Flint's Blog

How fast is Too Fast?

I've been blogging for almost 4 years.  I started off strong, like most bloggers, with several posts per month. Over the last year or so, I've settled into a once or twice per month rhythm. This is my first post in over two months. Not because I don't have anything interesting to say (although that is always debatable), but because we've literally never been busier. We're so busy, that sometimes I worry we're moving too fast. Let me explain.

In September we turned ten years old and announced our first acquisition, a company called Invoice Connection. Most people understand that the hard work with acquisitions occurs after the deal closes. You've got people, products, customers, facilities, all that need attention. We had a plan and we've been executing on it. So far I'd probably give us a B+ on our efforts.  

In the fourth quarter, we've continued with our aggressive expansion efforts. We've announced new partnerships, signed dozens of new customers, and continue to grow aggressively. Just last week we moved into a new corporate headquarters (picture below, ain't she pretty?), launched a new product called Invoice Central, and biggest of all, closed on a second aquisition/merger that we will soon be announcing publicly.

All of this brings me to the title of this Blog post and something that I worry about a lot - "How fast is Too Fast?" Are we trying to do much? Are we stretching our organization too thin?

I've shared this concern with several people that I trust. Our VP of Sales/Marketing worries that we're not moving fast enough. Well he's just a sales guy (Oh snap!), what does he know? A long time friend and successful business person told me that we should always move just as fast as we can.  Well that sounds good but what does it really mean?  I spoke to a member of our Board of Directors and his quote was something to the effect "That's why you're paid to be the CEO, to figure these tough things out."

I believe there are no easy answers to the question of "How fast is Too Fast?" However, there are a lot of useful questions that we've asked to help figure it out.

• How fast is the competition growing?  (This should be the bare minimum threshold for growth if you want to be the market leader)
• How fast are the industry leaders growing in other market segments that are comparable to our business? 
• Is customer satisfaction steady or increasing?  
• Is product quality high?
• Are people getting burned out?
• Are dates being hit?
• Do you have the right team in place?
• Are your internal systems keeping up?
• What's the ultimate goal?  Slow and steady growth, life style business, IPO?

Billtrust has grown to be a very successful organization and how successful we become really comes down to balancing "How fast is too fast?"  As of now, it's full steam ahead.  We've got grand ambitions, and now is not the time to pause.

 

 

Biltrust Chapter 3 Begins

Below is an email that I recently sent out to our entire company.  Since a lot of our customers and partners read this blog, this may be interesting for you.

Billtrust recently turned ten years old.  Not only was this a big event, it also marked the beginning of the next chapter in Billtrust’s path to greatness.  Let me explain.

Chapter 1 was the beginning.  The company officially was founded in September of 2001.  There were a million things to do - create a business model, write a lot of code, land some customers, and build a core team.  We made a ton of mistakes but also made some incredibly great decisions, the best of which was to create a value system that focused on the customer.  Solving all of a customer's billing problems, framing all questions around “What would the customer want?”  We were small, our processes were ad hoc, and communication was easy, you just hollered out in the office.

Chapter 2 began in October 2006 when we raised our first, and only, round of venture capital.  Stuff that worked in chapter 1 wasn’t going to work in chapter 2.  We needed more processes, more discipline, and more automation.  We rounded out the executive team, opened new processing facilities, released new versions of our products, and started landing showcase clients like Kraft Foods. These were some great accomplishments that we are proud of.  But this chapter is now over.

Chapter 3 officially began on September 1, 2011.  Not because we turned ten, but because we closed our first of what we hope to be many acquisitions.  Our organization is growing at an astounding clip, we’re moving to shiny new offices, we’re doing acquisitions, and we’re partnering with some of the largest financial service companies in the world.  What worked in Chapter 2 is not going to work in Chapter 3.  We need to become more creative about solving problems, we need to find better ways to communicate with each other, we need to be more creative about how we drive sales, build products, and make decisions.  We need to stop making silly mistakes that aggravate customers.

This is what all great companies do.  They recognize that as they mature, their people and processes need to mature as well.  

You’ll be seeing a variety of changes over the next few months.  We’ll be doing more company meetings to try and improve communication.  We’ll be formulating our values so that new hires can understand better what makes us tick. We’ve hired a VP of Quality to focus companywide on getting things done correctly each and every time.

