But behind the scenes, theres a rules engine making sure all of the components fit together, updating your pricing, and then you can just buy that online, or print out your quote, or do whatever you want to do. Andrew: BigMachines, well, we should talk about why you came up with that name. Explore Topics. Its not appealing to the same client base, but what do you think of them? Greg Abel, 58, is a staunch hockey fan who was born in Edmonton, Canada. They were kind of our lighthouse customer, and, you know, it was about a $3 billion manufacturer. But Ricoh was running Siebel, and Salesforce wanted to get in there. And its not like it is today where everything feels really real-time. Hes like, Hey, what should we do here with SteelBrick? And the guy was like, Oh, theyre a great partner. Godard began his career as a McKinsey Consultant in the US and Germany from 1994 to 1997 and also worked as a Summer Associate at Morgan Stanley in London in investment banking in 1998. Joining me today is a guy who has built three phenomenal companies. Andrew: And you literally will think that? One persons feedback is about the blog as a contributor, so Im just not going to include that even though they gave him four out of five stars. Last fall, Mr. Abel seized the opportunity to build another CPQ giant from a fledgling company. Main Menu. . Cloud is booming. Andrew: Im looking at an article on Forbes back when Forbes meant something. He previously built cloud CPQ pioneers BigMachines (acquired by Oracle) and SteelBrick (acquired by Salesforce). . And we did have to scale down the company. and I never really mind. He also is an Angel Investor. The way he delivers happiness, he engineers Zoom and he keeps just improving it every day. Bob and John came back, he was like, Okay, were in. You know, and they invested, like, $0.25 million. But itd be like . Andrew: And you mentioned ringing the bell. And investors were dying to invest in it because it was a proven team, same thing, hot ecosystem, and so it did just work. Andrew: No. Like, this guy is huge. Moving the headquarters to Deerfield in 2003 , an intense focus on product quality and a partnership with Salesforce.com, the cloud-based customer relationship management giant, helped the company grow. Salespeople deal with thousands of potential product packages and pricing options, especially when youre in the enterprise software space, and it could often take months to close a deal due to the complexity of the deal. What was he like, John Sculley as an advisor? I had never noticed it because I would look directly for a specific product. I mean, the internet in its infancy. Im looking at my clock, and Im definitely going over with the advertising. "It's relaxed, but it's unspoken, I guess, like 'This is getting done,'" said Molly O'Hare, G2 Crowd's marketing manager and the sole female employee. Godard Abel, from left, talks with Illinois Institute of Technology students William Syvongsa and Wesley Tish at tech incubator 1871. Youll get 80 hours of Toptal developer credit when you sign up and pay for your first 80 hours in addition to a no-risk trial period. Im like, So, Dad, isnt the internet going to change your business? He said, No. And I was like, Well, Dad, what do you mean? You know, like, in the Valley, you know, its going to change everything. Godard Abel has a Master of Science in Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994 and a Master of Business Administration from Stanford Business . . You know, I had gotten in MBA and all of that, and Im thinking that was not useful for being an entrepreneur. This is going to be kind of our closing meeting. And we get this $200,000 deal and $200,000 check, thats basically going to fund our business, you know, for the next few months. And, like, Intercom is rated highly on our grid, I imagine, but lets say they want to license that content, put it on their own website. You need to be on Yelp. And we were based in Chicago, but we drove up to Wisconsin. And then, if you like it, if they like it, you can build it into a business. You can get great validation, be ranked number one on G2 even if you dont pay us a penny. . Get the best business coverage in Chicago, from breaking news to razor-sharp analysis, in print and online. . How Zee Ali went from selling cigarettes in the hood of Chicago to selling LeadPages founder on why you should be embarrassed by your first launch. And ours is very much is where, you know, it doesnt matter if you pay us, but as a marketer if you do want to embed your own calls to action, if you want access to all of the backend data. . The Book 2022 The Chicago Index Crain's Private Intelligence Tracking COVID-19 vaccine rollout