Enterprise Direct Sales Playbook

AMP Live, founded by Eddie Vaca in 2014, is a live video distribution platform that connects broadcasters with audiences in real time. The company generated $1.3M in revenue in 2015 and was on track to reach ~$3.9M in 2016 by selling audience delivery services to major brands like Microsoft, Salesforce, Martha Stewart, and Home Depot. Eddie bootstrapped the company with a small $100K friends and family round and built it into an enterprise direct-sales operation using outbound sales tools.

Bridgecrest Medical is a B2B SaaS company founded by 25-year-old Nathan Clair that uses wearable technology and IoT analytics to predict worker fatigue and prevent accidents at heavy industry sites like mining, trucking, and oil and gas operations. Launched in late 2015 after raising $1.3M, the company has grown to 10-20 employees with 10-20 enterprise customers paying five to six figure annual contracts with zero churn. The business demonstrates strong product-market fit with multi-year contract commitments and partnerships with industry majors like Barrick Gold.

ZynePak is a custom publication and VIP merchandise agency founded in 2011 by Kim Kaup that creates exclusive fan packages for entertainers, brands, and celebrities. Starting with $600,000 in revenue in 2011, the company grew to $2.8M by 2015 and appeared on Shark Tank, receiving offers from four out of five sharks (though ultimately declining to accept). They work with major artists like Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, Katy Perry, and sports teams like the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets, operating on a B2B wholesale model with 20-35% gross margins.

Bitfusion is an enterprise SaaS company founded in January 2015 by three ex-Intel/Dell/Samsung engineers that pools idle compute resources in data centers to create supercomputer-level performance. After raising $1.5M in seed funding through Y Combinator's SAFE framework in April 2015, they launched their product in November 2015 and acquired 6 pilot customers and 2 signed contracts within 3 months by strategically targeting enterprises with short sales cycles. With 9 total employees and customers ranging from cloud service providers to Shell, they generate between $100k-$500k in annual revenue per customer.

Khalid Salid founded InVesp in 2006, a conversion optimization consulting agency that helps enterprise clients like eBay, O'Reilly, 3M, and Dish Network increase online revenue. Starting with $15-20K in first year revenue while maintaining a $100K+ corporate salary, the company grew to over $1 million by 2011 through high-touch consulting ($8,000+/month retainers averaging 15-24 months). By 2016, Khalid decided to transition the business into a SaaS platform offering A/B testing, heatmaps, video recording, and analytics to compete in the conversion optimization software space.

Hourly Nerd is an online marketplace connecting elite business talent (MBAs, professors, industry experts) with companies needing specialized expertise on a project basis. Founded in 2013 by Rob Biedermann and two co-founders from Harvard Business School, the company takes a percentage (15-20%) of each project transaction and had grown to 21,000 experts serving 5,000+ customers including major clients like GE by 2015. With $10 million raised including a $750K seed from Mark Cuban and a $7.8M Series B, Hourly Nerd reached over $5M in ARR by 2015 with a 58-person Boston-based team.

RAIN is a digital agency founded by Andrew Halla that operates across three offices (Utah, New York, Nicaragua) with about 100 employees. The agency specializes in strategy, creative, and development, working with major enterprise clients like Beachbody, Campbell Soup Company, Facebook, Walmart, and Puma. In 2015, RAIN generated approximately $14 million in revenue and was projected to reach $17-18 million in 2016, primarily through enterprise retainers ranging from $50-75,000 per month.

AstroPrint is an IoT platform for the 3D printing industry, often called the "Android of 3D printing." Founded in 2013 and pivoted in 2014, the company makes 3D printers easy to operate and connects them to a cloud-based app store ecosystem. With $150,000 in 2015 revenue and $400,000 raised, they're pursuing a B2B licensing model targeting printer manufacturers and major brands, projecting $500,000 in 2016 revenue.

Bottlenose is an enterprise SaaS company providing big data analytics and trend detection for large consumer brands and enterprises. Founded by serial entrepreneur Innova Spivak, the company processes close to 100 billion data records per day at a rate of about 1 million per second, using machine learning to detect emerging trends across 13 different data channels. With fewer than 100 enterprise customers paying annual contracts ranging from tens of thousands to over half a million dollars, Bottlenose has raised over $20 million and is currently in fundraising mode for a larger round.

