As a pensioner wiped the nose of Silicon Valley and changed the technology market in the US
'18.07.2018'
Source: Inc.Russia
Over the 17 years of business in the technology industry, 56-year-old Teresa Tucker went through all the typical entrepreneurial troubles: opening her own company, spent her retirement savings, for years she sought from corporations to buy her new technology and almost went bankrupt. Today, her company, BlackLine, is worth more than $ 1,5 billion, nine times it’s listed on Inc. 5000.
Analysts believe Tucker has opened a new accounting software market, writes Maria Espan for Inc. Tucker told how to get cold calls to Costco and eBay customers and defeat the gender stereotypes of Silicon Valley.
Even after 17 years of operation, BlackLine cannot be called a well-known brand (if your family does not have an accountant) - but the company cooperates with many large corporations (Coca-Cola, Under Armor, United Airlines and eBay) and has become one of the market pioneers. The term "continuous accounting", coined by BlackLine, is now used by the world's leading enterprise software giants, including SAP, also a partner of the company. This term means that Tucker employees will not deal with your financial performance - they will run them through programs that analyze automatically and continuously. You can track, at any time and anywhere, what affects these indicators, and not wait for your accountant to send you spreadsheets for the last month. BlackLine sells this service primarily to companies with more than $ 50 million in revenues and has nearly 2 customers. According to a Frost & Sullivan report, the potential global market for BlackLine could reach $ 20 billion by next year.
Accidentally open a profitable market
In 2016, this Los Angeles-based company received $ 123 million in revenue, and a year ago it went public — and its shares are already ahead of many recent technological IPOs, including Nutanix and Snap. Teresa Tucker is an incredibly smart and pretty tough 56 woman for years. For a long career in the technology industry, many did not take it seriously - and they were mistaken.
Seventeen years ago, after the divorce, Teresa was left with two small children in her arms. She quit her job at SunGard — tired of it — and started her own business. Attracting venture capitalists did not try, cashed out their retirement accounts and options SunGard, and later laid the house.
Initially, in the struggle for survival, the company changed everything - from the name to the main product. In June 2001, Tucker called her company in Spanish, Osaba, “I ventured.” But after the September 11 attack, the name dangerously reminded Osama and the company had to be renamed.
But this was not the most serious ordeal. Theresa's first product is money management software, and Thomson Reuters dominated this market. Over the next few years, Tucker’s business almost ran out of money - and one day an old client asked for help with the automation of accounting. “When in such circumstances someone offers you to pay at least something, you immediately agree,” she explains.
Then corporate accounting still depended heavily on folders and account books. Tucker saw in this order a great opportunity: to create software for converting paper-based bookkeeping to digital.
Blackline in numbers
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$ 1,5 BN - company value.
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$ 123 MILLION - the company's revenue for 2016 a year.
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2 CUSTOMER CUSTOMER serves BlackLine.
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700 EMPLOYEES work for the company.
Competitors and deserters
The company (BlackLine by then) began working on this trend in 2004 and experienced several tense years before the idea paid off. The head of the sales department left the company to create a competing product, - later it was acquired by Trintech, now one of the main competitors of BlackLine. Today Tucker says that he is grateful to the former employee for desertion: “When you try to sell a product, having a competitor makes it legitimate.”
But not without cold calls. “I called a friend from SunGard and said that my company was about to fall apart, and I can't offer much. And invited her to work with me, ”Tucker says. A friend agreed - and thanks to her cold sales skills, Costco and eBay were the first major customers of BlackLine.
Diseases of growth
A few years later, Tucker made another important decision: switch to the “cloud” model, first used by Salesforce. This helped BlackLine to attract smaller customers who could not afford to purchase their own server. The company quickly gained a reputation among customers. Revenue grew by about 50% per year. From 2008 to 2016 for a year, right up to the IPO, BlackLine has been on the Inc. list nine times in a row. 5000 is the ranking of the fastest-growing US private companies.
The company's road to IPO began in 2013, when Tucker decided to retire and began to look for a buyer. When the private company Silver Lake decided to bet on BlackLine and acquired a controlling stake, Tucker felt a second wind. She reserved approximately 12% of the shares and continued to manage the company personally.
Tucker knows how difficult it is for women in the corporate world and especially in the technology sector, but the struggle for the ideals of gender equality is a global challenge that, like any successful entrepreneur, she has no time for. She is still engaged in “growth diseases”, typical of many fast-growing startups. Over the year, the number of BlackLine employees has grown from 600 to more than 700 people. During this time she had to change several top managers, including the technical director. The company is not yet profitable, and public investors are under pressure. Tucker has finally opened a profitable market, but he constantly thinks about how to resist the big players.
