CEO, MonsterCommerce
www.ecommerce.networksolutions.com

How many problems are you dealing with this week?

If you’re like Stephanie Leffler, you’ll figure out which one could present a great business opportunity. Stephanie’s ability to do that led her to become CEO of MonsterCommerce, a Network Solutions company that provides everything you need to build an online store, serves about 6400 customers and employs about 199 people.

Meet Stephanie at Ladies Who Launch LIVE in San Francisco on September 21st
and read on to learn her secrets behind growing MonsterCommerce, making it a great place to work (MonsterCommerce was recently named one of the best places to work in St. Louis.), and more.

Class Project Becomes First Business

“I was in college (at Washington and Lee University’s Williams School of Commerce), planning to go into the PR industry and saw a friend in my business class present a plan on selling online. I thought it would be good experience for me to write the PR portion of the plan. One thing led to another, and we decided that rather than starting corporate jobs, we would start this business ourselves.”

Struggling to Build an Online Store

“It was a sun protective clothing business. We realized that starting an online store at the time (2000) was not easy. To find all the pieces you needed to put together an online store… it was pretty tough. We found a small company in California that had created software that pulled together different elements you needed to create an ecommerce site. We quickly had the thought that if this was so difficult for us and this software is so great, maybe this would be a good business model.”

Being a Customer, Then Buying the Company

“So first we invested in (MonsterCommerce) and then we bought all the shares. We grew the company from 10 customers to 6400 customers in the past six years. It was primarily personal and family financing that we used to get going.”

How Monster Became Big

“We filled a need that small business owners had en masse. They all needed a way to get online quickly, inexpensively and in a way they could control. Also, we were professionals in search engine optimization and we used SEO to our advantage to expose our software to the masses. We worked hard to obtain the Number One ranking for the term ‘shopping cart’ on Google. We also hired the right people and got a group of people together who are totally dedicated to the company.”

She Couldn’t Have Done It Without…

“The biggest entrepreneurial influences in my life… there are two. The first was my dad, who’s a lawyer. He worked for a large law firm for a long time and then took the leap of faith to start his own firm, which was successful from the start. I watched him waver for quite a long time about whether he should do that and go out on his own, so it was great to see him succeed.

“The second (major influence) is my business partner’s father, who helped us from Day One. He’s a builder and a developer, and he gave us a lot of the guiding principles that helped us to become successful.”

Top Two Guiding Principles

“Number One… not taking on investments from other people. Building on our own investment, creating our own funding.

“Number Two and probably most important… running our business incredibly frugally from the beginning. From finding people who would give us used desk chairs instead of buying them new, to setting up shop above (my business partner’s parents’) garage… he kept forcing the issue of keeping costs low. At a time when other Internet start-ups were spending top dollar for hoity-toity office furniture… we went a different route and we ended up in a much better position than the people who bought the expensive chairs.”

To Be Bought or Not to Be Bought?

“Network Solutions approached us about the possibility of an acquisition – they saw us in the marketplace and they wanted to do the deal with us. The reason that we decided to do the deal is our values matched up. We met the people and felt it was the right team. As far as advice to other entrepreneurs who might be looking to sell their businesses…

Want to Sell Someday? Think about It Today

“From the start, build your business so it’s scalable and adaptable. One of the things I learned is that potential acquirers want to know you’re able to become part of another company. They want to know that your people are open to change, and that your systems are able to change. Having an open attitude toward change is really important.”

Greatest Challenge

“The greatest business challenge we have faced so far is thoroughly integrating our company with Network Solutions, and the reason I say it’s the greatest challenge is that taking two companies moving as fast as Network Solutions and MonsterCommerce are, and putting them together, is a difficult thing.

“We (took) a good hard look at our culture and created what we called a ‘culture committee.’ They told us all the things they love about MonsterCommerce and working here and the things that they don’t want to change, no matter what. We’re trying to focus on making sure we don’t eliminate those things that have made us most successful.”

Common Mistake Entrepreneurs Make with Their Online Stores

“I see a lot of (entrepreneurs) make the mistake of building a store on a platform that can’t take them to the next level. MonsterCommerce is a platform that is fairly inexpensive and can grow to fairly high sales numbers and can handle large online stores and small ones just the same.

“We cater to people who sell products online. (With MonsterCommerce), they can get everything in one place from design to search engine optimization to e-commerce software and a merchant account. Being able to make one phone call and have access to someone who can help you with all of those things is a big thing.”

Words of Advice: On Bringing Out the Best in Your Team

“Don’t underestimate the power of culture. The ability to attract and retain employees is one thing, but the ability to get employees to commit themselves to you and feel that the work is part of their identity, brings up the level of engagement more than you can imagine. It’s something we kind of stumbled into.

“There’s no one definition of a good culture. It depends on the people you have.
Our group is fairly young overall. They like to have fun and have fairly active extracurricular lives. So one thing we did is we provided extracurricular activities that people could do to become closer as a team. It’s amazing how much harder people work when they’re helping out a teammate who they view as a good friend rather than just a co-worker.

“It’s understanding your team, listening to what they want and what will enrich their lives and then providing that to them.”

Recommended Reading

Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results, by Stephen C. Lundin, Harry Paul, John Christensen