Stay Agile, Innovate, Focus On The Customer - Nextiva CEO Tomas Gorny On The Future Of Business Communications

The business communications market is growing rapidly - with many providers aiming to solve key business challenges. Providers like Sprinklr, Kustomer, and Nextiva are all addressing the opportunities in the business communications space in different ways.

It’s also intensely competitive and fast-evolving, not least because of the rise of AI. 

So what can business communications providers do to succeed in this crowded market? 

Tomas Gorny just might have the answer. He is the co-founder and CEO of Nextiva, a company based in Scottsdale, Arizona, which raised $200 million in Goldman Sachs funding at a $2.7 billion valuation. 

Here are the lessons he learned. 

Bootstrapping a Company to a $2.7 Billion Valuation 

Gorny, a Polish-born serial entrepreneur, launched Nextiva back in 2008 with a singular goal: Helping businesses communicate seamlessly. No matter their size. 

“Our mission was to simplify business communications, and our first slogan was to help every business - regardless of size - feel and operate like a Fortune 500 company,” he explains. “We’ve backed this up with affordable pricing, easy to use products, and Amazing Service.”

To reach this goal, though, Nextiva went an unusual route. While other startups were scrambling to attract investors based on their vision alone, Gorny focused on building a strong basis of products, services, and satisfied customers. His main approach: bootstrapping and innovation.

For almost 15 years, Nextiva operated - and thrived - entirely without outside funding. By 2022, the company had over 50 patents to its name, and over 100,000 business as loyal customers, including giants like Taco Bell and the San Antonio Spurs. 

Then, the time was right to accelerate Nextiva’s pursuit of its communication vision - by securing $200 in funding from Goldman Sachs. Gorny’s bootstrapped business had hit a $2.7 billion valuation right out of the park. 

Gorny himself attributes this success to staying grounded in the needs of his customers, and making their satisfaction Nextiva’s ultimate goal. “Goldman Sachs is helping advance our mission, which from day one has been to help businesses grow by giving every company access to powerful business tools.”

Staying Agile Through Acquisitions and Harnessing AI

One of Gorny’s core beliefs is that customers’ pain points should always be at the heart of an entrepreneur’s business decisions.

“Personally, we were never focused on selling businesses or going public or merging. We were focused on the customer,” he says. “I always encourage businesses to focus on the value they provide to customers. Too many businesses today focus on the external outcome. But if you focus on building your business, your external outcome may be significantly better than you have ever envisioned. And that is my number one rule in business.” 

For Nextiva, the pursuit of that mission meant staying agile and harnessing new technologies. After building dozens of invaluable proprietary tools, the company branched out in April 2023 by acquiring an Indian AI startup, Simplify360. 

The motivation? It’s a perfect match for Nextiva’s goal of facilitating and centralizing communications, because it eliminates the need to endlessly switch between apps. 

“From day one, Nextiva’s vision has been to bring together all communication channels into a single stream of conversations with productivity, customer and contact management, and collaboration tools,” Gorny explains. 

“We are on a mission to put an end to unhappy customers and frustrated teams. No more time wasted toggling between multiple applications – Nextiva keeps teams productive and connected with customers, colleagues, and vendors from wherever they are in the world,” Gorny added. “Once Simplify360 is integrated with our platform, Nextiva will be in a category of its own — there is nothing else like it.” 

The acquisition also makes strategic sense, as it facilitates access to the huge potential of the Asia-Pacific market.  

Consolidating Communication, Realizing Nextiva’s Original Vision

However, beyond Nextiva’s rapid expansion, acquisitions, and high-profile funding, the company’s approach to business communications remains grounded in its original values and strategies. 

Last year, Nextiva launched a new, proprietary workhub app. This centralizes all their team collaboration and customer communication services, both internal and external. It makes customers’ lives easier.  

Recently, it also added a cloud contact center to its wide range of communications solutions. This was in response to the rapidly shifting cloud communications marketplace and the increased demands Nextiva’s customers face in this new arena. 

Ultimately, every innovation, addition, and business decision is in line with Gorny’s initial vision: “Nextiva enables companies of all sizes and their teams to better understand and serve their customers and accelerate the growth of their business”

Staying True to the Mission

With the crowded communications market hurtling towards ever-greater profitability, competition has never been more fierce. 

But as Nextiva and Tomas Gorny have demonstrated, the only surefire path to success is to stay true to the mission and focus on the customer. Keeping their satisfaction as the utmost priority paved the business’ way towards solid growth, innovation, and high-profile investments and acquisitions. 

This post was authored by an external contributor and does not represent Benzinga's opinions and has not been edited for content. This content contains sponsored advertising content and is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.