Chicago Booth. I just walked up to him afterwards, Im like, Hey, Marc. You know, we were an early Salesforce customer, kind of their prototypical early dot-com customer. After either one of those, I read articles the guy couldve just moved on with his life, taken it easy and done nothing, and still he continued. "And it does give me meaning. And then, you know, eventually, it finally started working, but it was a very hard process. For hosting websites, hostgator.com/mixergy, and for hiring developers really, toptal.com/mixergy. We had to build our own hosting. If youre not happy, Im not hiding. In that way, we keep it pure, you know? I remember the last investment round, they were . Obviously, search is sending you guys a lot of traffic. I go to a restaurant, I go to Yelp. He was born in July of 1951 and is best known for his work on independent - or indie - films, such as The Driller Killer, Ms. 45, King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, and The Funeral - which were. Restaurants are very local. I want to know. Education. Godard: Yeah. Andrew: Do you remember when you sold . This could be it. Thats the idea. . BigMachines may not have come about without Abel Pumps. He gives it its own personality, its own brand, its own existence for people to go and interact and sign up. The casual atmosphere at G2 Crowd it's a 750-square-foot space with leather office chairs and computers that surround a table scattered with trail mix belies the work done there. And part of my frustration at BigMachines was, like, a lot of enterprise software companies . Almost like the Yahoo! Ill invest. And then we were kind of off to the races. Explore Topics. Andrew: Check out the dig, by the way, in this article. And we'll be closer to our customers, and people will stick with us.". What a time for us to actually have trouble connecting. "Godard was very, very progressive," Gorniak said. . As of this date, Godard is married. Its amazing that you remember it now over 15 years later because . And they are in that. I mean, its very much our goal is to make that resource that gives you that insight, like you said, without having to spend six months trying it yourself. G2 Crowd, you started 2012, and then you went to SteelBrick, 2014, and then you came back to G2 Crowd. Godard: Yes. . you know, we incorporated on 1/1/2000. . 1-877-812-1590, Juice: Crain's daily take on power & politics, The Most Powerful Women In Chicago Business. Andrew: And the revenue model is that . But we burned through . a little bit like Gartners. . BigMachines was acquired by Oracle in 2013 for over $400 million. Thanks so much for being on here, and I should also thank my two sponsors. During the early 2000s, Godard was inspired to bring businesses - like his family's . anyone to go through what he did, you know, especially, by that point, Apple hadnt turned around and become super successful again, right? . Godard: Both. Raised in: Moenchengladbach and Sewickley, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Family: Wife, Stacy, 39; twins, Gavin and Graydon, both 9; and Madeleine, 6, Educated at: Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford School of Business, Fastest marathon time: Three hours, seven minutes. He's founded and lead two enterprise SaaS organizations to acquisitions by Oracle and Salesforce respectively and is now at the helm of one of the Midwest's brightest success stories. A graduated income tax revival is in the works, Two chain restaurants new to Chicago that are worth trying, The scion of one of Chicago's richest families is taking on the citys crime problems, The week ahead: With more poll numbers and an upcoming debate, the mayor's race is heating up, He's a 'big fish in the little pond of the suburbs'. It seems so out of character. I check people out on G2 Crowd. And from there, you know, were just going to have to grow it organically. But it was very hard, because the other option, it wouldve been, Hey, lets just give the million-plus bucks back to our investors and call it a day, you know, chock it up, collapse, and burn. And, frankly, I had been out of the CEO role for exactly two years. . It was kind of the day . We had the perfect team that knew how to sell the product, so everything did just work. BOULDER - Noted tech entrepreneur Godard Abel and his wife, Stacy, have purchased a Mapleton Hill home in Boulder that proved to be the most expensive home sale in the Denver metro area for November. I'm here with Godard Abel, the CEO and founder of G2.com. He previously founded BigMachines, a leading software as a service (SaaS) provider which he grew profitably from scratch to $50 million in revenue while building a global team of 