VistaPrint President and CEO, Robert Keane, on CIM, E-Commerce, and the SOHO Market

On November 9th, VistaPrint, an online graphic design and printing service for the SOHO market, broke “radio silence” and sent out a press release announcing the completion of their B round of funding for a total of $52 million. While the company has been in existence for 10 years and servicing customers online for five, they have been quietly operating under the radar. Gail Nickel-Kailing, WhatTheyThink senior editor, spoke to Robert Keane, President and CEO of VistaPrint, about strategies, plans, and day-to-day operations.

WTT: VistaPrint is one of the “dotcom bomb” survivors. In fact, your launch was back in 1999/2000 wasn’t it?

RK: VistaPrint was around before, during and after the dotcom craze. As a company we’ve been around since 1994. From 1994 to 1999, we had a direct marketing, desktop publishing business model. By 1998 the Internet craze was just heating up in Europe, trailing a little behind the US.

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