What do you do when you need software for your online business? You could try and buy something to fit your needs. Or, like Unific co-founders Daniel Kurt and Parag Jagdale, you could go out and build something that does exactly what you need it to.
The duo's story begins with a friendship that was fostered during their time as students at The Ohio State University, where they both participated in the business club at Tish College of Business. Fast forward to 2012, when Kurt called Jagdale for insight on his wife's online business.
“We provide reliable, easy-to-use, fast and deep integrations between shopping carts and marketing automation platforms."
In an effort to make the company grow, Kurt wanted to leverage the site's customer data and visitor information to create custom email messages for current and potential customers.
“We were using MailChimp for our email marketing, and it really wasn’t doing the trick,” he said.
While Kurt and his wife had signed up for a more robust customer-relationship management tool with a marketing integration platform, they were still hitting a wall. Thus, they hoped Jagdale could help integrate the CRM with an e-commerce platform and get the business' marketing closer to where they wanted it to go.
When Jagdale was able to do just that, the team was thrilled. But that wasn't the end of the story.
“Then, we decided to prioritize it and start selling it, because we noticed there was a bigger pain point in that ecosystem, and it started taking off,” Kurt said. “And it was a side project and a lifestyle business, and then we recognized it as a much bigger opportunity. And then we bootstrapped into about $50,000 in monthly recurring revenue.”
Their spinout, then dubbed Revenue Conduit, initially began with $1,400 in 2013. Since then, its software has become just one facet of Kurt and Jagdale's Unific brand.
Ultimately, the team's goal is to help customers “turn data into insights, insights into action and action into growth,” Kurt said.
In addition to Revenue Conduit, Unific has several different products in its arsenal, like its integration platform. Said platform is currently under expansion, with goals to virtually include an e-commerce channel with the likes of Amazon, Walmart and other point of sale systems.
“We provide reliable, easy-to-use, fast and deep integrations between shopping carts and marketing automation platforms,” Kurt said.
This tool works by taking Unific’s customer data platform, or CDP, from different channels, (such as Amazon, for example) and helps customers turn sale information from these channels into actionable marketing data. This ability is unique, as oftentimes e-commerce sellers who use virtual marketplaces don't get to see this information. Unific's software, however, can pull the data.
Its work has gotten the attention of Queen City Angels, which funded the company during its last round. Additionally, the Unific team participated in Refinery Ventures' VC Competition as a featured startup.
A player in the #StartupCincy ecosystem, Kurt said he loves working in the Midwest and has found a considerable amount of support as a founder and entrepreneur within the community.