In each chapter of our evolution, leaders emerge to propel us to the next stage.  They’re not appointed.  It’s not predetermined.  They are people like Sunny D’Souza who has his basement destroyed by a flood but gets on a plane to California because he knows our first acquisition is critically important.  They are people like Dan Nies who exceeds his quota in the first half of the year but is still working his ass off because he feels like the previous year was subpar and he wants to make up for it.  There are dozens of stories like this.  These individual stories make up the fabric of what makes Billtrust great.

I’m not sure which leaders will emerge in Chapter 3.  What I do know is we need to improve in just about every area.  How do we get customers live faster?  How do we improve eAdoption?  How do we reduce our cost per envelope?

We need everybody focused and working hard on the mission to be successful.  But we also need the next generation of leaders to emerge to solve this new set of problems. 

I look forward to the challenges ahead not with fear, but with excitement. After all, We’re Billtrust, we can do anything.

Billtrust Chapter 3 has officially begun and we're pretty excited about it.  

Why We Bought Invoice Connection

Today we announced the acquisition of Invoice Connection (press release here), a competitor in the outsourced billing space.  Billtrust and Invoice Connection have been competitors for several years. Despite the rivalry, there has always been a mutual respect for each other.  We felt that the combination of our companies made strategic sense.  More specifically, here's some of our thinking.

1. If I were to ask you "Who are the nationwide powerhouses are in the payroll space?" you would likely say ADP or Paychex.  If I were to ask you the same question but substitute in "the billing space" you would have trouble coming up with an answer. Our vision for Billtrust is to become the nationwide powerhouse in billing solutions and acquisitions like this get us closer to our goal.
   
    
2. Billtrust is the number one provider of billing services in the wholesale distribution space. Invoice Connection was number two.  Having a large number of customers in an industry allows us even more opportunity to provide our customers with exciting new products and services.  We have an exciting new product that we’ll be announcing early next year that we think will be a big hit with our wholesale distribution customers (consider this the first initial tease of things to come).
   
   

Unfortunately, as most people know, most mergers fail (see here).  We go into this knowing we have to perform exceptionally well to make this a success.  We need to go the extra mile for all of our new customers but also continue to perform at a very high level for our existing customers.  We’re confident that we can do this.

 

Taking Risks

Life is often about managing risk. Which college to go to, what job to take, when to sell a stock, how much exercising to do, how often to "forget to take the garbage out" before getting in trouble with the missus.

I often get asked about the risks involved in starting a company. Billtrust is the second company I have been involved in as a founder so I have some opinions on the subject. For me, each action is a calculated gamble. How likely is something to turn out the way I expect versus what is the downside if things don't work out as expected? I'd like to say I think through all big decisions with a fair amount of rigor but that's not always true. Some decisions you just know.

Starting Billtrust in my mind was actually a low risk proposition. For those that don't know us, Billtrust helps businesses migrate their customers from expensive paper billing to efficient electronic billing and payment. Starting a company can involve a host of risks from hiring the right people, to developing great software, to not running out of money, etc. I consider these the Execution Risks and while they're incredibly important, they don't keep me awake at night because they are in my control. The risks I really worry about are the Vision Risks - where is the market going and can we as a company help get them there. From this perspective, Billtrust was actually pretty low risk. 

It was pretty obvious when I started Billtrust that the world was moving to electronic billing. It was also pretty obvious, at least to me, that businesses were going to need help getting there because electronic billing is a complex area with numerous standards, competing interests, and an ever changing landscape. So the only really tough question was what business model would work and for that we simply adopted the Payroll model. ADP and Paychex provide all services related to payroll and it's the rare company that tries to tackle payroll themselves. Billtrust set out to be the "one throat to choke" related to billing.with the goal of having companies think twice before considering an alternative approach. With the vision clear, it then becomes an execution game. 

This original vision set ten years ago still guides us as a company, but it is not incredibly unique anymore. So we as a company need to continue to take calculated risks that we think fit into our vision. In 2011, we're actually making several big bets as a company. We think we've got the vision part right, and now we just need to execute like crazy.

Congrats on the Award....Now Get Back To Work

It's award season again, and I was privileged to receive two great awards.  The IFO named me one of the Top 25 Most Influential Financial Operations Professionals and I'm also a finalist for E&Y's Entrepreneur of the Year in NJ.  Both are great awards.  While I will get the award, and it will make my Mom very proud, the credit really goes to the folks at Billtrust that make me look good.  Billtrust has accomplished a lot in ten years and it really truly is a team effort.

As I've blogged before, the awards a nice, but they're not the goal, they're just a brief stop on the journey.

