SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Tim Valishev is the CEO of JivoChat (https://www.jivochat.com/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 0:30 – How they help customers better convert using chatbots 1:00 – Why they are north of $5M in ARR right now 2:55 – How their growth has accelerated in emerging markets 2:00 – Why they have grown to serve 230k websites worldwide 2:30 – How the average customer pays JivoChat around $13 per month 3:00 – Why they are different from Drift and Intercom 4:00 – How they have incorporated the calling-in feature 5:20 – Why they launched the company in January 2012 6:50 – How he landed his first 10 customers through existing relationships 8:10 – Why they are exhibiting 45% logo churn annually 9:45 – How they've scaled to 32k paying customers 10:15 – Why they are landing 20k new sign-ups per month 11:15 – How JivoChat is growing via word of mouth 14:00 – Why they spent $300k to break into the Brazilian market 16:00 – How their team of 120 is remotely distributed 16:45 – Why he wants to remain bootstrapped 17:40 – The Famous Five

Deidre Paknad is the CEO and co-founder of Workboard (https://www.workboard.com/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 0:25 – How Workboard has been built to help companies acheive their stragtegic priorities faster 1:20 – Why the average customer is around $125k annually 1:45 – How they launched the company in 2014 2:45 – Why they've raised $12M in total capital thus far 4:45 – How they've landed 50 enterprise customers 5:15 – How they are doing around $520k in MRR today 6:30 – Why they decided to upsell based on number of seats 7:30 – How they are aiming for a 6 month payback period going forward 8:45 – Why they are hitting 140% net revenue retention 11:0 – How they are professional services and coaching to drive stickiness 12:20 – Why they are landing deals for around $17k with payback right away 13:35 – How their team of 55 is based in the Bay Area 14:15 – Why they aren't looking to raised until April 2019 15:00 – How she would view a $100M acquisition right now 15:50 – Why they are looking for a four month ramp period on their sales team 16:50 – The Famous Five

Michael Kamleitner is the CEO of Walls.io (https://walls.io/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 0:40 – How he runs two companies of roughly the same size 1:00 – Why they've built Walls.io as a social media marketing tool 1:45 – How the average customer pays around $225 today 2:20 – Why they launched the company in 2014 and bootstrapped thus far 2:40 – How 500 customers are using their product today 3:50 – Why they are doing around $110k in MRR 4:05 – How they've grown 70% from around $70k in MRR twelve months ago 4:45 – Why churn is naturally high 6:55 – How he made the decision to run two companies in parallel 8:55 – Why their other product is an enterprise social media scheduling tool 9:15 – "Would you sell for $3M today?" 9:45 – How he is interested in spliting the company and raising capital 10:25 – Why they are having success in content marketing and paid advertising 11:45 – How they are paying around 100 euros to land a new customer 12:20 – Why they aren't spending more money on paid acquisition 12:55 – How their team is headquartered in Vienna 13:30 – The Famous Five

Scott Shatford is the CEO of AirDNA (https://www.airdna.co/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 0:30 – How Scott built AirDNA to fill his own need 1:10 – Why they are pulling in data from property managers and individual users 2:05 – How Scott used corporate leases to his advantage 3:15 – Why he launched AirDNA in 2014 3:50 – How he makes the decision to purchase or lease 5:20 – Why he factors in regulation risk and seasonality demand when making decisions 7:00 – How AirBnB is maximizing experiences for customers 8:00 – Why the average customer pays $50 per month 8:10 – How he founded the company with his dad 8:20 – Why their team of 34 is spread between Denver and Barcelona 9:00 – How they've bootstrapped the company to 5k active paid subscribers 9:30 – Why they are doing around $375k in MRR right now 10:00 – How they've more than doubled year over year 10:40 – Why they've struggled with retention to date 11:20 – How they are churning 20% of logos each month 12:45 – Why they don't spend anything on customer acquisition 14:10 – How to get smarter around pricing your property 15:10 – Why they are scraping 10M properties every single day 16:10 – How AirBnB is approaching $100M in transcation volume per day 16:30 – The Famous Five

