Bootstrapping with a Paycheck: DudaMobile CEO Itai Sadan (Part 7)

Sramana: What does the competitive landscape look like in your market?

Itai Sadan: We have always been considered the de facto leader in our space. Most companies copy what we do and try to close the game with DudaMobile. They look at our features and will copy them in their releases. As we grow and move into new spaces, we are now starting to enter into spaces that already have established competitors. In those new spaces we are not the de facto leaders, and in fact we are looking at the leaders in those markets much like our competition looked to us in our core market.

Sramana: What are the new spaces you are entering?

Itai Sadan: Early on we identified that small businesses would find it challenging to go into mobile. What changes today is that the diversification of screens tends to be an even bigger problem. The devices around us are very diverse, ranging from phones and tablets to 70” Internet-connected TVs. Our vehicle GPS systems are connecting to the Internet, and we have smart watches coming out.

Websites look different on all of those screens, and that is a very big problem for small businesses. Small businesses should expect vendors to solve those problems for them. That is where we are looking to move and evolve. We expect to solve that problem for small businesses.

Sramana: Do you have offerings for tablets today?

Itai Sadan: We are in the process of releasing a product that caters to different screens. This new product caters to tablets, desktops, and mobile devices. We will release that product very soon.

Sramana: You and Amir started the company while holding full-time jobs. What have you done with your team since then?

Itai Sadan: Amir moved back to Israel very early on. Since he is the CTO, we decided to base the R&D of DudaMobile in Israel. That turned out to be an amazing decision. We hired a terrific group of engineers in Israel, which we would have had a hard time doing here in the Valley. Our initial team expansion was focused entirely on our R&D team, and I was alone in the U.S. for a while.

Eventually I grew the team in the U.S. as well. Today we have 75 people inside of DudaMobile, with about 30 located in Tel Aviv. In Palo Alto we have sales, marketing, support, business development and G&A. Our headquarters are in Palo Alto as well. We have an eight-person sales team in Atlanta and a three-person team in Tokyo.

Sramana: What kind of sales are being done in Atlanta?

Itai Sadan: There is a higher end service that we are selling to select customers. Some of our customers want more traffic driven to their sites. That team sells lead generation and traffic to our own customer base. We are operating today in that sense. We are like an agency in that sense. We purchase traffic for those customers and send it to their mobile sites.

Sramana: Thank you for taking the time to share your story. You have used some interesting strategies, and I wish you the best of luck as you move forward.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Bootstrapping with a Paycheck: DudaMobile CEO Itai Sadan
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