7/22/2023 0 Comments Senraj soundar"There has been a lot of focus on automated inbound marketing software, but the fastest way to qualify a prospect has been largely ignored - until now," said Senraj Soundar, Founder and CEO, ConnectLeader. We saw a lot of good market adoption around that product.SALEM, NH-(Marketwired - Feb 29, 2016) - ConnectLeader, a leading innovator in telephony automation technologies used by B2B sales reps to accelerate the sales process, announced today its ConnectLeader for Salesforce has been recognized as a Finalist in the 2016 STEVIE® AWARDS. We began designing our first product in 2008. Still, they end up talking to three people. If you look at the sales desk, a sales representative needs to talk to their customers. We were looking at several ways to improve the sales productivity. Instead of waiting for a year, can we accelerate or compress the timeline to three to six months. You had to make changes at a later point in time. It’s not good for the employee, nor is it good for the employer. Often, you find the job is not the right job for that individual. ![]() We had to wait for 9 to 12 months to see whether they are going to be productive. I noticed that it was always challenging to hire a sales rep. Also, we were observing our own sales team of 8 to 10 people. ![]() We wanted to look up sales productivity in general. Beyond that, it doesn’t do much work for the sales rep. We realized that CRM is a good database of customer records and transaction history. We turned to whatever problems we can solve around CRM. We wanted to build something that can complement CRM. We took the product to the drawing board. It was not a good idea for us to continue. But I made the decision of shutting down the product because I realized that the market was getting crowded. We signed up with a distribution channel and even acquired 25 customers. We wanted to build a CRM company.Ībout four or five years later, we had a very nice product and were about to ship the product. I branched out to build our own software business. We were an outsourcing product development firm. While I was still operating that business, I began branching out to write our own product. Sramana Mitra: What time frame was all this happening? Then the company was operating for multiple years. One arm of the company was built in India. That business, after a couple of years, expanded into an offshore product development company. We were primarily hired to manage other companies’ software systems as well as write software products for them. Senraj Soundar: I hired, trained, and managed a team of engineers in software development. What kind of work did you do in that business? Sramana Mitra: Let’s start there a bit since that’s the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey. ![]() I grew the business to a $3 million run rate within the first three years. At the age of 27, I founded my first IT consulting company. Then I began working in the Boston area for a few years. I graduated from there within 10 months to take my Master’s degree. The following year, I came to the US and went to UMass to get my Computer Science degree. I won that award in 1991, and it was given in 1992. It was called the National Technology Award. Around that time when I graduated, I received an award from the President of India for the best invention in the country. I got my Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering in Chennai. Senraj Soundar: I was born and brought up in India, particularly in Southern India. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. We love stories like this that reinforce our philosophy: “Do not go to VCs as beggars, go as kings!” He will, most likely, have numerous offers from investors. Senraj has bootstrapped his company to over $10M in revenue and is contemplating raising some growth capital now. If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
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