JP Narowski is the CEO of KarmaCRM (https://www.karmacrm.com/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 0:25 – How KarmaCRM has been built as a niche CRM for professional speakers 0:45 – Why the average customer pays around $50 per month 1:20 – How he launched the company in 2011 1:30 – Why they are doing around $30k in MRR right now 1:45 – How they've grown 50% year over year 1:55 – Why they've grown with just $100k in outside funding 3:20 – How they've scaled to a team of 4 full-time employees 4:00 – Why they landed their first customers through organic channels 4:40 – How they target a CAC of $300 with payback in 6 months 5:30 – Why speakers love their pre-populated email templates and language within the product 6:15 – How they've gotten to 5% gross logo churn per month 7:10 – Why they assume an LTV of $1k over 20 months 7:35 – How they are looking to scale their business with partnerships 9:15 – Why they are looking to publish more content around the speaking niche 9:55 – How he views the future of the company 10:40 – Why he is using his free time to run a family eCommerce business 11:20 – How he would view a $500k acquisition offer 11:55 – The Famous 5

Greg Soper is the CEO of SalesAgility (https://www.salesagility.com/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 0:30 – Why IT is heavily constrained with delivering value 2:00 – How competitive businesses leverage open source software 3:15 – Why some companies don't have enough capital to optimize out of the box software 3:55 – How they have built their business on top of an open source CRM 4:30 – Why they've had 1M downloads in the last 5 years 5:00 – How they make money doing consulting for their open source platform 5:45 – Why SalesAgility charges for hosting and usage 7:00 – How they are enabling businesses to own their data 7:30 – Why they are providing an alternative to cloud solutions 8:25 – How consulting is a large part of their business 9:50 – Why the average customer is paying them $10-15 per seat monthly 11:50 – How they are planning to launch a new SaaS product soon 12:30 – Why their SaaS product is subsidizing development 13:00 – How they've grown to serve 100 companies today 13:20 – Why they don't make their SaaS offering free 14:30 – How they are doing $5M in annual revenue overall 14:45 – Why their team of 40 full-time employees are based in Scotland 15:30 – How they've grown to scale by bootstrapping 16:00 – Why they are focusing on both SaaS and consulting 19:00 – The Famous 5

Richard Jones is the CEO of The Wayin Platform (https://www.wayin.com/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 0:25 – How Wayin helps 150+ enterprise customers create interactice experiences 1:20 – Why they collect explicitly shared data 2:40 – How they provide many different mechanisms for engagement 5:25 – Why they don't own or share the data they collect 5:45 – How the average customer pays them $65k annually 7:10 – Why they are doing $10M+ in ARR right now 7:30 – How he launched the company in 2011 8:20 – Why he still has meaningful equity after merging and becoming CEO 8:55 – How they've grown to 72 full-time employees internationally and in the U.S. 9:25 – Why they are growing 62% year over year 9:50 – How their growth is coming from both new customers and expansion 10:30 – Why they are driving 125% net revenue retention annually 12:45 – How they are spending 2% of their revenue on marketing

Max Israel is Founder & CEO of Customerville (https://www.customerville.com/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 0:30 – Why Max founded the company 15 years ago to scratch his own itch 1:30 – How he grew the business without venture capital 2:20 – Why they made the decision to pivot eight years ago 3:05 – How the average customer pays them $250k annually 4:05 – Why they decided to maintain bootstrapped 4:30 – How they funded the business with a small retail chain 5:30 – Why they serve more than 50 customers globally 6:00 – How they are doing around $1M in MRR right now 7:30 – Why they are growing 50%+ year over year 8:50 – How they've kept gross logo churn below 10% annually 10:00 – Why they are focusing on driving expansion revenue with new features going forward 10:15 – How their team has grown to around 40 full-time employees 10:45 – Why they spent up to $400k on Google AdWords in the past 12:10 – How they are evaluating new plans for growing their sales team 13:00 – Why they aren't in acquisition talks right now 14:00 – The Famous Five

Alex Raymond is the co-founder and CEO of Kapta (https://kapta.com/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 0:25 – How Kapta helps account management teams get increase visibility 1:20 – Why companies pay them between $25k and $100k annually 2:05 – How they launched the company in 2016 as an employee engagement platform 3:35 – Why 30 customers are using Kapta right now 4:45 – How they are connecting directly into CRMs and financial systems 5:20 – Why they are doing north of $60k in MRR 6:10 – How they've more than doubled revenue year over year 7:20 – Why they've raised $1.5M in total capital 8:00 – How they've gotten to 110% net revenue retention annually 9:30 – Why they are starting to get annual payment upfront 10:00 – How they are spending less than $10k to land a new deal 10:50 – Why Kapta has scaled to three full-time employees in Boulder 11:45 – How they would look to raise $3-5M in a Series A in 2019 13:15 – The Famous Five

