YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- For the first time, a portfolio company at the Youngstown Business Incubator has received an investment from outside the United States. SalesKatz, housed in the incubator, has a $200,000 commitment from a private equity investor in London, its CEO, Ken Zebracki, said Tuesday.
“I think they understood the need [for our product], having been businessmen themselves,” he said. “I've seen so many salespeople fail. It's because they don't know when the next sale is coming. By virtue of having a product that takes cold calling out of the mix in the [business-to-business] world, it's a huge plus that allows salespeople to do what they do best: Sell.”
SalesKatz' product, StratQoR -- short for strategic quality results -- combines customer relationship management software and business knowledge to tell salesmen “who to call, when to call and why to call [customers].
“We help companies save money because they don't have to spend those costs on marketing and other things. We find those next high-probability sales for them,” Zebracki said.
YBI CEO Jim Cossler said that the most important thing any startup can do is solve a problem. The StratQoR program will do just that, he said.
“The problem that StratQoR is solving is helping business-to-business sales organizations optimize their sales to point to the best candidates that they're focusing on as opposed to trying to figure it out manually,” Cossler said. “Every sales organization we've talked to has said they would love to see the solution.”
The international attention -- in addition to the investor from London, Zebracki said he’s talked to other European investors -- resulted from his blogging on the company site almost daily.
“We're very religious about blogging. We've gotten quite a following after a year of blogging and there are a lot of companies and individuals interested in what we're doing,” Zebracki said. “I was contacted by an individual out of the UK wanting to know more about the product and a week later, he was on a plane and sitting in the conference room. He saw our product and wanted to invest.”
Getting the first investment at the YBI from outside the United States is a major step, both for the portfolio companies and the YBI itself, Cossler said.
“The thought that we have the ability to attract investment globally really speaks to the quality of the program we have in Youngstown, Ohio,” Cossler said. “One of the things about investors at this stage is that they have their own little networks. When they share with their network the investments they're making, investments tend to spread. I would not be surprised if we close with another international investment shortly.”
The official release of the StratQoR program is coming “much sooner than we ever anticipated,” Zebracki said. Beta testing will be in March and he expects to release the product April 30. The shortened schedule, he commented, is a benefit of the support from the incubator.
“The introductions that the YBI makes on our behalf, the infrastructure they provide and the help they give us through resources to put into our product are a tremendous help in growing us to where we want to be,” Zebracki said.
A year-and-a-half ago, when Zebracki first visited the YBI offices before moving his company from Cleveland, he never imagined any of this happening, he said. Not the international investors. Not the advance release date. Not the help he's gotten from the incubator. And now, he said, anything seems possible.
“The sky's the limit and the staff here is phenomenal. They'll do anything for you and go out of their way to make those introductions and be accommodating,” Zebracki said. “Frankly, we wouldn't be at the point we are today if it weren't for the YBI.”
Pictured: Ken Zebracki, CEO of SalesKatz.
From The Business Journal Archives:
YBI Tenant SalesKatz Innovates CRM System
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
CLICK HERE to subscribe to our free daily email headlines and to our twice-monthly print edition.