All of this with a super sexy and minimalist user interface.
]]>So, what does this mean to me and my business?
-- The CMS removes the need for Magento integration for the - shopping basket and Drupal/Joomla for the website. For any - organisation, this will reduce the technology footprint and - eliminate the complexities of FTP or file transfer data - uploads and exports which for many, are manual tasks. - Implementation is easier and the web designer can get - straight on with developing the site without requiring the - project management and interactions with site developers, - providing a quicker and more efficient deployment. However, - for larger sites, stringent process and project management - disciplines are still required to ensure a low-risk project. -
-How does it work in practice?
-- When items are placed in the basket, a sales order is - created automatically to reflect the basket contents. - Payments are recorded on the balance sheet and all - accounting journal entries are automatic. As it is in real - time, stock records are always accurate and decremented on - the fly when orders placed. -
- Automatic translations can be created for international - traders and available languages selected. -
-- Customer queries and returns can be set up to use the case - handling system which will escalate depending on customer - spend, grouping or profile and notify relevant parties as - appropriate. -
- More information about the feature set can be found - - on the OpenERP website here -
-Created in just four months
-- OpenERP competently manages customer and product data, and - has mature sales work-flow built in, so the addition of the - E-commerce module was achieved by presenting these - components through a customer-friendly interface so most - of the effort invested was creating the CMS functions. This - was achieved within just four months of development by a - core team of 6 OpenERP developers and significant community - support. -
- Inspiration has come from various other platforms including - Prestashop, Magento and Drupal and contributors bring many - years of industry experience across many platforms. -
]]> - - -I needed to change the world. I wanted to ... You know how - it is when you are young; you have big dreams, a lot of energ - and naïve stupidity. My dream was to lead the enterprise - management market with a fully open source software.(I also - wanted to get 100 employees before 30 years old with a - self-financed company but I failed this one by a few months). -
- -- To fuel my motivation, I had to pick someone to fight - against. In business, it's like a playground. When you - arrive in a new school, if you want to quickly become the - leader, you must choose the class bully, the older guy who - terrorises small boys,and kick his butt in front of - everyone. That was my strategy with SAP, the enterprise - software giant. -
- So, in 2005, I started to develop the TinyERP product, the - software that (at least in my mind) would change the enterprise - world. While preparing for the "day of the fight" in 2006, - I - bought the SorrySAP.com domain name. I put it on hold - for 6 years, waiting for the right moment to use it. - I thought it would take 3 years to deprecate a 77 billion - dollars company just because open source is so cool. - Sometimes it's better for your self-motivation not to - face reality... -
- To make things happen, I worked hard, very hard. I worked - 13 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no vacations for 7 - years.I lost friendships and broke up with my girlfriend in - the process (fortunately, I found a more valuable wife - now. I will explain later why she is worth 1 million EUR - :). -
- Three years later, I discovered you can't change the world - if you are "tiny". Especially if the United States is part - of this world, where it's better to be a BigERP, rather - than a TinyERP. Can you imagine how small you feel - - in front of Danone's directors asking; "but why - should we pay millions of dollars for a tiny software?" - So, we renamed TinyERP to OpenERP. -
- As we worked hard, things started to evolve. We were - developing dozens of modules for OpenERP, the open source - community was growing and I was even able to pay all - employees' salaries at the end of the month without fear - (which was a situation I struggled with for 4 years). -
- In 2010, we had a 100+ employees company selling services - on OpenERP and a powerful but ugly product. This is what - happens when delivering services to customers distracts - you from building an exceptional product. -
- It was time to do a pivot in the business model. -
-The Pivot
-- We wanted to switch from a service company to a software - publisher company. This would allow to increase our efforts - in our research and development activities. As a result, - we changed our - business model and decided to stop our services to - customers and focus on building a strong partner network - and maintenance offer. This would cost money, so I had to - raise a few million euros. -
- After a few months of pitching investors, I got roughly - 10 LOI from different VCs. We chosed Sofinnova Partners, - the biggest European VC, and Xavier Niel the founder of - Iliad, the only company in France funded in the past 10 - years to have reached the 1 billion euro valuation. -
- I signed the LOI. I didn't realize that this contract could - have turned me into a homeless person. (I already had a dog, - all I needed was to lose a lot of money to become homeless). - The fund raising was based on a company valuation but there - was a financial mechanism to re-evaluate the company up by - 9.8 m€ depending on the turnover of the next 4 years. I should - have received warrants convertible into shares if we achieved - the turnover targeted in the business plan. -
- The night before receiving the warrants in front of the - notary, my wife checked the contracts. She asked me what - would be the taxation on these warrants. I rang the lawyer - and guess what? Belgium is probably the only country in - the world where you have to pay taxes on warrants when you - receive them, even if you never reach the conditions to - convert them into shares.If I had accepted these warrants, - I would have had to pay a 12.5% tax on 9.8 m€; resulting - in a tax of 1.2m€ to pay in 18 months! So, my wife is worth - 1.2 million EUR. I would have ended up a homeless person - without her, as I still did not have a salary at that time. -
- We changed the deal and I got the 3 million EUR. It allowed - me to recruit a rocking management team. -
-
- Being a mature company
-
- With this money in our bank account, we boosted two - departments: R&D and Sales. We burned two million EUR in - 18 months,mostly in salaries. The company started to grow - even faster.We developed a partner network of 500 partners - in 100 countries and we started to sign contracts with 6 - zeros. -
- Then, things became different. You know, tedious things like - handling human resources, board meetings, dealing with big - customer contracts, traveling to launch international - subsidiaries. We did boring stuff like budgets, career paths, - management meetings, etc. -
- 2011 was a complex year. We did not meet our expectations: - we only achieved 70% of the forecasted sales budget. Our - management meetings were tense. We under performed. We were not - satisfied with ourselves. We had a constant feeling that we - missed something. It's a strange feeling to build extraordinary - things but to not be proud of ourselves. -
- But one day, someone (I don't remember who, I have a - goldfish memory) made a graph of the monthly turnover - of the past 2 years. It was like waking up from a nighmare. - In fact,it was not that bad, we had multiplied by 10 the - monthly turnover over the span of roughly two years! - This is when we understood that OpenERP is a marathon, - not a sprint. Only 100% growth a year is ok... if you can - keep the rhythm for several years. -
-
- - OpenERP Monthly Turnover -
- As usual, I should have listened to my wife. She is way - more lucid than I am. Every week I complained to her "it's - not good enough, we should grow faster, what am I missing?" - and she used to reply; "But you already are the - fastest growing company in Belgium!". (Deloitte awarded - us as the fastest growing company of Belgium with 1549% - growth of the turnover between 2007 and 2011) -
-Changing the world
-- Then, the dream started to become reality. We started to - get clues that what we did would change the world: -
--
-
- - With 1.000 installations per day, we became the most - installed management software in the world, -
- - - Analysts from Big 4 started to prefer OpenERP over SAP, - -
- - OpenERP is now a - compulsory subject for the baccalaureate in France - like Word, Excel and Powerpoint -
- - 60 new modules are released every month (we became - the wikipedia of the management software thanks to - our strong community) - -
- Something is happening... And it's big! -
- OpenERP 7.0 is about to be released and I know you will be - astonished by it. -
- The official release is planned for the 21th of December. - As the Mayas predicted it, this is the end of an age, - the old ERP dinosaurs. -
- It's time to pull out the Ace: the SorrySAP.com domain - name that I bought 6 years ago. -
-