The bootstrapped Salesmsg, a one stop shop for business messaging, is generating millions in revenue
By Riley Kaminer
Most 19 year olds likely have very little interest in car parts. Not Chris Brisson. At that age, the Palm Beach native was selling wheels and tires on eBay out of his Tallahassee dorm room.
That was Brisson’s first business – and first exit, in 2005. “I learned a lot,” he told Refresh Miami. One of the most important lessons? “I realized I didn’t like selling physical stuff.” Shipping and inventory management wasn’t for him. But it was through this experience that he discovered one interest: online marketing.
“I got into learning everything I could about internet marketing, copywriting, and selling,” he said. In 2009, he had the idea for Call Loop, an outbound calling and SMS marketing platform. Brisson explained that Call Loop, which still exists, had a good run up until 2015. At that point, the company had become unwieldy, leading Brisson to write a three-part series of blog posts proclaiming the death of the company.
“It was a story of how I built a business I secretly despise,” said Brisson, noting that by that point the platform was riddled with technical snags. So he asked himself: What would it look like if he were able to build a new platform from scratch?
This thinking led to the birth of Salesmsg, which Brisson founded in 2017. The platform enables businesses to send text messages to their customers, including with PDFs, videos, audio clips, GIFs, and emojis. Salesmsg stands out from the pack thanks to its integrations – specifically with Hubspot, the leading CRM platform. It is a one stop shop for messaging, offering shared inbox tools to enable collaboration among team members, as well as mass texting functionality.
The startup gives its users local phone numbers and can enable existing landlines to accept text messages. “Many businesses didn’t even realize that their customers were trying to text them until we turned it on,” said Brisson.
The thesis: We live in a world where few people pick up their phones. Emailing is a good option, but its open rates (around 20-30%) pale in comparison to the average open rate of texts, which sits at over 95%.
Salesmsg has a diverse set of customers and use cases. Local stores use it to generate leads. Service providers use it to send appointment reminders. Crossfit studios use it to qualify leads. It even helps Grant Cardone’s sales team build and engage their audience.
The startup, which was bootstrapped, expects to cross the $10 million revenue mark this year. Salesmsg’s 40-person team is global, with a large development team based in Ukraine. Brisson encourages other South Florida founders to consider offshoring part of their team.
“Moving offshore gives you a competitive advantage,” he said. “It’s an interesting and exciting time to be in South Florida’s tech ecosystem – lots of people are moving here. But it’s not the best place to find talent.” Outsourcing can bridge that gap.
Brisson’s ultimate vision for Salesmsg: becoming the leading all-in-one global messaging platform for sales, marketing, support teams. “We’re not there yet, but we have an amazing team and together we can do it.
READ MORE ON REFRESH MIAMI:
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