Business overview

Background

VSC is a private B2B company operating within the lucrative data analytics software sector.  Its purpose is to help companies to capture and analyse market data within their industry niche.

The company was founded in January 20X0 by their current CEO Vanessa Williams, who owns 100% of the company. The paid-up share capital of the Company is USD 5,000,000, comprising of 5,000 ordinary shares of USD 1,000 par value.

The company has a 31 December year-end and today’s date is 30 June 20X2.

Here is VSC’s logo:

Location

VSC is headquartered in Homeland, a short distance from Vanessa’s family home. Their company registration number is 15378923552 and the registered office is 37 Oak Road, Acorn Estate, Office Town, Homeland. Their email address is vsc@homeland.net

VSC fully owns its offices with a current market value of $5m, funded by Vanessa upon formation of the company.  The entire VSC workforce and customers are based within their home territory.  VSC currently employs 100 people.

Product

Their main product is called VSCData, a self-service software application that helps customers with data analytics and reporting.

VSCData compares a company’s performance to other similar businesses and provides automated alerts to help you identify performance improvement opportunities. VSCData is the only product in the marketplace that offers real-time automated alerts.

VSC has built VSCData in-house using its own technologies and is not reliant on any third party technology providers. They may need to partner with specialist technology providers and data security firms to further enhance this product and future proof it against expected legislation enhancements.

VSCData is sold as a SaaS product with high margins and strong customer retention.  The product is becoming well-known with the local marketplace and continues to attract new clients on a regular basis.

Without this product, customers find it very hard to capture and analyze data from other companies, which takes up a lot of their time and reduces the quality of information available to them during decision-making.

Here is a recent bit of customer feedback from a client called RLW:

“VSCData has provided us with some amazing insights that help us react to marketplace events much quicker than our competitors.”

VSC has reinvested most of its earnings towards enhancing VSCData’s capabilities and Vanessa believes that the product has huge growth opportunities throughout the world.

Industry sector

Vanessa met a specialist consultancy on 15 June 20X2 to discuss the competitive landscape for VSCData. Here are a few notes from their meeting:

• There are 200 companies in Homeland who are likely to buy products similar to VSCData for $25,000 per month.
• This gives a total Homeland market opportunity of $60 million per annum, which is expected to grow at 5% annually.
• There are two key competitors in this space called QuantumSift and BusinessComparer. All companies charge $25,000 per month for their products and are forecast to maintain these prices.
• VSCData currently has a 10% market share, QuantumSift has 20% and BusinessComparer has 45%. The remaining 25% of companies are currently performing such activities through in-house teams and should be fairly easy to convert into new customers.
• The estimated size of the global market for such services is $900 million, of which $300 million relates to companies headquartered in Bigland.

Marketing

To date, the company has grown organically through word-of-mouth. VSC’s company slogan “The power of data” has proven very popular in attracting new customers.

Vanessa believes that it should be fairly easy for VSC to capture significant new market share due to the uniqueness of their product and the fantastic feedback provided by their client base.

There are some fantastic opportunities to hire a new Chief Marketing Officer and to promote the company through targeted marketing campaigns.

Key achievements to date

VSC launched the first version of its VSCData product in April 20X0 after three months of in-house development.  They immediately won 10 new customers contributing total recurring revenue of $500k per year following a successful product launch sales promotion to Vanessa’s existing contacts.

The team added new components to VSCData in July 20X0 and then immediately increased the price to $25,000 per month. They secured their first client at this higher price in January 20X1 and all new wins have since been at this price.

VSC won the Homeland Business Innovator of the Year Award in December 20X1.

Leadership team

Pinesh Mehta, Chairperson: Chair of the leadership team with a fantastic track record of scaling and exiting businesses for high multiples. Has previously delivered four CEO roles and is now a NED to three startups/scaleups.

Vanessa Williams, CEO: A data analytics expert who is well-known throughout the Homeland market. First role as a CEO in a scaleup company.

Alistair Kanev, COO: Responsible for all operational matters at VSC, including the scalability of business processes. Seven years of career experience as a COO.

Naomi Holt, CTO: Oversees VSC’s IT engineering team and is instrumental in developing the VSCData product. Naomi was VSC’s first hire and has 12 years of career experience as a CTO.

Yourself, CFO: A rising talent with a strong reputation towards developing best-in-class finance teams and processes.

Vacant roles: In order to deliver its growth ambitions, VSC will need to hire people into the following leadership roles during the next few years:

• Chief Revenue Officer
• Chief Marketing Officer
• Chief Product Officer
• People Leader