Company Profile: SalesLoft

Finding Prospects Using the Internet

Finding appropriate sales prospects can be one of a company’s greatest challenges. Manually searching the Internet is one way. SalesLoft is a better way, says Kyle Porter, the company’s CEO – and a Georgia Tech graduate.

“SalesLoft builds a platform that enables marketers, sales professionals, and prospectors the ability to build accurate and targeted lists of leads just using information on the Internet,” he explained. “Someone can come onto SalesLoft and say, ‘I want to talk with VPs of manufacturing in the Boston area with company sizes between 50 and 200 employees.’

Our software allows them to collect all that information on the Web, adds in a bunch of demographic fields, finds phone numbers and email addresses, then synchs to popular CRM systems.”

Porter and co-founder David Cummings started SalesLoft in late 2011, and in 2012 were recognized as one of the top 10 most innovative companies in Georgia by the Technology Association of Georgia. In the last year, they’ve added 12,000 new users and were cashflow-positive for the past two months. Porter credits Rob Forman and Tim Dorr – also a Georgia Tech graduate – for building a great product.

SalesLoft’s path to Georgia Tech's Advanced Technology Development Center, began with a delivery accident. In 2004, Porter had partnered on a real estate investment with Lloyd Solomon, then CEO of ATDC member company Quellan. One day, a package addressed to Quellan was delivered to Porter by mistake. While dropping the package off to Solomon at ATDC’s Centergy headquarters, Porter received a tour of ATDC and was bitten by the startup bug.

He took a job with a human resources company in the building and spent the next five years developing a network of CEOs, entrepreneurs, service providers, and investors.

“When we started SalesLoft in 2011, we immediately joined ATDC as a select member and have had a ton of value from the Industry Connect program,” Porter said. “We have been able to address a lot of our business challenges. For me as a first-time CEO, there were a lot of the things that I had never dealt with before, and these guys have been able to walk me through and help with those challenges. It has been awesome to have them almost like an extra founder on the team.”

That support has helped him realize a dream, and understand the dreams of others.

“It’s always been my dream to run my own business and to build a great company,” said Porter. “As I’ve started to grow SalesLoft, I’ve learned what other people’s dreams are. As we have added members to our organization, the most rewarding part about being a CEO is being able to build an environment where others can accomplish their dreams.”