Author: Hamid Shojaee

Pure Chat Hits $1 Million in ARR

Pure Chat Hits $1 Million in ARR

Posted by | Aug 16, 2016 | | 0 |

Today, Pure Chat hit a major milestone: We broke past the coveted $1 million Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) mark. It has been a long, fun and rewarding journey to get to this point and of course, we’re just at the beginning. They say the first million is the hardest. Fantastic! I look forward to the next $9 million being significantly easier as we begin our journey towards our next major milestone, $10 million in ARR. But before we go too far, lets recap on how we got here… A Beautifully Simple Product It all started as a 30-day project...

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How Real-Time Analytics Can Vastly Improve Your Email Marketing

How Real-Time Analytics Can Vastly Improve Your Email Marketing

Posted by | May 4, 2016 | | 2 |

I have been doing email marketing, through the use of newsletters (or email blasts) for nearly 20 years. So I was shocked when in less than 2 hours, my view of how email marketing works changed dramatically. Last week, the Axosoft team installed Pure Chat Visitor Tracking code on GitKraken.com, a popular git client, and proceeded to send out an email blast to the newsletter subscribers of the site. Having realtime visitor tracking on the site, I was curious as to what the newsletter would do to the traffic in realtime, so of course, I tuned in closely to...

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Bootstrap vs. Seed Money: Which Type of Growth is Right for Your Startup?

Bootstrap vs. Seed Money: Which Type of Growth is Right for Your Startup?

Posted by | Nov 23, 2015 | | 1 |

You have a brilliant idea, and you have a few talented folks who are helping you bring that idea to fruition. There’s a big problem, though: money. You and your cohorts have some in the bank, but is it enough? I’ve been fortunate enough to build, launch, and run not one, but three software startups. So, I’ve also—unfortunately—experienced the overwhelming need for funding. And as I’ve written about in a previous article, it can be hard out there for an Arizona startup, especially when it comes to finding money. But if I can uncover money in a desert, I’m...

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Lessons Learned Building 3 Software Companies

Posted by | Nov 11, 2015 | | 0 |

Pure Chat’s founder, Hamid Shojaee, has spent the last 20 years building software companies and learning a ton in the process. Inspired by the actionable advice in The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Hamid uses this presentation to a group of entrepreneurs on the AZ Tech Beat Startup Bus Tour to share his most valuable insights about four pillars of a software company: product, finances, marketing, and IT. In this talk you’ll learn: How to choose between two competing features on your roadmap The way to look at refactoring and technical debt How to draw the right conclusions from usability testing Three things investors need to see before they’ll invest The financial numbers you need to know like the back of your hand Where you should be marketing and which numbers to track The best way to market your company with no marketing budget 'No matter what, you have to have a freaking great product.' - @hamids @aztechbeat #startup Click To Tweet Resources and Links Key SaaS Metrics Every Software Company Needs to Know Hamid’s...

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Arizona Makes Workhorses—Not Unicorns—and That’s a Good Thing

Arizona Makes Workhorses—Not Unicorns—and That’s a Good Thing

Posted by | Oct 19, 2015 | | 3 |

The Bay Area is overrun with horses—unicorns to be exact. And while I wish I was referring to the horned, majestic creatures of lore, I’m actually talking about privately-held startups that have $1 billion or higher valuations. Venture investor Aileen Lee coined the term about two years ago, and at the time, it made sense. High valuations at young, private companies were a rarity—an almost mythical instance—hence “unicorn.” Today, though, the term is laughable, because Silicon Valley has more than 100 unicorns, and on average, 1.3 unicorns have galloped onto the scene every week in 2015. People joke that...

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