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Core dna. |
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May 23, 2016 Issue |
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The Most Powerful Name In Corporate News and Information |
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All-In-One SaaS Web CMS Providing Apps that Integrate Content Management, eCommerce, Marketing, CRM and Workflows |
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Founder & CEO
Core dna.
Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – May 23, 2016
CEOCFO: Mr. Saltis, according to your site, Core dna is an all-in-one digital platform. Would you tell us how that works? Mr. Saltis: Websites have become increasingly complex assets to a business. Attracting and maintaining a visitor’s attention is difficult and requires content to be well structured, taking the visitor seamlessly towards a predetermined outcome. To achieve these outcomes, businesses use an array of products, with separate logins, databases and different admin panels. To get these systems to integrate with one another requires technical expertise and ongoing management. At Core dna we decided to consolidate the administration of your website properties into a single dashboard. No matter what its business goals, your team can access the information easily, navigate across properties to execute the business requirements without having to change platforms or logins. We also believe that the technology required to be successful on the internet should be consistent across industries and markets. In that way we provide consistent technology for all our customers that is improved in real time for everyone. Finally, we manage all the elements of the platform to ensure that you never have to worry about, infrastructure, networks and security.
CEOCFO: Have similar systems been tried? Mr. Saltis: Similar systems do exist for small business. Products like Wix, Square space and Business catalyst offer customers a ready to use system that is completely managed. Core dna is designed for the Mid-market companies that have more than just simple requirements. Administrators can manage all the Web properties, including integrations into 3rd party systems and customizations that maybe specific to an industry. Core dna supports freedom for the customer to design a personalized end client experience that can be modified at any time without the stresses of having to re-platform. Many of our competitors are development platforms that offer customers the ability to start with a blank canvas and build anything. Our view is that companies are increasingly wanting to benefit from the experiences of others and utilize technology that is industry best practice that is well tested and can scale over time as their business needs change.
CEOCFO: Who is using your services today? Mr. Saltis: Today we have over 500 customers that range across a numerous industries. Many of our customers have more than one website property and we currently support over 2000 website properties in 6 countries. The Core dna customers vary from large global enterprises like Nintendo and Staples, right down to the medium to small businesses like your local pizza shop.
CEOCFO: Are people looking for a consolidation or are they pleasantly surprised to find out Core dna exists? Mr. Saltis: We are at the start of a disruption in the Web CMS space. The way websites are built hasn’t changed since the invention of the early CMS platforms. People expect to pick a platform based on either their own research or from what they are told by their web agencies. The platform is then customized based on the companies’ requirements and launched. We call this process, “design, build and destroy”. You “design it”, you get someone to “build it” and then at some later date you “destroy it” to re-platform.
We believe there is a new paradigm emerging where web properties will evolve over time with technology innovation occurring through a stateless platform. As a customer you pay for what you use and the platform evolves continuously, with fixes, new features and upgrades being performed seamlessly. The CRM market has pioneered this approach with the move from the in-house CRM to the cloud CRM.
As complexity continues to increases customers will look for ready-made solutions to their needs. They will be prepared to pay a fixed monthly charge, expect that all the system problems are solved and new features are provided on a regular basis. We find the Core dna customer is looking for experience and accountability in a platform provider, someone that knows their software, understands how to scale for demand and can protect it from security threats.
CEOCFO: How do you make it intuitive? Mr. Saltis: We make it easy in terms of providing you with an out-of-the-box production ready system. There is no back-end development required to launch your site. The system features are already built and working in a production environment. Our customers spend time to design and implement the end user experience. Front end developers then take the designs and integrate over the top of core dna. Secondly, it comes prebuilt with the hosting. We have an enterprise infrastructure that is designed to scale, be secure and deliver the performance today’s modern websites require. Thirdly, the platform is object based, which means the content can actually be placed anywhere in the design. We provide designers freedom to create experiences to deliver on the brand and business outcomes. Finally, the administration panel is simple to learn and use, we provide documentation, training material and support to ensure that administrators are productive quickly. We are also always available to help answer questions that may arise.
