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MailChimp’s founders built the company slowly by anticipating customers’ needs

nytimes.com

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Re: MailChimp’s founders built the company slowly by anticipating customers’ needs

#61

Post by hehheh »

echelon wrote: post #37

The Atlanta tech scene is blossoming, just like our film industry. We have a couple of incubators, including a few that are funded/supported by Georgia Tech. The cost of living here is super cheap, and there are brilliant and talented people everywhere. We have satellite offices for tons of major tech companies, so there are traditional tech jobs too. Earning $200k here while the cost of living is so low is phenomina…

How's the political climate? It doesn't look so great from my initial Googling: Georgia is one of the states suing over the transgender bathroom issue. Per Wikipedia Georgia doesn't include sexual orientation in their laws against employer discrimination. Anything else folks from SF might be concerned about?

Re: MailChimp’s founders built the company slowly by anticipating customers’ needs

#62

Post by bendmorris »

echelon wrote: post #37

The Atlanta tech scene is blossoming, just like our film industry. We have a couple of incubators, including a few that are funded/supported by Georgia Tech. The cost of living here is super cheap, and there are brilliant and talented people everywhere. We have satellite offices for tons of major tech companies, so there are traditional tech jobs too. Earning $200k here while the cost of living is so low is phenomina…

Earning $200k most places is pretty nice, but most sources show that in Atlanta almost no one is making that much. The average is less than half that. For most of us, moving to Atlanta would probably coincide with a sharp pay cut. If that wasn't the case, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Re: MailChimp’s founders built the company slowly by anticipating customers’ needs

#63

Post by spyspy »

echelon wrote: post #37

The Atlanta tech scene is blossoming, just like our film industry. We have a couple of incubators, including a few that are funded/supported by Georgia Tech. The cost of living here is super cheap, and there are brilliant and talented people everywhere. We have satellite offices for tons of major tech companies, so there are traditional tech jobs too. Earning $200k here while the cost of living is so low is phenomina…

In truth, you could make much the same argument about most cities that aren't SF, NYC or Seattle. No one city is going to be the next SV. What we're seeing is a national transition away from the suburbs and back into large metro areas. The first cities had a leg up due to being the epicenters of various industries but everyone else is catching up.

Re: MailChimp’s founders built the company slowly by anticipating customers’ needs

#64

Post by samsolomon »

hehheh wrote: post #61
echelon wrote: post #37

The Atlanta tech scene is blossoming, just like our film industry. We have a couple of incubators, including a few that are funded/supported by Georgia Tech. The cost of living here is super cheap, and there are brilliant and talented people everywhere. We have satellite offices for tons of major tech companies, so there are traditional tech jobs too. Earning $200k here while the cost of living is so low is phenomina…

How's the political climate? It doesn't look so great from my initial Googling: Georgia is one of the states suing over the transgender bathroom issue. Per Wikipedia Georgia doesn't include sexual orientation in their laws against employer discrimination. Anything else folks from SF might be concerned about?

Atlanta is very different from the rest of the state. The city has people with pretty diverse views on things and is incredibly accepting when it comes to social issues.

Re: MailChimp’s founders built the company slowly by anticipating customers’ needs

#65

Post by metafunctor »

lgleason wrote: post #60
echelon wrote: post #37

The Atlanta tech scene is blossoming, just like our film industry. We have a couple of incubators, including a few that are funded/supported by Georgia Tech. The cost of living here is super cheap, and there are brilliant and talented people everywhere. We have satellite offices for tons of major tech companies, so there are traditional tech jobs too. Earning $200k here while the cost of living is so low is phenomina…

I'm in Atlanta. It's a great place to work for a non-tech corporation, but the startup scene is so so. Most of the "tech" startups fall in to one of two categories. First, ones that will not get traction and are doing something that someone else is already doing or two high tech boiler room operations where they hire a few tech people and an army of sales types to try to sell it. Sadly tech people in Atlanta are seco…

Doing something that someone else is already doing is not necessarily a bad thing.

