The BizSpark startup of the day is Artesian Solutions, based in the UK. You will find below an interview with Andrew Yates, CEO of Artesian Solutions. All the best to them and congrats for being the startup of the day!
Website: www.artesiansolutions.com.
CEO – articulating direction, executing sales and marketing strategy, influencing product direction, managing strategic relationships and making it happen!
As a CEO built another successful start-up which we sold to the market leader in an all cash deal – also senior management roles in Aprimo, Eyretel, Cognos and Misys where I learned the ropes in Enterprise sales.
Energized and thrilled – THANKS! – It’s a great accolade for our team and their vision and of course our visionary customers!
To make the web a great big sales opportunity for the B2B sales professional.
Artesian automates the search for sales intelligence from the web finding *highly relevant* insight about your prospects, customers, and competitors so you never miss a sales opportunity or threat.
We came from the BI space and had an idea that the web was a valuable and un-tapped source of business intelligence for the B2B sector. A customer helped us understand that our service was most valuable in the hands of sales-people.
Artesian is privately funded – we may consider a Series A round next year when the VC market recovers! Always interested to chat.
20+ with about half in R&D.
Currently hiring inside-sales people and always looking for talented developers especially with the UI / Silverlight .NET skills.
Microsoft .NET because this allows us to build and monetize our vision in the fastest and most cost effective way. Our Partnership with Microsoft and the BizsparkOne program is also paying huge dividends.
Search in the B2B sector is under-exploited as an accelerant to improving sales productivity as are social applications for the Enterprise – Artesian play in these two spaces.
It’s a great way to quickly build your start-up and not have to worry about upfront software costs for your development team. The network is also a great way to connect and learn from other peoples experience – we are like one great big family!
A great idea is only 20% of what it takes to succeed – to scale you need great sales and marketing process and people who understand how to deliver customer success. Collect your cash inside 30 days and try not to pay your bills inside 30 days. Rely on no help from the banks and try to remain independent as long as you can. Finally surround yourself with great people both in terms of your team and the advice you get from outside. Don’t be afraid to hire people who are better than you!
Dr. Steve Garnett currently with Salesforce.com – a great technologist, salesman, business professional and philanthropist. Nick Discombe ditto the same and Peter Beard – all fabulous communicators and REAL PEOPLE.
If you have a dream go for it – you won’t win the lottery unless you buy a ticket – better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all etc. That said 99% of start-ups fail due to lack of attention to their finances – revenue gives you the fuel to flex your creative wings so ask yourself ‘Who’s going to buy it? Why? What will they pay? (What alternative do they have?)’ – And if all of that checks out give me your number and I might invest!