CEOCFO: Would you tell us about your different families of solutions? Mr. Saltis: It is important to understand that this product has been around since 2001. It was born in an agency, and over that time the agency kept building new features that were requested from customers. It allowed us to grow the functionality organically as the market demanded. The families of applications are divided into four categories. Content-related applications are used by administrators to manage content: example applications include, blogs, pages, help and news. The connections applications are designed to help administrators create user databases. These include databases for visitors to the site, segmentation information, franchisee databases and membership databases. All the applications can connect into the user databases allowing you to create personalized experiences. The third family is the interactions applications, these are a collection of marketing products, that range from outbound marketing including newsletters, surveys, polls and inbound products like retargeting engines and drip campaigns. The marketing tools allow administrators to also create competitions, landing pages; this family also includes a set of collaboration tools that help with projects and support ticketing. Finally, we have the transactions family designed for retail eCommerce, redemption systems and reverse auctions.
CEOCFO: Is
there much crossover?
CEOCFO: How do you address security, always an issue these days? Mr. Saltis: To address security we start with a strong process in terms of the way we manage releases, security audits and the technology. Core dna doesn’t have periodic releases as versions, the Core dna system is stateless and we have a continuous release program. Our process is divided into a six-week or twelve-week sprints. We have a committee of people who include developers and customers that decide on the program and agree the work that will be completed. The changes, updates or new features are released as they are finished and tested. We take security very seriously; we have our own internal security team. They use a selection of different tools and processes to identify both holes that may have appeared in the system and perform regular upgrades and penetration testing to identify anything that we may need to address. We also have physical devices in our technology stack that provide real-time protection. Security requires an ongoing commitment to identify security opportunities in the platform that need to be rectified. Our infrastructure partner also provides another level of support for our security activities to help monitor networks and protect us from major coordinated attacks. In the cases where we do have a potential threat, we are able to identify and rectify quickly.
CEOCFO: Do you see not having new versions as updates, as representative of the simplicity you offer? Mr. Saltis: Yes, we do simplify the experience for the Core dna stakeholders. Everyone is always up to date. Core dna administrators know that the platform is continuously evolving. We do not want people to think that there is a start and an end to their platform. A section of administrators will use core dna in the same way until they decide their web properties need a facelift, at that time they will look at the new innovation of the platform. For most administrators however, being able to use new features as they arrive provides them a competitive advantage allowing them to test ideas and provide new innovation to their properties quickly.
CEOCFO: How are you entering the US market and is there a difference in presentation from your Australian history? Mr. Saltis: In Australia we evolved from an agency. In the US, we are a pure software company and we work through partners. Our goal is to empower the partner network to give them a product that allows them to make consistent returns. In addition, we want to give their customers a product that they never have to re-platform that can grow and configure as the business changes. Currently we are in the learning stage of our entry in the US Market. We may speak the same language and culturally we are very similar but the way we do business is very different. It’s important that we understand how to do business in the market.
CEOCFO: Do you see Core dna as a paradigm shift? Mr. Saltis: Core dna is a paradigm shift in terms of the way we believe people will deploy and manage websites in the future. We want to coin the term Website as a Service. I know that sounds cliché in terms of SaaS but we think we are getting to the point where the shift is happening and people are already tired of paying upfront capital costs to re-engineer their custom software every few years. It’s hard to also get the message out as the market is also cluttered with so many messages and claims. Vendors for example make claims that they offer the benefits of SaaS or they offer the benefits of the cloud without actually doing so. In the SMB market, technology vendors have embraced a consumption model. Core dna offers a window to the future of web technology with its simplicity and flexibility. It empowers companies to grow fast without the constraints of legacy technology.
CEOCFO: Why pay attention to Core dna? Mr. Saltis: Managing client engagement is far more complex than it has ever been and having disparate systems to manage that is very difficult. Core dna consolidates your applications into a single dashboard, allowing you to focus on building your digital business without the stresses of managing technology. |
“Core dna consolidates your applications into a single dashboard, allowing
you to focus on building your digital business without the stresses of
managing technology.”
Core dna.
Sam Saltis +1 (617) 274-6660
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