Billtrust has so much more that we can be great at, that it sometimes feels like we're just getting started. I was reminded of this yesterday when I spent some time with a few Billtrust executives at a nearby public company.  It was like a slap upside the face.  This company has been around just a little big longer than us but is already 20 times our size.  Different market, different business model, but a number of similarites. Most encouraging for me was that the CEO is always pushing to get better.  Not a whole lot of basking in how great they are, no relaxing because of what they achieved, but a constant push to get better at what they do.

I attended a meeting this morning here at Billtrust on a topic we call eAdoption. This is how we help customers move their customers from paper billing to electronic billing and payment.  By any measure we're doing great.  Our customers love what we do, we're way ahead of industry benchmarks, and we have cutting edge technology.  My response - who cares?  Let's get better.  And I was brutally frank with my feedback.  Not to be a jerk (although some would interpret it that way), but because I view my job as the CEO to be the head challenger. As soon as we start spending time ruminating on how wonderful we are, is the same day that competition begins catching up.

So while the awards are nice, and it's always fun to pause and enjoy, don't pause for too long, because there's lots of work to do.

 

T. G. I. M.

We're doing a lot of interviewing lately, we always seem to be on the hunt for great talent in a number of areas.  There are so many schools of thought about how best to interview people that I've lost track.

After over 20 years of interviewing people for a wide variety of positions, there is one trait that I've found that predictably leads to star performers, those A players that you want in your organization that can elevate everybody.  

Sure we want smart people with great educations but that's not enough.  We want rich experiences in relevant fields, but that's also not a great indicator.  We want subject matter experts, but anybody can learn a subject.

What really sets apart the A players from the B players in my mind is T. G. I. M., which stands for Thank God It's Monday.  Is the candidate passionate about what they do?  Do they look forward to showing up every Monday morning and changing the world?  Or is this just another job?  

I ask a lot of random questions in the interview to see if people are genuine, if they can think on their feet. One of the most basic questions I ask everybody is "Why do you want to work here?"  You would think in this day and age that people would have a pretty good answer to that one. I actually had someone interviewing for a very senior position that answered with "because it's close to my house." Really? Of all the things that are important about your next career, you put commute time at the top?

I've read a few relevant blog plosts recently that make the case far more eloquently than I ever could.

Pursuing our Passion Blog has a great post on TGIM from last year.

Feld Thoughts is more geared towards those just entering the work force.

Both of these posts can sort of be summed up with - Find something that you can be passionate about and go embrace it.

I know that we can't hire all A players and that Billtrust isn't the right place for everybody, but my most important job is to hopefully create an environment that passionate individuals can thrive.

They Must Be Giving it Away!

If you think this picture looks strange, you're right, it does. It was 34 degrees yesterday in New Jersey, and there was a line outside of the local water ice place a mile long. 

Water ices, or italian ices, as they were called where I grew up, are frozen fruit treats that are a great on a hot summer day. But it's FREEZING in NJ, why are these people standing in line?

As you might have guessed, Rita's is the name of a big chain of Water Ice stores that each year has a special promotion to kick of the season. Free Water Ice for Everybody!

It's really a pretty ingenius marketing strategy. I drove by the place and stopped with my son. I actually ran into my wife there who had the same idea. Clearly it's a big customer draw as you can see from the picture above. Not only does this build brand awareness but also a ton of customer goodwill. Who wouldn't want to return to the nice folks that gave them free treats?

At Billtrust, we've experimented with the "give it away" strategy with mixed results. In the early days we tried a "free for three months" strategy that didn't amount to much. When companies make big business decisions about something that is core, a few months free doesn't get people excited. However, our Earth Day promotion has worked very well. Each year on Earth Day we offer clients a free insert for their bills to promote the benefits of electronic billing. Two big differences in these promotions. The first promotion was an offer to prospects (companies we were not doing business with), the second was to customers. The second big difference is that when you give away something for free, you've got to make it easy for the recipient to say Yes.  

We've all seen the infomercial gimmicks of try this product for free and we know there must be some catch. What's brilliant about Rita's promotion is that there are no strings attached, why wouldn't you want a free water ice?

So what's my new Spring resolution? Think about what else Billtrust can give away for free.

 

 

Go Visit Someone!

I'll admit it, I'm a slave to my laptop / iPad / SmartPhone.  I like to think of myself as pretty organized. I'm usually focused on the right task at the right time which is essential to staying on top of your game. Except when it isn't.  