Michael Beebe is CEO of Dstillery (https://dstillery.com/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 00:20 – Why they help unlock brand's growth potential through data science and insights 01:20 – How they are fueling their offering with top advertising performers 02:10 – Why they are creating unique audiences based on limited information 03:20 – How they have created a competitive advantage with behavioral data 04:30 – Why they are still selling a data product on a CPM basis 05:20 – How they spend on revenue share or CPM model 06:00 – Why they are charging 20% regardless of the advertising platform 08:45 – How they have raised $60M with the most round coming in 2018 10:00 – Why they are building a pure-play SaaS product right now 10:45 – How starting out on a consulting basis can have a massive impact on launching a SaaS business 11:50 – Why they are taking up to 50% for every dollar spent on their platform 12:30 – How they have process $50M+ in transaction volume this year 12:50 – The Famous Five

Mickey Patton is President and CEO of Clear C2 (https://www.clearc2.com/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 0:30 – How they launched the company as an electronic rolodex 0:55 – Why they are built as a CRM for manufacturers 1:35 – How they average customer pays them $60 per seat monthly 2:20 – Why Mickey joined the company to launch the software division 3:00 – How they've scaled to 50 full-time employees 3:40 – Why they are working with 450 total customers today 4:30 – How they are serving around 100,00 total seats 5:20 – Why they put their sales teams on annual quotas 6:15 – How they exhibiting less than 10% gross logo churn annually 7:25 – Why they are transitioning to a more user-friendly model 8:55 – How they are paying around $10k to land a new customer right now 11:25 – How they are doing more than $3M in ARR 12:30 – Why they are growing 60% year over year 13:00 – Why they are past $5M in ARR 13:20 – The Famous Five

Craig is the founder and CEO of SalesNexus (https://salesnexus.com/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 0:40 – Why he transitioned to SaaS 1:00 – How SalesNexus has grown to scale by bootstrapping 1:15 – Why the average customer pays them $150-$200 each month 1:30 – How he launched the company back in 2003 as a side-hustle 2:30 – Why they have grown to serve 5,000 total customers today 3:00 – How they manage implementation in-house to drive customer success 3:50 – Why SalesNexus is doing $3.5M in ARR 5:20 – How they added marketing automation features to increase pricing 5:55 – Why they have scaled from $3.25M in ARR 12 months ago 6:20 – How the average customer stays with them for 5 years 7:35 – Why driving customization leads to stickiness for SalesNexus 8:20 – How they are landing new customers via online advertising 9:15 – Why they are spending $300 in CAC right now 10:20 – How their team has grown to 20 full-time employees in Houston 11:10 – Why they are cash flow positive today 11:30 – How Craig still seems room for growth today 13:50 – The Famous Five

Alexander Hoogewijs is the CEO of SiteManager (https://www.sitemanager.io/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 0:40 – Why SiteManager has found a niche serving freelance web designers and small agencies 1:40 – How the typical customer pays them $105 each month 2:35 – How they serve 138 customers with 350 total users 3:10 – Why SiteManager is doing $14k in MRR right now 3:30 – How they are landing customers via outbound sales 4:20 – Why most of their team is based in Belgium and remote 4:45 – How their gross monthly revenue churn is around 1% today 5:30 – Why they raised more than $850k in outside funding 7:20 – How they are shooting for $60k in MRR within the next year 8:00 – Why they are paying $1,400 in CAC today 8:55 – Why they are spending most of their cash on their sales teams and onboarding 9:30 – The Famous Five

1422 Nicolas Vandenberghe How He Drove $300k Expansion on $1m ARR Cohort in 12 Months Nicolas Vandenberghe is the CEO of Chili Piper (https://www.chilipiper.com/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 0:35 – Why they help businesses close more sales 2:10 – How the average customer pays them around $10k annually 3:55 – Why customers are pairing this technology with SDR's 5:05 – How they launched the company in January of 2016 5:20 – Why more than 200 customers are using their software today 6:10 – How they are at $2M in ARR right now 6:30 – Why they have hit net negative revenue churn annually 8:10 – How a majority of their growth has come from driving expansion revenue 8:35 – Why they have decided to bootstrap up to this point 9:35 – How they recieve payback 10:20 – Why the Chili Piper team has grown to 14 full-time employees 11:00 – How they are receiving payback within one month 14:40 – Why he would look to raise $5M at a pre-money valuation of $40M 15:35 – The Famous Five

