Andrew Butt: Bootstrapping from profits is too slow to build globally
Andrew Butt · He raised $275M in the last 3 years. His 'boring' B2B startup is now a $1B unicorn. | Andrew Butt... · PMF Show · Apr 1, 2024 · at 11:57
Enable co-founder and CEO Andrew Butt compares the traditional UK approach of funding growth out of operational profits to the Silicon Valley venture funding model.
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“I think in the UK the approach was you've got to grow out of profits, which always means growth is very slow, because if you make 10 dollars, you can spend nine dollars on the products, and then eventually you might make 20 dollars, and then you can spend, you know, 15, but it'll take a hundred years to actually build a global company like that, whereas the Valley, once there's real belief and conviction and proof points that this has got the potential to be massive, then there's a huge appetite to invest.”
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More from Andrew Butt
Supply chain companies managed their entire profit margins in spreadsheets
“There was no software that could do that.
And all these companies were using spreadsheets to manage what was becoming all of their profit.”
Andrew Butt: 80% of global trade flows through supply chain intermediaries
“80% of global trade goes from a manufacturer through middle parties like distributors, buying groups, retailers.
Contractors, and then eventually to the end customer.
That's 80% of trade.
There's very, very little that goes direct from a manufacturer to an end…”
Enable reached $2.5M ARR with just 20 customers by late 2019
“We got to 20 something customers and 2.5 million of ARR or something on the product. So that took us probably three or four years to do that. So by say the end of [2019] that's where we'd got to.”
Enable routinely identifies millions in missing rebates for single enterprise customers
“Some of our early customers and ongoing as well. We certainly have found multi-millions in a single customer and it's not always that much. It might be a few 100,000, but it does run into the millions as well.”
Andrew Butt sent staff to collect physical checks to make payroll
“I remember I sent someone in the office to go and pick up a check from a customer because I literally couldn't make the payroll, you know, without that, that cash in the bank.”
Enable's Series B, Series C, and Series D were all preempted
“The Series A was the most difficult of all of the rounds, so we were very fortunate that the B, C, and D were kind of all preempted, so really investors came to us, and it was, whereas the Series A was really me, a couple of my team knocking on doors”