I think one thing that holds back a lot of potential entrepreneurs from getting started is the belief that you need to have a meticulously detailed 30-page business plan.
There’s a ton of advice out there on the interwebs about all the steps you need to take and all the spreadsheets and templates you need to fill out before you can officially start bringing your project to life.
But that isn’t always necessary.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s important to put careful thought into any business venture. But you can waste too much time thinking and rethinking it through without ever really getting started.
As you’ll hear from my talk with David Setzer of Mailprotector, you don’t always need a super detailed plan to build a successful product. Sometimes, you just need to start executing.
If you missed my livestream with David, you can watch a recording of the full Channel CEO video here (or just click the image below!):
And don’t miss my next Channel CEO today at 1 PM EST! 👉 Stream it here!
Most would agree that ransomware attacks today are more destructive and dangerous than ever.
However, Mailprotector didn’t become the successful email security company it is today because David anticipated just how prevalent ransomware would be in the 21st century.
Instead, David found success through the simple (though not necessarily easy) art of solving one problem at a time.
“In a successful business, you don’t have to plan everything,” David said. “Sometimes things just fall into place.”
In the 90s, David’s parents moved the family business, Virtual Connect Technologies, online; they were building extranets—essentially, systems for companies that replaced cumbersome stom software.
As part of this pivot, the company developed what would today be called a cloud-based software solution (though those terms weren’t used back then).
This wasn’t because they saw the internet as being the future of all business transactions (though they would have certainly been right there) but because they needed to solve a problem:
“We just said, ‘Hm, we’re a small shop and we don’t have the resources to develop installed software,’” David recalled.
Instead, David and his family decided to offer their solution online to save on the costs of developing for Windows 2000.
The company essentially became an applications provider, and within a few years they were managing thousands of email boxes and, as a result, spending more and more time managing email security.
Eventually, David decided to put an admin interface on his internal email security solution and see if the company could sell it as a product.
“I would like to say that we launched Mailprotector with some grand purpose in mind,” David said, “but the grand purpose kind of was, ‘Hey, here’s a market opportunity and my kids really like to eat,’” he laughed.
And so Mailprotector was born.
Within about six months, the company had almost entirely pivoted to focus on Mailprotector and serving the email security market.
Today, Mailprotector is a well-known name in the email security space, and I think the most interesting thing about the company’s success is how it was achieved.
David and his family weren’t trying to corner a $3.5 billion-dollar market. They were just trying to solve each problem that got in the way of their business moving forward.
By taking a problem-solving approach to the business rather than trying to predict where the market would lead them, the company was able to not only solve its own problems, but problems their users had, too.
In essence, this approach meant taking a solutions-first direction for the business’s development.
The more solutions they developed, the more problems Mailprotector helped customers overcome.
“The problem has only gotten worse,” David said about today’s ransomware landscape. “Before, we were dealing with annoyances. You know, you get this virus, this worm—it was an annoyance. That’s changed to even pass the organized crime; we’re into sophisticated enterprise crime. You know, with ransomware, it’s a big business. It’s arguably tens or hundreds of billions of dollars—the ransomware business. And 90% of the threats come through email.”
To learn more about what Mailprotector is doing to combat the threat of ransomware and improve the user email experience, watch my full interview with David above!
And, if you’re a channel CEO, let me know if you want to be interviewed next!
Let’s do this.
Kevin
P.S. A lot of awesome stuff is happening over at Channel Program! Check out our upcoming events here or learn more about how we can help you grow in the channel by contacting our Sales team here.
And don’t forget to check out my recent posts to add my upcoming Channel CEO livestreams to your calendar!
CEO of Channel Program (ChannelProgram.com)
Published • 1mo
Check out some highlights from my interview with David Setzer of Mailprotector in today’s newsletter! AND don’t miss my next Channel CEO interview TODAY at 1 PM EST with Walter Contreras of Binox Software!👇 https://lnkd.in/eEtMk22p