Let the Data Drive the Dream | Brandon O’Halloran at ReplyBuy

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Brandon O’Halloran 0:00
As a startup company, right, there’s always you’re always going to be tinkering to an extent, right? And trying to figure out that next opportunity and, you know, trying different stuff, right? You just you have to, to continue growing. And so I think that, you know, from that side of it, you can’t be married to an idea, right? Where it’s like, Man, I just super passion, love, love this idea, which is great. You have to have that conviction. But you really have to look at the data. Right? Is that Is it working?

Alexander Ferguson 0:36
In part one of my conversation with Brandon O’Halloran, the CEO of Replybuy he discussed his efforts to develop a personalized messaging system to help companies quickly and easily complete sales. In the second part of our conversation, he discusses some of the strategic decisions he’s made to grow his company, including forming key partnerships, and making sure your passions are lining up with reality. And as a first time CEO, he offers some important advice for anyone aspiring to follow in his footsteps. Brandon, really fast into continual conversation now and here? How are how have you been innovating and keep growing? Because you’ve been on an interesting journey been with the company from the near early days, and now you’re the CEO, and to have seen it grow over the years? I’m sure you’ve experienced a few hiccups, problems you had to overcome? Can you share any insights that you’ve learned that another entrepreneur or or leader can glean from from you?

Brandon O’Halloran 1:36
For sure, yeah, there’s, there’s been countless, countless times of hard lessons learned, I think one of the biggest ones that sticks out to me is, is just failing fast, right? Like, as, you know, as a startup company, right? There’s always you’re always going to be tinkering to an extent, right, and trying to figure out that next opportunity and, you know, trying different stuff, right, you just you have to, to continue growing. And so I think that, you know, from that side of it, you can’t be married to an idea, right? Where it’s like, Man, I just super passion, love, love this idea, which is great, you have to have that conviction. But you really have to look at the data, right? Is that Is it working? And you have to have certain checkpoints? Where okay, like, let’s put ourselves on a timeline, what do we need to accomplish in the next two weeks and the next month and next three months to really prove we’re on the right track, and this is the, you know, a good path to continue going down and investing in? And usually that comes down to, you know, where you’re pouring marketing resources development, right, obviously, from a product standpoint. So that certainly stood out to me, I think that, you know, I’ve been fortunate in terms of being able to surround myself with some great mentors, and people that have scaled, scaled businesses and kind of seen the battles before you. So that’s something that, you know, is invaluable. And I would certainly encourage everyone to try and get a good, a good strong team of mentors and advisors around you, who can help you avoid some some pitfalls. Maybe they saw along the way.

Alexander Ferguson 3:11
Can you think of any tactical things that you instituted early on or or as you’ve kind of, as you’ve been progressing, that how to get the first initial couple clients or start to be able to scale to get to the 150 clients you have done today? Using your platform? What kind of tactical things that you did you implement these saw? Wow, actually, this was good.

Brandon O’Halloran 3:34
For sure, yeah. I mean, early days, it was a lot of just being scrappy. Right. And leveraging relationships, which I think is probably the case with a lot of a lot of startups, right? Is being scrappy. Just get Yeah, working incredibly hard. Right. And driving those conversations. I think one thing that we’ve found has been invaluable is, is creating strategic partnerships and unlocking ecosystems for us. So in the sense of, okay, we want to work with all sports entertainment, right? Well, we partnered with Ticketmaster, which unlock their ecosystem. And so when you go try and sell to them, now, you’re a Ticketmaster partner versus just somebody off the street, right? And so all of a sudden, your message stands out, you know, in just a lot more differentiated way. And sometimes it’s a qualified way where they won’t even even consider you, right? If you’re not a partner in that sense,

Alexander Ferguson 4:26
what’s the business model today? And how has it changed over the years?

Brandon O’Halloran 4:32
Yeah, so you know, it started really as a rev share type model, right? We we take a portion of each transaction, right, that goes through the system, which was you know, how it started a little bit lower margin, you know, when you think about transactional based businesses a lot of times and so, you know, it was a great way for us to really be our beachhead market, prove the technology and gain a lot of credibility. But we knew that hey, you know, we’re gonna have to innovate You know, introduce something else and a different business model, it’s a little bit higher margin, predictable, recurring revenue. And so yeah, about 16 months ago, we introduced SAS based revenue, which, you know, we have had tremendous growth on and it’s very high margin and it’s widened the audience we could sell to pretty drastically as well. So it’s been a tremendous shift for us, like our gross profit, for example, last year was up 177% year over year, which is really directly attributable to, you know, introducing a more profitable business model with with higher margins so, and predictability and recurring revenue is key for us who’s very seasonal, in the early going, because in the fall through the spring, when all the big sports are going on, it was very good for us, right, summers will quieter. So having recurring Predictable Revenue has been key.

Alexander Ferguson 5:57
Looking forward, what do you see as some of the major hurdles you’re going to need to overcome to be able to achieve the vision that you set?

Brandon O’Halloran 6:06
Yeah, it’s a good question. I mean, I think, you know, like, like, a lot of startups, right. I mean, I mean, just your kind of standard resources in terms of people and cash, right, to be able to grow kind of in the, in the speed at which, at which you want, right, we know that there’s, there’s a there’s an open window right now, right, like, you know, you see a lot of starts to talk about that, that window of opportunity you have, it’s open right now. Right for us. And so we’re trying to go as fast as we can. We’re still a small, small team and, and make as much traction, I think we take pride in the fact that we’ve been able to accomplish a lot with with a little in terms of resources team and cash and that side of it. But I think that, you know, those are those are kind of two, two obvious ones.

