Dasheroo – Makes Data Easier To Understand And Helps You Grow Your Business Faster

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With Dasheroo dashboard business owners can instantly analyze how they’re performing across all the apps and KPIs they rely on for their business. Simply you can access your data from anywhere, on any device, at any time – all in one place! Dasheroo has recently announced $3.25 Million in Series A financing Led by Cloud Apps Capital Partners. Below is our interview with John Hingley Co-Founder and CEO of Dasheroo:

Q: John tell us how you founded the company? How did the Dasheroo team meet?

A: I think the idea had been bubbling up over the years. I mean, back in the day there were only a handful of apps and metrics to base decisions on. But we all know that’s changed; there’s now more than 10,000 business apps out there, and tens of millions of users. A typical SMB uses 15 or more apps! So that can turn ‘big data’ against you if you don’t have an efficient way for the business to access it.

Then a couple years ago, I hopped back into a tech company I started with my wife several years ago. They needed help boosting sales and marketing. So, I started a meeting called ‘SSS’ (Sell Some Shit!) and focused the team on the key metrics driving the biz. Everyone entered their metrics and reports into a shared Google Doc so we could all work off it. It worked! But soon I realized it still wasn’t efficient enough – it was taking too long for folks to create their charts and update the doc, there wasn’t enough transparency behind the numbers, and ‘why should we have to wait until the weekly Tuesday meeting to view and act on this stuff?!

So I looked around for a solution and when I couldn’t find one I liked, created my own. It’s start-up #3 for me. And I think and hope it can be a great solution for companies around the world.

I was fortunate to have worked with my 3 co-founders over the years, most recently at VerticalResponse; we have great chemistry and complement each other very well. James is our VP Engineering; Josh is our VP Product, Alf is our VP Customer Success (and an online Swiss Army Knife!); and I run with the ball with Sales, Marketing & the business side of things. So not much overlap, all additive so we’re able to get a lot of great stuff done right and done quickly.

Related: BizMetrics – Key Metrics For Your SaaS Startup Business

Q: You’ve recently announced 3.25 million in a Series A funding. What are your plans?

A: This is the first time I haven’t bootstrapped a company, so it was not a decision made lightly! But that said, two key drivers convinced me to raise an A round early on. First, we see a huge window of opportunity to own the global market for business dashboards for SMBs. And even with a freemium model, fulfilling that size of aspiration takes some investment. Second, I was fortunate to meet the perfect VC, Cloud Apps Capital Partners. They have the best understanding of any VC I met of the business freemium model, and we had experience working with the partners Matt Halloran & Judy Loehr from our days working together; I was at VerticalResponse and they were at Salesforce.com. They are like business partners to us, really cool.

Also, we’re not gonna blow this money on advertising; we’re using business freemium and – we hope – a great user experience to get the word out. Roughly 80% of this round of funding is going toward hiring a-grade folks to help us execute on our vision.

Related: BranchMetrics Helps You Get All Data Needed For Customer Acquisition Strategy!

Q: What advantage does Dasheroo have over its competitors?

A: From the get-go, we focused on user experience as a key competitive advantage and it’s already paying off. So it’s all about making data easier to access, understand and take action on. And always, always listening to our users, their needs and challenges so we can focus on making them happy.

We could have played the ‘how many apps do you connect to?’ race, but we know from experience that if you don’t start with a super-strong foundation of providing delight and immediate gratification, you’re not going to win. There are several additional tenets we have followed to hopefully provide a competitive advantage: 1) Insights over Widgets: we take the time to curate reports (Insights) that include several important metrics in one view; that makes it very intuitive for folks to understand and derive quick value from. 2) Interactivity: users can resize, move, copy, and drill into all of their Insights for more data, or to go directly to a specific Instagram post or Tweet. 3) Collaboration: we built in sharing and commenting right into Dasheroo, making it a workspace that a small or large team can interact with directly to make decisions based on up-to-the-minute information. 4) freemium model: we offer a very robust tier for free. No strings. Probably 90% of folks out there will be more than happy with the value in this tier forever. And hey, for the folks that need a little more, we think they’ll be happy to pay us a fair sum.

Related: ContactMetrics – A Simple Way To Learn More About Your Customers

Q: Tell us something more about your “Early Adopter Special” promotion?

A: Well, we love SMBs, and want to give the a break! So, our “Early Adopter Special” is pretty big! From now through June 15, 2015 all users that sign-up will get our Dasheroo ‘Grande’ plan FREE for the next 20 years. It’s our first paid tier, and a great value priced at around $25 per month. But it’ll be free. And hey, as much as we want to show other SMBs some love, we think it’ll have some positive viral benefits for Dasheroo as well.