Interview with an Entrepreneur: Greg Cangialosi of Blue Sky Factory - Part 2

Greg Cangialosi of Blue Sky Factory is a serial entrepreneur and pioneer in the podcasting space. He also writes the popular blog, The Trend Junkie.
I am attending the Gnomedex conference with him this week and I thought it would be good to release this interview as I cover interesting companies and people at the conference this week.

The following is part two in a three part series.

Since your business model seems really aligned with pushing the boundaries using Web 2.0 technologies. What is the general roadmap of your platform so readers get a sense of your vision.

That is a great question at a very interesting time in our development as a company. To date Blue Sky Factory has been exclusively focused on email as the content endpoint. We feel that email isn’t going anywhere, and that email is the driver and digital glue of Web 2.0 technologies. It’s the currency of accounts when you think about it. We will always embrace email at Blue Sky Factory.

That said, we are also embracing the changing media landscape, and want to be in a position to expand our capabilities in order for our clients to effectively communicate with their audience online, using all of the various content endpoints that exist. Our next version of Publicaster, which will be our seventh release, is going to be much more focused around “content.” So, if you are a business that needs to communicate with prospects, current clients, the media, etc (and we all do), using the next generation of Publicaster you would be able to keep your master database of contacts with unlimited data fields on each record, and be able to offer your content via multiple endpoints. Those endpoints may be email, a blog, a unique RSS feed, or a mobile device, and your content may include an email newsletter, a podcast, or an online video, etc…

Our platform will in essence be a one stop online publishing platform that will be designed to work with many other systems. We will offer an extensive set of API’s and web services for 3rd party integration, and a powerful subscriber preference center for recipients to be in complete control in regards to what content they receive from your company, how they receive it, and in some cases when.

We are looking forward to it and will be launching our beta later this year and are shooting for a Q1 08 launch.

Could you elaborate a little more on your approach to revenue creation?

The best revenue is re-occurring revenue. We love that model, and so does everyone else This of course is easier said than done. I am a bootstrapper, meaning I didn’t do a capital raise for Blue Sky Factory; rather I built it by creating real revenue by real clients. Bootstrapping a company creates much more of an urgency for revenue generation. When there is no funding, you still have to eat

You have to know your market, understand the competitive landscape and price your product or service appropriately. If you can hit the sweet spot you will know it. The other thing I would recommend is to not lock your approach to the market. Play around, experiment and see what works and what doesn’t, and do it as fast as you can.

For example, we had a hard time selling direct to clients our first year in business. Then we experimented with selling into agencies and web shops and positioned ourselves as an “outsourced” provider of email marketing services. We figured, they had the clients, the budgets and the creative, and we became a line item for campaign deployment. This is when the business started to grow, the agencies loved us, and they still do! For the first two years or so we were almost working exclusively with agencies. Today, the majority of our business is direct but we still maintain deep agency relationships and we always will.

How many employees do you have at Blue Sky Factory now? Is it important that they all share your entrepreneurial spirit and drive? How do you find that in new hires and keep that entrepreneurial energy alive?

Blue Sky Factory currently employees 11 wonderful individuals full time. It is very important for them to share the entrepreneurial spirit and vibe that we all encompass. Our team is small enough that everyone’s actions directly impact the organization as a whole, and that’s extremely important. I try to keep things fresh at Blue Sky, always pushing the envelope, thinking of the next thing and sharing it with the group. We have a good time. As an example, we now celebrate every new deal we bring in with a bang of the new gong we have in the office. Every time we gong, everyone in the company knows we have a new client, and new business, and one more step towards our revenue goal. It’s a good thing.

Hiring is one of my biggest challenges today. Finding good, smart, energetic, motivated people is just so hard. We are always looking for the person with fire in their belly, the person who wants to kick ass, be the best they can be, think and act like an owner, etc If you possess those elements and are in the Baltimore area give me a ring
NEXT TIME: Elements for a successful startup company, Being self-funded and Marketing Your Company