15 Minutes

Steve Enstad, co-founder, director of sales of PageDNA, and a friend started their first business—developing custom websites—when they still were cruising the halls of high school. While Enstad was searching for more website customers, he stumbled upon the printing industry. He walked into the prepress firm Metagraphics and immediately decided that's where he wanted his career to continue.

"Shortly thereafter, I was hired as a web guru, doing desktop publishing and web development," Enstad 
recalled. "PageDNA later spun out of this firm."

PageDNA.com, a Redwood City, California-based software company, has been providing web-to-print storefront solutions since 1997. Here, Enstad discusses his business, the printing industry and its future.

Print Professional (PP): Tell us about your background. Where did you grow up, what school did you attend?

Steve Enstad (SE): I grew up in Edina, Minn., a suburb southwest of Minneapolis. I moved out to California to attend Stanford University in 1994, and have had a real hard time leaving since. There is something magical about Silicon Valley.

PP: What is your greatest business accomplishment and disappointment?

SE: One of our greatest accomplishments as a company was landing one of the world's largest manufacturers as a customer of our web-to-print platform. For five years, I would make an annual run at this account. I'd visit their facility, give the demo, get an enthusiastic welcome and then get a rejection letter. Two years ago, the stars aligned. We were in the right place, at the right time, and subsequently this manufacturer adopted our system. While they are pretty far from being our largest customer by revenue, they are adding storefronts and growing their usage as we expected and should become one of our top accounts in time. It's been said that a salesperson is "paid to hear the word 'no,'" this proved true in this case, and persistence paid off.

I'd say one of my personal disappointments was leaving PageDNA around 1999 to start another technology firm in another unrelated industry (Internet music). We raised a bunch of money, grew to about 45 employees and then exploded as the dot-com bust swallowed us up, along with hundreds of other companies. I was fortunate to be able to return to PageDNA, and have been here since. While I learned a lot in this other firm, I also learned that the grass isn't always greener on the other side.

PP: What do you think is the most exciting, cutting-edge thing your company is doing right now? Why?

SE: One of our most recent "game changers" is our new push into online estimation. We've created a system that does sheet-level estimation online, allowing customers to quote their own short-run/digital products, upload artwork and check out without needing to talk to a sales rep. This new feature was a direct response to a survey we did last year in conjunction with Stanford University where our customers reported that one of the only areas they were seeing growth was short run, generally digitally printed products. We directly tackled the pain points on these jobs by automating the quoting process online. Who can afford to quote a $300 job online? Customers also increasingly want a quote now—this is a reality. We believe printers should be selling accounts not, jobs.

PP: What do you think will be the printing industry's biggest challenge in the next few years?

SE: Survival. We read an interview with the CEO of EFI who stated, paraphrasing, that there will be two types of printing firms left when the dust settles: low-cost producers (Internet e-tailers, fighting largely over price), and high-value providers who know their customers intimately. Manufacturers who don't know where they fit in this mix will almost certainly fail in the coming years. We've pitched our tent in the latter category, generally, providing business-to-business storefront solutions that solve some real headaches for the customers and the suppliers, and create lasting value. PPR