In a recent article "MBA put dotcom man on the map", Sean Phelan, talks about starting his successful internet business, Multimap.

It was interesting to read that sales outsourcing was a part of his company's early success.

"...for a cash-strapped start-up, variable costs are okay and fixed costs are bad. So I outsourced the hosting of the servers to an internet service provider, I outsourced the advertising sales, I outsourced answering the phone to a call centre, and I outsourced the bookkeeping to my accountant."

Last year I blogged about this strategy for start-ups and early-stage companies, "Sales Outsourcing as a Bootstrapping Strategy".

By outsourcing, Phelan took his start-up to a point where he sold 25% to investors for a GBP 1.9m stake without hiring any people. "Up to that point I had no staff at all", says Phelan.

Multimap will have a turnover of GBP 13m this year.

Labels: entrepreneurs, sales outsourcing, start-ups