THERE’S A SCIENCE TO SELLING ENTERPRISE SAAS.

app covering topics ranging from diabetes management to mental health.

Wang was having trouble scaling the business, partly because she didn’t know what aspects of it to measure. L-SPARK invited her to pitch for a place on the Foundation program. “I didn’t really understand the metrics and the rigour that’s needed to make it a profitable business and to scale it,” she said. “They made it scientific.”

She discovered that her sales cycle was too long, and her geographical scope too narrow. She had visions of a Canada-wide business, but hadn’t sold much outside of Toronto. She learned that she was spending too much time visiting companies. She needed to reach them digitally instead.

Optimity set up a sales process that found and targeted specific stakeholders inside companies with 100 to 1,000 employees. It uses online demonstrations to educate them about the service.

Shifting from a technology to a marketing and sales focus is a key part of the SaaS story, Lax said. “Change is now less about the heavy lifting in technology and more about the delivery of the application in a user-friendly cost effective manner.”

The company also segmented its pricing into a lower-cost product, offering it at $2 per member per month, which encourages HR departments to try it out before upgrading to the full $10 package. These changes helped Wang quadruple revenue between February and October this year. “There’s a science to selling enterprise SaaS,” she said.

Wang finished the Foundation program in June, but went back for more. She started L-SPARK’s Accelerator program in September, and hopes to reach $150,000 in monthly recurring revenue by the time it ends next June.

Change is now less about the heavy lifting in technology and more about the delivery of the application in a user-friendly cost effective manner

Perram has even bigger plans for his $4 million financing. The round was led by Celtic House Venture Partners, which provided $2 million, along with Wesley Clover, which invested $1 million. Chinese firm Green Capital Investments kicked in $500,000, with the remaining $500,000 coming from various small investors.

The money will be used to continue his channel strategy. He’s planning to expand his existing 12-strong valueadded reseller network, and will also target smaller companies with his product, which will see a major new release in January.

“We want to hit $600,000 MRR by December 2017,” he said. He knows he’ll be profitable by then, but isn’t sure when the tipping point will be, so he just hired a chief financial officer to tell him.