dotCal targets big revenues

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dotCal, his latest venture, makes it easier for companies to manage online calendars, and it’s used by more than 70 companies so far.

Dan Mendell came back from an Internet conference in Paris confident about launching his new startup Internet calendar company, dotCal. Investors had shown interest.

The timing seemed right. “I wasn’t going to let anything stop me,” Mendell said.

That was the summer of 2008. Next thing Mendell knew, the economy collapsed, taking most of his investors with it except those in Asia.

What ensued was a trying first year for dotCal, a software-as-a-service provider that makes it easier for companies to manage their online calendars.

Thanks to Mendell’s drive and his own not-so-deep pockets, the company made it through the recession with a new broad reaching product. dotCal in April 20010 began generating revenue from its service, charging $29 per month for a business subscription.

Mendell hopes dotCal can generate $2 million in sales next year, with the hope of reaching $50 million in just under 6 years.

In addition to being able to more easily update online event calendars, customers can cross-publish event listings to social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, simultaneously, and expanding their audiences. Consumers viewing a dotCal-hosted calendar can also choose to subscribe a company’s event listings to their own digital calendars and stay up-to-date connected.

The service is used by more than 70 companies, though so far most have received it for free as the company built momentum through its beta program. dotCal has seen particular success in marketing the service to nonprofits and wineries — event-heavy sectors that often have limited budgets but need to communicate.

Recessions not only test the mettle of startup companies, they also breed them. A June report from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City-based entrepreneurship-focused nonprofit group, found that more than half of the companies on last year’s Fortune 500 list of fastest-growing companies started during a recession or bear market. The most recent recession was perhaps toughest on seed-stage companies looking for around $500,000 in angel funding.

That trend was true of Portland-area startups in particular, said Diane Fraiman, a partner at Voyager Capital, a Portland-based technology investment firm. When the recession hit, very early-stage ventures had difficulty finding angel money. dotCal was able to string together $600,000 in outside investment from a mix of sources including its CEO. The group included angel investors, a Malaysian corporation and two executives from the Portland startup AboutUs Inc.

But there was a time in the past year when dotCal — its service initially offered for free while in the beta stage — ran a little short of cash. Mendell, with a track record of successful Portland-area startups including Sun Solutions, Pacific Dataware, 1-800-Support put around $250,000 into the company.

“This was a time when the initial investors and the CEO had to show what they were made of,” Mendell said. “It’s not about just taking other people’s money and building a company with it. In this case, I had to put a bunch in of my own.”

Beyond the angel investment phase now, Mendell started patrolling the Silicon Valley in late April, courting investors for a new $3 million Series A round to continue fueling the company’s growth.

dotCal employs five right now. It likely won’t reach the size of Mendell’s last company, 1-800-Support, which employed more than 750. But he’s certainly going to try.

“There’s no reason I can’t create an organization based in Oregon that affects what people do all around the world,” he said. “That’s my ego and thats my goal.”

So far, he’s put his money where his mouth is.

"Something more Oregon Entrepreneurs and investors should learn how to do." said Mendell.