ChikPea Gearing Up For Growth: An Interview With CFOO Stephen Deason
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In a survey conducted by Forbes Insights, it was revealed that while the benefits of customer retention are widely known, companies still significantly under utilize them and routinely fail to make a strong connection between retention and its impact on revenue. In short, there is tremendous room for advancement for all companies—to work smarter, not harder.
At ChikPea, we realized this early on and made it the benchmark for our solutions. Since our introduction to the SaaS market in 2006, ChikPea has always been hard at work to come up with the latest methods to improve customer retention. Not only do we help our clients work smarter and not harder, we practice what we preach. In doing so, we recently brought on our new Chief Financial and Operating Officer, Stephen Deason. We recently sat down with Deason to discuss his new role with ChikPea.
CN: Let's start with a difficult question, why ChikPea?
Deason: Well Chris, first and foremost, the Founders, Adam and Bhaskar are both brilliant men who have spent years building solutions that solve customer pain points. They've created products that have high barriers to entry, and a company that has the foundation to grow rapidly alongside the flexibility to withstand that growth. Second, we are highly profitable from the perspective of both net income and cash flow, with a predictable revenue stream and a loyal customer base. Finally, the company is debt-free and closely held in terms of ownership, all of which means we are poised for tremendous growth moving forward.
CN: What do you see as the key objectives in achieving your goals for ChikPea?
Deason: They're not my goals alone, but I see reasonably sustainable growth resulting from a few near-term objectives. We are going to expand our North American footprint, tighten and focus our value propositions and messaging, expand our sales and marketing teams, look closely at our strategic relationships and perhaps engage in M&A (Merger and Acquisition) activities. We are exploring raising capital through VC or growth PE, but I do not presently see the need for a capital round at this time, given our current financial position and our near-term objectives.
CN: How were you introduced to ChikPea?
Deason: I first met Adam Kleinberg, our CEO, nearly two years ago when I was helping Sage roll out their Salesforce-native cloud accounting solution. Adam struck me as charismatic and passionate, with great foresight and thought-leadership. We stayed in touch and I had the opportunity this summer to engage with our CTO, Bhaskar Roy. It turns out that Bhaskar and I have similar backgrounds and strategic viewpoints. Bhaskar strikes me as calm, determined and focused on value addition. As I already mentioned, they're both brilliant men, and the opportunity to work with them was one I could not turn down. I'm excited to be on board and look forward to building the future of ChikPea together.
CN: What are some major challenges that ChikPea faces today?
Deason: We have a tremendous opportunity in the market, along with a scalable-friendly product line. We are going to produce tight value statements and create a team to let our target markets know what we have been able to do for others in their verticals. We are going to focus on driving a great deal of success and value for our customers, partners and investors moving forward. Our immediate goals include expanding US operations, focusing initially on sales and services, attracting a board of advisors and onboarding the right people who will buy-in and work towards achieving our immediate and long-term goals.
CN: What role does finance play in helping tackle these challenges?
Deason: The role of the traditional CFO is to create value for the shareholders. This shows up primarily in the course of the decision-making process. The CFO is often known as the "no" person in a company. That is because the role is responsible for directing the financial resources of the company toward their highest value-added use. For ChikPea, my breadth of experience has given me a solid understanding of the opportunity costs incurred throughout the organization. From a financial standpoint, the good news is that we are tightly held and highly profitable on both a cash flow and net income basis.
CN: Can you tell us more about the strategy and value audit that you are conducting? Specifically, can you elaborate on how your non-traditional CFO role – involving information technology (IT) collaboration and innovation initiatives – keep the company's future looking bright?
Deason: I believe a CFOO should focus primarily on their company's business drivers. Some of these include how we make money, opportunity costs, IP/functionality lead and defensibility, returns on invested capital (ROIC), Economic Value Add (EVA) and so on. We are reviewing ways of improving these drivers, such as organic or merger/acquisition growth, operational improvements and changes to our business model. We then have to compare the various strategies to determine our expected gains and the associated risks. We are going through an extensive value and strategic analysis at the moment. We have the runway to do what we need to do to accomplish success, and we are going to do those things.
CN: Adam recently published an article discussing our future direction including cryptocurrency and smart contracting. Can you tell us a bit more about what ChikPea is planning in those areas?
Deason: I'm not able to comment on our strategic direction at this time.
CN: Can you comment on Adam's recent article quoting, "our next stage VPM for our Subscriber Relationship Management suite, extending revenue recognition?"
Deason: <laughing> Chris, I'm still not able to comment on our strategic direction at this time.
CN: Because ChikPea is in the specialized market of business software, can you tell us more about your background in this area, the high-impact success outcomes and achievements you've had in these respects?
Deason: I have extensive experience with both ERP and CRM sales, development and implementation. My background in software and in BPO includes an array of operations, financial, strategy, transformation and M&A activities that should prove helpful as we transform and grow ChikPea.
CN: How do you see the company changing in two years and how do you see yourself creating that change?
Deason: I cannot do any of this alone. Our success as an organization depends on people's buy-in to the process. We are going to create a high-performance organization that is designed to sustainably increase our growth rate into the 150-300% per year range over the coming 18 months. Whether we are able to achieve our goals depends on whether we can get and maintain buy-in, action and execution from the right people at the right times in the right roles.
CN: Tell us something personal. Do you have a favorite sport or do you have any pets?
Deason: On a personal level, I am heavily involved in the Recovery community. I "live and walk in Recovery," and it's a central part of my life. I am often invited to speak publicly about my journey to groups or at centers with people who are struggling on their journeys.
So far as sports, I don't know that I have one "favorite." I am a huge fan of Coach Nick Saban at Alabama because of his focus on "The Process." Coach Saban is all about building high-performance teams by focusing on doing things the right way all the time, focusing on everyone doing their job at the highest level; the wins will come. That's what we're doing here at ChikPea, creating value for our customers through consistently high performance.
In terms of pets, I have two English bulldogs. They're amazing and the breed virtually defines tenacity.
CN: Do you have any closing points you'd like to make?
Deason: I'd like to close with five quotes from Coach Saban that I believe epitomize what we're all about here at ChikPea:
1. "The good enough attitude is not what we're looking for, we have got to use every opportunity to improve individually so we can improve collectively."
2. "Champions are rare. Everybody has some chance, some opportunity to change and improve, but not everybody takes advantage. Be somebody who does."
3. "Certain traits that seem to be in every champion: passion, commitment, confidence, pride in performance, high standards of excellence, relentlessness, perseverance and the ability to perform in adverse circumstances."
4. "The difference between belief and trust can be monumental. We may believe in others, but do we really trust them? To firmly trust people means putting your own successes and health in their hands."
5. "Some of the great leaders in history were not adored, but respected. My advice to leaders—stop trying to please everyone and do what you believe is best."
Investor-related questions can be directed to Stephen Deason at [email protected].
*ChikPea is the first cloud billing and telecom order management solution on the Salesforce AppExchange*
Company: ChikPea Inc.
Contact: Chris Nguyen
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.chikpea.com
SOURCE ChikPea Inc.
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