While many sales automation tools are built for inside teams, Map My Customers truly understands the challenges and meets the needs of outside teams.
Matthew Sniff, CEO
Name: Map My Customers
Location: Cary, NC
Website: mapmycustomers.me
Product / Service Offering: Sales Productivity Platform for Field Teams
Co-founder Interviewed: Matthew Sniff. CEO
Other Key Management Team Members: Merrick Marquie, VP of Sales & Business Development
This article is part of our Business Startup Spotlight series featuring entrepreneurs and their companies. We hope that these founders’ interviews will inspire and motivate you as you undertake your own entrepreneurial journey.
Tell us a little about yourself with a focus on what motivates you.
I come from an engineering and product-focused background. I have been involved with the founding of a handful of startup companies over the past 7 years. My passion and motivation come from making products that people love to use.
When did you establish your company and where did the idea originate?
The idea actually originated from my father, a veteran field sales representative. He had been looking for an application that would show him all his customers on a map, but nothing he came across fit the bill. During Thanksgiving weekend in 2015, he asked if I could build him an application. I did and he loved it. He urged me to put the app in the iOS store. Immediately, it began getting downloads.
Key to Startup Success: Customer Discovery
What need or needs does your company seek to fill for its customers?
While many sales automation tools are built for inside teams, Map My Customers truly understands the challenges and meets the needs of outside teams.
As the size of territories increases, effectively prioritizing accounts and touching customers regularly becomes a real struggle. As a result, field representatives often become overwhelmed and inefficient.
Map My Customers gives field sales teams a full productivity platform including:
- email automation
- lead generation
- route optimization
- visual reporting
- automated reminders
- and even a business card scanner
Clarify the Vision – 10 questions to create an effective vision statement
What is the one thing that sets your company apart from its competitors?
One of our focuses is on automating the mundane parts of our users’ workday, such as reminders, check-ins with customers, and even emailing. Most of our competitors are focused on simply routing or scheduling.
What was the biggest challenge you faced while getting your company up and running, and how did you overcome it?
I think the biggest challenge for us, and likely for most startup entrepreneurs, is finding talented and motivated employees. No matter how much money or momentum you have, putting in the work to find the right people is always worth the time.
What resources have you utilized that other founders might find compelling or useful?
FBStart was a really great program, and free too. It helped us very early on by giving us 6-12 months of free access to sales/marketing automation tools, server credits, etc.
What steps have you taken to secure funding for your company and what, if anything, would you do differently if you had to start over?
We have secured funding from a North Carolina-based investment group, Cofounders Capital. I am not sure we would have changed anything other than raising slightly more capital to gain more momentum quicker.
Find Investors for Your Startup
Are there any questions you have as an entrepreneur of a fledgling startup that you had a particularly hard time finding the answers to?
I don’t know that I would say there is one question in particular. So much advice gets thrown at you as an entrepreneur that it almost becomes your full time job to cut through it all and act on what your gut and the data tells you. If you just keep your pulse on your customers, what they want, what they don’t want, you will be doing it right.
What challenges, if any, are you grappling with?
Our challenge is hiring motivated engineers. It has been a real struggle, even with the number of recruiters and job platforms out there today.
What is the most helpful tip or “hack” you’ve ever learned, stumbled across, or been given?
Elucify and hunter.io are great prospecting tools. We have used both to identify email addresses for companies and accounts we are trying to target. I would recommend both to anyone in sales.
Is there anything else you would like to share about your company?
Yes, we are hiring for a number of key positions including Head Architect. To learn about our career opportunities, please visit our profile on AngelList.
Are you familiar with other startups you believe should be spotlighted? If so, we would like to hear from you. Tell us about them in the comments below!
Sandra Sloan
Sandra has previous supply chain and business operations experience which she is leveraging as an author with FundingSage focused on spotlighting entrepreneurs and their startup efforts.
