Startup Finds Fast Track to Customers
Ask any startup operation, and you'll hear the same concerns: finding the right technology and people, carving out a niche, and making the commitment and taking the risk (risk is what every startup is faced with). But then, it's finding customers, the right customers, those who understand what you do, have work they need done and need the work done now. More than anything else, it's this last challenge that's a make or break issue.
WOBURN, MA—"Right now we're very busy," says Vadim Daskal, owner, principal designer and lead process development person of Boston Lasers, a 2000 sq ft, four-employee operation that opened its doors in 2004. Their principal equipment is German made laser cutting systems. One of the important components of this equipment is extremely precise and repeatable Swiss-made Zund tables. The company specializes in cutting everything but metal—fabrics, acrylics, plastics, gasket materials, pressure sensitive adhesives, paper and so on. Major clients include medical and biomedical companies and energy companies.
One of the latest breakthroughs: Boston Lasers started production of adhesive gaskets for 96-well, 384-well and 1,536-well microarray plates, a quite challenging and exciting product for medical device applications. "We're known for our prototype work and our very quick turnaround," Daskal says. "Medical device companies do a lot of prototype work in small volumes, and we love to work with them. We're very good at this. The more we can work with R&D programs and prototyping, the happier we are. And many of these companies have said that they'd want us to run full production of the product once it takes off. Our volumes right now run from 5000 to 40,000 pieces and eventually I'd like to see that in the millions of pieces."
But things haven't always been this good.
Desperate for visibility
"When I first opened this in 2004," Daskal says, "I was desperately looking for ways to get some visibility and legitimacy and attention. So, I started working with Google and Yahoo, but they were basically draining my finances. $600 a month for just one of these services is a lot of money for a very small company. And if you use them both, it's double that amount. When I'd go to look our company up on the Internet, I could never find us listed. It was absolutely disastrous."
Daskal notes that he was approached by other companies as well, Thomas Register and Kelly Search, for example. Thomas gave him a quote of $10,000, which was entirely unacceptable. So, Daskal turned to the route most startups take (and dread), which is cold calling companies he thought needed laser cutting services. But the problem here is always the same: "You run into the first line of defense, the receptionist/secretary. You find yourself wasting time talking laser cutting with a secretary. It always ends up with their asking us to send material and then someone will get back to us, but that never happens. You know this before you hang up the phone."
Changing all that
Daskal says that during one of his many Internet searches he came across MFG.com, and he began following what they do. "I asked for a test drive, and they hooked me up for a couple of weeks. I of course couldn't quote on anything, but I could see the RFQs out there, and I was amazed. All these RFQs would fly by me, and so many of them wanted the exact services we provide. I thought then and still think of it now, just how many companies are out there looking for companies like mine, and it still amazes me."
Needless to say, Daskal signed on. Now, he says, he gets information on companies who have work, want it done and done now. He has names, phone numbers, all the necessary contact information. "I have a friend," he says, "who has been in business marketing for 15 to 20 years, and he tells me that each of these contacts is absolutely priceless. This is what MFG.com gives me, a direct key contact within the company. I don't have to go through any barriers. I'm basically talking about engineering details with the right person, right from the start. I had Thomas and Kelly approach me again, and I looked at their concepts and told them they simply could not match the MFG.com concept. I'm now doing a very good job advertising myself right now. If you go to Google and look for laser cutting in Boston, we'll be right on the first page, which I think is just amazing. I would never have believed that an Internet site could deliver such visibility."
Daskal also notes that bringing on an in-house marketing person—even one right out of school—would cost in the vicinity of $3000 a month, without the necessary ability to perform. He says that a marketing person that he would hire would be highly skilled in his technology and probably cost in the area of $100,000 a year. "If I could find such a person, and he brought in two to three quotes a day, every day, and we bid on them and won some, lost some, I would think this guy is a pro's pro, a god," he says. "However, having MFG.com is like having an extremely under-paid, high-performance marketing guy—with a staff. The site is so efficient, and if it weren't, believe me, I'd think about going in another direction. But I would never even think of that today. MFG.com is the perfect tool."
Profiles and more
One of the crucial things that MFG.com provides its users—both on the buy side and supply side—is an online profile. This provides a quick thumbnail look at the company, its specialties, its capacities and perhaps most important, a ranking based on what other companies have had to say about their experience with the company. "This is an important tool for me," Daskal says. "It lets me know who might be a good candidate and who probably is not. I also can check my profile and see who's been visiting it, who's has returned to check us out more than once, which is a pretty good indicator of strong interest on their part in us. Which is a signal to me to contact them and try to begin a relationship. This site has completely eliminated cold calling, something I haven't had to do since I signed on. MFG.com immediately funnels me to the top range of search engines like Google."
Daskal points out that the online version of Thomas Register does a "similar thing", but it just isn't efficient. "When you register," he says, "you have to go through their portal, and you're then lumped in with another 200 to 300 laser cutting companies. Then, you have to search through them by location, etc., and it's almost like a redundant Google site. Like a Google within a Google, and I just don't understand the rationale. I don't see why I should be in there. Where's the benefit? MFG.com, the concept, is designed for all kinds of companies, but it is especially of help to small, startup companies like ours."
Everyday use, incredible turnaround
Daskal says he uses the site every day, monitoring RFQs, checking to see how many people have looked at his profile, have visited his Web site. It allows him to gauge the interest of buyers in his company. Those companies he doesn't feel are a good fit, he can delete; those he feels might be a good partner, he can follow up immediately.
"I have paid back all my MFG.com costs through new jobs," he says. "In our first year I won 15 RFQs for $225,000. I'm always excited to go on the site and see what's new. This is now my primary source of marketing, and this is why we have visibility nation-wide—customers from California, Chicago, all around the U.S. and Canada. The account activity feature is one I really like. It gives me an immediate look at site activity, where the opportunities area. And the site is very intuitive. I made some initial calls to MFG.com to get some help with account settings, but from there on it's just very intuitive. The software is designed like I think, the logic is very much like my logic, and this provides a great deal of efficiency."
Turnaround and site equal success
Daskal reports that his lasers are run by digital files, which facilitates very fast
turnaround and delivery—two very important aspects to his business. The design is wirelessly connected to the lasers, so when the design is done on AutoCAD, it's already resident in the laser. There is no transferring files to CD and then downloading the files to the laser.
"One recent job the customer wanted us to send him drawings so he could see what the end product would look like. This was a display made of acrylic. He sent us a file, and we sent him a full model of the display in 30 minutes. He couldn't believe it. With our ability to turn projects, mostly prototypes at this time, and our use of MFG.com, we're really traveling a road to success. And not only in what we specialize in, but we're seeing new fields of opportunity all the time."
For more information, contact:
Boston Lasers, Woburn, MA, 781/569-6216
www.bostonlasers.com
MFG.com Inc., Atlanta, GA, 770/444-9686, www.MFG.com
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