SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Jon Stein. He's the CEO and founder of Betterment. With his passion about making life better and his career experience advising banks and brokers, he founded Betterment in 2008. Jon is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Business School. He holds a Series 72463 and he's a CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst). His interests lie in the intersection of behavior, psychology and economics. What excites him most about his work is making everyday activity and products more efficient, accessible and easy to use. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — Greenhouse How many hours of sleep do you get? — 6-7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Jon could have taken risks a bit earlier in life Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:15 – Nathan introduces Jon to the show 02:05 – Betterment is the largest independent investment advisor online 02:10 – Betterment manages your money in the way old institutions can't 02:19 – Betterment automates the best practices of investing and the same technology drives the cost down for you 02:32 – Betterment is leading in their industry 02:45 – Betterment charges a fee that is the percentage of the asset finder management 02:50 – It is 2.5%, which is the lowest in the industry 03:15 – "We have to put our customers' best interest first" 03:30 – Betterment currently manages $8.2B 03:50 – Jon studied economics and behavioral biology as an undergraduate 03:58 – When Jon graduated from Harvard, 80% of the graduates took to the finance industry 04:47 – Jon didn't want to follow the people he knew in finance 04:31 – Jon wanted to help people so he thought he'd study medicine 04:50 – Jon found himself back in New York, consulting banks 04:58 – It was 2001-2002 when Jon got his pre-med from Harvard 05:13 – Jon was 23 when he went back to New York, in 2003 05:45 – The banks were not paying attention to what their customers wanted 06:58 – Jon realized that the industry was fundamentally flawed 07:12 – There was no scaled advisor that served the market and the people like Jon could 07:28 – Jon started at Columbia Business School in 2008 and he already the idea for Betterment even before he started there 08:10 – Jon didn't know how to code when he started and just learned in business school 08:46 – Jon didn't have student debt while he was in business school and he saved some money from his consulting 09:14 – During the early days, Jon and his co-founders didn't need a lot of money 09:30 – Jon and his co-founders have invested their own money into Betterment 09:39 – Their initial investment was less than 400K 10:14 – Betterment has raised a total of $205M 10:34 – "I always wanted to build a company that would impact the lives of millions of people for the better" 11:04 – From Day 1, Jon knew that Betterment would be a capital intensive business 11:20 – Team size is 220 11:26 – About half of the team are engineers and product managers 11:31 – Most of the team is involved in building the business 12:14 – Most of Betterment's customers are from word-of-mouth 12:46 – Betterment's paid acquisition 13:03 – Betterment's goal as a company is to make noise 13:11 – There's now a better way to manage money 14:11 – People should put their money in Betterment rather than in Vanguard because they're burning money 14:18 – Betterment can make them more money on their assets 14:39 – Warren Buffett is an active investor himself 14:45 – Jon thinks that Warren Buffett's advice was great during his time, but the technology has moved forward 15:11 – Betterment will make you more money than you would make in a single fund 15:27 – Betterment's website has all the information about how they work 16:00 – Betterment's role is to maximize people's money 16:07 – Vanguard is a fund company that sells you funds 16:10 – Betterment is independent from their funds 17:17 – "We are growing faster than any firm in the history of this space" 17:42 – People are becoming aware of what Betterment is doing 18:21 – 240K customers have invested in Betterment 18:44 – There's no minimum amount to invest 19:24 – "We're building an institution for the next century and we're not interested at selling right now" 19:35 – Betterment's revenue is driven from their 2.5% of the asset management finder 19:48 – Average revenue 21:05 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Just because it has worked in the past, does NOT mean it will still work today. There are better ways to manage your money, especially with the new advancements we have in technology. Take risks as early on as you can. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Na

Dean Graziosi—he knows how to create success. From extremely humble beginnings, he started with a firewood business in high school to a collision repair shop and his first real estate deal before he turned 20. From there, he created a multi-million dollar real estate business, became a New York Times best-selling author multiple times, and is one of the most watched real estate and success trainers of our generation. He maximizes his success and profits on each of his endeavors along his evolution and his businesses have generated nearly one billion dollars in revenue. He's obsessed with sharing his success along this journey with the world. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Untethered Soul and The Surrender Experiment What CEO do you follow? – Ernest Shackleton Favorite online tool? — N/A How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Don't believe your thoughts, they lie to you most of the time. If you could just observe your thoughts and throw away the shit that doesn't serve you, man, you could just go a lot faster" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:22 – Nathan introduces Dean to the show 02:28 – Dean skipped college 02:42 – When Dean was 16, he would buy wrecked cars and flip them in his garage 03:00 – He has bought some of the cars for $500 to $5000 03:11 – Dean got his first real estate deal at 18 with no money down 03:17 – Mrs. Laprezzti gave him a deal with no money down 03:20 – Dean paid Mrs. Laprezzti monthly and he renovated the place 03:49 – Dean's social studies teacher who was also a real estate agent gave Dean leads of people who had houses that were not selling 04:45 – Dean gave Mrs. Laprezzti $2500 a month for a 4-unit apartment, for 3 years 05:05 – Mrs. Laprezzti needed $2K for her expenses for the condo 05:31 – Dean didn't care that he may be paying more 05:48 – Dean promised that he'd pay her in 3 years 05:55 – At the end of 3 years, Dean had the room fully rented and he was able to get a bank loan and pay Mrs. Laprezzti off 06:10 – Dean was making $4200 when he rented out the place, then he sold it 06:24 – Dean still owns around 400 houses, right now 06:56 – Dean's dad was born during the Depression 07:20 – His dad was a mechanic and a collision repair shop guy 07:26 – Dean evolved by maxing out on the equity he could gain from each of his houses 07:38 – After the condo, Dean got an old, rundown mansion and turned it into 10 apartment units 07:53 – Dean refinanced the apartments and bought more apartments 08:00 – It was the late 80s and early 90s when Dean transferred to upstate New York 08:09 – Dean bought some land and went into the process of subdividing 09:10 – Back then, Dean was just hustling for the next property, taking the cash, and making a creative deal 09:30 – "There's always a creative deal" 09:45 – It's about buying off-market deals 10:21 – Average revenue from all of Dean's properties is $380K 10:45 – The market value for 380 units is around $20M 10:54 – Dean is half leveraged in all of the units 11:45 – Dean authored a couple of books because he is obsessed with marketing and sales 12:10 – Dean's last 2 books are self-published 12:21 – Dean's first book was with a publisher 12:24 – Dean didn't want an advance deal from his first book 12:31 – Dean used to get 35-40% of gross sales 12:43 – Dean's first book is Totally Fulfilled 12:46 – Dean's latest book is Millionaire's Success Habits 13:01 – Most of the publishers don't market your book and rely on you to market your own book 13:07 – Dean sold a million copies of his second book 13:10 – Dean had an infomercial running everyday, offering the book on TV 13:25 – "You definitely need a marketing mechanism if you need to write a book" 13:38 – Dean's most effective marketing strategy is giving away free books 13:42 – Dean has an incoming infomercial with Larry King, who has impacted Dean's life 13:56 – Dean met Larry King through mutual friends 14:01 – Dean told Larry that he made an impact on Dean's life, gave his book to Larry and asked Larry if he can interview him 14:09 – Larry came to Dean's studio 14:22 – 8 years ago, Dean watched Larry interview Joel Osteen 14:59 – Dean did the first interview show on TV without scripts, teleprompters or voiceovers 15:09 – The show broke a hundred million dollars in sales 16:05 – Dean only negotiated for a bigger share in book sales because he knew that his books would sell 16:25 – Millionaire's Success Habits is a hardcover book and still ships that way, there is no ebook 17:00 – com is for people who have the ability to find success trainers that are qualified 17:10 – They have courses and high-performance coaching 17:25 – It's a step-by-step on how to become a high achiever 17:33 – They just broke $220K in sales 17:55 – 100% of the money is going back in 18:10 – "It's a feel good, it's a legacy thing" 18:13 – They might sell Growth in 3 years 18:19 – Dean and his 2 co-founders split Growth equally 19:08 – Dean started

