Every audience is different and therefore every sales pitch should be different. Unfortunately, we like to reuse sales presentations hoping that our pitch will stay effective regardless of the audience. While the solution is to individualize every slideshow, this takes time that no one has…until now. Shufflrr, the slideshow management software, is making presentation management user-friendly. With a searchable library of slides, you gain easy access to your thousands of slides, making your presentations as customizable as ever. The Shufflrr software allows your team to work seamlessly through the manager system while you fearlessly make slides as the way you have always wanted.
AlleyWatch spoke with James Ontra about the Startup and how it plans to change sales pitches.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
Shufflrr established a $200k loan that is collateralized as a royalty against our enterprise SaaS client contracts. Lighter Capital provided the funding.
We are using this loan to pole vault past the angel and seed rounds, so that our first equity round should be Series A or growth capital.
Tell us about your product or service.
Shufflrr is Presentation Management. It optimizes the creation, distribution, updating, share, broadcasting and reporting of all content by visualizing slides and files – PowerPoint, video, Word docs, images, etc. –so you can find, review and then re-use them quickly and easily for your next meeting. One client has credited Shufflrr with saving up to four hours of administration time preparing each new presentation. Time that is better spent meeting with customers.
What inspired you to start the company?
Our clients did. They all had the same problem, “We spend good money creating sales collateral, yet our team is still using old slides and files.”
How is it different?
Shufflrr visualizes and formats all files and slides for presentation. Just by uploading a file into Shufflrr you can see all the slides of a PowerPoint, all the pages in a PDF, doc, or preview a video. That visualization coupled with search makes it easy for users to skim through 20 files or 100s of slides quickly, until the find the right one for their meeting. At that point, you can send or broadcast it directly from Shufflrr, or repurpose it into a new presentation. Shufflrr provides a comprehensive and more productive approach to presentation management.
What market you are targeting and how big is it?
Sales and marketing departments of global enterprises.
What’s your business model?
Software as service subscription model.
Can users still work with what they are used to?
Shufflrr doesn’t require users to stop what they are used to. Rather, Shufflrr gives users an easier, more efficient way to use and re-use those same files that they are used to.
What was the funding process like?
It took about 4 weeks and went smoothly because accounting is built into each Shufflrr site. As a result, we were able to answer most due diligence questions from one dashboard. In addition, Lighter Capital provides an intuitive online interface that allowed us to give them a view only access to our financials. From there, the Lighter Capital site provided a primary data reconciliation, so that they could judge our credit worthiness.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Shufflrr is solid and has been without growing without burn. So then the questions becomes, “If you can grow on your own, why do you need me?” It’s a Catch-22.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Solid financials built on multiyear contracts with Fortune companies.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Every CEO asking their CMO, “What is our Presentation Management strategy?”
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Build your business with paying clients. Otherwise, it’s just a hobby.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We should double revenue in the next 6 months.
What’s your favorite rooftop bar in NYC to unwind?
One Riverside Park rooftop. We can enjoy drinks and grill while the buildings grow up around us.