250. We want to take our company public, build our big own dreams. I think Im having . And Id wind up going to business school at Stanford in the middle of Silicon Valley. How Drip started as a widget and was acquired by Leadpages for a How getting burned by a developer inspired SD Squared Labs. . You guys do enormous traffic. Im a little too excited about you. So its almost like the heavens aligned and it was like . Godard: Oh, no, thanks, Andrew. Like, three months later, we actually got to meeting with Don, and we actually got the contract. . But then they started . Stay up to date with what you want to know. So we definitely have their attention. I invited him to find out how he built those two companies, what he has in mind for G2 Crowd. And frankly in hindsight, I was also lucky. we obviously kind of assumed it was going to be normal, you know, in full-term. They also have very smart writers, right? SteelBrick is a provider of quote-to-cash application software that is native on the Salesforce platform. What was he like? . And my father was an entrepreneur in a very different kind of business. And, obviously, we loved the name, and so we just went with it. I should tell everyone . Headcount is up from five to 45 employees, 30 of whom work with him in Highland Park. Im the founder of Mixergy where I interview entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses for an audience of entrepreneurs. I mean, honestly, it felt like it. Drawing on his knowledge of manufacturing, Godard Abel solved that problem by using cloud-based software to streamline sales processes for manufacturers, as well as for technology companies. I remember I got, like, two slides into it, and Marc says, like, Hey, just show me the demo. And Im like, Right now? And hes like, Right now., So I showed him the demo, and then . He just fires up a whole new domain. But hed met, actually, a couple of the guys, my guys at G2 Crowd, Olivier, whos actually our head of sales in San Francisco. And, you know, so we knew there would be a gap in the Salesforce ecosystem. I remember, like, early 2000, I called manufacturers . Abel has a history in the quote-to-cash industry. . . And I was out there. And I think the ones who really stuck with us, I remember a pretty good one, a fairly big manufacturers company, SPX Lightnin. "He would keep track of all these little slips of paper that would have numbers and numbers and numbers," she said. So, obviously, Oracle and Salesforce, you know, Larry and Marc are sort of frenemies at this point. You know, thats one nice thing now being our third company. All rights reserved. Andrew: Oh, okay. And then I think that Krafts actually . And so its kind of a unique, we believe, global digital marketplace we can build. True. Why? You know, because, frankly, all of my early investors including John Sculley, the Krafts were able to actually make money on that deal if they wanted to. . Greg Abel's net worth is estimated to be between $484 million. I can put this money into my next company.. . Hotel internet is so spotty. you know, and then he turned to me. The Abels bought the home from its builder, Jamie Childs, a partner in Distinctive Custom Homes Inc., and his wife, Sophia, according to the Recorder. They can take our content. Were going to open an office in Europe. And, frankly, what youll see on our site, I mean, one product and one brand can be in many categories. And I went home for Thanksgiving 99 to Pittsburgh where I drove out to my father. One weekend, when a teenage Godard ended up in traffic court, accused of ignoring a stop sign, his mother said he arrived with "photos from all angles" to prove that the officer could not have seen the stop sign from where he was. Godard Abel, from left, talks with Illinois Institute of Technology students William Syvongsa and Wesley Tish at tech incubator 1871. . . But I think . . And the other big turning point part of our story was that around that time, I also met Marc Benioff, you know, the founder and CEO of Salesforce. The officer didn't show in court, and the case was dismissed. And sometimes I say its a bit like Encyclopedia Britannica. And he has done so with no particular ties to the city: The German-born, Pittsburgh-raised graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University started his first pricing-software company, BigMachines Inc., in the Bay Area. Hes huge. And our videos are much more authentic in testimonials. And weve designed it for startup entrepreneurs like ourselves. "Hey, we're using Yelp to make decisions on restaurants, TripAdvisor for travel and Amazon to do our shopping," Abel said. Godard graduated from MIT and is currently based in Chicago, United