Omelette is a creative agency based in Culver City, LA with 80 employees working with major brands like Red Bull, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Pokemon, and AT&T. The agency specializes in branded video content and social media strategy, with a focus on converting creative content into measurable business results. Ty Stafford, a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree at age 27, leads content strategy efforts and works on high six-figure projects like Red Bull's campaign to drive can sales through social content.

Cellink is a Swedish bioprinting company founded in 2015 by Eric Gattonholm and Hector Martinez that manufactures affordable 3D bioprinters and provides custom tissue printing services. They've sold 40 bioprinters at $5,000 each with 87% gross margins, and project $4 million in total 2016 revenue by combining printer sales with high-margin services for cosmetic and pharmaceutical testing. The company aims to democratize bioprinting technology globally while working toward their long-term vision of bioprinting functional human organs for transplantation.

OutCold is an experiential marketing agency founded by Fritz Heffinger that specializes in creating mobile brand experiences using converted shipping containers and vintage vehicles. The agency did $2.5M in revenue in 2015 and works with major brands like Nordstrom, creating immersive on-the-road campaigns that prioritize authentic consumer interaction over traditional media buying. Fritz aims to scale the agency to $10-15M within 2-3 years as brands shift budgets toward experiential and guerrilla marketing.

Cohesity is an enterprise storage company founded by Mohit Rahn, the inventor of hyperconvergence, in June 2013. The company raised $15M Series A from Sequoia and Wing Ventures in November 2013, and $55M Series B in May 2015, achieving a pre-money valuation between $150M-$500M. As of October 2015 (two months after GA), the company had generated under $10M in revenue.

Jay Baer built Convince and Convert into a multi-million dollar strategy consulting firm with three equally-sized revenue streams: speaking (approx. $1.2M annually), corporate sponsorships (approx. $500K+ annually from podcasts), and consulting. The company operates a unique sponsorship model where corporate partners pay to host and sponsor content properties including six weekly podcasts, a top marketing blog with 4 million annual visitors, and numerous educational resources.

Rumber is a manufacturing company founded in 1991 that produces composite boards from recycled tires and plastic for industrial applications including military, oil field, transportation, and marine industries. Brian Adams acquired the company in 2012 for $5 million when the original owner became ill, and has since grown it into an efficiency machine producing 30,000 pounds per day with a 2016 revenue goal of $10 million.

Angelo Ramora built Ohio Cash Flow, a real estate investment company that buys distressed properties, renovates them, tenants them, and sells them to passive investors across the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. Starting from a failed highly-leveraged approach at age 23 that lost $3-4k monthly, he pivoted to cash-flow focused investing and scaled to 7 closed deals generating $210k in profit by January 2016, with a goal of 250+ deals that year. The company operates two offices with 10 full-time staff and provides end-to-end property management services to investors seeking passive real estate income.

Kristi Zouki left a six-figure salary at Procter & Gamble to found Knowledge Hound, a SaaS platform that solves 'corporate amnesia' by making companies' market research searchable and discoverable. The platform had grown with double-digit growth rates for three years by 2016, with a goal to hit $5 million in annual revenue by the end of that year.

Franklin Cole is a sales funnel architect and advertising strategist who helps high-revenue entrepreneurs ($10M+) scale their businesses through strategic Facebook advertising and funnel optimization. He generates revenue through monthly retainers plus performance-based compensation, and has driven over $40 million in combined client revenue by spending $3-3.5 million on ad campaigns—demonstrating a 12x+ ROI. His approach focuses on mapping profitability paths before spending any money and optimizing for revenue-per-lead metrics.

Vroom is an online used car retailer founded by Alon Block in August 2013 that sells cars directly to consumers, buys cars from consumers, and facilitates financing entirely online. By January 2016, just 2.5 years after launch, the combined business (which acquired Texas Direct Auto in late 2015) generated $900 million in revenue with approximately 500 employees, growing from essentially zero through operational excellence, software-driven reconditioning processes, and a focus on high-volume, efficient business model similar to Amazon and Costco.

SeamlessDocs is a SaaS platform that transforms static PDFs into smart, interactive online forms for government and enterprise clients. Founded in 2013 by Jonathan Endin, the company struggled for the first year trying to serve small businesses before pivoting to local and state governments as their ideal customer. With over 300+ government customers across 40 states, a 99% annual retention rate, and $17,000 average annual contract value, they were projected to reach $2M in 2015 revenue and $20M in 2016.