Andrew Butt, founder and CEO of Enable, describes the state of rebate management before dedicated software solutions.
Insight
Andrew Butt: Bootstrapping from profits is too slow to build globally
“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…”
Assertion Contradicted
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…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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”