Meet the Bake-Off Judges: Round 5 with Dustin Sapp

Time is more valuable than money to many busy business pros. With only 23 days left in the 2013 SmartFile Platform Bake-Off ‘development’ phase, participating teams are now putting their ideas to work, stretching their programming capabilities and preparing for a possible pitch-proposal at the final judging ceremony on April 23.

When it comes to turning less time into more money, delivering quality proposals and closing the big deal, Dustin Sapp is the man with the plan. As President and Co-Founder of TinderBox, the leading cloud-based platform for sales efficiency and brand consistency, Dustin has played an instrumental role in the company’s evolution and renowned success.

This tech-savvy entrepreneur has the ingredients to be a top chef… or judge at the 2013 Bake-Off.  He can just about do it all aside from cash your paycheck. We asked Dustin a few questions and he delivered the answers. Take a minute or two to learn more about our fifth and final Bake-Off judge, Mr. Dustin Sapp!

So, Dustin, what are you most excited about as a member of the judging panel?

I’ve had the privilege of helping grow several companies from initial concepts to revenue generation, and ultimately to scale. There’s nothing like being surrounded by the energy of young teams with new ideas and big aspirations. I can’t wait to see what each team comes up with, and look forward to being blown away by concepts I would’ve never considered.

Can you briefly describe your role at TinderBox and tell us a bit more about the company’s path to where it is today?

I’m one of the three founders of TinderBox, and serve as president. I’m responsible for technology strategy and day-to-day management of the business. One of the very first decisions we made was to place a premium on the experience of our end users. We sell to sales and marketing teams, and internal adoption of our solution by sales users is critical to our success. When we started working on the TinderBox platform, we began design on the user experience before a single line of code was written. We’ve also made a concerted effort to provide a service level to our clients that they may not be used to from other software providers. You can get a sense for the health of a Software as a Service business by how many of their clients renew over time. We believe that one of the keys to the long-term health of TinderBox is to create a great experience in both our software and our service.

When thinking about your experiences and the fundamental tools or characteristics that you feel shape success, what advice can you provide our Bake-Off teams?

Identify a solution that drives quantifiable value for your end customer. Try to ignore what may be cool or trendy, and focus on practical, marketable solutions that solve real problems.

On behalf of the entire SmartFile team, we would like to thank Dustin for being a part of our first-ever open source programming and design competition! Be sure to follow Dustin @dustin_sapp and TinderBox @GetTinderBox on Twitter.

You can stir up the Bake-Off conversation by tweeting @SmartFile using the hashtag #SFbakeoff with questions, concerns or comments. Interested in competing for a piece of the 7,000 Bake-Off pie? You have 23 more days to get cooking!

Learn more and sign-up at www.smartfile.com/bakeoff/

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