オープンソフト会社がＶＣからの追加投資に成功 〜本日のお奨め〜
昨日紹介した業界において、オープン・ソフトウェアを使って猛追している会社 SugarCRMについて。
Open source software companies have gotten a lot of buzz, but most have yet to prove their staying power.
One company to watch is SugarCRM, a Cupertino start-up that helps companies manage customer relationships. It just raised $5.5 million in a second round of venture capital
SugarCRMが$5.5のSecound Round（追加投資）を受けた。（最初の投資によって軌道にのって、さらに飛躍する為のものなので、非常にポジティブな話な分けです）
Listening to Sugar's chief executive, John Roberts, it's hard not to be impressed with how quickly and cheaply his company got off the ground.
CEO John Robertsの話には驚かされる。あまりにも早く、そして安く成功させているからだ。
After just nine months, Roberts is talking boldly of competing with mammoth proprietary incumbents Siebel Systems and Salesforce.com.
創業たったの9ヶ月で、巨大な競合であるSiebelやSalesforce.comについて強気な発言をしている。
How they did it
In March, when Roberts helped crew for former employer, Mary Coleman, during a boat race in San Francisco, he mentioned the idea of starting a company. Coleman, now a VC at Walden International, encouraged him. Roberts and two colleagues resigned, bought laptops and started writing code.
昔のボスMary Coleman（現在VC）にアイデアを話したところ話がすすみ、二人の同僚と会社を辞めてコードを書き始めた。
They lived off Yahoo's Instant Messenger, enjoying free phone calls via its Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) offering. They worked out of their homes, chatting through the night on their headsets via their VOIP hookup. They met once a week at a small office borrowed from the SDForum, a software development group in San Jose.
YahooのIMやIP電話でお互いに連絡をとりあいながら（全部無料サービス）の共同作業で、週に一度だけ小さな会議室を借りて集まった。（おそらくこれもタダか格安と思われる）
By June, they had launched a test version, and had 1,000 people downloading the software. Roberts hit the pavement at Sand Hill Road to raise money from VCs. ``I was a total neophyte.'' He felt crazy pitching a company called Sugar, especially since few open source applications had been funded. ``We were freakin' nuts, burning through our savings.''
6月にはテストバージョンができ、1000人もの人々にダウンロードしてもらう段階まできてVCの門を叩く。
Some VCs shrugged him off. But Josh Stein, of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, had watched with interest, and offered them $2 million.
結果$2ミリオンの投資を受ける
In October, the company started selling to business customers, by which time Sugar had 50,000 downloads, Roberts said.
By Monday, Roberts said, he had 100 paying customers, a good chunk of them software companies, but also Arkansas water bottler Music Mountain Water Co. or Roseville manufacturer Pride Industries.
10月には５０，０００ダウンロードまで広がり、ビジネスカスタマー向けに販売をはじめた。
そして翌月曜には100人もの有償ユーザーがついた。
Roberts is charging $239 per user per year, and is offering customers a perpetual license. If they don't renew an annual subscription, they don't get new updates or support.
お値段は年間＄２３９
Roberts won't reveal his sales, but says he believes it can be a $50 million- to $100 million-a-year company.
売上については明かさなかったが、おそらく＄５０〜１００ミリオンぐらいの年間売り上げになると予想される。
