Bootstrapping a Credit Card Processing Business: Payscape CEO Adam Bloomston (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How long did it take you to get zero to one million in revenue and how many people were involved in the company at that point?

Adam Bloomston: It took us about two to three years. Maybe four.

Sramana Mitra: Three years? Just around the 2007-2008 timeframe, you hit that milestone?

Adam Bloomston: Probably right around there, yes.

Sramana Mitra: And how many people were you at that point?

Adam Bloomston: In three years, we were probably 20 people.

Sramana Mitra: What percentage of those were actually people doing door-to-door sales?

Adam Bloomston: 19

Sramana Mitra: So, 19 out of 20 were doing that. In 2008, when you had hit, let’s say, a million dollars in revenue, what were some of the strategy levers that you pushed to go to the next level?

Adam Bloomston: We started branches  in other cities and promoted people to open offices in other cities. We bought our first technology product around 2009-2010.

Sramana Mitra: What was the first technology that you bought?

Adam Bloomston: It’s a registration company that created an online database. It is an online platform where people can register and create whatever different sessions they had. It’s a card holder.

Sramana Mitra: What was the synergy with that company and why the camp registration market in particular?

Adam Bloomston: It’s kind of an untapped niche that really hasn’t been completely saturated with credit card processing. So we knew that we could integrate our credit card processing technology into that software and into that platform . So, we were looking for that web-based technology where we could integrate our credit card payment technology and make one service out of it.

Sramana Mitra: Until this point your product was basically credit card processing on a horizontal basis. With purchase of this camp, you verticalized portion of that offering, right?

Adam Bloomston: Yes

Sramana Mitra: And how did that business grow? What kind of round did you see from that camp business?

Adam Bloomston: Well it’s still growing today. It’s growing at an average pace of say 20% or 30% a year like a small startup company. Most importantly, now our sales representatives have products to sell that are integrated. It is a better value addition for the customer.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Bootstrapping a Credit Card Processing Business: Payscape CEO Adam Bloomston
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