Steve Weber and Shilpa Marano started a tech consulting firm after leaving e-commerce startup nChannel Inc. After two years working with a client spinning out in-house software, the partners acquired it – now working on their third company together.
PaperTrl Inc. moved to far north Columbus from Baltimore, Maryland, after the seller-financed deal closed in the last week of October, the new owners told Columbus Business First. Terms were not disclosed.
The startup making invoicing software focused on middle market construction companies is tracking for $1 million revenue this year.
"We have plans to grow the business to well over $25 million in revenue," said Marano, COO.
Visa Inc. through a partnership is introducing PaperTrl to large banking customers whose commercial banking software does not handle external purchase orders and invoicing for suppliers and subcontractors.
"What the banks provide for us is feet on the street and distribution nationwide," CEO Weber said.
PaperTrl is relying on lessons learned from nChannel, the 2014 top finisher in Columbus Business First's Fast 50 awards for fastest-growing private companies. Weber started that business in 2011 after another consulting gig.
Marano, who had previously worked with Weber at the former Sterling Commerce Inc., was chief marketing officer. They found they complement each other in business: Weber has the big-picture vision, and Marano excels at breaking that into manageable and measurable steps.
NChannel grew rapidly with demand from small retailers that wanted to integrate their online and in-store presence – things like order online for pickup in store. The problem was trying to tack 2010s open-source software onto dinosaur back-office systems from the 1980s.
"The things we were trying to integrate weren’t ready to be integrated," Weber said. "We sold a lot of customers ... we grew really fast. It was difficult to hold onto it because we really had a tough time getting customers live."
A partner bought Weber out and still is running nChannel today with steadier, slower growth.
PaperTrl is "laser-focused" on a specific market segment, Marano said: Construction companies up to $250 million in revenue that use Intuit or other modern cloud-based enterprise software the startup can integrate with.
The business has 10 "happy" customers so far, Weber said. "We’re able to deliver the things we're telling the market we can deliver," he said.
Baltimore-based Tidewater Inc., a construction company rapidly growing through federal contracts, first built the software because the solutions on the market either lacked the functions they needed or cost millions of dollars.
A former Battelle employee who knew Weber called in Silver Kite Inc., the consultancy he started with Marano, to research the market and develop branding and other steps toward commercializing the software.
After Tidewater won a huge contract, the company asked the two to acquire the software unit outright and spin it out.
Four of the five U.S. employees are in Columbus, where they intend to grow PaperTrl. There's an 18-person engineering team in Sri Lanka.
"Ohio specifically has such a great heritage in both fintech and supply chain, as well as in the construction industry," Weber said.
For now bootstrapped, the startup might seek outside funding. Marano, who is Indian American, is looking to VC funds dedicated to woman- and minority-owned businesses.