René Lacerte. He's the founder and CEO of Bill.com, the leading business payments company. He's a fintech industry vettor and has been working to simplify business payments since 1999, when he founded PayCycle, which was later acquired by Intuit in 2009. Bill.com is now working to help bridge the digital divide between banks and businesses by partnering with 3 of the top US banks and 45% of the top hundred accounting firms. He believes that banks play a critical role in the advancement of fintech. While technology advancement since Silicon startups are divided by or driving much of the industry change, René believes that banks are and will remain the center of the financial universe for quite some time. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Advantage What CEO do you follow? – Pete Kight Favorite online tool? — Dropbox How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Don't stress over the hard decisions" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:22 – Nathan introduces René to the show 02:07 – Andy from Wealthfront disagrees that banks will remain to be the center of the universe 02:27 – Bill.com makes close to $40B a year 02:32 – The average transaction is $1700 to $2000 03:16 – "We make doing business really easy" 03:17 – Bill.com automates the back office of businesses 03:24 – They take all the paperwork, workflow, payments and integration with the accounting software 03:40 – Bill.com charges per seat, per subscription and transaction fees 04:15 – The subscription model is their main revenue stream 04:36 – Bill.com charges .49 cents for every electronic payment and $1.49 for paper 05:30 – The fintech space is a natural viral coefficient space 06:00 – Bill.com had $110M from venture capital 06:12 – René was 32 when he started PayCycle, in 1999 06:20 – René worked in Intuit prior to PayCycle and stayed there for 5 years 06:34 – René had some experience innovating products from Intuit 06:54 – René grew up in a family of entrepreneurs 07:04 – One of René's grandfather's businesses is an automatic data processing company 08:26 – René's father went back to college to understand more about business 09:16 – The idea of Bill.com is that there's a better way to take advantage of technology to make payroll easier 09:58 – Bill.com helps define and automate the back office 10:06 – PayScale does online payroll and started with household payroll, which Intuit doesn't want to do 10:47 – PayScale raised $150K 11:23 – PayScale was acquired by Intuit for $170M 12:21 – Average number of paying customers of Bill.com 13:16 – "If we get customers active and get them using it, they don't churn" 13:26 – They're active when they already have paid for Bill.com 14:04 – Average customer pay per month is $100 14:15 – You can try it for the first month, for free 15:00 – Bill.com automates some of their tools to make the customer feel that they need the product 15:18 – Bill.com does A/B testing to check how they can get their customers engaged 15:52 – Bill.com is adding thousands of new businesses a month 16:56 – René tracks how many months the payback will be when it comes to CAC 17:23 – Payback target is 10-13 months 18:07 – LTV is around 5 years 18:48 – René has raised $50M 19:39 – René's strategy is to maintain a strong relationship with VC 19:53 – Team size is 225 20:10 – Bill.com was launched in 2008 21:07 – Bill.com isn't selling anything and not partnered with anybody, today 22:45 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: It is important to engage your customers. Banks are and will remain to be the center of the financial universe. Hard decisions and their consequences will pass, so don't let them bother you too much. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Laurent Le Moal. He brings extensive knowledge of digital payments in emerging markets to PayU where he serves as the CEO. He culminated an 11-year career at PayPal as general manager for continental Europe, Russia, Middle East and Africa, leaving a billion dollar development vision across diverse geographies. Prior to PayPal, he founded an Italian startup called Talent Manager. He built a 40-person team there and now the startup has expanded to France and Spain. He also has experience in McKinsey and Antal International. He leads PayU's strategic direction and development and is currently building on the company's position and high-growth markets all around the world. Given the company's focus on being an expert in a local market in which it operates, Le Moal leads the creation and implementation of payment methods which best suits PayU's customers all around the world. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Chris Skinner Favorite online tool? — The Top Inbox How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Just go and experience more" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:19 – Nathan introduces Laurent to the show 02:22 – PayU is a payment gateway which is basically serving merchants 02:43 – PayU has their own original platform 02:53 – "I believe that payments are extremely local and regional" 02:58 – Since Laurent joined PayU, they moved from pure payments to actual financial services offering credit solutions 03:22 – Payment is still the bigger market for PayU 03:34 – Laurent thinks that financial services is strategic move for payment companies 03:56 – Nathan had Monish Anand in Episode 617 who talks about data science 04:25 – "The ability to offer credit is the ability to manage risks" 04:38 – All banks are using the same credit score model 04:48 – If you go to India and want to address 90% of the population, then have the means to repay their debt 05:16 – If you have a technology that does credit scoring, then the rest of credit is just mechanics 05:40 – Talent Manager is Laurent's first company 05:54 – Laurent started small in Milan 06:39 – Laurent was 25 when he started Talent Manager in 1997 06:56 – It was easy to get consumers 07:20 – Laurent raised around €5M for their first round 08:01 – It was growing fast 08:22 – Laurent goes to India and sees companies with a high burn rate, which is a couple of hundred million rupees a year 09:26 – Talent Manager was able to have a couple of million in revenue 09:36 – Talent Manager's software was sold 10:29 – Paypal started in 2004 with 3 people in Europe 10:35 – They were looking for someone to do a market study about the potential for PayPal outside of eBay 11:00 – PayPal expanded outside of eBay 11:22 – When you go to a high-growth market like India, most of the companies are still trying to increase the engagement of consumers 11:47 – Laurent had different stock options with PayPal 13:01 – PayU is part of Naspers, which is a diversified group and one of the biggest technology investors for the high-growth market 13:28 – PayU has their payment business and a fintech arm which is investing in interesting startups 13:56 – For PayU, the opportunity is not to just be an operator, but an investor 14:04 – Laurent believes that in fintech, it is difficult to scale your business 15:08 – Laurent invested Monese who is building the new bank for "unbanked" people 16:11 – Laurent shares how he got into PayU 16:30 – Laurent join Naspers and PayU on the basis that he'd manage the business and transform it into a financial service company 16:53 – In 2016, PayU 's total payment transaction was around $18B 17:12 – Growth rate is around 40% year over year 17:20 – PayU forecasts to maintain their growth rate 17:24 – PayU sees a really big push in India where the growth is around 70% 17:30 – Laurent sees India as the most exciting market in the world 17:50 – Laurent sees their financial services to be continuously building in the coming years 18:10 – Laurent wants 10% of their revenue to come from credit 18:24 – Credit is the consumer credit where you give money to people and make money based from the interest rate 18:38 – "What is important is when you start credit from scratch, it's actually to build your portfolio in a very consistent way" 19:06 – PayU takes 1-3% per transaction 19:35 – Team size is close to 1500 from 4 main regions and they have 16 offices 20:54 – In fintech, there are regulations including money laundering regulations 21:53 – Average ARR in 2016 22:24 – PayU just launched LazyPay in India 22:35 – The concept is to give you the possibility to buy something online then pay your debt later 23:43 – The merchants love it 24:08 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The payment gateway space is expanding and more startups are giving people easier access to credit. Regulations are necessary, especially when it comes to managing those who try to take advantag