States. But I think my co-founder, Chris, and I, we just . Could we rate something, like, reviews on Amazon? You know, just like we have reviews on books, on TVs. After Niku went public in February 2000, Abel sold his shares, garnering close to seven figures. Godard: Well, I think I just felt really lucky. . And, you know, I was like, Oh, man. I was just like, Oh, man. . In 2011, Abel sold to private equity firms the majority of his stake in BigMachines, a business software company he had been. And, maybe like in Japan, people use Slack, people use Salesforce, people use Oracle, right? And so were really going to take this thing global, and that does obviously take, you know, some additional hiring. And, as I mentioned, you know, 2003, my co-founder, Chris, and I, we scaled down the business. Go to hostgator.com/mixergy. Please enter your email address to continue, How Russell Brunson solved the biggest challenge of online sales. What do you do when you see your first startup sell for over $400 million to a company like Oracle? By 2007, revenue at BigMachines had doubled, to $10 million annually from $5 million. That first year we had that initial funding, we scaled up to 70 people basically based on kind of dot-com hype and hope. Im right here at 201 Mission Street or andrew@mixergy.com. And back then, it was still . you know, I got up to the Valley for business school, and I got diverted because I just found tech so exciting. He put it all into his new venture, BigMachines. What was it about him that drew you to him? You tell Toptal what youre looking for, they search their network for the best people, they test the candidates, and then they present you with only the candidates who meet your individual needs. This person didnt write much, but I think they nailed it. And thats where John, John was really helpful in terms of just business development, and, you know, he would still a draw with investors and customers. I think where Product Hunt is amazing as, like, day one, right? But I remember, like, what felt like [inaudible 00:19:02] one day, it was shortly after Don didnt show up for our meeting. Godard: Yes. . Meaning, the software could work fast enough, people started believing again in technology. And 2007 is when our business really started taking off because Salesforce started selling to big companies. He is from France. They are part of the Executive team within the C-Suite Department and their management level is C-Level. But the other big trend we saw by 2012 when we started in our consumer lives. He loves the G2 model. Adds credibility, draws people in, allows you to really build it out. Chris and I were like, Oh, wheres Don? The receptionist was like, Oh, Dons not here today. And, you know, we had no notification. . To scale G2, Godard has raised over $100M in capital from IVP, Accel, Emergence Capital, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Hyde Park and Chicago Ventures. We had product market fit because the cloud was booming, Salesforce was booming. Theyd send us the wrong RFPs and they wouldnt really know when to call us and when not to call us. It's more evidence that Abel is not made for retirement, at least not now. But the thrill of working with a team to build a business lured him back. Andrew: Did you feel a sense of, I got it. Win whats next. . . His first company, BigMachines, sold to Oracle for. And thats where he finds a big advantage, because the problem with BigMachines, it was a big implementation, and, you know, so it would take a lot more effort. . . . . His grandfather and father's pump manufacturing business started from the rubble of World War II Germany. And if youre a vendor also, you have customers that love you, it just amplifies your success. And those pumps were big. He serves as Senior Vice President & General Counsel at SteelBrick. Founder and CEO of G2, the leading B2B software review platform, Godard Abel is a serial entrepreneur. You know, my fathers reaction was interesting. . Additionally, Godard Abel has had 5 past jobs including SVP & GM SteelBrick at Salesforce. It didn't garner the same media attention from when G2 announced its $157 million Series D . . . But one of their business units, I remember their president, Jay Caraviello, he was a real visionary. Its a reference to what you and I talked before we started about how this could be the company that goes public. And so any business in any industry, now, without the right technology, any entrepreneur, youre not going to succeed. . But its a very . I mean, and Google and who knows what SEO, right, but they claim their algorithm is pure. Go to toptal.com/mixergy. Net Worth. 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