In this episode we chat with the man in the bear suit, Matt Barnett!

Originally a British industrial designer & artist, Matt Barnett turned everything upside down to launch a tech company in Sydney Australia. Matt’s love of building great products is only surpassed by his total commitment to building great business culture, and Matt asserts that Bonjoro’s “customers as friends” culture has been the main driver of the businesses success. His goal is to be the next Zappos, to be the most loved brand in the world..

Tell us about what your software does for people?

• Bonjoro is a one to one video messaging system.
• It plugs in to your CRM and suggests points in the customer journey for you to send a personalized video.
• Bonjoro gives you all the information you need for each customer for you to be able to do this, including the softwares used or steps made.

What makes Bonjoro different from other video making apps?

• Personalization.
• Bonjoro is more of a work flow tool than a video tool.
• It prompts and drives actions and monitors the results.

How did you found Bonjoro?

• The idea was born in the pub.
• The original team members were all in Australia and the clients were mostly in the UK, so there was a large time difference.
• They were good at converting customers, but they needed to make their messages more personal to help convert customers that they weren’t talking to directly.
• Matt would send a video every morning when he was on the ferry to work every morning, including a lot of information recognising what the client was doing - personalized messages.
• A client asked to use the personalized “video thing”, so Matt went back to his team and said “we should build that”.

What were some of the moments when you realized something your software needed?

• Because it was a hack on the side they initially tried to just solve their own problem.
• They integrated with other SaaS products to get new leads.

Where did the bear suit come from?

• When the software got bigger they decided they needed a name.
• They were joking around and decided on a bear.
• It got out of hand from there.
• Their brand has always been light hearted and fun and the bear thing was a perfect fit.

As your team grows, how do you maintain your company culture?

• They started as just 3 in the agency.
• They are now a team of 13.
• Work out what your values are, yourself, not with a consultant.
• Your culture is the thing that works for your business and you.
• Bonjoro tries to hire true to the current culture, they look for weird people.

How did you keep your family afloat while you got Bonjoro going?

• They did risk everything. Their agency was going well, they risked losing focus and the agency.
• They got some news hires.
• They did raise extra funds for Bonjoro.
• You always have to take risks.

What difficulties did you face, and how did you overcome them?

• Losing key members of the agency to the app.
• Understanding their company culture and how to hire people who fit into it.
• Hiring too quickly and making the wrong hire.

How does the company compare now to when you began?

• They have a lot more processes now.

How do you keep your processes fun so that creatives follow them?

• Results. Make sure you celebrate the results of the process.
• Make solving the process fun..
• Build your process for the team you have and double the team you have, don’t make the process for far more people than you have.

What advice would you give other SaaS entrepreneurs?

• Enjoy the journey.
• The average SaaS company does not actually sell in 2 years.

Resources:

Websites: 

Bonjoro

Data Automation

Books mentioned: 

The E-Myth

Suggest a SaaS founder for the Automate, Delegate, Eliminate show at:

podcast@dataautomation.com