Business Builders to Know: Max-Michael Mayer’s Journey to Success
Max-Michael Mayer has a unique insight into what makes a successful business. Over the course of 20 years as a SaaS entrepreneur, the serial founder has built two businesses from scratch, leading both to great growth, and on top of this, continues to support startups by acting as an investor and advisor in the early stage.
The CEO & Founder of ISVapp, a plug-and-play solution for the AppExchange AppAnalytics API, has carved out a unique path as an entrepreneur, driven by his innate desire to conquer new challenges and improve processes, cultivating success within his team and the wider industry.
In this conversation, Max talks about how building both his businesses on the Salesforce platform helped him go to market quickly and connect with an ecosystem of founders, and shares the one piece of advice he would give to aspiring entrepreneurs.
Can you tell us how ISVapp was born?
I started a company called Propertybase in 2008 and grew the business over the course of 12 years on the Salesforce platform. We saw tremendous growth, with over 450,000 monthly active users, but during the years I spent building that business, I had no insight into the usage analytics as there was no API available. We tried to track this ourselves, but everything we built kept breaking and the usual usage analytics software providers couldn’t handle usage data. It was a real struggle; we had so many customers that we couldn’t talk to them on a regular basis. We needed an automation tool in place to help gauge the health of these accounts on such a large scale.
Having learnt the hard way, two years ago we decided to build a plug and play app for the AppExchange AppAnalytics API. It provides Salesforce ISV partners with deep product insights and helps them get the full potential out of their applications, without having to spend extensive time building this themselves.
While we were thinking about how we could build this app, we realised this could be a great potential business opportunity. We developed ISVapp over the course of 12 months and tested it with some of the partners, then went to market at the end of 2020. Since then, we have seen overwhelming demand from partners who haven’t had anything like this in place before.
What made you choose the Salesforce Platform to grow and develop these two businesses?
Starting with Propertybase, we chose to build on Salesforce primarily because we didn’t want to build our own techstack from the ground up. When we looked at the market of platform providers back in 2008–2009, Salesforce was so far ahead of its competitors that it was a no-brainer. All the generic tech and functionality was inbuilt in the platform and that saved us a lot of time and money.
When it came to building ISVapp, I had already been part of the Salesforce ecosystem for over 15 years and had experienced firsthand the benefits of building on the platform, as well as identifying potential whitespace. It was clear to me that I could build a solution within the Salesforce ecosystem that would create an impact for other ISV partners and provide them with the usage analytics they needed. With this experience, it was simple for us to create a solution that aligned with other Salesforce apps and could be used seamlessly by partners.
How has the Salesforce platform helped you innovate and overcome challenges?
The rate at which you can speed up your go-to-market process with Salesforce is one big advantage. The platform is also very reliable which provides strong foundations for founders to build on. Over the last 20 years, I have never had to worry about structural changes or breakages with the Salesforce platform, which frees me up to focus on innovation.
Another benefit is the partner ecosystem — the network of entrepreneurs is constantly growing and being part of that community really helps cultivate innovation. It can be a struggle to carve out a place for yourself in the market with so many competing solutions out there now, and the ecosystem provides access to the support and guidance of like-minded individuals.
How do you cultivate success as a founder?
In terms of my leadership style, I don’t manage people; I coach them. Individual targets are not dictated by me, these are things that team members set up based on what they think is realistic. This is something I learnt from another manager many years ago, to be there if problems arise and help solve them, but to not over-manage people.
I also don’t dictate where or when people work, as long as they are reaching their targets. We have people working in lots of different places and interesting environments that best suit their lifestyles. I believe that this flexibility is part of the recipe for success. I am not a believer in forcing people into an office and looking over their shoulder from nine to five; by accommodating different working styles, I’ve seen productivity across the company increase.
What motivates you as a founder in 2021?
Taking on new challenges motivates me and working hard to succeed. By this, I mean more than just financial success. Going from one milestone to the next and achieving progression and growth is motivating, but it’s more about building something from the ground up. I think of it like a hiker climbing mountains; when you reach the top of one, you take in the view and spot an even higher mountain you want to conquer, and so, you set off to take on the next challenge.
Can you share with us a customer success story?
We actually conducted a survey recently with four mid-size ISVapp customers to gauge the impact that the application created for their businesses. The findings showed that after implementing ISVapp — which immediately calculates a health score for ISV partners and shows them which of their accounts are at risk and why — the initial impact was several 100k of ACV saved in the first couple of weeks alone. Depending on the size and the nature of a partner’s business, these savings can easily be much higher. The expected impact for the customers’ whole top and bottom line was found to be between 10–30%, showing the predicted power of having this knowledge and insights on their businesses overall.
What one piece of advice would you give aspiring entrepreneurs?
Just do it. There are always excuses for not taking the leap and thinking you’re not ready yet. Even if it’s not perfect, just go out there and do something, then the feedback will come — both positive and negative — and you can improve. The most important thing is to be proactive and act quickly before someone else gets to your idea first.
Once you start to develop an idea, the key to success is building a great product. Listen to your customers and they will tell you what they need from your product and how to keep improving it. I have been inspired to see products created that are so beautiful that they sell themselves. A product can’t just be technically smart, it needs to be accessible to the market and so simple to use that customers want to use it. That’s when you know you’re onto a real winner.
ISVapp is a plug-and-play solution for the AppExchange AppAnalytics API that provides ISV and OEM partners with product insights to help reduce churn, increase renewals, identify upsell potential, close more deals. Find ISVapp on AppExchange today.