What about the tasks and activities that never show up in your inbox or on your task list?  What about the things that you should be doing that you're not even aware of?  How do you know what you don't know?

Last week I attended an industry conference called the Council for Electronic Billing and Payment.  This is a show that I hadn't attended before and I had two primary reasons for going: first, it was a topic that our company is very interested in and second, it was in New Orleans in February.  

The show had a number of sessions on a variety of topics and it was informative, but nothing that I couldn't learn sitting at my desk in about half the time.  The real value was in the networking.  I met some competitors,  some partners, and some former coworkers from my Paytrust days.  I left with probably five to seven meaningful follow ups that if I sat at my desk, I wouldn't have had.

We've been on a big push recently with our team to visit with clients and prospects.  We frankly had become too dependent on webinars for selling and training.  They're easy to setup, convenient because there's no travel headaches, and very cost effective.  However, they're awful for building relationships. They're awful if you want to have a real conversation about what kind of pain someone is having. If you want to talk to someone, they're great; if you want to have a meaningful dialog, forget it.

So lesson learned, go visit someone, you never know what you'll learn. 

My Favorite Management Picture

Today I was walking through the hallway and overheard what I imagine is a very typical conversation in companies throughout the world - "The customer wants this done one way and we do it another way. We can't do what they want."  So I popped in the office and drew my favorite management picture (see below).

I've given this example to lots of people throughout my career and assumed that the individual would have seen it by now.  Much to my delight he had not, so we proceeded to my normal script:

"We can't do this specific thing the customer wants", he said.

So I drew a picture on the white board of one big circle, and one little circle, with two arrows going back and forth.  

I then asked him "What's this?"

He thought about it for a second and gave up.

I said "The big one is the Earth, the little one is the Moon.  These two arrows represent that we have figured out a way to get people back and forth which seems like a pretty hard problem.  I'm guessing we should be able to figure out this problem out as well."

I know it's a silly example, but it's true.  Problems don't seem so hard if you assume most can be solved.  The old "Can Do" attitude is still relevant in 2011.

We then talked through the specific issue, and sure enough there was a solution.

 

 

Throwing Out The Roadmap

I read an article recently where Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, was discussing the history of Google and how some of the great products they launched were the result of "a few developers just banging something out in a few weeks".  He also said, that those days were over.  That Google had gotten too big for that to work any longer. That was somewhat depressing to me.  Sort of like throwing in the towel on just getting things done quickly.

As our company Billtrust continues to grow, we struggle with that as well.  Certainly, not on the magnitude that Google does, but I can feel it creeping in.  In the beginning, I would sit down with our CTO, Jim Eichmann, and we would basically split up the work and say what is the most important things we should be building right now.  Long term planning was not even discussed, we didn't even know if we would be around long term.  Then we started hiring developers, and we added them to the mix of what's the most important thing they should be working on.

But as you continue to grow, you start to think longer term.  You have product roadmaps.  You have customer advisory councils.  You make contractual commitments to customers.  And while you're working on important things, you really lose the ability to do quick trajectory changes to get projects done.  

I think to keep things exciting for your team, you occasionally just need to give them some latitude to "go off the roadmap" every once in a while.  A product roadmap, for those that don't know, is simply a schedule of new products, or new product releases, that are planned for the next 6 to 60 months.  Bigger companies need to plan for longer periods of time because resource allocation is incredibly complex, customers need to know, and sales people need to know what they're selling.

But sometimes things come up, that you deep down know are a good idea, that just need to get done.  We were having a conference call last week with our Customer Advisory Council, a group of 8 influential customers that help guide our product roadmap.  One of our customers was asking about when we were going to build an online user forum because the exchange of ideas between customers on the Council has been awesome.  We hemmed and hawed, talked about out plans to build into a future version of one of our products, but gave them no firm commitment since it wasn't within the next 12 months on our product roadmap.  Then one of our customers said "Why don't you just used LinkedIn?"

This was so blindingly obvious the right way to go, that we just had to do it.  It's not going to be exactly what we want because it won't be integrated into our product suite, but who cares.  We can roll it out in like 10 minutes and start giving customers value.  So the hell with the roadmap.  So two days later we went live with the new LinkedIn Billtrust User Forum.  If you're a customer of Billtrust, you can access it by Clicking Here.

The User Forum wasn't on our short term road map but sometimes you just have to throw out the roadmap and do the right thing.