Seed Investing
We have had experience investing and starting over 40 companies, ranging from enterprise software to office retailers to steel product companies. if you are starting a company, get in touch.
Principals
Founder and primary investor is Jim Willenborg. Jim has over extensive startup experience and startup investing experience across over 50 companies. Jim willenborg gets directly involved
Introductions
Baker Street Partners and, Jim Willenborg specifically, has venture capital and private equity relationships going back to the70’s. These relationships are
Inmac Corporation
MySoftware Corporation was started by Dave Mans and Jim Willenborg. it supplied extremely easy to use small business software sold through Office Depot, Staples, and Office Max. MySoftwre went public and later was acquired by a French software company.
MySoftware Corporation
Inmac, international Computer Supplies and Accessories was a start up by Ken Edred and Jim Willenborg. it grew from zero in 1976, to over $500,ooo in revenue and went public. LAter it was sold to Micro Warehouse .
Optrix, Underwater iPhone Cases
Optrix was started by John Willenborg, son of Jim Willenborg, and funded by Baker Street Partners. Optrix produced underwater iPhone cases and were sold by Best Buy, Apple Retail and other major retailers. It was acquired by Fellows
Owl Vans Engineering
Owl Van Engineering designs and manufactures accessories for MBZ Sprinter Camper Vans. In four years Owl Vans has become the leading perferred brand of accessories for Sprinter, Revel and Storyteller vans. Owl Vans was funded by Baker Street Partners and Jim Willenborg is an advisor to the board.
Baker Street Sales Growth Sucesses
Stalled Sales Growth to Billion Dollar Public Offering
A major PE Firm called Jim Willenborg of Baker Street Partners to help with a $4 million revenue enterprise software company they had invested in.
The company had very bright, but inexperienced management, a strong initial product, and a large and growing market centered around Microsoft SharePoint. Revenue was not growing.
At the time of the initial meeting with Jim Willenborg, the company had five telephone sales reps with no plan to hire more. It was clear that they needed more selling horsepower.
A large component of their revenue came from government agencies in Washington DC. When Jim suggested they needed a DC office, they replied they didn’t need one, to which Jim Willenborg replied, “I agree, you need five, one for each the Air Force, the Army, the Navy, other non-military government and one for industry.
They didn’t want our advice.
Three months later they called back and hired Baker Street Partners. We did a through review of their markets, their sales commission plans, lead generation, allocation of leads to sales reps and other selling variables.
Jumping ahead to the results, they added sales offices, outside sales reps, telephone sales reps, and a lead generation department to keep the sales reps too busy. We are proud to say that after 5 years they had 29 sales offices around the world including Europe and Asia. sales growth has consistently stayed above 30%d per year in SAAS recurring revenue.
In 2021 they went public at over a billion-dollar IPO. Baker Street, specifically, Jim Willenborg, believes they played a small but necessary part of their success.
For the full story read about in the book by Bill Conifer called Sales Reps are Free available on Amazon.
From Flat Sales to over 50% Sales Growth after following Baker Street' Partners' Recommendations
A Silicon Valley Venture Fund called Jim Willenborg about a educational software and hardware firm they had investing in they had invested in but had hit the wall on growth. their sales were flat at $40 million per year for the past three years.
The good news for Baker Street Partners was that they had lots of good historical sales data to analyze.
Here was the situation: The company had five Sales Reps in five locations across the nation. The Company was out of sales calls. Here’s the calculation that most companies don’t make: an outside salesperson can make tow sales calls per day for four days a week, that a total of 8 call per week or 360 per year per rep (vacations, sales meetings, and trade shows). Now if 1 of 6 calls results in a sale of $30,000, a great sales rep will book $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 per year. Take that times five reps, you have only $10,000,000 in annual revenue. they had $40,00,000. They were very short on selling power.
Part of Baker Street’s analysis was to plot sales by zip code. the best sales rep was selling $4 million per year, her territory was the Louisiana Purchase, namely the entire Midwest from Texas to the Canadian border., yet she did not sell a system over 100 miles from her home. do you think they had room for more sales reps?
Jim Willenborg recommended they promote four of the five sales reps to regional managers and have each hire five reps. he also recommended the northeastern rep be replaced with a new rep and also hire five sales reps.
The results were spectacular: sales growth went from zero to over 60% and the company filed for a public offering nine months later. The company went from an enterprise value of maybe $20 million to a value of $ over $150 million upon their public offering.
For the complete story, read the chapter on this company in Sales Reps are Free by Bill Conifer available on Amazon.
About us
Baker Street Partners is a dynamic organization, lead by James Willenborg consisting of two major associate partners and four interns over the past twenty years of investing and advising.
Baker Street Partners has also done numerous consulting ssignments primarily on sales growth for venture and PE funded companies with stalled growth. These assignments have resulted in phenomenal success and spawned a book on sales growth, Sales Reps are Free
Talk to us
If you have a young company with sales revenue growth stalled or a need for Seed or A round financing, please get in touch.