1421 Michal Sadowski How He IPO'd $2m ARR Company on Polish Exchange Michal Sadowski is the Founder & CEO of Brand24 (https://brand24.com/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 00:24 – Why Brand24 now serve 2k customers each month 03:35 – How their average customer pays them $100 monthly 04:35 – Why they are doing $2.4M in ARR 05:05 – How they launched the company back in 2011 05:15 – Why their team of 65 full-time employees is based in Poland 05:45 – How they've grown to scale with just $300k in venture capital 08:40 – Why they are up from $1.8M in ARR twelve months ago 12:20 – How Brand24 is exhibiting 5% to 7% gross logo churn per month 13:21 – Why they are landing new customers for $280 in CAC 13:45 – How they assume an LTV of $1,500 over 15 months 14:00 – The Famous Five

1420 Joshua Keller He Went Zero to $1m in ARR in 6 Months, Bootstrapped Joshua Keller is the Founder and CEO of Maximus (https://maximus.live/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 01:30 – Why their customers pay them $1k per month 02:55 – How they launched the company in 2017 04:00 – Why they have grown to scale by bootstrapping thus far 04:20 – How they have landed 25 total customers 04:50 – Why Maximus is doing $75k in MRR right now 07:00 – How their gross churn is between 2-3% monthly 08:05 – Why their team of 20 full-time employees is based in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Austin, Ukraine, and India 09:20 – The Famous Five

1419 Bill Kahlert "I Don't Know What Logo Churn Means", I Predict They'll Be Dead in Bill Kahlert is the Co-founder of INBOX25 (https://www.inbox25.com/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 00:15 – Why INBOX25 provides marketing automation and customization 00:35 – How they charge their average customer $300-$400 per month 00:55 – Why he launched the business in 2007 01:40 – How they have grown to serve 4k user and 2k paid customers 03:30 – Why their pricing scales based on the size of your database 04:45 – How they are retaining more than 95% of their customers annually 06:10 – Why their customers typically stay with them for years on end 06:45 – How INBOX25 thinks about lifetime value and CAC 07:40 – Why they are aiming for payback within 6 months 08:10 – How their team has less than 50 employees

1418 $1m on $10m pre would raise. Would sell for $10m today. Sean Leonard $2.4M ARR Marketing Automation Company CEO Would Sell for $10M Today Sean Leonard is the CEO and co-founder of ActiveDEMAND (https://www.activedemand.com/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 0:35 – How ActiveDEMAND functions as a marketing automation platform 1:15 – Why they've decided to feature professional services 1:50 – How the average customer pays them $400 monthly 3:20 – Why he launched the company in 2014 out of an agency 4:40 – How they've scaled to serve 500 agencies 5:00 – Why they are doing between $200k and $300k in MRR 6:00 – How ActiveDEMAND is growing 30% year over year 6:50 – Why they are growing through a land and expand model 7:30 – How they are landing agencies through partner webinars and content marketing 9:40 – Why they spend $800 to land a new customer 11:10 – How they've grown to less than 50 full-time employees in Alberta 11:40 – Why they are planning on raising capital 13:00 – How he would be happy with a $10M pre-money valuation 14:00 – "Would you sell for $10M today?" 15:00 – The Famous Five

1417 Tom Axbey CloudHealth CEO On $500M VMWare Exit, 70% yoy Growth, $50m+ in ARR Tom Axbey is the President and CEO of CloudHealth Technologies (https://www.cloudhealthtech.com/) 🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 0:25 – How CloudHealth helps businesses manage visibility, cost management, security, and governance of their cloud infrastructure 1:40 – Why the average customer pays them between $50k and $1M annually 2:10 – How they launched the company in 2012 3:20 – Why they've raised $86M in total capital thus far 4:15 – How CloudHealth has grown to serve 3,500 total customers 4:50 – Why they are doing between $50M and $100M in ARR today 6:30 – How they are growing 70% year over year 6:50 – Why they are at 104% net revenue retention at this point in time 7:45 – How they are targetting a payback period of 6 months 9:40 – The Famous Five

Addicted to mobile products and services after more than 15yrs in different executive roles in media&entertainment, product development for leading publishers and brands with his agency clapp, started tchop as MVP project 3 years ago.

