By Scott Meacham
Growing a successful startup company is all about growing sales. And growing sales is an expertise that Brian Bomar, CEO of Whiteboard Technology knows very well.
Bomar took everything he learned from 15 years in the mortgage industry, and before that several years more working for a local technology startup to create a best-practices customer relationship (CRM) platform specifically for the mortgage industry that accelerates sales and revenue growth.
About 18 months ago, Whiteboard closed a significant, i2E-led funding round. Our investment came at an inflection point for the company, which had largely bootstrapped its early progress with early customer sales. As is usually the case with our portfolio companies, this round was Whiteboard’s first capital round.
Bomar and the team at Whiteboard have shown that they know how to use capital to produce results.
“We are on that trajectory that you love to see,” he said. “We are growing rapidly; our customers love us. They are willing to spend money for the product.”
Bomar reports that the company has doubled sales, automated many aspects of the business, made enhancements to the core product, and is continuing to develop strategic partnerships.
“Our sweet spot is the small entrepreneurial mortgage lender,” he said. “There is a trend where the more successful loan originators are going to smaller models. These are entrepreneurs with small teams, small branch offices, and small companies. We make it easy for them to get up and running with our system.”
Whiteboard gives customers tools that can help increase sales day one that include state-of-the-art communication, automating, email and texting features which provide mortgage lenders a turnkey, easily customizable way to communicate with today’s always connected generations.
Mortgage lenders can automate text messaging at key intervals or even start a conversation via text with a current or prospective customer. “Text is a much more effective way to serve and communicate with a customer than email or a downloadable app,” Bomar said.
Bomar is an entrepreneur building a company to serve entrepreneurs — and he knows that no entrepreneur ever has enough time. That’s why Whiteboard created The Mortgage Playbook™. Unique to the industry, the Playbook eliminates the enormous hassle of initial set up.
The Playbook is packed with pre-built, automated marketing materials and campaigns. From day one, Whiteboard subscribers have full access to branded emails, call prompts with scripts, and pre-determined tasks for more personal touches, like handwritten notes and gifts. It can even be personalized and refined along with campaigns for refinancing, partner marketing, and more. It’s all about solving problems for customers and growing sales.
It isn’t enough for a startup to develop a great solution. Successful companies like Whiteboard figure out how to wrap that solution into a value proposition that makes it compelling enough for a customer to change the status quo.
It’s the same for i2E. Providing “just” capital isn’t enough. Our Venture Advisory Services provide the “wrap” of market validation, mentoring, and business plan assistance to help our portfolio companies achieve that trajectory that everyone likes to see and then our portfolio management team helps these companies execute on their plans post-funding and make needed course corrections as they hit road blocks.
Scott Meacham is president and CEO of i2E Inc., a nonprofit corporation that mentors many of the state’s technology-based startup companies. i2E receives state appropriations from the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology. Contact Meacham at i2E_Comments@i2E.org
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