I Fell in Love With Marketing After It Helped My Startup Get $800,000 in New Revenue

I Fell in Love With Marketing After It Helped My Startup Get $800,000 in New Revenue

At the time, the business was a bootstrapped software company earning less than $1 million in revenues per year. Lo and behold, a few weeks later a big article about us ran on the B2 page of the Journal -- primo real estate and a great story. With the bump in revenue and the legitimacy that the Journal article gave us, we secured a small venture capital round, and sold the company just one year later for $10.5 million. A pre-existing relationship: A founder who loves sales will focus on building his direct sales force, often at the expense of marketing. Pull together a small budget and decide when you are going to start up your marketing engine. I also recommend starting with one simple, low-risk marketing experiment. Take the last big sale that came in and ask the customer this question: "We are so happy to have you as a customer. Marketing probably isn't your strong suit, so before you start running with your new marketing idea, allocate 10 hours to talk to experts about your plans. Businesses that don't compete with you might offer free advice about what has worked for them. An ongoing cycle of small marketing tests will likely result in something that works, something that makes you fall in love with marketing.

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I Fell in Love With Marketing After It Helped My Startup Get $800,000 in New Revenue

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

I believe in marketing because $800,000 in revenue suddenly fell into the lap of one of my startups on a Wednesday afternoon several years ago.

At the time, the business was a bootstrapped software company earning less than $1 million in revenues per year. With a fair amount of trepidation, we had made the decision to invest in a booth at the Consumer Electronics Show and showcase our 3D visualization software.

At the show, I happened to bump into a reporter from The Wall Street Journal in the exhibition hallway and went into pitch mode. Lo and behold, a few weeks later a big article about us ran on the B2 page of the Journal — primo real estate and a great story.

The article ran on a Wednesday morning. The phones started ringing off the hook, and by the end of the day we had letters of intent for two original equipment manufacturer (OEM) licensing deals totaling $800,000 in new business. With the bump in revenue and the legitimacy that the Journal article gave us, we secured a small venture capital round, and sold the company just one year later for $10.5 million.

If you’re in bootstrap mode, you know the deal. Either good things happen and you figure out how to survive, or good things don’t happen and you go under — and going under is a blow to everything from your personal finances to your relationships with loved ones to the reputation you so desperately want to establish.

For me, I was ecstatic to avoid failure. But, it was clear that my venture’s happy ending was directly attributable to our decision to invest in the trade show and the fortuitous PR result.

It was then that I fell head over heels in love with marketing. With a background in computer science and finance, I decided to master marketing, a profession I previously hadn’t thought much of.

Why many of us don’t have enough love for marketing

My decision to learn everything I could about marketing has paid off in spades. But, having spoken with hundreds of founders, I find that many still shy away from marketing for several reasons.

  • A pre-existing relationship: A founder who loves sales will focus on building his direct sales force, often at the expense of marketing.
  • A previous bad relationship: Some business owners tell…

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