Jonathan Epstein. He's the current senior VP for international at Sentient Technologies, the maker of Sentient Ascend, the first conversion optimization solution that is powered by evolutionary artificial intelligence. Epstein has been in many companies at the forefront of technology and media including GameSpot, which he's the founding CEO, and Omek which was sold to Intel and GameSpy which was eventually sold to IGN. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Hire With Your Head What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — BuiltWith and SimilarWeb How many hours of sleep do you get? — 5-6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wished I had stepped on entrepreneurship early" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:22 – Nathan introduces Jon to the show 02:18 – Jon's good exit range is from tens of millions to the hundreds of million dollars 02:39 – Jon helped the founding CEO of Gamespot turn it around 03:18 – Jon has worked in an actual gaming company 03:29 – Jon started at IDG as magazine publisher 03:49 – GameSpot was the first professional online review site for games 03:56 – GameSpy had an editorial element and Jon published some of its software 04:35 – GameSpot was launched in 1995 04:45 – Jon launched the magazine Digital News and Multimedia World 04:53 – Jon was working for IDG when he launched the magazines under their brand 05:28 – Jon had great partners when he started GameSpot 05:55 – The initial idea came from the 2 co-founders 06:20 – It was clear that the internet thing was happening 06:30 – The problem, then, was that the release of the magazine came out way too late for newly released game reviews 06:55 – Having the magazine online is a better way to update the gamers 07:13 – GameSpot took in external investors 07:34 – GameSpot was sold for stock in ZDNet 08:09 – Jon had an international role and wanted to gain experience in dealing with other countries 08:16 – ZDNet had joint ventures and Jon had been with them for a while 08:34 – Jon had invested from ZDNet to GameSpy 09:04 – Jon had 8% of GameSpy 09:28 – Jon joined GameSpy in September 2001 09:32 – GameSpy was sold in March 2004 10:01 – Jon made around $61M cash from GameSpy's exit 10:21 – Jon stayed with IGN after the exit and stayed there for a while 10:30 – Jon joined Double Fusion, which is a venture-backed startup 10:55 – Sentient had been around for 9 years and was one of the best funded companies 11:21 – Jon fell in love with Sentient because of their goals 11:29 – Sentient was built with a powerful AI platform 11:34 – It focuses on AI at scale and is able to run AI problems across millions of GPUs 11:58 – Sentient does multiple types of AI 12:00 – One is deep learning or neuron-network which is used for handwriting, voice recognition and image analysis 12:12 – Another product of Sentient is the evolutionary computation which is an AI that mimics natural selection 12:38 – Sentient ran a hedge fund using their products 12:51 – The fund size is growing rapidly 13:14 – Big investors invest to hedge funds in order to achieve stable, good returns 14:16 – Sentient is a SaaS business disrupting the world of AB testing 14:48 – Using the evolutionary AI approach speeds up AB testing 15:41 – Sentient currently has 25 paying customers 15:52 – Average contract price is $3K-30K a month 16:12 – Zero customer churn 16:24 – CAC 16:52 – Sentient is also doing paid advertising 16:56 – Sentient attends conversion conferences where they spend $5K-10K for sponsorship 17:40 – Sentient has raised a total of $143M 17:52 – Sentient has around 110 employees 17:58 – There are still 15-20 open positions 18:24 – Sentient was founded in 2007 18:57 – "We think it's too early to sell" 19:15 – Mark Cuban said that the first trillionaires will come from AI 20:35 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Never be scared about exits – it just means new doors are opening for you. Be in a company that you're really interested in—where you can align yourself with their goals. Start as early as you can when it comes to entrepreneurship. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Joe Koufman. He's responsible for introducing at least 3 married couples in countless contacts to establish business relationships. In early 2014, he parlayed his passion for connecting people and founded a company called AgencySparks, which is essentially a dating service for brands and marketing agencies. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Challenger Sale What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Hilimire Favorite online tool? — Lucky Orange How many hours of sleep do you get?— "I try to get 7" If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I would have invested even more in relationships. They will absolutely pay off down the road" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:36 – Nathan introduces Joe to the show 02:29 – AgencySparks focuses on making connections for brands and agencies 02:34 – AgencySparks is paid by the agencies to help them with their business development and outreach to potential clients 02:50 – In many cases, AgencySparks can help subvert the RFP and the client will hire the agency directly 03:15 – One of AgencySparks' clients tells them about Coca-cola's water sustainability efforts and that they need the story to be everywhere 03:46 – AgencySparks was able to make a connection with one of their agencies that focuses on public relations and they made a deal 04:13 – AgencySparks is shifting their model now 04:20 – AgencySparks is traditionally paid by agencies to get them through a thorough, upfront, vetting process 04:27 – AgencySparks is getting paid through monthly retainers and a percentage of the deal 04:34 – The monthly retainer is $5K per agency, which is 12-month deal 04:50 – AgencySparks was launched in early 2014 04:58 – Joe spent years with KnowledgeStorm which was acquired by TechTarget 05:05 – TechTarget went public and bought KnowledgeStorm for $58M 05:26 – Joe spent 6 years building marketing and business development in Engauge 05:31 – Engauge was then acquired by Publicis 05:56 – When Joe left Engauge, he had job offers from 6 different agencies and that's when he had the idea of AgencySparks 06:21 – Joe's highest offer from one of the agencies was $400K and he said "no" 06:55 – AgencySparks is Joe's first entrepreneurship stint 07:11 – Joe didn't have any equity in KnowledgeStorm 07:45 – Joe made a big transition while he was at KnowledgeStorm 07:47 – Joe started as an account manager in 2000 08:05 – Joe moved to sales and realized that he was just going to have the same exact salary 08:23 – Joe did well in sales and had grown big accounts 08:50 – Joe's last salary was $210K, in 2007 09:20 – By the time Joe left, he was making around $300K in 2013 09:43 – When Joe started AgencySparks, he knew that we wouldn't have much revenue, at first 09:52 – First year revenue was $270K 10:03 – Year 2 was $370K and Year 3: $430K 10:13 – 2017's goal is to double 10:25 – To achieve their goal, they have to change their model a bit 10:45 – The client is asking AgencySparks for different options 10:59 – They want to have multiple agencies in one category 11:27 – AgencySparks currently has 11 clients 11:40 – AgencySparks has other revenue streams 11:48 – The commission percentage is 10% 12:10 – AgencySparks offers other services like info-product 12:40 – March 2017 revenue 13:00 – Team size is 4 and all are in Atlanta 13:18 – Greg Crabtree's labor efficiency ratio is the idea of hovering between 2 and to 3.5, so for every dollar spent on payroll, you should be bringing in $2.50 - $3.50, in terms of revenue 13:47 – As a CEO of a company, if you're not pulling out the salary that you would be making as a hired CEO, then your business isn't profitable 14:00 – Nathan's computation within The Top's 600 interviews done with SaaS companies 15:04 – AgencySparks' net margin 15:27 – Joe is the guy who would re-invest his money into the business 15:33 – Joe isn't a family business guy 15:44 – Joe is looking into 5 years, then selling his business 15:52 – AgencySparks already has interesting offers 16:14 – AgencySparks has a method that is a repeatable and sustainable as a business development process—which is part of what they're teaching 16:57 – "The challenge is that this is a very relationship-focused business" 18:28 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: As a CEO of a company, if you're not pulling out the salary that you would be making as a hired CEO, then your business is NOT profitable. Continue to grow your business as much as you can, but be mindful of the interesting offers that come along the way. Invest in relationships. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and

Ryan Stewart. He's a digital marketing expert with over 8 years of client facing experience. He currently owns and operates Webris, a Miami-based digital marketing agency specializing in SEO and content marketing. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Attached What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — SEMrush How many hours of sleep do you get?— 8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Just self-awareness things about who am I as a person, where I want to go and how I want to live my life" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:17 – Nathan introduces Ryan to the show 01:39 – Webris is an SEO agency which does a lot of digital marketing and link building 01:48 – They specialize in generating organic growth for any sort of clients 02:00 – Webris has a retainer model of 5K-6K a month depending on the work 02:15 – They require a minimum of 6 months 02:22 – Webris currently has 22 clients 02:30 – Webris is doing $100K minimum MRR 02:38 – Webris was launched March, 2016 02:52 – In Webris' first year, they earned 750K 03:00 – Webris also has a training program 03:11 – Ryan is doing concept marketing for himself 03:32 – Ryan had link building training where he taught how to build links at scale 03:44 – Ryan also did blogger outreach PR stuff 04:18 – Ryan didn't do any advertising on Youtube, but he has a good content 04:30 – He has a good email list and a Facebook group with 10K people, a Facebook page and Twitter page 04:42 – Ryan uses concept promotion on the videos with more views 05:30 – Ryan uses automation in Google Drive Suite 06:14 – Ryan launched a video regarding using Google Suite for automation 06:50 – Ryan thinks that YouTube is more powerful than the blog 07:09 – YouTube is much easier to use for engagement purposes 07:22 – Ryan also does mini-checklist processes for their clients 07:26 – If you have an email list and you can get 100 engaged views on your videos, it is more than enough to set you on the right direction 07:37 – Ryan's email list is 10K with 30% open rate 07:49 – Ryan would get 500 views in 12 hours after sending his content out to his email list 08:02 – Ryan uses SEO for his YouTube video titles 08:22 – They'll go after the keywords on their blog 08:31 – "People aren't really using the same keywords on YouTube" 08:37 – For YouTube, you need to grab attention from the titles 09:07 – Team size is 7, in Miami and some are remote 09:30 – Webris is doing a lot of content creation and they pay per article 09:57 – Webris can also negotiate with other people for content 10:06 – They pay $100-200 depending on the client niche 10:20 – Ryan posts job ads on Upwork and on the Facebook group Cult of Copy which is run by a copywriter, Collin Theriot 11:01 – Webris has an in-depth content generation process 11:12 – Webris mitigates the process with the research upfront and by building a really good outline for the writer 11:35 – Webris will also just google for bloggers in a specific niche and pay them around $500 to write 11:54 – Content is dependent on niche 12:28 – You just got to go out and pay writers the right amount 12:50 – Prior to Webris, Ryan was doing his MBA and realized he hated everything about that life 13:59 – What Ryan made last year is less than what he did when he was 20 14:21 – Ryan's #1 goal is that his people are happy 14:33 – Ryan spends $4K a month on their office space 16:00 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: If you hate doing something – just quit. Paying your writers the right amount will lead to great content. In every decision you make for your business – consider your people. