How one family built Qualtrics to an $8B exit • Hacker News Board

Re: How one family built Qualtrics to an $8B exit

#101

Post by godzillabrennus » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

bigbadgoose wrote: post #72

sjg007 wrote: post #57

Easy to setup programmable web forms and surveys for non-experts. Apparently it is big business. One thing I think is interesting is that I'd heard of SurveyMonkey before but never about qualtrics.. even here on hackernews. Maybe because qualtrics was outside of the valley? Yet clearly a unicorn and a very successful exit.

Lots of people think this way. These are not tech companies; they are enterprise sales organizations.

Sales cures all. No business has ever succeeded without sales. - Mark Cuban

Re: How one family built Qualtrics to an $8B exit

#102

Post by njarboe » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 5:59 PM UTC

derek_frome wrote: post #93

usaphp wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> each with 20+ branching questions I never understood , why would anyone waste their time answering 20+ questions for free?

You'd be amazed. I was an account manager at Medallia (Qualtrics competitor, also backed by Sequoia) and the response rates on 20-50 question surveys was typically in the double digits. When you have hundreds of thousands of customers in a month, you can generate super rich data through this process. However, the industry as a whole has been coping with something they call "survey fatigue" which is reflected in a lot…

The customer that fills out a survey must be a very select group of customer. If the response rate is in the single digits of percent, what about the rest of the people? Setting company policy on just this small fraction of customers could be the path to failure.

Re: How one family built Qualtrics to an $8B exit

#103

Post by umichguy » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 6:01 PM UTC

paraschopra wrote: post #18

alecco wrote: post #6

I like the story. But on the other hand it makes me feel like I'm looking at the equivalent of a popular Instagram model. It's hard to not compare myself and feel disappointed. HN doesn't inspire me to do something with my life like it did 10 years ago. Perhaps it's my fault.

If it helps with your inspiration, here's my story: I launched my company (Wingify) on HN when I was 22 and bootstrapped for last 8 years. Today we're not Qualtrics scale, but we're doing ~$20mn and have never made a loss in our history. My guess is that businesses like mine are more common than VC funded ones but we only get to see VC funded ones because that's what the news covers.

Awesome! Always good to hear stories like yours. Keep it going!

Re: How one family built Qualtrics to an $8B exit

#104

Post by bytematic » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #94

usaphp wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> each with 20+ branching questions I never understood , why would anyone waste their time answering 20+ questions for free?

Why do people tweet for free? One reason is, because people love sharing their opinions with other people. A survey is one way of sharing our opinions.

You should have asked: why do people post here?

Re: How one family built Qualtrics to an $8B exit

#105

Post by LrnByTeach » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 6:07 PM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #57

Easy to setup programmable web forms and surveys for non-experts. Apparently it is big business. One thing I think is interesting is that I'd heard of SurveyMonkey before but never about qualtrics.. even here on hackernews. Maybe because qualtrics was outside of the valley? Yet clearly a unicorn and a very successful exit.

I am very happy to see this kind of success stories for multiple reasons.

1. It gives a great morale boost so many other not so sexy US places outside of silicon valley. YES big success possible outside of Silicon Valley.

2. Now with this big SAP investment, UTAH will get considerable 'tech employment' boost longer term instead of same old crowded Silicon valley & New York (sky rocking housing prices)

3. The way the company grew organically for long time instead of hitting VC money from day one (another big company that did was Atlassian)

4. a very rare father-son founder company and a family company (brother and many of family members in big roles)

> both his parents held doctorates and his father lectured about market research at the University of Oregon. The Smiths moved to Utah around the time Ryan’s father opted to work at Brigham Young University, and in 2002, the pair started Qualtrics, originally targeting academics that needed to conduct field research.

Re: How one family built Qualtrics to an $8B exit

#106

Post by kkotak » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 6:32 PM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #56

artemonster wrote: post #7

Can someone please genuinely explain the need of such software products to me? I work in VLSI engineering and such things sound like a total superflous bullshit-bingo to me (stats, dashboards, metrics, "value proposition", "targeting", "customer segmentation") I suppose I think so because I am a total layman in these fields. I'd greatly appreciate if someone could explain - is this a thing that acutally helps with so…

Here's a real-world example from a client who uses Qualtrics heavily. At regular intervals following vehicle purchase, an automotive manufacturer sends surveys to vehicle owners asking about their perception of the quality of the vehicle, issues that may have come up, features that were not explained properly or don't work as expected, etc. We're talking hundreds of thousands of surveys a year, each with 20+ branchin…

To be sure though; It is still quite a superfluous software product that is a more complex version of Google forms. The key is to be able to sell to enterprises with a shiny veneer.

EDIT: And that SAP is not buying the software per se. They're buying the customers and credibility.

Re: How one family built Qualtrics to an $8B exit

#107

Post by thwy12321 » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 6:34 PM UTC

godzillabrennus wrote: post #101

bigbadgoose wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people think this way. These are not tech companies; they are enterprise sales organizations.

Sales cures all. No business has ever succeeded without sales. - Mark Cuban

That guy hit the lottery at the height of the tech boom and has done nothing since...

Re: How one family built Qualtrics to an $8B exit

#108

Post by garysahota93 » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 6:38 PM UTC

I remember using this tool when I was in grad school. They've come a long way and are definitely a unicorn in every sense of the word. The fact that the family owns >80% of the company just blows my mind.

Re: How one family built Qualtrics to an $8B exit

#109

Post by JPKab » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

LrnByTeach wrote: post #105

sjg007 wrote: post #57

Easy to setup programmable web forms and surveys for non-experts. Apparently it is big business. One thing I think is interesting is that I'd heard of SurveyMonkey before but never about qualtrics.. even here on hackernews. Maybe because qualtrics was outside of the valley? Yet clearly a unicorn and a very successful exit.

I am very happy to see this kind of success stories for multiple reasons. 1. It gives a great morale boost so many other not so sexy US places outside of silicon valley. YES big success possible outside of Silicon Valley. 2. Now with this big SAP investment, UTAH will get considerable 'tech employment' boost longer term instead of same old crowded Silicon valley & New York (sky rocking housing prices) 3. The way the…

Good for Utah.

I've heard some good things about the tech scene there, apart from Domo.

Re: How one family built Qualtrics to an $8B exit

#110

Post by readhn » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

"Not bad for a CEO who got paid $100,000 in salary last year."

humble CEOs build wholesome companies!!!

CEO in a company here is drawing total compensation $2.2mil ($400+K + stock awards) Company is loosing $15mil/year for 10+ years already. Pathetic and greedy IMO.