Have the courage to stick to your plan. Entrepreneurial tips from Anthony Byrne, CEO Product2Market

By @SimonCocking

Interview with Anthony Byrne @Anthony_Byrne CEO at Product2Market  Lead Generation

Your background, how did you end up doing what do you now?

I’m a marketer by trade and have worked within the Advertising and Software industries. I guess like a lot of people I always wanted to own a business and we set up Product2Market in 2010 having spotted a gap in the market for the services we offer, within our industry.

How would you explain Product2Market’s Lead Generation Service?

What we do at Product2Market is very straightforward, we help Technology Companies find and win new customers all across Europe. Our model is a combination of traditional and on-line Marketing executed through our own Software platform. But I guess we are in the data business… we take raw market data and work with it to find and identify potential Technology buyers.

From working with Zendesk, Twitter, Nitro, Microsoft, EMC (etc) what advice would you have for early stage Tech Entrepreneurs?

My advice to any up and coming Tech Entrepreneur is get to comfortable creating and publishing your own content. Marketing today is about the “size of one’s brain, not their wallet”. Start a personal blog, Tweet regularly and start to build your own personal brand as a thought leader. Very small companies can compete internationally if they build reach through online. Dream big and believe that even if you are small, even if you are not well funded that you can do business with the largest companies in the world.

Looking back over the last 5 years, were there any moments where you were close to calling it a day and then something great came over the horizon? Or has it been a plain sailing entrepreneurial experience?

I don’t think anyone’s entrepreneurial experience is plain sailing…if it has been, then you must be doing it wrong. I mean during our early stages we must have ran out of cash about 10 times. In our first two years there were too many sleepless nights worrying about making the pay-roll and the challenges of funding our fast growth. I think the trick to becoming successful is having the courage and will to stick to your plan and initial vision. Of course the ups and downs are testing, but I guess you have to view the disappointments as part of the journey to success (cliché I know).

With hindsight anything you’d have done differently?

To be honest, there isn’t much I would do differently if I had the chance to start Product2Market all over again. I would probably delegate a bit more, earlier on in our growth. I think that if I wasn’t such a control freak we could have grown faster that we have. We made a decision early on to boot-strap, grow organically and not raise funding for growth. We definitely stand by the strategy as we are still growing, are profitable and only have 3 shareholders.

And where do you hope Product2Market will be in the near and further future?

I guess in the near future we are trying to increase our current growth. We have been consistently growing by 80% year-on-year. Later this year we are planning on putting in someone on the ground in San Francisco to better manage some of our clients. We are trying to find someone from industry.
Funnily enough, our hope for the long-term future is exactly the same as it was, when Len Brennan and I started the company in 2010. We want Product2Market to be largest Lead Generation Agency in the world. Largest by customer size, latest by turnover and margin… So a very simple, straightforward vision really 😉

Online / offline, work / life balance strategies?

I read a lot, I guess I’m online a lot so I am not sure I believe there could be a work / life balance for me.  I guess I try to live more of a work / life blend. I know its another cliché, but if you love what you do, if you love your company and really believe in your vision – working will never feel like work.