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| Home - CEO Spotlight - Jan 04 Issue |
CEO Spotlight: Mark A. Stiffler, Synygy
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Angel Mehta: Did you anticipate those transitions or did the opportunities sneak up on you?
Mark Stiffler: In the early years, the transitions were more a function of client demand and market need. The later transitions, such as becoming a multi-product company, were a very proactive step to realizing that the future competitors weren’t the best of breed vendors with a single product. In the future, we’d be competing against the larger software companies. Assuming the larger enterprise software players are able to catch up to us in terms of their EIM functionality, we had to be in a position where we could offer multiple solutions to customers as a single vendor.
Angel Mehta: Every entrepreneur has a few early moments that can help clarify or convince him or her that they’re truly on to something and that it’s possible to build a company around whatever the particular concept is. Tell me about what some of those victories were for you in the early days. What was the first win?
Mark Stiffler: Well, we were thrilled with our very first wins because we were earning revenue - that is thrilling in and of itself. Since then, we’ve grown every quarter, and made the INC 500 Hall of Fame. Things like that that convinced us that, yes, we were on to something. It comes back to those transitions you asked about. Going from a single-product to a multi-product company… moving from a client/server product to a web-based product…those are transitions that have put other software vendors out of business. So having hit them successfully, it gives you a great deal of confidence.
Angel Mehta: What one thing about Synygy are you most pleased with?
Mark Stiffler: Probably our recurring revenue model. It’s incredibly important. A company like Callidus is going to face great risk, primarily because they lack recurring revenue. That’s what’s allowed us to grow over the years – a revenue stream we could count on, year after year.
Angel Mehta: Tell me why Synygy never went out to raise money from venture capital investors? How does one decide whether to raise expansion capital or just to continue growing out of cash flow?
Mark Stiffler: I think I have a very old fashion business model – make money and re-invest all of your profits back into the company. We’ve been doing that for 12 years. I have some pretty strong beliefs in sources of capital and my opinion is that equity is the most expensive thing you can trade. There are places that you go to as an entrepreneur to look for capital before hitting the venture capitalists.
The first source of capital is personal savings. We were in the hole about $100,000 with my invested savings when I first started Synygy. Other entrepreneurs use their credit cards. They go out to family and friends asking for money. The second source of capital is banks. Early on, even before I needed any money, I went and took out a $17,000 loan from a bank just to pay it back in a few months to show them that I was a credible guy to loan money to. The best source of capital is customers. Just negotiate favorable payment terms. Selling is the cheapest source of capital you can get. So there are other ways to build a business. Finding venture money is not the be all and end all.
Angel Mehta: What’s next for Synygy? What are you key priorities in 2004?
Mark Stiffler: Well, 2004 is all about sales execution. We have is a situation where we’re recognized as THE LEADER because of our web-based technology, the depth and breadth of our software, the quality of our management team, and our market share and awareness. 2004 is about leveraging that to further gain market share against our competitors.
Angel Mehta: What would your advice be to entrepreneurs that are considering starting a company right now?
Mark Stiffler: The most important thing is to have just one customer. If you can get at least ONE customer, that’s really all you need to start a company – and that’s my encouragement to any entrepreneur – find a customer, and take it from there. It’s always a good time to start a company if you can do that.
Mark A. Stiffler is founder, president, and CEO of Synygy, Inc. Based in suburban Philadelphia, Synygy provides software and services for creating performance-driven organizations. Synygy solutions enable companies to better execute their strategies by "operationalizing" how they drive performance, reward success, and deliver results. Mr. Stiffler holds an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and bachelor degrees in Civil Engineering (Project Management) and Management Information Systems from MIT. Feedback on the interview can be sent to: stiffler@synygy.com
Angel Mehta is Managing Director at Sterling-Hoffman, a retained executive search firm focused on VP Sales, VP Marketing, and CEO searches for enterprise software companies. He can be reached for feedback at: amehta@sterlinghoffman.net
 
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