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Trevor Wolfe. He's the CEO and co-founder of Delvv.io. He started his career in New York, where he held product innovation and marketing positions for Kantar and TNS. He also led the marketing for New York brands, Gerson Lehrman Group, along with Moveline—which is a tech startup in NYC Company and Morgan Stanley. Throughout his career, he's launched over a dozen analytics and research products and is an active advisor to investors in market research, adtech, and media tech startups in New York, Vegas, and Africa. He holds a BBA in international business from Hofstra University and is an aspiring sailor. His cat's name is Junior. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Tracy Kidder's books and The Power Broker What CEO do you follow? – Scott Belsky Favorite online tool? — The Top Inbox and Slack How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5 and half to 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Trevor would tell himself to go find his fiancée so that he could spend 5 more years with her Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:12 – Nathan introduces Trevor to the show 02:06 – Delvv is a platform that allows advertising and marketing professionals to get a peer review on creative campaigns before using them as paid ads 02:22 – Delvv has 2 models: the marketplace, where they go to agencies and brands, and the subscription model, where you can use Delvv's own organization 03:05 – Delvv was launched in March, 2016 03:29 – The subscription model has just been launched and is already being used by Ogilvy 03:31 – The subscription model is per license fee 03:48 – Delvv packaged a panel of 30 professionals to start an organization 03:57 – The panel processes the feedback and turns it into a report 04:17 – The 30 professionals are paid depending on campaign feedback 04:32 – If Ogilvy pays 5K for a campaign feedback, $1500-2200 will go to the 30 professionals 05:12 – Trevor and his co-founders have spent more time in advertising campaigns 05:39 – Delvv is doing more digital now, but most of their revenue comes from TV and radio campaigns 06:00 – Delvv has worked with 17 different brands and they're working with Delvv in 10 different countries 06:16 – Delvv did $180K since May 2016 in marketplace sales 06:30 – Delvv has paid 700-1200 professionals to do the campaign feedback 06:41 – Some of them are from agencies and would spare 30-60mins for the feedback 07:10 – Delvv is getting $4000-6000 per contract 07:23 – Delvv has 8 full-time workers and a few contractors and interns 07:30 – The team is based in Johannesburg, South Africa 07:45 – There's an advantage to having a team in South Africa 08:11 – The disadvantage in South Africa is the electricity, but not the internet speed 08:21 – Once a week, the power in the whole city goes out for a few hours 09:05 – Trevor and his co-founder funded the business for $10K 09:37 – They have raised $300K from Angel investors 09:49 – Trevor was 32 when he launched Delvv 10:29 – Trevor has kept his expenses down to $2K to save up for the business 10:41 – "I've traded my shoebox of an apartment in New York for a 4-bedroom house, here, with open garden and a pool" 11:18 – Delvv has 80K in contract for the month of March 11:33 – "We really wanted to push the SaaS based platform" 12:08 – Delvv will start their seed round of about $1M on an equity round 13:12 – Delvv has a UK investor, a local fund and VC in South Africa as their investors 15:00 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Campaigns are significant to any company and having feedback can help you save more money. There are pros and cons in having a business in another country – try to find a way to work it out if you really want a change of environment. You can enter the world of entrepreneurship by saving up and making your expenses as low as possible. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Varun Chandran. He's the founder and CEO of Corporate360, a big data marketing software startup. He bootstrapped the company in 2012, grew the business into multimillion dollars in revenue with international clients and 40 employees across 5 countries. Prior to Corporate360, he worked for some of the leading technology companies like SAP, Oracle, Dell and Netapp in 3 different countries. He's a college dropout and a national footballer. He loves data science and travelling. Under his leadership, Corporate360 became the first international startup from Kerala, bringing IT jobs that foster social empowerment. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – N/A What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Google Apps How many hours of sleep do you get every night?— 4 hours If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Build something that changes lives" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:12 – Nathan introduces Varun to the show 02:00 – Corporate360 is a sales intelligence data company for B2B enterprises 02:08 – Corporate360 is a SaaS business that sells their software through subscription 02:30 – Corporate360 has standard pricing 02:38 – Typical deal size would range from 20K onwards, annually 02:48 – They have some monthly contracts, too 02:57 – "We are evangelizing data as a service model as opposed to buying a marketing list" 03:33 – Corporate360 was launched in 2013 03:40 – Team size is almost 70 in 5 countries 03:47 – Corporate360 is totally bootstrapped and they're reenlisting profits back to the business to grow it 04:00 – Varun was 30 when he started Corporate360 and it was his first take on entrepreneurship 04:14 – Varun spent 8 years in the corporate world 04:26 – Varun had sales development and marketing roles 04:43 – Varun started the company with minimal capital of less than $10K 05:02 – Varun used the capital to learn data science and hired contractors from India and the Philippines 05:22 – The initial investment was for building the application, launching the website, and a basic outreach email campaign 05:55 – Customers use Corporate360 differently 06:01 – There's inside sales, analytics, campaigns, marketing and for sales operations 06:18 – One of Corporate360's customers is from Japan—they wanted to run a competitive attack and get competitive intelligent software 06:30 – The company from Japan started a subscription and they gave reference to teams in China, Singapore, and eventually to the Europe and US market 07:08 – Corporate360 is currently serving 300 customers 07:22 – They currently have 40K seats 07:28 – Seats per user license is sold only for inside sales 07:35 – Analytics and marketing are based on data and not per seat 07:58 – Corporate360 average deal size will be per user 08:04 – Varun shares how an inside sales deal works 08:52 – "We are not part of a data syndicate" 09:00 – Corporate360 source their data from their own algorithms 09:37 – FullContact focuses on getting data from syndicates 10:27 – Varun shares how they differ from other data sources 12:06 – When you subscribe to Corporate360, you can get a 360 degree viewpoint of 7 modules 12:22 – Corporate360 provides detailed information about the leads that they have and why they are the best fit for your company 13:30 – Average ARR 14:00 – Gross customer churn 14:16 – Corporate360 designs their services based on client feedback 14:46 – Churn is less than 10% annually 15:12 – Most of their customers are startups 15:51 – CAC 15:58 – Corporate360 doesn't have field sales and just 7 account managers 16:20 – They tried LinkedIn ads as paid ads 16:34 – They spent $200K on LinkedIn last year 16:47 – The budget for paid acquisition will go down this year 17:15 – LTV can be from $45K to a million 17:36 – Corporate360 headquarters in Singapore 17:40 – They have a large BPO center in India and Philippines 19:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Small capital can go a long way—don't be discouraged if you are beginning with little. THe data space is quite saturated—have something that sets you apart from the data syndicate. Build something that changes lives. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Oli Gardner. He's the co-founder of Unbounce. He's seen more landing pages than anyone in the planet. He's a prolific international speaker and he's on the mission to rid the world of marketing mediocrity by using data-informed copywriting, design, interaction, and psychology to create a more delightful experience for marketers and customers alike. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – How to Deliver a TED Talk What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — UsabilityHub How many hours of sleep do you get? — Maybe 3 hours If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Learn how to make decisions" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:10 – Nathan introduces Oli to the show 01:49 – Unbounce is a SaaS business and a conversion platform for marketers which started as a landing page platform 02:00 – They just expanded to convertibles that have overlays that captures more leads and signups on the website 02:17 – Unbounce was launched in August 2009 02:33 – Unbounce has 6 co-founders 03:11 – Oli was broke and filed for bankruptcy 03:26 – Unbounce was initially funded by friends and family with $15K CAD 03:38 – Unbounce had a seed round and Angel round and has raised a total of less than 1 million CAD 04:12 – The 6 co-founders are all equal 04:22 – All are working full-time 04:50 – They've figured out a rough valuation 05:25 – 5 of the 6 co-founders are still active 05:41 – Team size is 184 05:49 – Members are based all around Canada and some in South America 06:14 – RPU is $93 CAD a month 07:05 – Unbounce lets anyone in for at least 2 years 07:11 – Their plans have been restructured in a way that is most beneficial 07:38 – Their $10-plan has been removed 07:57 – Unbounce now has professional marketers 08:10 – As Unbounce continues to grow, they're trying to scale with their customers 08:33 – Unbounce currently has 14K active users 08:42 – You can create a demo account but you can't get your own domain with demo 09:13 – Average MRR is just under $1.4M 09:47 – Unbounce had a problem with churn, like what most SaaS businesses have encountered 10:03 – "We know that you need landing pages for everything you do" 10:55 – 5% is the problem churn with Unbounce 11:30 – If Salesforce or Marketo have been integrated, the company is a larger company 11:47 – Overlays have been successful and there's so much traffic and data 12:09 – Overlays are called overlays because they are similar to popups 12:20 – "We're trying to be responsible with the technology because technology is not the problem, we are" 12:52 – Oli respects Bounce Exchange when it comes to the overlays world and they're doing a lot with machine learning 13:06 – The biggest difference in using Unbounce is you will feel that you're not using templated overlays 13:40 – Unbounce's value is different from SumoMe and their targeting is getting smarter 13:55 – Most services like Unbounce charge $250-5K a month and Unbounce starts at $99 14:06 – There are cheaper ones in WordPress, but they're not really good 14:21 – Oli is primarily a public speaker now and spends most of his time on the road 14:25 – Oli was actually scared to start public speaking years ago 14:33 – Nathan recommends watching Oli speak in public 15:15 – The rest of Oli's time is spent with Unbounce's marketing team and data scientists' team 15:48 – Unbounce just got engaged with a new marketing agency 16:03 – LTV 16:14 – Unbounce had one marketing guy and he left, so they switch to a 5 digital local agency 16:33 – CAC 16:43 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Being broke should NOT hinder you from starting a business. A great product with a reasonable price will always attract more customers. Learn how to make decisions and don't hold back. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Martin Garcia. He's the CEO and founder of FLYX.Systems. He's also a mechatronics engineer and co-founder of Ilumexico, a solar power lighting company for rural communities in Mexico. He's got an MSc in drone design at University of Southampton and is an alumni of Singularity University at NASA Ames California, USA and later, a teaching fellow for space and robotics. FLYX.Systems is a company that develops technology for industrial UAVs that aim to improve the productivity of many industries. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Noun Project How many hours of sleep do you get? — About 8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Martin would tell himself to finish every project he started, then move on to the next one Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:22 – Nathan introduces Martin to the show 02:17 – FLYX.Systems develops technology that encompasses both hardware and software algorithms 02:33 – There are 3 UAVs in history: the military UAVs, the drones that are popular nowadays, and the industrial UAVs 03:22 – Industrial UAVs are going to be the biggest game changer in business 03:31 – Industrial UAVs will be completely autonomous 03:48 – 70% of UAV crashes are caused by human errors 03:55 – Martin wants to develop a company that aims to build industrial UAVs for different applications in different industries 04:25 – Martin wants to build a combination of both the UAV hardware and the UAV software or the brain of the drone 04:33 – VJA is a company that uses UAVs mainly for photography, but the drones can't be modified easily 04:59 – When Martin develops software in a computer that can be used in autopilot, it results to an amazing UAV with a high level of intelligence and algorithms that differentiate themselves from other UAVs 05:24 – FLYX.Systems currently has 2 main projects 06:09 - FLYX.Systems provides services to solar companies 06:26 – FLYX.Systems is still in the preoperative phase 06:34 – They've raised $100K 06:39 – They've used the funds for the UAV's prototype and the landing platform 06:48 – The landing platform is one of their biggest projects up their sleeves 07:17 – The landing platform will be applied to the solar companies 07:32 – Team size 07:46 – Based in Mexico, but thinking of expanding to Columbia 08:03 – FLYX.Systems was launched early 2016 08:21 – Prior to FLYX.Systems, Martin was working as a CTO, developing technologies for solar applications 08:28 – Martin went to Singularity University's summer camp where he met people in the same field 09:06 – Martin got his masters in UK and it was about the foundation and core of FLYX.Systems, which is the automation of the UAV system 09:27 – Martin was 28 when he entered Singularity 09:51 – One of the advantages in having an UAV business in Mexico is that the regulation for flying UAVs is not that harsh or strict compared to USA 10:18 – There's less competition in Mexico, too 10:20 – The people in Mexico are talented and the salary range is lower than in the USA 10:42 – UAVs are not expensive when you know how to build them 11:27 – There's a possibility for DJI to move to industrial in the future 11:40 – Martin wants to work on localized applications as quickly as possible 11:55 – Martin knows his market and wants to build something that is suited for their specific needs 12:13 – Martin also wants to combine technologies that DJI isn't developing 12:30 – AI is one of the tools that Martin wants to harness 13:00 – Martin doesn't want to depend on companies that sell UAVs 13:23 – People usually buy drones, then think of the vale 14:00 – Martin's prototype will be launched next month and will be sent to different states in Mexico 14:14 – You pay for the service of the drone, the drone is not yet for sale 14:30 – The pay will depend on the size of the land but it will be around $15-20 per hectare 16:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The UAV market is currently a very hot market – if you can combine both hardware and software, the better. Starting a business in other countries has its advantages – in this case, less competition, less cost, and fewer regulations. Don't start multiple projects at one time; finish one before starting another. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect

Eric Min. He's the CEO and founder of a company called Zwift.com. Eric is a tech entrepreneur, a lifelong cyclist and is now spreading fitness through virtualization and gamification. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm What CEO do you follow? – Max Levchin Favorite online tool? — Slack How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Taking risks earlier" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:47 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show 02:11 – Zwift is creating a virtual space where cyclists can interact with each other in real time 02:31 – Eric is trying to solve one of the most common problems of cyclists 03:26 – Zwift is a pure SaaS company 03:29 – Zwift charges $10 a month 03:36 – "We're an asset-like company" 03:38 – Zwift works with partners who have all the different equipment available in the market 04:08 – The most basic setup to use Zwift is an iPad; a trainer that can be attached to your traditional bike to make it stationary 04:32 – Based on your weight and how you're pedaling, Zwift can put you in the game 05:08 – Zwift was launched in January 2014 05:18 – Eric and his co-founder committed a couple of million dollars to build Zwift 05:36 – Their friends and families had raised around $7M 05:47 – Zwift just closed their series A and they have a total of $45M raised 06:07 – Prior to Zwift, Eric and his co-founder built a trading platform 06:28 – Eric and co-founders wanted to build something out of their comfort zones 06:41 – Eric was 30 when he launched the trading company 07:08 – "Enterprise business is tough" 07:45 – Eric and his co-founder had a $100M contract and spent 5 years extracting the contract 08:18 – Initial capital was $3M 09:17 – Eric and his co-founder are set out to be category leaders, so they made a new category 09:51 – Zwift currently has over 300K accounts created 10:07 – Zwift has 5M rides and 5M hours of pedaling 10:16 – The average ride is 1 hour 10:28 – Zwift also has 88M miles recorded 10:36 – The engagement is fairly high 10:38 – People log in to Zwift to watch other people 10:44 – 202 hours of people logging in just to watch 11:07 – People are also broadcasting their experience with Zwift 11:42 – Zwift doesn't have free users and what they have is a trial period 12:00 – Zwift doesn't have year-long contracts at the moment 12:02 – Eric wants to understand the behavior of the customers 12:10 – Most of the customers are outdoor cyclists 12:33 – Eric believes that over time, Zwift will be a year-round overtime preposition