Kermit Kuehn is a Professor of Management at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith, where he teaches strategy, international business and entrepreneurship. He operates Silvrback.com, a subscription blogging platform for writers seeking a less mainstream alternative in their blogging experience, as well as blogplatformsreview.com.

Anda Gansca is the CEO and Co-Founder of Knotch, the leading, independent provider of real-time intelligence for marketers. Founded in 2013, Knotch has been recognized as one of the most innovative marketing technologies in the world, as it seeks to change the way global brands engage and understand their audiences. Amongst Knotch's clients are GE, JP Morgan Chase, Unilever, Prudential and HPE. A regular thought leadership contributor to the trade media and industry at-large, Anda has been named to both Forbes' and Inc.'s annual 30-Under-30 lists, AdWeek's Young Influential List and AdWeek's Top 100 Creatives, to name a few.

Kyle Sherman is the Founder and CEO of Flowhub and serves on the board of directors as Chairman. A legalization advocate and entrepreneur, Kyle is finding ways to use technology to help drive cannabis legalization forward responsibly in the United States. In 2014, Kyle began lobbying the Colorado Department of Revenue to build an API to Metrc, the State's cannabis tracking system, so that third parties like Flowhub could send data directly to the database instead of manual entry. This Metrc API is now the standard in more than 7 states. Kyle continually defines Flowhub's vision, strategy, and growth as Flowhub innovates the way cannabis businesses manage complex compliance mandates, supply chain data, sales transactions, and reporting. His goal is to simplify business operations, keep companies and government transparent, keep cannabis products off of the black market, and build a robust scalable industry that is approachable for all adults and medical patients. This inherent motivation keeps Kyle and the Flowhub team passionate about providing fanatical customer service, and building delightful products and user experiences.

Darren M. Jer CEO and Co-Founder Darren co-founded MarketFactory in 2008 with a vision of providing clean, fast code to the FX market, and is currently CEO. Prior to founding MarketFactory, Darren led sales and operations in the financial services markets for over a decade. Darren was head of new business sales Americas for EBS / ICAP. Prior to that, he was sales executive for IBM wall street accounts. Darren earned a BA in English and political science from Duke University. Outside of MarketFactory, Darren is an active member of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York and All Souls Langham Place in London. When necessary, Darren can hurt a lot of people's ears at karaoke.

Former consultant to MIcrosoft, GE, GM, American Express and others. Founder of Spokal.

Pierce started his career at Cognos, which went on to be acquired by IBM. Pierce then joined two start-ups that both went on to have successful exits where he led and implemented Marketo. He then founded Revenue Pulse, a Marketo consultancy and Knak, a SaaS application for enterprise email creation.

Girish Mathrubootham is the founder and CEO of Freshworks, one of the world's fastest-growing SaaS product company, winning the Economic Times Startup of the Year in 2016, and the Business Standard Startup of the Year in 2017. Freshworks now has a suite of products for businesses worldwide - Freshdesk, Freshservice, Freshsales, Freshcaller, Freshteam, Freshchat and Freshmarketer. Girish is part of the Product Council for NASSCOM, the trade association of Indian software companies, and actively works to promote and nurture software product companies. He has invested in several early-stage startups and is passionate about building a global product company. Having set the vision and direction for the company since inception, his focus on Freshworks' values and its culture have been instrumental in taking the organization to where it is today.

Michael founded Sniply, a link sharing tool, in 2014 and grew the userbase to over 200K within 3 years. Responding to the decline of links and growth of video, Michael's team launched Lumen5, a video automation platform, in 2017 and passed $1 million in ARR within 10 months of launch.

Nate Bolt is the Founder of Ethnio, a 5-person SaaS. Former research manager at Facebook and Instagram, CEO of Bolt | Peters, and faculty at the SVA iXD program. Co-author of Remote Research and once droned the NYPL. Based in LA with wife, son, and two dogs.

David Hassell is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of 15Five. David's foray into entrepreneurship begun nearly 20 years ago, co-founding three companies in ad tech, kite surfing adventure travel, and leadership coaching before starting 15Five, where he sees the opportunity to help organizations and everyone in them reach their highest potential. David formerly served as the President of the San Francisco chapter of the Entrepreneurs' Organization and was later named by Forbes "The Most Connected Man You Don't Know in Silicon Valley." He's been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, and Inc.

