Tag: Hatchbuck



St. Louis is emerging as a hub for start-ups, attracting talented and transformative companies to the city. As part of a larger effort to re-energize downtown St. Louis, the Center for Experiential Learning at Washington University in St. Louis is connecting its students to young, local entrepreneurs. Through relationships with Cultivation Capital (a top St. Louis venture capital firm), the T-Rex incubator, and these local start-ups, multidisciplinary students are able to receive a unique experience working on real-life business opportunities. Our team was matched to work with an emerging CRM company, Hatchbuck. Hatchbuck is elegantly rethinking how to streamline and automate, effortless, small business’ sales and marketing automation processes. Here are some highlights of our experience:

The Client
As lifelong entrepreneurs and small business owners, the Hatchbuck team has always aimed to find easier ways to drive sales with limited time and resources. So when Don Breckenridge, BSBA’95, and Jonathan Herrick–Hatchbuck’s primary developers–used marketing automation software in their previous businesses, they saw an opportunity. At the time, there was a lack of affordable, intuitive and easy-to-use marketing solutions available to small business owners. As a result, Hatchbuck was “hatched” in 2012. Hatchbuck allows small business owners to send emails, capture leads, automate marketing and close deals in just a few simple steps. Its software streamlines sales and marketing efforts overnight – “turning emails into conversations, website visitors into handshakes, and customers into raving fans.” Today, Hatchbuck’s mission is to help small business achieve their goals through its simple and affordable technology.

The Goal
Growth is integral to a young company. To achieve and sustain growth, a burgeoning company must develop and execute a growth strategy plan. These plans can focus on several unique growth strategies, including developing the company’s core business, pursuing new or alternate business opportunities, or attempting an acquisition. Our primary goal is to help formulate a growth strategy plan for Hatchbuck. We intend to analyze potential growth strategies and determine which approach best fits Hatchbuck’s business model. Using this analysis, we aim to project the benefits the proposed plan of action would provide in terms of growth and development at Hatchbuck and present our findings to the CEO for future consideration.

The Approach
Our approach to providing Hatchbuck with a complete growth strategy plan is two-fold. First, we are working to research and analyze successful companies that are significantly similar to Hatchbuck, i.e. those that engage a similar client base. By identifying the strengths and successes of these companies, we hope to find whether there is room for improvement in the current Hatchbuck business plan. Second, we are researching companies within the same industry (CRM and email marketing) that have found success among different clients than those Hatchbuck has traditionally engaged. We hope that through this two-part approach, we can provide Hatchbuck with new avenues for growth and expansion outside of what has been their traditional business model. The results will allow us to propose a growth strategy that maximizes the value of this young company.

The Hatchbuck CELect team: Jeremy Tripp, Law; Ophelia Chen, BSBA; Esteban Sanchez, PMBA; and Bryan Ryan, Law.