Bootstrapping to $35 Million: BannerBuzz CEO Nishant Shah (Part 3)

Nishant Shah: In 2017, we were very aggressive in acquiring new customers. That’s when our marketing strategy changed a lot. From just one channel, now we have multiple channels. We came in with affiliates, email marketing, and display marketing. We had a much larger budget allocated to marketing versus almost nothing. That helped a lot.

Sramana Mitra: In terms of team, how do you run this company now?

Nishant Shah: We have a hybrid model. Our corporate headquarters is in Georgia. We have offices in Phoenix, Arizona. We have a centralized production in India that works as a backbone to all these production houses. Our marketing and creative team is in Atlanta. We also have a couple of people in Australia and Canada who look after our front-end operations. 

Sramana Mitra: How big is your staff?

Nishant Shah: We are more than 700 people. One of the other advantages is that we do our own production. We manage the whole supply chain from marketing, website, and customer service to production. That’s why we have a larger staff. We know what customers are looking for and where they are challenged. We are able to fulfill that.

Sramana Mitra: What has been your financing strategy? Is it all organically built or have you raised money?

Nishant Shah: It’s all bootstrapped so far. Going forward, we are looking at faster growth. That might include inorganic growth and acquisitions. In the future, we might go for outside funding.

Sramana Mitra: How much are you doing right now? What was your 2019 revenue?

Nishant Shah: 2019 was a little over $35 million.

Sramana Mitra: It looks like you’re ready to do some sort of a private equity deal where you can probably get some liquidity as well as bring new money in for growth.

Nishant Shah: Right now, we are building our 3- and 5-year plans. To answer your question, we don’t know exactly how we plan to structure a deal. It’s very important for us to grow in the right manner. We have a really good customer service. We want to make sure that we sustain that growth but keep the quality and USP intact. If we go out, it will most likely be a private equity kind of a deal.

Sramana Mitra: Is there anything else that you want to add?

Nishant Shah: I think that’s pretty much it. 

Sramana Mitra: It’s a pleasure to hear your story. I’m very happy to hear that you’ve been very successful so far. Thanks for your time.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Bootstrapping to $35 Million: BannerBuzz CEO Nishant Shah
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