Chief Executive Officer of ClickDimensions, the leading marketing automation solution for Microsoft Dynamics 365. Mike joined ClickDimensions from PGi, a global provider of web conferencing software and collaboration technology, where he served as Executive Vice President of Strategy and Business Development. In that role, he developed partnerships with some of the biggest players in the technology industry, including Microsoft. Prior to that, he started PGi's Global Collaboration Services division, growing it from $86 million to $240 million in revenue and serving as a trusted advisor to some of the most recognized brands around the globe.

John is the founder of GetCredo.com. They take a high touch approach to matching businesses with the right SEO and marketing agencies. John has a decade in SEO, primarily on the largest sites on the internet. He lives in Denver with his wife and their black labrador Butterbean.

Dennis Kelly is CEO of Postalytics, the leading direct mail marketing automation tool. is a 6 time entrepreneur, primarily focused on software & technology. He's been involved in founding, investing and senior management roles in startups such as Genesis Business System, AnyDay.com, Palm Inc., Adjoin Solutions, Computer Associates and others.

Kim is the founder and President of Genoo. Genoo's products and services over deliver what entrepreneurs, Small, and midsize businesses need to attract leads and grow new customers. Through a comprehensive software-as-a-service offering and "right-sized" professional service offerings, our customers compete and win.

Andy MacMillan is CEO of UserTesting, the leading Human Insights company. Prior to UserTesting he was CEO of Act-On Software and COO, Products at Salesforce. Andy is from the Detroit area and has a B.A. from Michigan State University and an MBA from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland).

Tim's background in software has spanned technical, sales, marketing, and general management in the US, UK, and Japan. Tim started at IBM and went on to a number of successful startups including Illustra ($400M acq), Interwoven ($1B IPO) and BoardVantage ($250M acq). Other experience includes Sybase, Sakkam and Genesys Telecommunications.

I am an Israeli entrepreneur with a specialty in data science; after building several e-commerce sites, I recognized the tremendous need for personalization and the opportunity to fill a niche in the market, and so eventually I arrived at a venture that serves one of my chief passions, utilizing AI and digital automation to create an internet that is more personal and efficient. Since 2008, we at Personyze have been honing and perfecting the tools we use to accomplish that goal, and today I am happy to say we have created one of the most versatile and powerful personalization solutions on the market.

Recognizing the early trend for insurtech innovation in 2013, Jason co-founded Limelight Health to deliver better data integration and sales efficiency for insurance carriers, PEO's, brokers and others in the employee benefits ecosystem. Limelight's award-winning technology, QuotePad™, aims to transform the way health insurance and employee benefits are quoted, sold and renewed. Jason is a serial entrepreneur advising numerous Silicon Valley startups, also volunteering in the industry/community.

Neil Napier is a charismatic leader of people. He empowers people to spread their wings and develop their super-powers. Neil cares about his customers like nobody else and is available for them more than his wife would prefer. He loves to teach and goes the extra mile to enable success.

Randy Wootton is the CEO of Percolate. Randy has been a leader and strategic innovator in the marketing technology industry for over 20 years. Prior to Percolate, he served as CEO of leading predictive marketing platform Rocket Fuel, where he re-positioned the company and led its sale to Sizmek. During his career, Randy has held senior positions at Microsoft and Salesforce. He serves on the Board of Directors at Guidant Financial and Rally Point Networks and is a graduate of Harvard Business School, St. John's College and the U.S. Naval Academy.

00:30 – How Kahuna focuses on customer engagement 03:05 – Why they price based on volume and usage 03:50 – How he made the decision to join Kahuna after they approached him 04:50 – Why both of Kahuna's founders are still involved in the company 05:10 – Their team of 40 full-time employees is based in Redwood City 05:40 – Why they've scaled to serve 100 total customers internationally 06:40 – How they have more than doubled revenue year over year 07:00 – Why they've raised close to $50M in outside capital 07:40 – How they are managing churn across 08:30 – Why Kahuna's net revenue retention is well north of 100% 10:30 – How they aim for payback on customer acquisition within 12 months 12:00 – Why computing power is their main expense 13:00 – How their margins are still well within the average SaaS range 13:30 – Why they did an inside round in Q4 2017 and not looking to raise at present 14:00 – How they are still burning cash today 14:15 – Why they are north of $3M in ARR and targeting 100% growth YoY again this year 15:15 – The Famous Five

