Oct. 18--Bill Johnson stopped by The Indianapolis Star on a gray day last week (actually, every day was gray last week) to talk about his Indianapolis-based software startup, Jesubi.

He looked the part of a tech exec: Johnson, president and co-founder of Jesubi, carried a laptop and wore a polo-style shirt embroidered with Jesubi's logo. Then Johnson fired up his laptop to give me a demo of how his software works, how it's better than what is on the market now.

It's a typical, yet important, scene in an entrepreneurial process that's vital to Central Indiana becoming a tech and biotech hotbed: Come up with an idea and start a company, raise money to help generate sales and product development, and -- perhaps most important -- execute the idea.

Jesubi is focused on a software market known as CRM, or customer relationship management. These are programs companies use to manage and track how they interact with clients and potential clients. A salesperson, for instance, may keep track of how many times they've called or e-mailed a customer, along with notes from conversations.

Companies such as San Francisco-based Salesforce.com are market leaders.

So it's not surprising that Johnson started his demo by logging on to Salesforce.com. He counted the 12 mouse clicks it takes to record that a salesperson had left a voicemail.

He then logged on to Jesubi: One click to do the same thing, he said.

"We've tried to make it easy from a (sales) rep's perspective," Johnson said.

He said Jesubi lets managers better evaluate their sales staff and identify problems because the software captures and tallies the efforts of individual salespeople.

Johnson said one new Jesubi salesman -- who was using Jesubi software himself -- had set up just five customer demonstrations from 203 conversations in the month, a success rate of 2 percent.

That information allowed for some additional coaching. That new salesperson is now up to a success rate of 9 percent, or 21 customer demos, in September -- a huge jump, Johnson said.

Jesubi has been clever in its approach, said China Martens, a senior software analyst with The 451 Group, a market research firm. She said the software could be especially appealing for smaller companies not already using CRM software.

She pointed to Jesubi testing its own software for use at LeadJen, an Indianapolis sales and marketing company with some of the same founders as Jesubi. Such an approach allows a tech company to work out kinks before offering the product to outside customers.

But she did say Jesubi's cost of $100 per user per month could give some pause. "That seems a little bit steep," Martens said.

Jesubi is still small, with a staff of 14. It expects revenue of about $300,000 in 2009. Its roughly 30 customers include Carmel-based search engine startup ChaCha and California-based software maker Sybase.

Johnson said the company has received a commitment of $500,000 from the state's 21st Century Research and Technology Fund. The company is in talks with private investors. Johnson said he hopes to raise $1 million in coming months. He talked about hiring two Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology seniors as Java software engineers, work now outsourced to India.

On a gray day, Johnson spoke with enthusiasm about his fledging company. "I think we have something here," he said.

Watch for "Biz Buzz" on IndyStar.com each Wednesday to see top Central Indiana business and economic leaders answer questions from Lee.

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