Gabriel Cian is a serial entrepreneur and B2B expert. He founded 3 bootstrapped and profitable marketplaces. He is a graduate from the Ecole Polytechnique and Telecom Paristech which is among the best institute in France. He envisions for a bigger picture to provide quality products in B2B market with the new age technologies. Presently, He is a co-founder of GetEmail.io an AI and big data based email search platform. It made it to 500k+ customers worldwide. Some of the smartest companies in the world use GetEmail.io
Please tell us a little bit about your company – what is GetEmail.io all about?
GetEmail.io is a tool to find professional Email Addresses. We use AI, Big data, and machine learning to do that. We have 500k+ users spreading around 150 countries. Some of the smartest companies use our platform. We are a bootstrapped start-up breaking all boundaries of success.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
We started this company with a very firm goal in mind. We wanted to introduce AI, Big data, and machine learning into marketing and sales. We knew that marketing and sales are about to adopt optimization and automation. Basically, there are a lot of bricks that form optimized sales and marketing stack i.e. Market monitoring software, CRM, Email routing, call services, etc. But all of them start with the basic process of finding the right prospects. That’s where we step in!
What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
Resilience: Entrepreneurship is a race where you face daily obstacles. You may fail many times, even fall on your knees or get a door bang. But you must have the stamina to get up again with more energy.
Think Big: Entrepreneurship is about looking at a larger picture. It is about going where nobody went before. This implies to think out of the box.
Be realistic and pay attention to execution: Thinking big is not enough. Your feet should touch the ground. After all, you need to turn your ideas into a tangible reality. “The devil is in the details” as they say.
What are your plans for the future, how do you plan to grow this company?
We already have an efficient “bottom-up” sales & marketing strategy. Users sign up to our platform, use it for free for some trial period, and buy the paid program when they feel ready. This is a largely automated approach that works well.
Our challenge is right now is to add up a new “top-down” on the top of “bottom-up strategy” we presently have. We reach out to big corporations and sell enterprise contracts.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
Our tool is not the most user-friendly (Even if we had a good effort in it). It does not have all the features that others have. We are not even the cheapest in the market. But, we stand for the best quality. We have the best algorithm in the market specially designed with state of art AI and big data algorithms.
What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them?
Chasing too many rabbits at the same time: Putting all one’s eggs in 1 basket is a good strategy when you start a company with limited resources and time. Arnold Schwartzenegger, in a well-known speech, names it as “no plan B” strategy.
Being too stubborn: I was too obsessed with making things as I imagined. It made me lose much time and energy. There is a subtle balance to be found between persistence and flexibility. Being too persistent in one direction in one direction makes you blind to see other opportunities and ways to reach your goal. The opposite is also true, being too flexible makes you give up too fast without getting enough opportunities to improve and work. I think the best way to find the right balance between flexibility and persistence is to stay humble and get coached by people with more experience, and are able to put your business and activity in perspective. You’re in the arena, you get pressure and stress, other people may see things you don’t because of your position, don’t forget it!
Losing the real goal and getting obsessed with details: It happened in my relationship with my business partner. We fought for details and egotistic shallow reasons. We should have focused on our goal, which was to grow the company and keep our small conflicts under control. It did not kill the company, but definitely oriented a lot of our limited energy into useless directions.
How do you go about marketing your business, and what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
The technical term is “B2B freemium SaaS”. Let’s get them one by one to build a successful strategy.
B2B: In B2B (Business to Business) odds to succeeding and at least generating some revenue is very high. Statistically speaking, B2C (Business to customer) is like a lottery where you register your role. But if you have B2B which is well executed with your patience then you can definitely generate revenue.
Freemium: This strategy is to offer your customers free basic access to your platform so that they get hooked up with it. From the experience, they will buy it. But it is essential that your product must be up to the mark. If your product delivers high quality and people want the service then they will definitely go for it. You even don’t need other marketing and sales strategy. I believe word of mouth is the best strategy.
SaaS: It refers to Software as a service. It means that instead of paying a big amount of money in the first place and owning software forever, you’ll pay a small monthly subscription, most frequently a couple of dozen of dollars/month, which is much more comfortable and easy to invest for potential buyers.
The combination of these 3 characteristics makes a magical recipe that leapfrogs everything that has been invented before, at least in our field of activity.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
My biggest challenge has been to manage growth and revenue but at the same time spend as little as possible. We’re fully bootstrapped, and going from 0 to $1 million has been really difficult. For our revenue to increase we need to build a strong product, but in order to build a strong product, we need to have the necessary revenue to invest in R&D. So getting out from this vicious circle has been a real challenge for us. But, one egg at a time approach induced a focused process of work in my company and gradually we made it.
What is the one thing you wish you knew before starting your business?
There is more than one thing I wished I knew, but please feel free to edit my answer and keep only one, if absolutely necessary
Raising the appropriate amount of money is necessary for the company’s bank account is necessary to allow keeping track with your mid-term project goals. Otherwise, you will need to run for smaller contracts to manage the fund for your operations. This will take your focus from the longer picture you are designing. Projects need time to adjust.
Surrounding yourself with successful people is paramount to be successful yourself. It’s more than a practical advice or networking (Both are important). The state of mind of successful people helps you to make decisions.
This is a bit subtle. But knowing how Business and entrepreneurial things work is important before starting up. I was focused on the product but was not charging the appropriate amount. Then I started charging a proper amount but lost focus on quality and long term aspects. Then I started focusing on small customers but missed the right time to switch to the bigger ones. This whole trial and error roller coaster was tricky. Learning how things work before starting could be more useful for me.
What are the top 3 online tools and resources you’re currently using to grow your company?
First of all, of course, GetEmail.io! Thanks to our magic tool, I can contact anyone on Earth. Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Michael Dell, even the POTUS himself. Thinking big and executing your big plans requires at some point, to get in touch with highly successful people. GetEmail.io helps me to just do that! Not all of them reply, but you’d be surprised to see some high profile answers in your inbox if you write enticing email messages to those people!
- LinkedIn: I guess it is the strongest networking tool for professionals.
- Google suite: Of course it is the most useable tool for us in office applications.
Random Interview: Interview with Josh Simons – CEO and Co-Founder of Vampr
