If you’ve been following the story of the building of my business, then you know that, for me, the very bold move was bringing my company headquarters to America.
This may not sound so bold—many have made moves like this. But for me it was quite different. I was over 50-years-old, and in my country of Austria, people at that age are looking toward retirement. Many of my friends and family chided me for this decision: I had a very comfortable life—why change it?
Picking the Location
The U.S. wasn’t actually my first choice. From my study within the Austrian School of Economics, I could see that the real economic growth in the world was happening in Asia.
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My original decision was take Pipeliner to Dubai. But the more I researched, I found that Asian companies buy products and services after they have been successful in the US. It was then I realized I had to come to America.
The next decision was, where in America? Once I researched the question, I decided to come to Los Angeles—we would be the only CRM here at the time. That was at the beginning of the boom in what today is called Silicon Beach. After I made the move, Snapchat showed up, Google established a big presence here, and many more followed.
A Rough Start
I’d love to be able to report that upon arriving in America, I was welcomed with a red carpet, a marching band, flowers and reporters telling me that it was incredible to have another Austrian innovator like Arnold Schwarzenegger coming to Los Angeles!
The reality was quite different. The rental car I had arranged to meet us at the airport didn’t show. So after an exhausting 14-hour flight, my wife, my young son and myself were simply left standing there, stranded. Welcome to America!
Because we were immigrants, it meant starting at square one: obtaining social security cards and driver’s licenses. We also had zero credit, even though we had great credit in Europe. Because of that, everything was a major effort, even a phone.
It was incredibly frustrating for my wife and child. My son started preschool speaking no English, and came home every day crying. We had no friends. We couldn’t even have a night out, because we didn’t have anyone to watch our son. I couldn’t call anyone up and say, “Let’s go for a beer,” because there wasn’t anyone.
But I was convinced that you have to move up, keep moving on, and that every obstacle makes you stronger. Luckily we overcame all those issues, and today are doing very nicely!
Establishing the Company
Then it was finally time to get down to work. I had a company to establish!
After doing some research, I made a decision that was unheard of at the time: I decided to begin by establishing a content team. I was out to create a different kind of lead machine, instead of burning money on Google Adwords and redirect marketing.
Today with our online magazine SalesPOP we can see what a right move that was. We’re now at over a million views, have produced hundreds of articles, and have over 800 contributors. In the last six years, I personally have generated 46 ebooks, with thousands of readers. And we’re only at the beginning!
Then, I began looking for others to work with me in this endeavor. In my work just before coming to the US, I had read a book entitled Winning the Battle for Sales by John Golden.
In one of the last chapters, John writes about how frustrated salespeople are with CRM, and that when a CRM is implemented in their company, they can “kiss the good times goodbye.” I quoted him in my book How the Entrepreneur is Changing the World.
Now in the US, I decided to reach out to John. I contacted him through LinkedIn and let him know I’d quoted him in my book, and that I’d come to America to build a company. After some messages back and forth, I ended up showing him Pipeliner. He thought it was a very different product, and said that if he’d had it at his previous company, he wouldn’t have spent so much time trying to figure out Salesforce, and would have been much more efficient.
John ended up joining the company, and today is Pipeliner’s Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Marketing Officer.
Now we were moving forward like I’d never imagined!
Watch for Nikolaus Kimla’s next article on building a business.
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This content is sponsored by Pipeliner CRM.
