Everstring
Careers at Everstring
Mission
EverString’s mission is to empower marketers with the full potential of predictive analytics and applied data science.
History
Vincent Yang launched his career as an investment banker at JP Morgan. His role involved studying public stocks and deciding which ones should be privatized. His skills as a Mathematics major came in handy for this pursuit. He later joined private equity firm Summit Partners, where his position involved analyzing private companies to determine which ones represented attractive targets.
This job was more challenging, because private firms do not disclose much information publicly, including revenues. Vincent decided to simplify his task by building a model of what an ideal target for Summit would look like -- based on data for past firms it invested in. He then developed a natural language processing tool that analyzed companies’ websites to see if they fit the profile.
The tool was very useful, and Yang realized that it had strong potential if commercialized. So in 2012 he teamed with his co-worker J.J. Kardwell to found EverString, a company that would develop and market the software. The name EverString refers to the relationships between nodes in a model. EverString’s goal was to help firms define their relationships with others in their addressable market.
The company was able to raise $1.7 million in seed funding. In 2014 it signed its first customers, mostly financial services institutions. However, at a certain point it agreed to assist a company in evaluating the quality of its marketing leads. The effort was a success, and encouraged EverString to switch its focus to this area. Its solution is now described as a predictive analytics SaaS platform.
Benefits at Everstring
Business model of Everstring
Customer Segments
EverString has a mass market business model, with no significant differentiation between customer segments. The company targets firms of all industries and sizes that want to obtain higher quality sales and marketing leads.
Value Proposition
EverString offers three primary value propositions: convenience, performance, and brand/status.
The company offers convenience by simplifying its customers’ operations. It extracts predictive insights by curating over 20,000 data signals across 11 million accounts. These insights go beyond standard demographic and firmographic data by mapping signals such as marketing maturity and growth trajectory. This information enables marketers to create highly-defined groupings of accounts for marketing outreach within minutes. These segments can be used to drive activities ranging from promotional events to new product releases to market expansion.
The company has demonstrated strong performance through tangible results. CRM software firm Cirruspath used its solution to prioritize incoming leads for its marketing and sales teams, resulting in a 30% increase in conversions, a 24% increase in opportunity, and a 130% increase in deal size.
The company has established a strong brand due to its performance. It bills itself as the only account-based, full lifecycle predictive platform for B2B sales and marketing. It has a number of prominent customers, including Microsoft, Comcast Business, Zenefits, Shutterstock, mongoDB, and Apttus.
Channels
EverString’s main channel is its direct sales team. The company promotes its offering through its social media pages and participation in summits and conferences.
Customer Relationships
EverString’s customer relationship is primarily of a self-service, automated nature.
Customers utilize the service through the main platform while having limited interaction with employees. The company’s website features a “Resources” section that includes self-help tools such as reports, case studies, eBooks, “cheatsheets”, visual slide decks, infographics, and videos.
That said, there is a personal assistance component in the form of phone and e-mail support.
Key Activities
EverString’s business model entails maintaining and updating its software-as-a-service platform.
Key Partners
EverString does not maintain any formal partnership programs. That said, it does form strategic alliances from time to time in order to expand its reach. High-profile examples of these include the following:
- In May 2016 EverString announced it was extending its partnership with Marketo, a marketing automation software provider. EverString integrated its Audience Platform directly into Marketo’s Ad Bridge product, and the solution would be available through Marketo LaunchPoint.
- In May 2016 EverString announced that its artificial intelligence-powered platform was now integrated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.
- In January 2015 EverString announced a partnership with HG Data, a vendor of competitive intelligence for installed technologies. Through the alliance, HG Data’s resources would be combined with EverString’s solutions.
Key Resources
EverString’s main resource is its proprietary software platform.
It depends on its engineering employees to maintain and update the platform, its sales/marketing employees to promote it, and its customer service staff to provide support.
As a relatively new startup it has relied heavily on funding from investors, raising $78.7 million from eight investors as of October 2015.
Cost Structure
EverString has a cost-driven structure, aiming to minimize expenses through significant automation. Its biggest cost driver is likely sales/marketing, a fixed cost. Other major drivers are in the areas of customer support/operations and administration, both fixed expenses.
Revenue Streams
EverString has one revenue stream: revenues it generates from the subscription fees it charges for access to its software-as-a-service platform. Sales staff must be contacted directly for pricing quotes.
