Kyle
Although it may not seem like it, pricing products and services is one of the hardest things that a business owner has to do. They of course need to make money and make a profit but at the same time, it’s a scary thought to most that a bad price could leave product sitting on the shelves for an indefinite amount of time. There is a huge problem with the way prices are calculated these days, and that just shouldn’t be in the 21st century.
Former Boston based Googler (Xoogler) Patrick Campbell has set out to find a way to more accurately and more effectively price products. As he tells us in the interview below, until now business owners have relied on weak data, archaic practices and even “gut feelings” when it comes to pricing. Price Intelligently’s technology is built on a scientifically proven methodology that leverages existing and potential customers to determine a products price.
How important is pricing? Campbell tells us that a 1% improvement on price correlates to an average increase of profits of 12.5%.
Check out our interview with Campbell below:
What is Price Intelligently?
We show you where you should be priced to optimally capture all of the cash from the table. Price Intelligently’s technology gives businesses the ability to use hard data to determine a product’s price and relative value of that product’s features within differing customer segments. Our technology is built on a scientifically proven methodology that leverages existing and potential customers. We exist because companies put considerable effort, creativity, and cash into their products, but then end up relying on weak data, archaic practices, or just “gut feelings” to price. In the 21st century, there’s no excuse for guessing on the lever that has the highest impact on your revenue.
Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds
I’m from a small town in Wisconsin with more cows than people. I started my career working in the Intelligence Community in DC. From their I made the leap to Google in Boston, where I had the opportunity to do some pretty cool things, including developing a prioritization model for books of business that allowed Sales teams to target accounts that yielded more revenue. After Google, I worked for a VC backed startup, Gemvara, doing Strategic Initiatives, which for a good amount of the time involved pricing 1.3 million different pieces of jewelry. A few months ago I met up with Aaron and we began cranking on Price Intelligently, recognizing how big of an opportunity price optimization is to a company, and how little companies knew about pricing.
Aaron White is a Boston technologist who’s most famous for his battles with Twitter. Two of his hit applications, Proxlet (Mashable Article) and TweetFavor (Reuters Article), were widely popular, before being shut down by Twitter with no explanation or warning. Most recently, Aaron is the CTO at Boundless, a VC backed startup creating open source textbooks to disrupt the publishing industry. They must be doing something right, because this summer they were sued by the top three textbook publishers.
Where are you based? What is the startup culture like where you are based?
Price Intelligently is based in the booming technology hub of Boston. Patrick and Aaron are both heavily involved in the Boston startup community, teaching courses at Intelligent.ly and Boston Startup School. The startup culture is extremely tight with a “Pay it Forward” attitude flowing from Harvard and MIT all the way through the innovation district. What’s also great about Boston are the number different types of startups throughout the city. Hardware, consumer, big data, clean tech, healthcare, pharma…they’re all here.
What problem does your startup solve?
We help companies stop guessing on the most important aspect of their business – pricing. No other lever has a higher impact on revenue. In fact, a 1% improvement in price correlates to an average increase in profits of 12.5%. By providing hard data on price sensitivity we can tell you what the right price should be for your product within each of your customer segments. We eliminate the guessing, and allow you to price intelligently.
What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?
We’re not quite over this hurdle, but the biggest challenge we’ve put a giant dent into is bootstrapping the company until we have a good number of answers to important questions. We’ve spoken with potential investors, but we want to try and get as far as possible before we “mortgage the ol’ house.” Thankfully, we’ve been able to hustle to pay the bills and proven out our value through our increasing customer base, which includes companies like Compete.com, Litumus, and Backupify.
Who are your mentors and role models?
Dave Balter of BzzAgent, Sean Lindsay of TapJoy, and Kai Gray of Carbonite. have been phenomenally helpful in being “go to” guys when I need a kind word or a kick in the ass. All three, whether they’re aware or not, have provided insight that we’ve baked directly back into the business. In terms of role models, if I had to emulate anyone out there, it’d be David Cancel of Ghostery/Performable/Hubspot fame. He’s a smooth operator who knows how to get things done.
Whats one thing the world doesn’t know about you or your startup?
We have a killer intern/fellow program in applied marketing. I won’t say “team is really important to us”, because I think everyone says that, and doesn’t necessarily follow through. Instead, we’re hyper focused on building young college students to be awesome product and marketing folks through a structured program that let’s them apply all of their learnings from the classroom to an actual business. The program is great for us if we end up hiring them, and great for the community if we pass them on to another fellowship or full time employment.
What’s next for Price Intelligently?
I can’t get too deep into what’s next, but we’re working on the next iteration of the product that will wed our technology into our customers’ businesses in a way that hasn’t been done before. Concurrently we’re continuing to crank out more and more happy customers. Look for a big update around the end of October/early November.
Linkage:
Find out more about Price Intelligently here
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