for not just cyclist but fitness enthusiast too 13:11 – Almost all consumer businesses are seasonal, like gaming 13:20 – People spend less time playing games in the summer 13:34 – Zwift makes it easy for people to consume fitness 13:42 – "Our belief is that everyone is chasing fitness and everyone would like to consume fitness in the most efficient way" 13:53 – The solution enables you to be at home and it's cost-effective 14:55 – Zwift has 70% of the people stay with them every year 15:10 – Eric calls them "pause" and not churn 15:27 – As the social network expands, it's gaining more interest 15:40 – Zwift also crowdsources content 15:54 – Zwift has a community of users who want to volunteer their services 16:17 – 97% of Zwift's user acquisition is organic 16:54 – Zwift targets cyclists and most cyclists belong to a tribe or a team 17:29 – Zwift does a little on the digital advertising side 18:00 – Eric has invested in Zwift Academy which is modeled after GTA Academy 18:11 – GTA Academy is a marketing advertising program between Gran Turismo and Nissan 18:50 – Zwift took GT Academy's model and made Zwift Academy 18:55 – Zwift Academy called out ladies around the world to join and 1200 ladies joined the program 19:03 – Zwift had a public PR in different media channels to announce Zwift Academy 19:15 – There were 3 finalists and they had to go through numbers of different tests 19:29 – The 3 finalists were taken to Majorca, Spain where they trained for 10 days with a professional team 19:37 – The professional team tested the finalists and offered a professional contract to one of them 19:45 – One of them is now a professional rider who was a former series marathoner 21:12 – Eric doesn't worry about the valuation 23:07 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Get out of your comfort zone – you'll never know what's in store for you until you get there. A large, initial fund that was raised should NOT affect your valuation if your company is doing well. Take risks...the earlier the better. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Ga

BJ Lackland. He has spent over 15 years as an investor in startups. As an investor, he's been in VC and Angel and is now the CEO of Lighter Capital, where he oversees over 200 alternative investments in early stage tech companies. As an executive, he's been on the executive team of 3 companies including CFO of a public tech company called Power Efficiency Corp. He's raised and uploaded over $150M worth of capital. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Cirrus How many hours of sleep do you get? — 4-5 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Just keep seeking" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:20 – Nathan introduces BJ to the show 02:05 – BJ was at VC in the early 2000s for 5 years and focused on energy technology 02:58 – Lighter Capital is a fintech company that revolutionized as a startup finance 03:06 – They are using technology to improve entrepreneurs' access to capital 03:14 – Lighter Capital's model 03:23 – An entrepreneur spends 8-10 hours with them before they write a check 03:30 – The revenue-based financing tends to be the best aspect of equity 03:58 – On average, Lighter Capital provides companies $250K and can go up to $2M 04:28 – Pay multiple is 1.5 to 2 times and paid typically over a 3 to 5-year period 04:53 – If the company grows quickly, they can pay in a shorter time period 05:00 – "We have every incentive of trying to help them grow" 05:07 – Lighter Capital is really betting on the entrepreneurs 05:20 – Lighter Capital has raised a total of $120M 05:23 – The initial fund was $20M 05:45 – Lighter Capital is raising from traditional LPs 06:44 – Lighter Capital makes money like a bank does 07:35 – Most lenders are worried about payment defaults 07:44 – Lighter Capital focuses on helping companies grow long-term 08:40 – Lighter Capital has a minimum threshold of $15K a month 08:55 – Lighter Capital looks into 2 different audiences 08:58 – One is their customers 09:01 – The other one is their capital partner 09:14 – Lighter Capital is funding 10-12 companies a month 09:40 – Lighter Capital has a group of 9 developers and data scientists 09:49 – Lighter Capital has 90% accuracy for predicting revenue 10:45 – Lighter Capital still goes through several different factors for approving a company 11:56 – In Episode 421, Nathan had Ceterus who worked with Lighter Capital 12:17 – The payment can or cannot accelerate depending on the company 12:44 – Companies can pay lighter capital earlier with a lesser amount 13:56 – Lighter Capital funded companies that are just by themselves 15:00 – Lighter Capital is also funding similar companies 15:36 – In Episode 542, Nathan had HipLead and on Episode 560, Badger Maps, and they both worked with Lighter Capital 17:34 – Lighter Capital worked with 101 companies last year 17:54 – Lighter Capital closed a lot of deals last Christmas 19:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Thousands of new businesses are coming out every month; having easy access to capital is a huge advantage for them. Predicting one company's future revenue is beneficial, both for the investor and the company. Keep seeking, stay curious, and always find new things to learn about. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Khaled Naim. He's the CEO and co-founder of the company called Onfleet, a software company that makes it easy for businesses to manage local delivery operations. He holds an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business and studied computer engineering at The University of Michigan. He grew up between London and Dubai. He's currently residing in San Francisco. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Venture Deals What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Gusto How many hours of sleep do you get? — 7-8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Khaled would tell himself to do something that he's really passionate about Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:14 – Nathan introduces Khaled to the show 01:47 – Onfleet is a B2B software product that helps delivery companies manage and analyze their local delivery operations 02:18 – Onfleet provides apps for drivers, dispatching dashboards for the dispatchers, analytics and write-up optimizations and algorithms 02:29 – Onfleet charges monthly depending on the delivery volume 02:35 – The larger the business, the more deliveries they do 02:42 – Onfleet is a SaaS business 03:30 – Blue Apron is different because they don't deliver locally, but ship using FedEx 03:42 – Onfleet's focus is on companies who deliver their goods locally 04:16 – Onfleet was launched in April 2015 04:46 – Team size is 15 and all are in San Francisco 04:40 – Onfleet has raised $4.5M in total funding, so far 04:55 – If you can bootstrap, it is a good option 05:13 – There are factors that lead to the decision to raise funds 05:18 – If you're not generating enough money to support the team, then raising capital is a good option 05:45 – It was 30 years ago when Khaled launched Onfleet 05:51 – Khaled, together with his co-founder, started Onfleet while he was still at Stanford—this is also where they met their CTO 06:28 – Khaled, with his co-founders, attended Stanford's Accelerator Program in 2012 07:17 – Onfleet raised a convertible note round and an equity round 07:38 – Onfleet offers a 30-day free trial for new customers 07:48 – After 30 days, they need to enter their credit card information 07:55 – Onfleet's pricing is very transparent and can be easily calculated on their website 08:30 – The telephone services are the call and text messages that run through Onfleet 08:38 – The customer receives notifications automatically regarding the driver's status 09:16 – The cost varies primarily on the market 09:53 – Onfleet is currently serving 300 customers 10:10 – Onfleet's pricing page is really nice and easy to navigate 10:34 – Onfleet's average customer is between the standard and premium tier 11:06 – Some of the customers are paying the north of 10K a month 11:13 – Average customer pay per month is $400-500 a month 11:56 – Onfleet doesn't track the number of tasks during the free trial 12:38 – Onfleet helps businesses to scale their business 13:10 – Onfleet's net MRR churn is more negative than negative 5% 14:10 – Everything in Onfleet is pay-per-use or pay-as-you-go 14:40 – There are customers who start using Onfleet, then leave 15:27 – Onfleet doesn't have much customer churn 16:05 – CAC is around $1500 per customer 17:08 – LTV is around 18 months 17:37 – Onfleet's customers are categorized 17:47 – Onfleet is slowly moving to more larger accounts 19:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: You can start a business without a capital – just find a way to it. If you're not generating enough money to support the team, then raising capital is a good option. No matter what, follow your passion and you'll be alright. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Peter Kortenhoeven. He's a creative person with a great deal of experience in the gaming industry. He started after graduation at the Academy of Arts as an animator at Coded Illusions. He became a lead animator at Triumph Studios shortly afterwards. One of his key successes has been the successful Overlord series. As lead artist, he worked on many different, yet, unreleased games. From a need to gain more business experience, he decided to focus on applied games. He became an art director at Bright Alley and later on at Ranj. During his period within the serious gaming industry, Peter kept working on small game projects during his spare time. One of those projects, Pillow Willow, helped him start his first company, Pillow Willow VR Studios. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Story of Whole Disney What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Trello How many hours of sleep do you get? — 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Take it easy and make sure you focus on the right thing" Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:22 – Nathan introduces Peter to the show 03:43 – Pillow Willow works on two flavors of games 03:47 – First is non-violent dreamscapes which are completely filled with liveliness 04:11 – They also work on active, full-body, VR games which stimulate players to move actively within the games 04:38 – Pillow Willow hasn't released a game yet and is still working on 4 titles, at the same time 04:47 – The first game, Drako, will be released within June and is a dreamscape game 05:13 – Drako's demo will be released for HTC Gear and Oculus 05:39 – The goal is to have a multi-player option in the future 06:05 – Pillow Willow won Best Dutch VR Game at the Bright VR Awards, in 2016 06:17 – It was for a demo game 07:00 – Pillow Willow has a seat funder which is Lumo Labs 08:00 – Pillow Willow has currently raised $500M 08:07 – Pillow Willow was launched in March 2016 08:23 – Team size is 12 08:46 – Pillow Willow will charge for their games and will create high end content 09:20 – Mobile VR is the Samsung S series combined with the Gear VR 09:38 – You have to have the proper phone and headset to play the games 09:52 – Average number of people who have VR gear 10:13 – Pillow Willow's first game will be an hour long and priced at $499 11:10 – Pillow Willow will try to create those dreamscapes games in a virtual universe 11:40 – Nathan thinks of the dreamscapes games like Neopets 14:15 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The VR space is a hot space at the moment and the games are getting more and more interesting. If you have a seat funder, your company can continue developing a product even without recurring revenue. Take it easy and make sure you focus on the RIGHT goal. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

David Barrett. He started programming at the early age of 6 and has been inspired to become an expense reporter ever since. He attended the University of Michigan where he worked in a virtual reality lab before moving to Texas to write a 3D graphic engine for the industry. Then, he moved to California to join a name that is probably familiar to many of you, Travis Kalanick, in building a peer-to-peer file transport technology called, Red Swoosh, which was acquired by Akamai in 2007. In 2008, David left that company to start Expensify—where he is today—and he's trying to figure out the world's frustrations, one expense report at a time. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Innovator's Dilemma What CEO do you follow? – Travis Kalanick Favorite online tool? — G Suite How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wish I had dropped out of college" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:13 – Nathan introduces David to the show 02:36 – David was working on a debit/credit card idea and the banks weren't happy with it 02:50 – Expensify is the corporate card for the masses 03:08 – David got into the space when there was so much room for disruption and pain points 03:40 – Travis' first company is called Scour, which is an early file sharing network that got sued 04:06 – When David got into Red Swoosh, Travis was the only guy there 04:48 – David thinks that Travis is very articulate in communicating his vision 05:12 – David had equity from Red Swoosh 05:31 – Red Swoosh didn't have a big exit 06:14 – Expensify charges $9 per active user per month 06:20 – Expensify is a mobile app—you take a picture of your receipts and the app will read all the details on the receipt, automatically 06:29 – The information will then be categorized, sent to your account, and you'll get reimbursed the next day 07:10 – The company is only paying the active users 07:29 – Expensify's price points are $5 and $9 07:40 – David started Expensify's idea after Red Swoosh's acquisition 07:56 – David left Akamai in 2008, then he worked on Expensify 08:00 – Expensify's official launch is 2008 08:05 – Expensify's team size is around 110 08:18 – Expensify has raised capital 08:27 – Expensify has raised a total of $25M 08:36 – Expensify has been a break even business for a long time 08:39 – "We grow primarily through revenue" 08:52 – The vast majority of Expensify's growth is through self-finance 09:54 – The business itself is breaking even, but they're always raising and experimenting on big experiments 10:31 – There are about 25K companies who use Expensify 11:03 – There are millions of individuals who use Expensify, too 11:32 – 10% of Expensify's user base are paying customers 10:43 – 10% of 4.5M are paying customers 12:12 – "Churn is complicated" 12:33 – Expensify has a net negative revenue churn 13:05 – Expensify doesn't advertise and they have 100% organic traffic 13:37 – Expensify had a few fundraising rounds 13:41 – In 2008, they had their first $1M round 13:43 – They did a few more in a couple of years 14:25 – David doesn't talk with investors and hasn't talked with them in years 15:27 – Expensify is something totally different from Salesforce 15:53 – Expensify doesn't have salespeople 16:16 – Expensify's primary revenue generator is their support team who follow up on deployments 16:43 – Pricing has been difficult and Expensify is still working on it 16:53 – Expensify was originally free and customers didn't understand why 17:18 – David thought they needed a reasonable price point 17:31 – After choosing a price point, people became more comfortable and trusting 17:51 – Expensify's competitors followed their pricing 18:37 – Expensify's focus is on mastering the dynamics 19:06 – David thinks that, realistically, their pricing should be much higher 19:34 – David is planning on increasing their pricing 19:52 – "Because we don't need the money, we're focused on something else" 19:58 – "Maintaining an incredibly low price right now for the industry actually helps keep the competition out" 20:29 – People find Expensify through word-of-mouth 20:51 – "All of our emphasis is on building a product in a brand that generates an incredibly strong word-of-mouth" 21:34 – 99% of Expensify's traffic is people searching for us 21:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Adding a paid option to your product can actually make your customers more confident in your product. Word-of-mouth is one of the best and cheapest ways to grow your traffic and client base, but your business has to be valuable for people. A college degree is NOT the only road to success. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity

Dale Beaumont. He's an award winning technology entrepreneur, international speaker and author of 16 best-selling books. He started his first business at age 19 and has been building companies ever since. One of those companies is now a multi-million dollar enterprise which enabled Dale to become an investor, philanthropist, and has given him the opportunity to set foot in over 70 countries. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Seven-Day Weekend What CEO do you follow? – Mark Zuckerberg Favorite online tool? — Voxer How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Dale would tell himself to really have fun and just enjoy the journey Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:18 – Nathan introduces Dale to the show 02:00 – Dale's first book was published in 2001 02:23 – Dale published a total of 16 books and sold 250K copies 02:26 – All of the books that Dale published were on best-seller list in Australia 02:42 – A best-seller book in Australia sells 5K copies on physical bookshelves 02:57 – Dale was 19 when he started his first company 03:05 – One of Dale's challenges was being so young in business 03:27 – Dale thought that needed to create credibility and the one way to do that was to publish a book 03:45 – Dale's first book was The World at Your Feet which is a personal development book for teenagers 03:50 – When Dale wrote a press release, it got him on national TV, newspapers and magazines 04:23 – Dale's first company's revenue went up after they released his book 04:59 – The book became their launch pad 05:16 – Dale's first company's revenue increased to $500K 05:28 – Dale published a series called Secrets Exposed, which has 15 books—he wrote the series in two and half years 05:43 – The books are interviews conducted by Dale 06:16 – All of the books are self-published 06:39 – Dale worked on the series from 2007 to 2009 06:49 – Publishing this series is one of Dale's most successful ventures 07:10 – In self-publishing, the cost per book goes down when you have 5K copies 07:31 – Dale had a pre-sell for his books 07:48 – Dale also had partnerships with companies, associations and organizations and they pre-purchased his books 08:28 – There was no requirement for the interviewee to purchase a copy of the book 08:38 – When Dale was about to print the copies, he sent messages to people offering a discounted price for bulk orders 08:58 – After 4 books of his series came out, more people approached Dale to be interviewed, so Dale had to set requirements 09:08 – Dale was able to fill out the next 11 books by making people commit to buying 1K copies 09:40 – Brad Sugars is an example of someone who approached Dale 10:21 – Dale started a company called Business Blueprint 11:04 – The company teaches small business owners across Australia and New Zealand how to use technology to improve their business 11:11 – The company started from the ground up and has continued to grow for 7 years now 11:16 – It is doing more than $5M in revenue 11:26 – The company does live events, webinars and membership sites 12:05 – Dale's goal is to provide business education and support 12:30 – Less than 1% of businesses have a business coach or advisor 12:33 – Dale thought that it would be cool to create a product that would give everyone a chance to have a business advisor 12:46 – Dale started to build the world's first AI business advisor and his name is BRiN 12:54 – "BRiN is like the Siri for business" 12:56 – BriN is a smartphone app and is currently on free download in iOs and Android 13:50 – Dale shares the benefit of using BRiN rather than searching your business questions through Google 14:21 – BRiN has had 21K downloads in the past 6 months with 4K weekly users 15:00 – BRiN, overall, has had 164K user sessions 16:10 – Dale self-funded BRiN from the funds he got from his previous company 16:20 – Dale has also been approached by different companies who are trying to talk to small business owners 16:39 – BRiN now offers partnership packages 18:52 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: One way to "manufacture" credibility is by publishing your own book. It is good to know that you're on the right path in business – and business advisors can help guide you on that path. Work hard, live your life, but make sure you are ENJOYING the journey. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste ti