Re: MailChimp’s founders built the company slowly by anticipating customers’ needs

#66

Post by wslh »

We really need this contrarian view of startup creation. In a way, having a few millions in profits can't be called a lifestyle business, your business can't scale more and you are happy with what you created and control. Also, only the process to get initially funded is very time consuming (e.g. look at the kickstarter videos).

Re: MailChimp’s founders built the company slowly by anticipating customers’ needs

#67

Post by verbify »

metafunctor wrote: post #65
lgleason wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Atlanta. It's a great place to work for a non-tech corporation, but the startup scene is so so. Most of the "tech" startups fall in to one of two categories. First, ones that will not get traction and are doing something that someone else is already doing or two high tech boiler room operations where they hire a few tech people and an army of sales types to try to sell it. Sadly tech people in Atlanta are seco…

Doing something that someone else is already doing is not necessarily a bad thing.

Yup, it amazes me that WhatsApp, an instant messaging app, was founded in 2010.

Re: MailChimp’s founders built the company slowly by anticipating customers’ needs

#68

Post by vram22 »

samsolomon wrote: post #20
gallerytungsten wrote: post #19

You know what word doesn't appear in that story? Spam. Mailchimp is a company that provides lots of unsolicited commercial emails. In other words, spam. You can dress it up and call it "marketing software for small businesses" but that doesn't change the essential fact: Mailchamp is a spammer. Is it any surprise that spamming is profitable? I've received hundreds of Mailchimp emails. Not once did I sign up for any of…

I've got to disagree with you. I'd say MailChimp has elevated the perception of email marketing. MailChimp has pretty strict standards when it comes to sending emails. If you send emails to a list that has a 20 percent or more bounce or unsubscribe rate, they'll freeze your account. Other providers let you upload a CSV with emails and blast out campaign after campaign to purchased lists without repercussions.

> If you send emails to a list that has a 20 percent or more bounce or unsubscribe rate, they'll freeze your account.

Without giving you a chance to do anything to correct that? What if it is a genuine case of non- spam? e.g. 100% signed up, soon after, 20% decide this list is not for them. Sometimes that might happen.

Re: MailChimp’s founders built the company slowly by anticipating customers’ needs

#69

Post by adekok »

ohnoesmyscv wrote: post #36

Depends on what you mean by 'making it' as a startup - is it the revenue growth? burn rate? profit growth? Number of users? Number of employees? A SF office? How well funded you are? It's hard to grow a business without going the conventional SV route and getting VC funding. Unless you have a revolutionary product, the bigger competition will likely stomp over you unless you have resources to grow your team and produ…

> Unless you have a revolutionary product, the bigger competition will likely stomp over you unless you have resources to grow your team and product and marketing. Or if you are comfortable with a small market share but a profitable one.

Case in point, me. I started FreeRADIUS in 1999. Started making money in 2007. Incorporated in 2008. I now have multiple offices, multiple employees, and good growth. No investment. No debt.

The "bigger competition" in my case are AMdocs (previously Bridgewater), Cisco, Juniper, Alcatel. I compete by offering a technically superior product, at a lower price point.

I do zero marketing. Zero sales people. Pretty much zero RFPs. My customers call me, and ask to buy my product.

I have a small market share by revenue, but a huge market share by installations. My guess is that the total number of FreeRADIUS installs is 10x that of all corporate installs combined.

> More often than not when startups receive funding they move away from satisfying the customers to making investors happy.

Exactly. My pitch is simple: We make you happy. You need customization? We do customization. You need to integrate with a 10 year-old system? No problem, we do that. We're about expertise, and keeping the money in our pockets, instead of doing gimmicky "enterprise" stuff.

A counterpoint is one of our competitors. Their product relies on an "enterprise grade" DB. Which means that for every dollar they make on a sale, the DB company makes ten.

Uh... if that money is available, why leave it on the table? Drop an open source database in (yes, it would have worked. They need the marketing label, not the technical capabilities). Give the customer a 50% discount. Your cut goes from $1 to $6, and the customers price goes from $11 to $6. Everyone is happy.

Nope. They couldn't make it big, so they got bought. And the new owner flogs the crap out of the product, "end of life" the product every 2 years, and forcing expensive upgrades. Which means that their customers call me.

It's all good.

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