The Exchanges

Q John, how are you? I want to understand your magic here. Why doesn't Google just say we're going to, you know, crush you like a cockroach and build this thing ourselves?

A Well, Google's focused on really two things right now. Number one is infrastructure. So that's Google Cloud Platform, right? They're going after the hundred billion dollar opportunity that AWS has, is leading today. That is where their primary focus is. The second focus is really on productivity, right? Building email, building docs, building slides, building sheets. And that is today where they exist, the application stack, and they've chosen to partner at the business application level. So whether that's Uh, with CRM, whether that's with your, with, um, uh, your accounting software, whether that's with your document signature area, they've chosen to partner with people like ProsperWorks. They've chosen ProsperWorks as sort of the most Google-y of the CRM solutions, which is why we're the recommended CRM by Google.

AI assessment note: “they've chosen to partner at the business application level”

Q Um, and how much have you raised today? By the way, last time you spoke, I think you were at ten million, but you raised more since then.

A We have raised a total of eighty seven million in venture financing. And I think that speaks to the fact that we've grown at a 26% compounded monthly growth rate. We've over 10,000 paying customers. We are the fastest growing CRM company in the world, uh, at this moment. And I think that when you take a look at the market, you ask the question, how do you differentiate? Well, it's really about product. Right? About automating, uh, automating data entry. It's about two, building it to work with the tools of the future, which is G Suite. And three, because we have the best data, because we're automatically capturing this, we're actually now able to use AI and machine learning to be able to recommend what the next step should be, where the risk is in your pipeline, and ultimately where you need to focus as an entrepreneur, uh, in order to best put yourself in a position to win every single deal. And so look, we're not the first person to do this, right? Like Microsoft is doing that with Dynamics. Salesforce is doing it with Quip. Um, but really we're the first to truly embrace this vision, uh, and to do it collectively with Google. And, you know, to the point of the Google relationship, we are the only CRM that's actually recommended by Google. There are five million paying customers.

AI assessment note: “We have raised a total of eighty seven million in venture financing.”

Q And how'd you make money? Was it just a percentage of ad spend or was it a SAS platform or what?

A Arbitrage. So we would buy on a cost per click and we'd sell on a cost per lead or a cost per action or a cost per sale. Um, and basically we would use our own proprietary technology to buy low and sell high. And we did it about 90 times a minute and had built a very programmatic approach to be able to do that. And so we started this company out of our apartment in Palo Alto. Um, there was a lot of halo, a lot of work, uh, pretty much worked around the clock and we built a, this is what, 20, 22,005, 2004. Yeah. It's around 2004 to 2006. And, uh, we built a forty seven million dollar business basically in two years. Uh, we didn't raise any venture financing, so it was all, uh, personally funded out of credit cards and loans and all that kind of good stuff.

AI assessment note: “Arbitrage. So we would buy on a cost per click and we'd sell”

Q Well, give me, give me the cohort analysis though on that. So someone that's been with you for a week, is it every, like how long does it take them to get to that kind of cycle?

A Um, it was pretty much immediate. So once they rolled it out, the system, and so for our larger customers, obviously it takes time for them to do the change management, to move people over to a new CRM system, or adopt a new CRM system. But once that's adopted, which is typically anywhere as short as, you know, one day from purchase all the way to two weeks to three weeks, if there's more complicated integrations involved. And that's the big difference with ProsperWorks, right? Unlike Salesforce, you're paying One to three times your license fee. You're spending anywhere from one to six months basically implementing Salesforce for your organization. ProsperWorks is built in a way such that you can basically get off on the ground running. You don't need a dedicated Salesforce administrator because it's so intuitive and so easy to set up.

AI assessment note: “Um, it was pretty much immediate. So once they rolled it out”

Q How do you break through the noise though, John? I mean, you know this better than I do. The CRM space is very fragmented, very tough space. You've got HubSpot undercutting a ton of people with their free tool. I mean, how do you make sure you stay above the fray?

A Well, it's really building that CRM for the relationship era, right? And the reality is that CRM has really let us down. It's just basically database records and fields. And it's an epic fail that in a forty-two billion dollar market, according to Forrester, 47% of CRMs fail. And the reason for that simply comes down to it's clunky, it's hard to use, and people don't get great data in the system. And because they don't do that, the promise of CRM falls apart, right? Organization, single source of truth, visibility, the ability to automate Uh, manual tasks, right? And ultimately have predictability and visibility into your pipeline. And so considering that 47% fail, it's actually a downlight travesty that CRM drives a trillion in sales or three percent of the GDP. And so really, we see our differentiation as unlocking those great relationships, right, with software. And that's software that's woven into the fabric of the tools you use.

AI assessment note: “we see our differentiation as unlocking those great relationships, right, with software.”

Q So what did, oh, I'm hoping that when you sold the thing, there was no If there wasn't Zynga's stock involved, cause that maybe wasn't so good for you guys, but how did that exit happen? Was it you guys looking to be sold or Zynga reached out or what?

A Yeah. I think, you know, the industry had sort of taken a little bit of headwind, um, right around the time that we sold, you know, Facebook had, you know, changed some of their, their policies and procedures, uh, as a related to games posting on the user speeds and so forth. So it made it actually a lot more difficult for our customers and ourselves as game developers to be able to advertise and grow profitably. And so I think, um, you know, we really evaluated the business and, and, Looked at whether or not we could build something that was, you know, long-term and sustainable, and then decided to, uh, partner with someone that was larger, that had an existing distribution base, that had an engaged player base that we could leverage. And so, uh, for the Zynga deal, um, we basically came in and, uh, we helped, um, you know, deploy the technology in the company, and then at Zynga, I ran a studio called Sheffville, so I was like the founding general manager, um, A very group, small group of very talented, very tireless people. And we built a game called chef bill. Um, that was the largest game in the world by daily active players in 2012 and was the most successful game launch for the company that year.

AI assessment note: “decided to, uh, partner with someone that was larger, that had an existing distribution”

Q Two 10. Okay. Now tell us about the company. Give me the updated, the updated pitch. What do you guys do and how you make money?

A Yeah. So ProsperWorks is the first CRM that works for you so that you and your teams can basically spend time on building relationships instead of entering data and managing data. And so what our vision is, is that there's this whole dynamic between buyer and seller that has basically changed. So with the proliferation of the web, buyers have almost near perfect information to, uh, make buying and selling decisions. But the reality is that 75% still desire that human connection, that human emotion, and that relationship. And whether that's with a brand or whether that's with a brand ambassador, um, that doesn't matter. So we live today in what we like to call the relationship era, where clearly companies have broken out, have disrupted their respective industries, are the ones that have developed lifelong relationships with their customers. So some examples of these include Amazon, You know, they've built a trusted relationship between the buyer by connecting them to a community of reviewers so you know what you want to buy and what you're getting at a great price. Google, they've built a trusted relationship with the advertiser to deliver high volumes of leads and also consumers to, uh, deliver highly relevant and personalized results, right? Zendesk is actually a really great example, right? It's a self-service model where you can try before you buy. It's easy to use. It's de…

AI assessment note: “ProsperWorks is the first CRM that works for you”