Maria Gotsch. She's the president and CEO at the Partnership Fund for New York City, which is the investment arm of the Partnership for New York City. In addition to leading the funds operations, Maria has spearheaded the creation and operation of a number of fund strategic initiatives including The Fintech Innovation Lab. Prior to joining the fund in 1999, Maria was a managing director at a company that is now part of Deutsche Bank, providing strategic and financial advice related to mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures and the development of business strategies. Maria worked for LaSalle Partners in the New York area and Merrill Lynch Capital Markets, in both New York and London. She graduated with an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Wellesley College. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – "A book on the Iranian negotiations with the US around the treaty" What CEO do you follow? – Henry Kravis Favorite online tool? — MyCity Bike app How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7 and a half If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Be bold, be bold, be bold!" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:11 – Nathan introduces Maria to the show 02:15 – Partnership Fund is the corporate sector at the table that is trying to grow the NYC economy 02:21 – Henry Kravis of KKR has raised funds in the late 90s and raised from major corporations and individuals, in NYC 02:32 – The investor list is the "who's who" of the private equity 02:36 – Partnership Fund was structured as an evergreen fund 02:48 – "We can do things that are a little bit riskier and take a little bit longer than a traditional private sector investor" 03:02 – "We often work with government, but we're privately funded" 03:13 – Partnership Fund is like an interest-free loan for 45 years 03:33 – All of Partnership Fund's gains just go back to their funds and they reinvest it 03:41 – "We have the investors' money for 45 years and if we make returns, it comes back to us to fund new projects" 03:58 – The Fintech Lab is currently in their 7th year and has 75 graduates 04:08 – It is an elite program and takes 68 companies a year 04:18 – It is structured as a civic program 04:32 – The goal of the program is to help reduce the pain and agony of a small emerging company trying to get into and get attention from large financial institutions 05:06 – "Because it is competitive to get in, it's a shark tank to get in, but once you're in, it's a dolphin tank" 05:18 – They get 150-160 applications a year 05:28 – Companies are selected by their financial institution partners 05:34 – A company's technology has to rise to the level of addressing a major pain point for major financial institutions 06:10 – In some cases, it's not about an acquisition, it's about using 06:15 – The fact that they are a non-profit civic organization is important 06:29 – CTOs and CIOs will come to the table as a civic program, partly to help grow the fintech community in NYC, to create jobs 07:23 – They invest in some of the graduates' post programs 07:30 – The lab is laser-focused in solving problems 07:41 – They are not doing any direct-to-consumer programs 08:20 – The big 3: data, security and risk management have been on the top of the CIOs list from the beginning 08:43 – However, new things are coming 08:47 – Disruptive talent management has been added as a new category 08:58 – Blockchain has gone through an interesting cycle 09:14 – This year, there's much less interest in blockchain and distributed ledger 09:52 – Maria predicts that in 2 years, there will be an increase of interest in enabling technologies that fit around the distributed ledger 10:31 – In data, Digital Reasoning came into the program with an interesting technology that is able to read unstructured data, and they're working for the government 11:03 – They were advised to focus on compliance 12:04 – In security, Centripetal Networks has a perimeter defense technology and they're gaining traction from people who have a lot of retail locations 12:34 – In risk management, Quarule automates some of the processing of regulatory tracking and flagging operations against the regulations 13:23 – In blockchain, Digital Asset Holdings has raised a significant amount of money and has been involved in some major projects 13:50 – Maria shares how they are telling companies to create more jobs in NYC 14:02 – The companies will also realize that they need to have people on the ground in NYC 14:20 – Some have moved to their headquarters in NYC 14:46 – "We've not raised money since the late 90s" 14:50 – The initial fund size was $120M 15:46 – New York is starting to be seen as a center for fintech 16:34 – There are some smaller companies that are trying to go after pieces and as they scale, the acquisition cost is increasingly expensive 17:05 – LearnVest is a good example 17:40 – The small business lenders come to a market that the banks aren't servicing 18:00 – There are companies who are an exception to

Gaurav Dhillon. He's an early investor in a company called SnapLogic. He joined in 2009, when he saw the potential of how companies integrate applications data and devices for digital business. He spearheaded SnapLogic's rapid growth and overseas strategies, products, and operations. He's previously the co-founder and CEO of Informatica. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Power of Habit What CEO do you follow? – Andy Grove Favorite online tool? — Gmail How many hours of sleep do you get? — Close to 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wish he knew more that opportunity knocks often" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:22 – Nathan introduces Gaurav to the show 02:04 – Gaurav and his co-founder had a $75K SBA grant when they built Informatica 02:25 – They have raised a total of $13.5M 02:57 – "11-12 years is a long time and it's time to go" 03:32 – Gaurav is a company builder 03:47 – When Gaurav did an IPO, he sold some of his shares in a secondary public offering 03:53 – There was no lock-out 04:24 – They made $400M in secondary public offering 04:32 – Their initial raise was less than $100M 04:49 – In IPO, you are also trying to build a brand for yourself 05:23 – Gaurav left Informatica in July 2004 05:28 – Gaurav spent a year doing things on his bucket list 06:10 – When Gaurav went back to the valley, he joined a couple of boards 06:25 – Gaurav was in a board meeting when they talked about business internet, which is now cloud computing 06:37 – "People aren't just going to buy books from the web, they're going to balance books on the web" 06:58 – Gaurav invested in SnapLogic 07:05 – Gaurav wrote a couple of men a check saying that if there's a business, prove it to him, and he will provide capital 07:16 – The initial check was $1M 07:26 – Gaurav structured it as convertible debt 08:06 – SnapLogic has raised a total of $136M 08:10 – Initially, it was from Venture 08:23 – Most recent round was led by Vitruvian Partners 09:04 – Gaurav built Informatica to hook up those products with each other 09:21 – SnapLogic is connecting the new cloud application to what is now Legacy, which was a new application 20 years ago 09:46 – They're expanding out the product set in SnapLogic and providing all kinds of connections 10:12 – Is SnapLogic the unsexier version of Zapier, but more important? 10:26 – Zapier is a consumer place and Gaurav doesn't dislike it 10:32 – There have been companies, like Bump, who try to do certain kinds of things 10:56 – The problem of overt strata in business 11:05 – What they're solving on Zapier is on a personal level 11:20 – If you're trying to connect your human capital system with your SAP financial system and you are a big company, you will need something like SnapLogic 11:44 – SnapLogic is the industrial version 11:58 – SnapLogic is a PaaS (platform as a service) model 12:04 – SnapLogic is a cloud product and is like Google Chrome 12:33 – SnapLogic's average customer pay is $136K a year 12:57 – SnapLogic currently has 250 employees and is still growing 13:20 – SnapLogic's LTV 13:32 – "We've got many customers in 7-figures, already" 13:50 – "You can always buy that you can sell" 14:07 – SnapLogic has inside qualification people or SDRs for customer acquisition 14:24 – SDRs ratio 14:43 – SnapLogic has less than 20 SDRs 14:56 – CAC 15:49 – "We're a buzz company, customers love us" 17:15 – Gaurav looks at incremental growth 18:44 – Nathan thinks that it is so wrong for founders who focus on the LTV-CAC ratio 19:09 – "You don't want to be too conservative, right, because the early market share you get is the best market share" 19:26 – Gaurav shares the business metrics 19:46 – Try to do a 6-figure deal and try to have more customers than employees 20:06 – