Jill: Welcome to the Entrepreneuring Show, where we strive to provide insights and stories for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs, where innovation meets inspiration. Led by veteran entrepreneur and tech founder, here’s your host, Jill Button.
Jill: Hello and welcome to the Entrepreneuring Show. Today’s episode is brought to you by OpenScreen, the contactless layer for the physical world. Welcome Open screen is the contactless customer engagement and commerce layer for the Internet. Open screen enables the creation of interactive QR code applications that allow enterprises to meet, Interact and transact with their customers and resources wherever they are.
Jill: My guest today is Gemini Waghmare, CEO of OpenScreen. Gemini spent 18 years in sales and marketing in the corporate world when he came across a business idea he just couldn’t shake. Three months later, he left his job and with no prior venture experience, Gemini started a telecom software business. What followed was a whirlwind journey of raising capital, building a technology business, and eventually selling the company for over nine figures.
Jill: All within a short seven year span. Today, we will hear about his incredible journey. Setbacks along the way and tremendous success. You’ll hear about his new venture and how he’s applying what he learned the first time around to his second go at being an entrepreneur. Welcome to the show. Gemini.
Gemini: Thank you very much, Jill.
Gemini: Thanks for inviting me to be here. And, uh, It’s really exciting.
Jill: I’m excited to have you. You’re a very important guest for me. It’s been a long time since you and I have known each other. Uh, in fact, uh, it’s been a quite, quite a while way back to our corporate days when you and I first met across the negotiations table.
Jill: And years later, it was actually catching up over a lunch, if I recall, in around 2018. That you actually encouraged me to start a procurement technology company. And in many ways, you have been an inspiration to me, uh, helping to build what is now ProcureHub and it was your encouragement and your tremendous success.
Jill: With your first company that really made me feel like I could do it too. So I just want to say thank you for that. And I’m excited to hear a little bit more about your journey. The good, the bad and the ugly, as they say.
Gemini: Yeah. Well, I, first I’ll say that congratulations on the success of ProcureHub and you’re giving me way too much credit.
Gemini: Uh, it takes a lot of guts to jump out on your own. So, um, so. Congrats.
Jill: Well, I, I really am excited to hear a little bit more about your journey and actually share it with our audience. So, you know, let’s go back to those first days. You were a successful sales executive, um, and you had a young and growing family, if I recall.
Jill: What was it that, you know, really gave you the courage to risk it all?
Gemini: I, you know, I don’t know that I had the courage, but I. In the intro, I I’ll give a bit of context. So I spent most of my career working in telecommunications infrastructure on the sales side. So, as you remember, and when I met you, I was running a business unit that was responsible for my company’s sales into Rogers.
Gemini: And so I had a pretty big team. We were delivering a transformation project that Rogers, um, the company I was working for was called MDocs, you know, your company, and we probably had a dozen different software modules that we were working, that we were negotiating about. And we were, we were working at some stage of implementing as part of an overall massive transformation program.
Gemini: And one day, you know, kind of two years into the program, I had an idea about a missing module. It turned out to be, you know, eventually an identity management or login module for telecom specifically for telecom. You know, such a niche product that exists. And I think every telecom or broadband operator could use it.
Gemini: And I don’t know if you can relate, but you know, with ProcureHub, but I would wake up every morning and it’s all I could think about, you know, I would come in into the Rogers building and I would be like, you know, Rogers had this vision of wrapping all of these services, um, around an individual. And it was called like a connected life strategy.
Gemini: And I felt like they couldn’t do it because they didn’t. Understand the industrial bill or a phone number, but they didn’t have that vision of that user. So, um, and every single day, not only did I wake up with the same idea, but there was another layer of, you know, functionality that I dreamed up or another use case where this would be needed.
Gemini: To the point where I, I, I was a prisoner of that idea, you know, and so, uh, I ended up deciding that I had to do it. And actually the first thing I did was I took the idea back to Amdocs and I said, you know, this would be a great idea. And they weren’t interested in, in developing it. They didn’t think there was a market.
Gemini: They didn’t think it was a big enough, kind of the size of prize wasn’t big enough. And so, You know, um, I was unconvinced and I said, if you’re not going to do it, then I would like to do it. You know, can I would you be okay if I left and started my own company and and that’s how it all started.
Jill: That’s amazing.
Jill: You know, it’s funny because I think that sort of obsessiveness around the idea It’s almost like a worm that gets into your brain and you really have to you know, satisfy that that itch that obsessiveness Um, it’s interesting that you talk about You You asking Amdocs, they really did miss out because who was it eventually that did buy your company?
Gemini: Amdocs bought my company six years, six and a half years later. Yeah, it was full circle, right? Um, and you know, I, I would say that they are 30, 000 people. Well, I don’t know that if they had said yes to buying to building it internally that we would have actually succeeded, you know, I think in order and maybe that was part of their strategy.
Gemini: Like, let me go do it, build it outside. I, I don’t know that they had actually thought. I really don’t think they thought that it was going to turn into something they bought, but I also don’t know that they would have been able to build it. Internally themselves, right? And that’s, you know, you hear the term intrapreneur, people that are entrepreneurial inside a big company.
Gemini: There’s really no comparison to being and leaves and then builds, you know, the idea from scratch, right? There’s just so much more. What’s scarier? It’s harder in many ways, but you can get it done so much more to a vision that you want to create, right? Rather than inside a large organization.
Jill: Yeah, absolutely.
Jill: It’s tough to build innovative things in a large organization that has just a tremendous amount of bureaucracy approvals. You know, it’s just you’ve got to go through this whole program management, uh, gates. Uh, and it’s just it’s too challenging. So maybe it was part of their strategy. But, you know, I think that, uh, like you said, maybe it wouldn’t have actually worked out the way that it has.
Jill: So, thankfully, you had that idea. Yeah. Um, let’s, let’s, let’s remind our viewers, if you have any questions for GemIIni, we’re streaming live now on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook. So if you have a question, please pop it into the comments and we’re going to get to those throughout the show. Um, so GemIIni, let’s talk a little bit more about, And what has been, uh, sort of the most challenging thing that you’ve run up against as an entrepreneur?
Jill: Like you said, you’ve been in the corporate world for a while, very successful. Becoming an entrepreneur is hugely different than what most people think it’s going to be. Tell me a little bit about what’s been the biggest challenge.
Gemini: Yeah, I think even, you know, in, in this company, uh, open screen now and at UXP systems, my life, it’s amazing.
Gemini: You know, you, you have people I was in really in sales, um, for most of my career and having the am docs, you know, badge on my shirt when I walked into Rogers or bell, um, you know, as, as, as great a salesperson as I thought I was. Um, I had an amdocs and the reputation and the social proof that everyone was buying from them when I walked in the door.
Gemini: Um, and there’s that track record and there’s a halo effect and there’s, you know, people that heard of the company. It doesn’t matter how good your idea is as an entrepreneur. It’s You know, you know, there isn’t any social proof of another customer using it. When you first start, um, as you build, you know, you, you get more and more, but it’s, there’s just a lot of resistance, especially from larger companies to take a chance on a small business on, on buying into something on, you know, they could believe in you, but it becomes a very big risk for a big organization to An individual in a big organization to take a chance on buying.
Gemini: So that, that initial, and sometimes I ask myself, why am I doing this all again? Right? That initial, um, hurdle of actually winning that first customer, that second customer or, and winning a new customer in a new segment, you know, is, is just. It’s so satisfying when it happens, but it’s so difficult to make it happen.
Jill: Amazing. So I guess the advantage that you had was having had a successful career in sales that, you know, customer engagement component, finding those first customers who are interested because of your background that must have helped you in some way because of your background and experience, while you didn’t have, you know, Amdocs as that badge.
Jill: Of credibility, certainly your knowledge and experience in the industry must have helped along with your sales skills.
Gemini: Yeah, I, I remember, um, I had, you know, similar to the lunch that you and I had at the 28th, Teen when you were contemplating this entrepreneurship. I had a very similar brunch with some friends.
Gemini: Um, the founders of Spin Master Toys, who, you know, invented Paw Patrol and all of that. They, they were, they had, they have been entrepreneurs for the last 30 years. So this goes back about 15 years before I started UXP and I met them for brunch. It was the old Four Seasons Hotel in Yorkville. It’s, it’s gone now and it’s moved places, but I had asked them, you know, should I do this?
Gemini: And I was, I was about to turn 40. And one of the founders, Renan, he said, you know, um, I had just read an article that actually 40 is about the right time to become an entrepreneur because you’ve had this experience of having built equity. in an industry, having learned about a specific industry or technology or whatever it is you’re doing.
Gemini: And you have also the network and the maturity. And so all of those different pieces, like I see, you know, people that in fact, university grads that, you know, that are in business school and say, I want to, you know, I’m going to go start a business and be an entrepreneur. I don’t know, looking back, I would say that those first 20 years working in large companies was actually part of the entrepreneurship journey for me.
Gemini: It was, you know, building that network, building very similar to you, Jill. You know, you are, um, an executive, you know, very well respected and known in your industry in procurement, and you took all of that and your contacts and, you know, your experience to start procure hub in, in very much the same way. I think, you know, that, that was, you know, a big thing for me, um, uh, to do.
Gemini: So it, it helped a lot. Uh, amazing, amazing. You’re, you’re, you know, you had a young family and it’s, there’s a lot of risk when you’re starting a company, especially a tech company and you’re building it from scratch.
Jill: You know, how big of a fan was your wife of the idea?
Gemini: Around that time that I had that brunch was, you know, contemplating getting into it.
Gemini: Um, she and I, she gets a lot of credit, you know, she was six, seven months pregnant, um, when I had no job was getting this thing started. And when Rogers found out that I had, resigned. Um, a mutual friend of ours, Bill Linton actually turned around and offered me a job to join Rogers. He said, well, if you’re leaving Amdocs, if there’s any chance that we can get you as an executive in the it, you know, group, then why don’t you do that?
Gemini: So I just left, I was getting ready to start the business. I hadn’t raised any money. And, um, although I had some leads and then I get this job offering for Rogers, which would have been, I might still be there today. Right. And, uh, And I had, I went to my wife and I said, you know, what should I do? And she said, you have to take this, you have to take not the job.
Gemini: You have to take this, you know, jump. You have to, you have to try it. And she and another mentor of mine, um, summarized it that, you know, with your experience, a job like Rogers and for all you entrepreneurs out there that have an idea, you know, um, A job like that could come along at any time, but an idea like this might be once in a lifetime.
Gemini: Right? So, um, yeah, she, she encouraged me and made a lot of sacrifices for me to be able to, to do what I did, and, um, it worked out. It really does take a, you know, a village, right? Even for a family and, and for entrepreneurship.
Jill: Yes. Yes. Actually, there’s a famous quote, uh, or at least I’m trying to make it famous from Harleen Dickinson says it takes a community to raise an entrepreneur.
Jill: And I just love the sort of the message in that because an entrepreneur isn’t just risking themselves. They’re risking their family. They’re risking their friends, their livelihood. And it’s such a. It’s such an incredibly challenging journey that I don’t think people really realize how tough it really is.
Jill: You may maybe make it look easy, Gemini, but no, you, you are not the average person. Like your skills, your idea obviously had to have legs in order for it to be as successful as it, as it was. Can we switch gears a little bit? I’d love to hear more about open screen. So, uh, share with us what open screen is currently doing that your current venture and are you, are you having a ton of fun with that?
Gemini: Um, yeah, fine. I am having fun. I’m having tons of fun. Um, what open screen? I’ll tell you a little bit. How about about how that idea was born very much, you know, prisoner to an idea kind of thing. So I had sold my last company. We had an office at young and Eglinton, which is just down the street here.
Gemini: We’re on the 3rd floor. And if you’re familiar with the intersection of young and Eglinton, um, there’s the young Eglinton center, which has a big billboard, a digital billboard on the side of it. And I was looking right at it. Kind of sitting in my my office and that the ad was like on the billboard was, you know, uh, explore Disney.
Gemini: Um, and, you know, get your Canadian dollars at par spend your Canadian dollars at par, and there was this long URL to actually go and look at the offer. Like, you know, Walt Disney World slash offer slash Canada dollars at par right there on the billboard. And I was thinking, like, who on earth would actually see that when they’re walking across the street and then start typing this, you know, 50 character URL into their phone, right?
Gemini: Mhm. For COVID and just the idea of, well, what if there was a QR code on that thing that someone could just scan, you know, right then and there and go to the offer. And of course, at that time in 2019, you needed an app on your phone to scan a QR code. You couldn’t do it with just your camera. Um, and a lot of people did when they saw the QR code, wouldn’t really know what to do with it.
Gemini: So anyway, I just became obsessed with these things and I started putting them around offices. And when I had people come in, And like, I’d say, hey, scan. That’s pretty neat. Scan. And then COVID hit. I had already made the decision that I wanted to do something with this technology. It’s been around for a long time.
Gemini: Um, and so COVID kind of brought QR codes up the most rapid technology adoption curve in the history of the world, right? Everyone had to use QR codes because nobody wanted to touch anything. Um, so that’s, you know, that was kind of how the idea was born. I felt that, you know, we were using QR codes during COVID.
Gemini: For applications and thank God they don’t exist anymore. Mostly like scanning menus in restaurants, right? People, people like, I like to use paper now and I’m glad that that’s mostly gone. Um, and after, and it was kind of a use case of necessity because you couldn’t, didn’t want to touch anything. What was missing was the use case of business opportunity.
Gemini: Like how could we actually use these things to solve real customer issues? And I’ll talk about that in a second. And so we ended up building an enterprise platform that tied together The ability to generate QR codes with also the ability to actually build the workflow for the experience that’s triggered by that QR code, you know, very rich, interactive experience.
Gemini: And if I can give you an example, so today we’re working and it’s funny about network. I never thought we’d do this, but going back to my experience in telecom, we just signed our 7th, um, broadband operator. They are putting QR codes on their modems and internet gateways, and it triggers a support workflow.
Gemini: device in that type, right? Calls for is before that existed, you would have to go to, you know, rogers dot com or coach echo dot com and then click on support and then click on the line of business and then find the device that you have and six clicks in. Maybe you would find how to reset your password.
Gemini: Um, now what you can do is you can just scan that QR code and you’re going right to a support experience exclusively for that device because we know that that’s what you’re having trouble with, right? So. You know, digital experience on physical devices is what OpenScreen is doing using, you know, the small but mighty QR code.
Jill: So, for the, for the lay person who doesn’t necessarily understand the intricacies of the technology, what I hear is that it’s well above what QR codes, uh, were, you know, originally getting us to, which is really just a website, right? It’s a, it’s a website. It’s a portal. Form. This is really enhancing it, bringing in the richness of an application in behind and streamlining the process that you need to follow as a customer.
Jill: So creating a much more slick or frictionless process, I guess, is what you’re calling it.
Gemini: That’s right. And interactive as well. So, you know, you can, you can do things like, you know, track a journey that a user is. So when you That using that same example, if someone is scanning the QR code to actually self installed internet gateway, you know, because in our platform, it’s, uh, it triggers a microsite of five different options, you know, install troubleshoot, you know, um, FAQ, you know, those kinds of things.
Gemini: And, and the microsite is 50, uh, different pages, and we can track or allow our customers to track the journeys that the different users are following to see where are they having most of their issues, where people getting stuck, where are they having success? So not only do we, you know, have, like you said, you know, this interactive experience, um, platform that you can, you know, drag and drop to build, but we can also deliver insights, you know, at the end and that, you know, and it would be an entire it’s a it’s a It’s an overlay, right?
Gemini: It doesn’t replace the website that already exists. It doesn’t replace any forms, but it’s a very easy way to drive down calls and drive up, you know, digital support for in that use case for broadband.
Jill: And so who would be, who would be the target customers who would be using this? Who are the ideal customers who are going to benefit from this?
Gemini: I mean, that is one of the things that you talk about entrepreneurship that we, um, struggle with because there are so many use cases with QR codes. My last company, we had an identity management platform for telecom operators, and there are 300 telecom operators in the world. And that’s who you’re selling to to their, you know, CIO.
Gemini: Um, we actually, um, we We make neat QR codes so that if your bag is lost, um, you scan it and it immediately texts you with the GPS location of your bag was found. We call them cloud tags, cloud tag, luggage tags. They’re actually sold in Staples and TJ Maxx in the U S that’s one thing we do. On the other hand, we have QR codes going on modems.
Gemini: Um, we have them going on, um, recycle bins, right? So that if your cart is broken or if you want to know what to recycle, you can scan one of our QR codes that we’ve sold to the world’s largest manufacturer of recycle carts. Um, so the, the use cases are endless, which is exciting, but it really does kind of You know, it forces us to step back and say, all right, like you can only throw so many pieces of spaghetti at the wall, which ones are you going to throw?
Gemini: Like, what, where are you going to get the most juice for the squeeze? Right. And so, um, the ideal customer, it could be anyone. It’s just a matter of what are the, you know, the highest value use cases that we see and want to target. Like every morning I think up of a new use case. I just, you can do, you know, you can do.
Gemini: Anything you want, and you can sell to any anyone you want. You just can’t sell to everyone. Right? So we’re still trying to figure that out actually, but telecommunications operators big market for us.
Jill: What about entrepreneurs or small and medium sized businesses? So the good part of our audience are entrepreneurs, obviously listening and learning from your experience, but we also have, you know, those same entrepreneurs who are running businesses.
Jill: Is there an application where these QR codes maybe can help them and what they’re doing and streamlining and, you know, creating a more frictionless engagement with their customers?
Gemini: Yeah, I mean, we, we do actually, you know, another, and you’ve, you’ve probably seen it, but we have a number of real estate agents, even that are using our platform.
Gemini: And they’re, you know, every real estate agent is at the end, a small business owner, right? Um, where it isn’t just a QR code that, you know, that links to their Instagram, um, using our platform, they can build interactive forms and put them on, you know, the postcard mailers. So, Um, for that specific house, right?
Gemini: So are you interested? Um, we had, uh, are you interested to scan here and would bring them to a form that they could fill and it would automatically email, you know, the real estate agent, the, um, uh, the lead, right? And so we’re doing that actually with an insurance company, a small business here in Toronto.
Gemini: Um, we’re doing it with, um, we did it with, um, uh, some small, uh, C Canadian hockey league sports teams. They’re putting QR. Okay. Our codes in their arenas again to win a prize. And then essentially when you do, it takes the customers in phone, it sends it to their CRM. So there, you know, think about a QR code with whenever you can physically touch a customer with direct mail or even on your products or on a sign or on your truck or whatever it may be.
Gemini: It’s an opportunity to actually grab a lead, right? Because you can actually with our platform, you could build a, you know, um, elite generation form. You can provide info, you can yeah. And even create a work form, it automatically emails a PDF of whatever, you know, they might have been looking for. So there, there, there are, you know, many, many use cases that apply to the smallest, you know, one person business right up to a Fortune 500 company.
Jill: Amazing. So it really is truly anyone can benefit from this and it’s, it’s much more than, you know, a link to a website or a link to a form. It really is. It sounds transformational and I do see a lot of application for sure within small business and even procure hubs So we’ll have to talk after um, let’s let’s talk a little bit more about you know The entrepreneurial journey that you’ve had and we’re going to get into You know, a lot of our listeners are going to want to hear Uh, how do you how do you you know, you we talked a little bit about raising your first customers, but you know How do you actually?
Jill: Attract investors and you know, how do you, how do you create that traction? I think that’s one of the biggest challenges that I’ve experienced as an entrepreneur, especially with procure hub is I’m in that, that phase right now where I’m trying to attract investors, but I’m also at the same time trying to create that traction, how, how, how, what are the types of.
Jill: Sort of tips or guidance you can give us in that regard.
Gemini: Yeah. So we’ll start with the raising money. Cause I think if, you know, most entrepreneurs at some point will need capital. Um, and uh, I would start by, and we talked about this before the show, but I can’t underestimate the importance of a, a good pitch deck, you know, a good PowerPoint that, and I, I may have recommended this one to you as well, but there’s, there’s a great one, um, called.
Gemini: Start, start small, but think big, or maybe it’s think big, but start small, that Sequoia Capital put out on the Internet. Um, it’s an eight page template, and it really, if you, if you follow the template, It really does take you from, okay, here’s my idea to here’s how much I want to raise and everything in the middle, like competitors, size of market.
Gemini: And if you follow, if you follow that, you know, I, I think, and you’re passionate about the idea. Like one of the things that they talk about is they love investing in entrepreneurs who are hell bent on bringing an idea to life. So the combination of having that idea, but being able to clearly articulate it, um, with your own excitement, but also.
Gemini: So, you know, kind of in the slide deck, um, in a good pitch deck is, is key to raising money. Um, and then this, the, I I think the last piece about raising money is, is you have to get a little bit creative. So, you know, and, and this goes into winning your first customers. Kind of the second part of your question and getting traction.
Gemini: I, I went to, to see every VC in Toronto when I first had the idea of UXP. And, you know, they, they liked the idea, tell.
Gemini: Telecom operators back then had a lot of spending it, they were growing, you know, the internet was still, you know, growing and IPTV. And anyway, they thought they turned around and said, okay, we love your idea. We’ll invest in you if you if you get 1 customer. And I thought, like, You’ll invest if I get one customer, I need the investment before I can get a customer and have a product.
Gemini: Right. And so, uh, I ended up raising money. The first two and a half million dollar commitment I got was actually a cable operator in the Caribbean who I said, you know, I will, I w I would like use a customer. I’ll deliver it for free. I just need you as a customer to go back and tell the VCs so they’ll give me money.
Gemini: And they were like, well, of course, of course, you know, we’re, we’re going to be the, We’re the most valuable thing to you to be a customer. So how about this? We’ll be your customer. We’ll even pay you for it, but we’re going to invest also invest in your business. Right? So, you know, how do you get traction?
Gemini: I think you need to think creatively like that, right? Just cause what I, what I was able to. Because of my network, I had this great mentor, um, who was the CEO of this, this company. And he believed in the idea, believed in me. You have to get a little bit creative because all in one shot, I, I got my investment.
Gemini: I got my first customer, you know, um, I actually had a contract that could hire some people. Um, and that in itself was, was almost all the traction I needed to get going. Right. Which, which by the way, is very different in this business where to build the platform, um, And fully and before going out to get a customer and then, you know, we’ve been through a number of iterations to find out which customers are the, you know, the best ones are the most valuable to get, um, in the market.
Gemini: Right? So, yeah, that’s my experience. Anyway, um, and the rest, you know, nothing, everything got a little bit easier after that first customer, the charter customer, as you call it, right with the investment. Um, but not Not easy. And then every and you get the next customer and then easier and easier. And then it goes from there.
Gemini: And then eventually you’re, you know, you’re the leader in your market, right?
Jill: It’s funny because you’re, you talk a little bit about the chicken and egg, right? So, and what comes first, does it, does the investor come first or does the customer? And a lot of times, at least in my experience, when I’m trying to raise, is that a lot of, um, VCs or angels are interested in the traction first.
Jill: So what have you been able to show in terms of traction? And then we’ll invest. Um, I you know, I would say for our listeners for those of you who are in a fundraising mode Um, it is going to be different for every entrepreneur, and it’s going to be different for every business. So, for SAS, for your particular business, you know, getting that first customer as a prerequisite to funding to prove that there was customers out there.
Jill: is probably a much different experience than others. Myself, as an example, building a marketplace, I’m actually trying to serve and build both sides of the marketplace at the same time. So suppliers we started with first, and then we’re now trying to aggressively get customers. And I’m also trying to convince the suppliers who are on board that they’re also customers.
Jill: So that’s a, that’s a, that’s a huge challenge and all of the feedback I’ve gotten so far from VCs is. And angels is, well, you have to prove that people want to use the system. And the way that you do that is through sales, but it’s hugely, it’s hugely challenging because you need that investment in order to build out the functionality in order to do the marketing in order to grow the business.
Jill: Can you talk a little bit about, you know, beyond that first customer and your first investment, how did you, how did you go about, um, You know, growth, like the sales, the marketing. What are some of the tips you can share?
Gemini: Yeah. So, you know, I, I, I will say that, and you’re, you’re so right. It’s different, even between my two businesses, like the, you know, the characteristics around fundraising and going to market are entirely different.
Gemini: Um, in UXP, my last business, you know, I happen to be At a place and a time where the investing climate was good, you know, it’s it’s not great today. Um, uh, it’s it’s there. Um,
Gemini: people were very willing on infrastructure at the time. Um, and we’re very interested in companies like mine that were actually getting very large profits. Companies as customers, right? So what we were getting, you know, Vodafone is a customer or AT& T or Bell Canada, you know, going after those, uh, markets now.
Gemini: So then how did I grow? We were able to raise over that seven years. Um, I think, uh, somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 million Canadian dollars, right. And, um, I will say, and it’s unbelievable to some, but there are a lot of companies like this. We were in business for seven years. We never made a profit.
Gemini: Um, we always. You know, grew revenue, like almost doubled it every year, kind of like zero to one to two to four to eight to, you know, 16. And then we were, we’re sold. Um, and people were at that time, you know, this whole blitz blitz scaling, they call it where people were willing to write us checks.
Gemini: And so once we, you know, it became a snowball that, and so we did have like, we had 150 people when we sold and I had 10, 10 people in sales and marketing, you know, to be able to, um, it’s not the case here. We are much more a bootstrapped kind of, you know, um, operation. And because we don’t, necessarily have these fortune 100 customers as our primary targets.
Gemini: And the price of our solution is much less like it’s an entirely different ball. And that was, that was how we grew. Right. And so I think the recipe is different for every business.
Jill: So would you have any advice now that you’ve actually gone through the process of, you know, first building you XP and now with open screen, having those two different experiences, what kind of advice would you have for other entrepreneurs who are maybe, you know, struggling with the growth and the scale, especially, you know, post pandemic, a lot of people were really, you know, You know, tremendously impacted.
Jill: In fact, you know, ProcureHub really came from a realization that, you know, buyers really were now shifting to online and that, you know, that recognition sort of led to the realization that buyers, you know, like, you know, they’re flocking to Amazon for purchases, buyers who are buying for business want to do the same.
Jill: And. It really had a dramatic impact in our business, the consulting side, um, for those who are impacted by the pandemic, who are maybe in a recovery, who are maybe, you know, been struggling, um, what kind of advice would you have for them, um, in terms of, you know, encouragement to keep going or other advice around, you know, how to, how to, how to get through it and grow.
Gemini: Yeah. So, I mean, I think you really, I’ll tell you a little bit about this business. So we’ve been, you know, we’ve been at it for, um, almost four years now. Um, I, I kind of funded the business at the start and then we did a raise, uh, a capital raise, um, kind of one year in. And because I had a successful venture, it was, it was easier to raise money.
Gemini: Um, but we made this decision that we wanted to build the platform because in my mind, one of the things I didn’t, Enjoy about UXP was we were always losing money and, and it was a very. Labor and customer, um, let’s say Vodafone, you know, I needed to hire 10 people to deliver that project. And I felt like every dollar I spent, you know, 7, I had to for every dollar I earned, I had to spend, you know, 70 cents hiring more people.
Gemini: And that’s why we were never profitable, um, in this business. And this, and this gets to, you know, kind of struggling and operating lean in this business. We decided to build the platform 1st and then, you know, use this whole, if you build it, They will come several millions of dollars building the open screen platform.
Gemini: And, um, when we first launched our first launch, the customers didn’t come. And we actually were running out of, uh, out of out of money. Um, to the point where kind of mid last year, we had to right size the business. Um, and, um, really take a hard look at where. We were making money, you know, where customers are coming and what was not worth pursuing.
Gemini: So we actually killed one product of our, our, our offerings. Um, we right sides the business and we just, we literally said, okay, we think these are viable markets to go after, or use cases like the broadband use case or the waste management use case, or these retail products that we have and said, these are the three things that we’re doing.
Gemini: Um, we are spending significantly less than we did a year ago. Um, And the funny thing is we are, you know, well on our way to becoming a seven figure company now in terms of revenue where we were barely figures last year. Right. And so, um, so yeah, I would say like, and, and, and the platform by the way is no different than it was a year ago.
Gemini: It’s just that our go to market has changed and our focus has changed. We maybe, maybe we had too much money in the beginning and, you know, our efforts were all over the place. So I would say, you know, If you do have, you know, green shoots, um, where you see opportunity, like, let the bamboo grow. And, you know, they say, like, bamboo plant, right?
Gemini: Take 3 years where it grows a foot and then it grows 100 feet. Right? Um, many businesses are like that. Many entrepreneurial ventures are like that, that when it clicks, it starts to click. So, um, you know, you just need to, you know, meter, you know, the desire to, you just have to go for it. Um, but go for it and it may be a more measured way, right?
Gemini: If, um, like we have here and, and it’s paying off for us, it really is.
Jill: I think that’s really great advice because I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with, you know, entrepreneurs have ideas and ideas are exciting and it’s actually more difficult to stay the course and really focus on those things that are core to the business.
Jill: Um, I’m guilty of it myself. And I think that, you know, the, the. The real catalyst has to be, like you said, the revenue and the cost and you need to do more with less and getting yourself sharply focused on your core and really, um, being as agile and streamlined as possible, um, is, is important and I think that’s great advice for a lot of entrepreneurs.
Jill: I’m going to take a quick. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Gemini: Someone in the comments just wrote love this, you know, grow profitably. And that, that’s what I was looking. I was looking for that term profitable growth, right? It’s, uh, which we didn’t have last time around. We were lucky to exit. Um, fortunate, you know, um, This, but I would say that that’s absolutely not.
Gemini: You can also control your fate, right? Like I was. Whenever we ran out of money at UXP, we had to, we, fortunately we had investors willing to invest, but really we were working for the investors, right? And we were reporting to them and we were doing what they wanted us to do. If you’re, if you’re growing profitably, you might not grow as fast because you never want to outspend what you’re bringing in, but you can really control, you know, your destiny.
Jill: So we’re gonna take a quick break. Uh, we’re gonna hear from, uh, our sponsor, and then when we come back, we’re gonna get into some viewer questions. So, just a reminder, everyone, if you’re listening and you have a question for Gemini or a comment, please pop them into the comments, whether you’re on LinkedIn, Facebook, or YouTube.
Jill: We’d love to hear from you. Thank you. Um, so when we get back, we’re gonna go to those comments and then Gemini, I wanna dig into. Sort of that journey of creating that successful exit. That’s the, that’s the surprise or that the, hopefully the goal that I think most people are working towards. So with, uh, without further ado, I’m going to give you a word from our sponsor.
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Jill: Alright, we’re back with Gemini. We’re talking about his experience as an entrepreneur. Um, we’re going to go to the comments real quick here. So we’ve got someone who has said, Hey, it’s amazing to hear how ideas develop for entrepreneurs. Um, Brock says, and it’s affordable for SMB. I think he’s talking about open screen there.
Jill: Uh, and then your comment that you read was, um, love this, uh, grow profitably should be the motto for sure. Um, so let’s, let’s talk about the, the process of exiting. So, you know, how do you know when that, when is the right time to do that? And, you know, how does your mindset shift into maybe finding a buyer?
Jill: And let’s talk about that.
Gemini: Yeah. Um, it’s, it’s, it’s good. And that by the way, is, is also a sales process. You can’t, you know, don’t think you can expect to. You know, 1 day you’re going to grow and you’re running your business and someone’s going to come say I want to buy your business. That in itself is an initiative.
Gemini: You have to undertake. So going back to you. X. P. I think we had hit somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 million dollars in revenue. And, um, and I was. Very mindful of a few things. The first was I hadn’t had an exit, right? So, um, and I didn’t, you know, the majority of the company, but I knew I, it would be life changing if we managed to sell the company for what we felt we could get as a multiple.
Gemini: So there was a personal factor involved. And I, I wasn’t, and I I would say this for entrepreneurs that eventually wanna exit, I wasn’t emotionally attached to the business. Um, I loved the idea, I loved the people, but the, i, the whole notion of selling that business and, you know, um, I, I wasn’t like, my identity was not attached to people who don’t wanna sell because they feel that they are the business and the business is them.
Gemini: Um, so what I felt was that we were, you know, there are only so many telecom operators in the world and we had probably not done. Almost every door. We had the customers that we were going to get and without, you know, a larger telecom, um, infrastructure provider bundling our product with theirs, like an Amdocs and there are a few other companies.
Gemini: He’s like Amdocs out there a lot harder for us to win new customers and grow just on our own. So, I remember we had a board meeting and I told, you know, management, the board at that time that I was going to spend 25 percent of my time. Looking at strategic, you know, exit options, the investors were not happy.
Gemini: They wanted me to it’s no problem. No, no skin off their back for them. Need to just keep trying to build the business and making their investment worth more. But I, but I felt it was the right thing to do. And it, it took about a year. Getting out. I knew in the industry executives that, um, larger telecom infrastructure providers, some of whom were our partners about, you know, really, the pitch of our portfolio should be part of your bigger portfolio.
Gemini: Um, and then am dots actually, along with others, um, did approach us and say, you know what? We’re interested in, in acquiring you 1 of, by the way, I’ll tell you if, and for your, um, uh, for your entrepreneurs out there, um, I think the main reason I’m not Tobias is because we were winning business with existing customers of theirs.
Gemini: And I would say that that so, as an example, we want to deal in Malaysia and, um, and Amdocs was like the main supplier to that customer in Malaysia. And I think they kind of looked at and say, wow, you XP, like, want to deal in Malaysia. You know, these guys are and they’re plugging into our systems. Like, how did they do that?
Gemini: Right? So you want to, you know, you want to get the attention of. Someone that might get the attention of an acquirer is by getting the attention of their customers, you know, so, um, I think that’s a big part of it. And you there’s, you can do that intentionally. Like, you can advertise it when, when you win a customer, kind of put it in your LinkedIn network and advertise it to your friends that, you know, the larger company that might want to acquire use.
Gemini: We did a lot of that. Um, how the acquisition then came about was then we actually, um, we decided So we had done enough networking or got sales to these potential acquirers to the point where we had a couple of people that had expressed an interest in bidding. So we actually ended up running a process where, you know, kind of like a silent bidding kind of thing where we submitted, we created a data room.
Gemini: We brought in all of the materials, we let people come and take a peek. Um, and by the way, it is a very time consuming thing to sell your business. It kind of shuts down your business. So you really need to be, you know, you. Um, and we had a number of people, you know, express an interest and then finally ended up being the successful bidder.
Gemini: So, um, but there was a lot in the middle. It took a whole year to sell the company. So, um, if you have any specific questions. Well, I, I’m interested in how you, like, how did you know the timing was right? Like, what was, what was it? Was there a catalyst to, like, Amdocs, obviously, you were making a lot of noise, so that, that’s one thing, but how did you know it was the right time for you and the company?
Gemini: So, I think there was one more factor, and again, it’s, everyone’s situation is going to be different, um, but, you know, in, in that industry, telecom infrastructure, so, if, if you’re not familiar with the industry, there, there are names of, Vendors that are well known, like Nokia and Ericsson, and you know. And Siemens and CSG and, you know, companies like that, I felt so we felt that we were going to get a good multiple, you know, on our on our revenue.
Gemini: So we were going to be, it was going to be 100 million plus dollar deal. Um, I felt that if we kept growing on our own, we would be Too expensive for one of these companies to acquire, you know, so, so at, at, at around nine figures, low nine figures, it’s a nice tuck in for these very large companies. If we managed to somehow grow to 50 or a hundred million in revenue, we would have to go public.
Gemini: Like that would be the only exit for us because we’d be too expensive for these larger companies to acquire. And I had no interest in growing that business to the business to a point where it was a hundred million. And, you know, having I don’t know, 5, 000 employees or 10, 000 employees. I’m an ideas guy.
Gemini: Like, I don’t think I’m an operator at least not at that scale. Um, so, yeah, so I did, you know, um, feel that the time was right. And I
Gemini: with your business. It’s a combination of different factors. You know, I was at, I was 45, it was probably time for me to seek an exit and, and let my wife off the hook a little bit, you know, in terms of running the show at home. Um, I felt the company had reached a size that we almost didn’t want to go too big for acquisition.
Gemini: And we had kind of tapped out our market to some extent. So it was just a combination of things.
Jill: So it’s sort of a natural, organic, uh, almost, you know, it’s not, there was no certain, you know, methodical, the numbers said it was the right time. It was just organically, you just go into it.
Gemini: Yeah. Like there’s, it’s a gut feel, right?
Gemini: Because even, you know, a year before, I think we wouldn’t have, we wouldn’t have it. Gotten the attention of of the acquirers, right? Or the potential acquirer. Right. You get to this point where, you know, you’re a dot on the map, you know, and you’re a swallowable dot on the map. And so I think you’ll know.
Jill: Awesome. Awesome. All right. We’re going to be wrapping up soon. So if you have any questions for Geminar. Gemini, pop that into the comments, uh, the, um, the process for you to let go of the business. Was it at all emotional for you? I mean, obviously the outcome of the exit makes it a lot more palatable, but was there any emotion associated with letting go of your baby?
Jill: Like you, you risk, you risked everything for this, right? Was there any sort of remorse, uh, about selling? Um,
Gemini: None, actually. And I, I think everyone’s different, but it, you know, it wasn’t my baby. Like, my babies were at home, right? It’s a, it was, it was, it was my idea initially. But in the end, it was something that, you know, 100 people built and, you know, we, we were, we were swallowed by a, you know, a very strategic acquirer.
Gemini: Um, the unit, by the way, it’s been 6 years. It’ll be 6 years 7 years in February, um, since we were acquired and that story I told you sitting at Yonge and Eglinton, my office, that office is still there and the unit still there. It runs as a unit of Amdocs. And so, in many ways, I think, you know, the emotion is I’m just really happy that, like, Everyone that still works there mostly has, you know, is the ones that wanted to stay are still there.
Gemini: Um, the business is healthy. Um, you know, we, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s nice to know that it’s still operational. Very few, you know, it’s something like, I don’t know, 10 percent right of acquisitions end up being successful after Five years, you know, something like that. And so it’s just, I think that is more satisfying if, if, for example, the acquisition failed and the business imploded and everyone got fired, I think there might’ve been regret to remorse that boy, we sold it too soon, or we sold it the wrong buyer.
Gemini: Um, but fortunately that wasn’t the case.
Jill: So I think what I hear, you know, the, the lesson is, is that you built this company to sell. It was built to sell. It wasn’t built to stay. You are not an operator. You’re a builder and you accomplish that in a very short period of time. Um, you know, your ability to do that is amazing.
Jill: Is first of all incredible. So you’ve always been an inspiration to me and I, I just want to thank you for that. And for those who are listening, I think it’s important. You know, this is an incredible example of with the right idea and the right ambition. And an entrepreneurial spirit. Um, it is possible.
Jill: And I think that’s one of the things that I take away from every conversation I have with an entrepreneur is, you know, it is incredibly hard. You just have to keep going after it. And, you know, I just one of my, um, one of my takeaways from. Other entrepreneurs is if you just got to keep swimming, right?
Jill: Like you just got to keep going keep at it Um, what other advice we’re we’re going to wrap up real soon. What other advice do you have? or You know parting words of wisdom. Would you like to leave our listeners with Gemini? um
Gemini: I think I I think any business idea can be successful, you know, I I really do And it’s just imagining product, you know, product market fit sales, you know, I, I, I really do.
Gemini: And even with open screen, I had this fascination with the technology of QR codes. I didn’t really know where it, where we were going to go with it. And I just remember telling people, like, I haven’t figured it and it was honest enough. So, you know, I don’t think we figured this out yet, but I, I know we can and I know we will.
Gemini: And so that to everyone. Um,
Gemini: Jill, all the entrepreneurs out there, um, I think any idea can be successful with the right amount of, um, Magic behind it. Absolutely.
Jill: Well, I would like to take this time to say thank you, Gemini, for joining me today. It’s been an incredible discussion and it’s been a while since you and I have had a chance to catch up.
Jill: So, for more information on open screen, how can people connect?
Gemini: You can, I mean, website openscreen.com and you can submit an inquiry there or just. You know, message me on LinkedIn. Um, I’d be happy to answer any questions you have. And I’ll also thank you very much, uh, Jill, for the opportunity to tell my story here.
Gemini: I don’t think, um, in the six years I’ve actually ever been invited to recount the journey. So, um, I’m grateful for that.
Jill: Thank you. Well, I feel honored that I had the opportunity to be the first. And, uh, again, thank you so much for being here. For those who are listening, if you would like more information on the ProcureHub marketplace, you can sign up or join our growing community at
Jill: procurehub.ca or more information about the Entrepreneur Show www. theentrepreneuringshow.com or you can send us an email to info at procurepro. ca. For Gemini and myself, until next time, entrepreneurs, just keep swimming.