0:55 – How SaaS PayKickstart launched inside agency 1:25 – Why their average customer pays $99 per month 2:10 – How they've hit $50k in MRR today 2:40 – How $0 to $10k/mo in under 12 months 3:40 – Why they've bootstrapped to this point 4:15 – Tactic used to hit 20% gross revenue churn 9:40 – How they are landing customers through affiliates and cold outreach 10:50 – Why 10-15% of their revenue is coming from affiliate deals

Time Stamped Show Notes: 0:55 – Why he spun the company out of his agency one year ago 3:45 – Average customer pays them $3,500 annually 4:15 – How they've scaled to 250 paying customers 4:35 – Did $9k in MRR last month 5:20 – Less than 1% gross revenue churn monthly 6:05 – They are raising $1m right now on $2.5m pre money value 7:10 – How they've scaled with just two full-time employees 8:00 – Why they are paying under $100 to acquire a new customer

Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show 00:25 – Why Kellogg was named top CEO by Glassdoor 00:45 – How Madwire has grown to 600 employees 01:25 – Why they operate on a hybrid SaaS and professional service model 02:30 – How they view revenue per employee and prioritize it 03:15 – Why they are doing $175k in revenue per employee today 03:30 – How Madwire is doing $105M in ARR right now 04:00 – Why they help small businesses with marketing at scale 04:50 – How they are serving 10k active customers at this point in time 05:05 – Why their average new account is paying around $1,500 each month 05:45 – How Madwire has scaled with $7.5M in outside funding 06:15 – Why they are cash flow positive 06:35 – How they are still growing 40% year over year 07:45 – Why they track churn in two unique ways 10:00 – How they receive payback within 3 months on a $3k CAC 11:10 – Why they are landing customers entirely through digital channels 12:10 – How he started the company with his father in 2009 13:45 – Why they've set aside stock and equity for top performing employees 14:40 – How they are targeting an IPO in the next few years 15:30 – Why they would look to IPO in two years 16:30 – The Famous Five JB Kellogg is the co-founder of SMB marketing platform, Madwire and Marketing 360. JB was named the Top CEO in the country by Glassdoor in 2016. Company website: https://www.madwire.com/ SaaS Metrics: Founded: 2009 Customers: 10,000 ARPU: $875 (monthly) Annual recurring revenue: $104 million Founded: 2009 Funding: $7.5m Team: 600

French, 24yo. I have lived in the US, Cambodia, South Korea, and Switzerland. I launched my first company 4 years ago doing smartphone repairs for students in campuses. And 18 months ago, I started Ease.space with 3 other people.

Christopher Reid is the founder and CEO of Sortable, a Waterloo Region startup on a mission to Empower Publishers. With an engineering background from the University of Waterloo, he is a serial entrepreneur on his fifth venture and has led tech ventures in industries ranging from educational technology to the consumer web and B2B SaaS. He is the driving force behind Sortable (formerly Snapsort Media), which uses machine learning to help online publishers automate ad operations. Previously a web publishing company, Snapsort Media was acquired in 2011 and bought back in 2014 to relaunch to Sortable's current day business.

Distinguished track record in technology, with a 20-plus year career spanning the development, marketing, and sale of technology. Spent the past 10 years on the cutting edge of social media, helping media companies and marketers more effectively use technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain to power their social media efforts.

Valentin Radu is a serial entrepreneur from Bucharest, Romania. He has founded four companies and had one important exit and one useful failure. Currently, he is the Founder & CEO of Omniconvert, a growth marketing platform for websites looking to become customer-centric.

Byron White is one of the original content marketing revolutionaries, and founder of WriterAccess. He's started several other businesses including Freelance Access, LifeTips, ideaLaunch and more. Byron is the Chair and Founder of Content Marketing Conference, an event featuring 65 speakers and 20 keynotes in 2018. He has authored four books on content marketing topics, is a popular speaker at dozens of conferences, and hosts a Webinar and Podcast series.

Frost Prioleau is the Co-Founder and CEO of Simpli.fi. An experienced online advertising executive specializing in targeting, optimization, and technology, Prioleau focuses on corporate strategy, driving Simpli.fi's growth, and ensuring customer satisfaction. Prior to Simpli.fi, Prioleau was the CEO and Founder of Personifi, a contextual and behavioral targeting company. The firm was acquired by Collective Media in 2008. While at Collective, Prioleau served as General Manager of the Technology Solutions Group. A thought leader in online advertising, Prioleau often speaks on the topic at industry trade shows and in the press. Prioleau is a graduate of Princeton University, where he earned a Bachelor's of Science in Engineering Management Systems.