Bootstrapping a Vertical CRM Product using Services

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Cleverping CEO Haysam Ali has built a $10 million services business and alongside, he has bootstrapped a vertical CRM product for the telecom industry. Read on to understand the nuances.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Haysam Ali:?I was born in Brazil. My entire family is from Lebanon. My dad was born and raised in Lebanon. He moved to Sao Paulo when he was middle-aged. My mother is Italian. My background is mixed. I went to college in Australia when I was 16. I went to business school there. I moved back to Brazil for college. I went to school for advertising in one of the major colleges around here.

Then I moved to New York about seven years ago for my Masters at Columbia and for my internship. I’m 33 years old. I’ve been involved in telecommunications for most of my work life. I was able to help the biggest names of telecommunications companies in Brazil with their marketing strategy.

I’ve also worked with Monster.com, a recruiting website for people looking for jobs. They acquired a company in Brazil. I’ve worked with them as well in setting up their entire call center and marketing strategy to help with the customer acquisition side. I’ve been doing customer acquisition since the very early stages of my career.

The reason why I moved to the US was for my Masters. I was able to see that there were more opportunities in the US. In the US, there are many more telecom brands. I’m able to work as an agency. Today, I run and co-found Eleven Rush. It’s been in business for about five years. We were acquired by a small boutique bank in New York City in 2020.

It’s been about two years. We are a tech-oriented marketing agency. We build all the customer acquisition strategies from beginning to end for the major telecom companies. We have AT&T, DirecTV among others. We help the majority of the brands that are broadband brands in the US by building marketing strategies to increase their presence in the digital world as well as to drive traffic to potential websites that we create on behalf of their brand.

Sramana Mitra: When did you start the digital marketing agency?

Haysam Ali:?In the US?

Sramana Mitra: In the US. Telefonica was also a client of the same digital agency?

Haysam Ali:?No, it was a similar business model but not the same business. In the US, we started in 2017, five years ago.

Sramana Mitra: So that’s 2017.

Haysam Ali:?Yes.

Sramana Mitra: So you started in 2017 with a services business model. You were providing consulting services to your clients?

Haysam Ali:?The first company that we had was Frontier Telecommunications.

Sramana Mitra: What did you tell them? Why did they choose to work with you versus other providers?

Haysam Ali:?First, because of my expertise in doing so many different things in various business areas and my success with Telefonica, which is a major brand. I had letters of recommendation from Telefonica.

Sramana Mitra: It was the Telefonica experience that you brought with you that you provided as the primary reason why people should be working with you.

Haysam Ali:?That is correct.

Our conversation continues?here.

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