Alexander Ferguson 6:51
How big is your team right now?

Brandon O’Halloran 6:54
Yeah, so we, we have five full time. And then we have two, two people that work, work on more of consultants, I basis one on biz dev one on the engineering side. So we’re still small, small group, small, small but mighty.

Alexander Ferguson 7:09
Yeah, you’re accomplishing a lot with such a small team? That’s awesome. For for you how, how are you growing and innovating? Because this is a new role for you? You? Have you ever been a CEO before?

Brandon O’Halloran 7:22
Now, first time CEO?

Alexander Ferguson 7:23
All right, so has there been any major insights or learnings that you’ve had over the past year that you’ve been co here and anything that you would share someone else who they maybe they’ve entered a similar role?

Brandon O’Halloran 7:36
Yeah, you know, I think, you know, for a lot of, you know, CEOs, I mean, like, I think you have to, you have to read a lot, right? And you have to talk to people that have been there, right. So, you know, I try and put, again, good people around me who have been in been in those shoes and can, you know, kind of point you in the right direction. And, and just read a lot, right? To try and make sure you’re as informed as possible. But I think that from, from my perspective, I know what my strengths and weaknesses are, right. So people, sales, partnerships, marketing, right? That’s right, in my in my wheelhouse, right areas that, you know, I knew that, you know, I needed support, right, we’re more like, legal, you know, financial stuff like that, where it’s like, okay, you know, you know, enough to be dangerous, right, you have to have the, you have to have a base framework, obviously, to have good understanding of kind of the core principles, but you got to put good people around you that can steer you in the right direction, and give advice, right, based on certain situations. And so that’s really what I focused on is trying to put a great team around me in all of those areas. I think the other big piece is learning to let people do their job and not do it all, try and do it all yourself, which is like, you know, kind of, I think nature of people running companies and certainly small companies, and so trusting other people and delegating, and just, you know, you know, direction, and you have ownership of this, and you know, we give people a lot of autonomy. So that’s been something that has been a continuous, I guess, some growth there for me in terms of just giving direction and, and giving them the tools that they need to succeed and letting them kind of own, you know, their, their segment of the business.

Alexander Ferguson 9:20
You mentioned reading and do a lot of reading. Is there any books that you have read in the last little while that that stand out to you that you would share?

Brandon O’Halloran 9:31
Yeah, I mean, I’m reading a book called remote office not required by Jason freed. So, you know, we’re a fully fully remote company. It’s obviously like everybody is pretty much remote right now for the most part with with COVID-19. And so I think that trying to understand, you know, the best ways to scale an organization in that fashion still keep up culture, which I think is the hardest part. Right, you know, just ensuring that you still are having that relationship, you know, aspect of it. There’s a ton of benefits still to processes, obviously, you wipe out the commute and the time and all that, right, which I think everybody likes, when there’s positives and negatives, you know, to like, like, with everything, but I do think that, you know, the shift, you know, towards your mode is not a temporary thing, right, it was already starting that shift, even before you know, this pandemic, I think it’s gonna keep pushing more and more where you’re gonna see, you know, businesses try and recruit, you know, nationally and internationally, right? There’s no, there’s no sense in saying, yeah, just because we’re in Scottsdale, or Phoenix, right, that we only have to recruit in this local market, right, the best person for us, you know, one of our thoughts at both of our bizdev guys, ones in San Francisco and ones in New Jersey, right. And there’s no sense that I have to like, move, uproot their families move them here, and that type of thing. And so, I think that it allows you to find the best people, and it also gives people the, you know, ability to live, live, live where they want, I mean, a lot of these cities, you’re seeing like with San Francisco, in particular, the the price of housing, and just cost of living there is just gotten to, to a crazy level, right. And so it’s, it’s hard to hard to withstand, and especially for a startup company. So trying to be cognizant of challenges people are facing on that side. I’m definitely believer in a lot of the benefits, but want to continue to refine that process.

Alexander Ferguson 11:36
Gotcha. I’m gonna end with one more question. Looking forward. Overall, what kind of tech innovation do you predict we’ll see, in the near term, one year and long term and 10 years.

Brandon O’Halloran 11:51
And I think that, from a commerce side, I would say that I think you’re gonna see more and more people being comfortable making purchases off platform, right. So wherever the customer is, and that’s really where, I mean, again, that’s where my mind goes with conversational commerce. And I think the advantage we have, you’re seeing, you know, more people now than ever, especially with this pandemic, be comfortable transacting on directly, say, on a restaurant website, right? Where like, people have never done that before, like, ever, you know, in their lives, that they went to a restaurants website in order to go food, right, or, you know, delivery, that type of stuff. So, you know, we certainly believe in messaging and kind of meeting the customer where they are, but I think you’re gonna see a continued. And they may, this is more of a trend, I guess, in an innovation, but that’s what comes to mind in terms of people continuing to trend, obviously, towards ecommerce, and being more and more comfortable giving their credit card and purchasing in more non traditional platforms from that perspective. 10 years from now, you know, I’ll be pretty surprised if everybody’s not rolling around in autonomous cars. And, you know, so I’m a big, big fan of Elon Musk, and, you know, what, what they’re pushing for there with Tesla and everything. So, I think that I’m a fan of that. That side of innovation. Obviously, there’s a lot of things to go through with the government regulation, that type of thing, but seems to be inevitable. So I’ll go with that one for the 10 year.

Alexander Ferguson 13:27
That concludes the audio version of this episode. To see the original and more visit our UpTech Report YouTube channel. If you know a tech company, we should interview you can nominate them at UpTech report.com. Or if you just prefer to listen, make sure you subscribe to this series on Apple podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcasting app.