate about the return on analytics than they are. They’re like, “Calm down.” And we’ll say, “No, we have to pay for ourselves ten times over.” That’s where the power of data comes in. 

Sramana Mitra: I love the story and your philosophy of business building. It’s very much in line with what we have championed here – capital efficient entrepreneurship, lots of bootstrapping, and bootstrapping with service.

One reason why I founded One Million by One Million is that my observation was that there was too much emphasis on venture capital and everybody is mindlessly chasing more and more financing. I just saw that as a wrong strategy for building a business.

Brian Robertson: I couldn’t agree more. I love what you are doing. I think that the good old fashioned way of proving value one-by-one is how you give the most value to your client because you have to stay true to them. You either create value or you don’t. 

Sramana Mitra: That’s a good way to put it. There would be no reason to exist if you have no value to give. You should close up shop instead of chasing after this venture welfare where you are pretending that you have value. You are surviving only because you have financing and then when the financing runs out, you are done. It just prolongs your irrational existence. 

Brian Robertson: Absolutely. I read some of your other things and I did my own research. I have one sentiment of yours that I agree with. Most success comes from pure unadulterated hard work. When you are an entrepreneur, you are like a physician – always on call. That is a big part of what it takes. Usually, hard work pays off. 

Sramana Mitra: Sometimes hard work pays off, but if you have a shitty idea, it’s not going to work. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Bootstrapping with Services to $20M: Visiquate CEO Brian Robertson
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