Today’s Q&A Wednesday is with Boundless Network Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer Henrik Johansson. Boundless has been on an acquisition streak recently in their quest to revolutionize a typically low-tech industry.

Q: How did you first get the idea for Boundless Network?
My co-founder Jason Black crafted the model after working in the industry for over 10 years and growing increasingly frustrated with how dysfunctional it was in so many areas.  Specifically, three characteristics converged to create a huge opportunity: 1) massive fragmentation at every level of the industry, 2) thousands of talented salespeople with great customer relationships not getting any value from their distributors, and 3) a complete lack of effectively utilized technology across the entire industry.  He realized that a well funded company focused on innovation through technology could really cause a paradigm shift in the industry.

Q: What have been your keys to success in becoming a major player in a highly fragmented industry?
Providing a better home for industry salespeople by helping them save time and make more money.  We leverage technology to reengineer sales processes and automate traditionally manual tasks.  The best salespeople in the industry gravitate to our model and bring their customer relationships to service them better.  We also leverage technology to provide value to the end customer and help them save time, reduce product cost, and increase ROI on promotional spending.  This creates long-term win-win partnerships for everyone.

Q: How have you funded the company so far?
Initially with seed capital from friends and family.  After that two rounds of funding with Silverton Partners and Austin Ventures.

Q: You’ve opened many offices in a short period of time. What cities do you currently operate in, and where do you plan to expand?
We started the business in Texas and in addition to our corporate office in Austin, we also have offices in San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston.  This year we have expended into California and the Mid-west.  We have one sales office in the San Francisco Bay Area, three offices in the greater Chicago area, and we’re just about to open offices in Minnesota and Indiana.

Q: What can we expect to see in the future from Boundless Network?
We will continue our geographical expansion while also growing our existing offices.  We just recently acquired our first distributorship, and you can expect to see more acquisitions in 2008 and beyond.  We will be releasing a lot of exciting technology enabled services in 2008 focused on delivering value to our customers.  Traditionally this industry is way behind on the technology side, and we’re bringing it into the 21st century. 

Sphere: Related Content

Filed under: Q&A Wednesday