Business
Chris Deck, founder and president of Deck Commerce, an e-commerce software company, discusses how he shut down his profitable IT services business to go all-in on building a successful SaaS product company. Key Takeaways Listen hard to the market to determine where your company is most valuable Market feedback said that Deck’s developed software could be sold as a product Deck saw the opportunity to scale revenues much faster as a SaaS company than as a service company. Bold initiatives require a full organizational commitment Like Cortes landing in the New World, Deck ‘burned the ships behind him’ when he shut down his successful IT service business to build the SaaS business The pivot required everyone in the 15 year-old company to adopt a bootstrap startup mentality, with intense focus on watching expenses, operational efficiency and quickly developing all aspects of the SaaS product. Keep a pulse on the trends in the competitive marketplace and use them to shape your long term plan Chris understands that the current mergers and acquisitions in his segment, where large companies acquire smaller niche players, creates an opportunity for him with middle market customers ($3mm to $200mm of online revenues) which he has to exploit now, because the opportunity won’t last forever His long term (5 year plan) is based on how he can leverage the trends in the marketplace as well as his core competencies to maximize the company’s value.