Riley Kaminer
Boca Raton-based startup ZeroBounce, No. 40 on the most recent Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing companies in the US, is on a mission to help companies ensure that the emails they send arrive in their customers’ mailboxes.
Sending emails may seem like a trivial task, but Liviu Tanase, ZeroBounce’s founder and CEO (pictured above), knows the pitfalls that users face once they press send.
A staggering “15% of all email lists” contain some sort of inaccuracy, Tanase told Refresh Miami. From typos to more predatory spam traps, these unverified email addresses threaten a company’s ability to send marketing communications, often inadvertently blocking them from popular platforms like Mailchimp.
Faulty email lists can have a direct impact on a company’s bottom line. ZeroBounce, an email verification and list enhancement service, solves this problem by helping companies validate email addresses before they are used, Tanase said.
With almost 7 billion emails validated to date, the startup serves more than 100,000 businesses in 190+ countries and adds up to 150 new clients every day, according to the company. ZeroBounce recently added a blacklist monitoring tool to its arsenal, helping companies learn if their domain, IP address, or mail server is blacklisted.
When Tanase, a serial entrepreneur and telecommunications executive, left his native Romania to set up shop in the US, he was immediately attracted to South Florida.
“I recommend it 100% from a business perspective,” Tanase said of Boca Raton.
ZeroBounce started with two small executive offices when Tanase moved to Florida in 2018. By 2019, the company had scaled up to a much larger office space and 15 employees.
“Getting the right people in the right place is my biggest challenge,” said Tanase. In South Florida, he found a “much better talent pool” than other places he had conducted business, both in the US and abroad. ZeroBounce also has an office in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Tanase praised “the strong work culture” of South Florida: “Employees in Florida have a completely different mindset, and that makes a very big difference.”
He is excited about ZeroBounce’s strong growth trajectory. It’s the second year the startup has made the Inc Fastest Growing Companies list, and ZeroBounce jumped from No 851 in 2019 to No 40 last year, logging a 3-year growth rate of 7,054%.
To support that growth, Tanase hopes to hire more employees, either in South Florida or remotely.
The closure of the Boca office due to the pandemic has helped Tanase see the positive side to remote working: “Whenever we find the right people – because they’re so hard to find – we’re going to hire them regardless of where they are.” This is in stark contrast to before the pandemic, when Tanase and team wanted all employees to be in the Boca office.
Despite the opportunities that come with remote working, Tanase highlighted some major advantages of being physically present with coworkers, especially in the South Florida area.
For example, Tanase credited his involvement in Vistage, a peer-mentoring membership organization for CEOs, business owners and executives, with helping him rapidly scale ZeroBounce.
Compared to Vistage groups in other parts of the US, Tanase felt that those involved in the South Florida chapter were particularly attuned to the needs of technology entrepreneurs.
Equally, Tanase noted that he does see the benefits of having everyone in a single office, where “the synergy between them is great.” And he plans for Boca Raton to continue to be the post-pandemic home of ZeroBounce, where his company can grow in tandem with the burgeoning Palm Beach County startup ecosystem.
TIPS FROM TANASE: 3 things to double-check before sending your next marketing email
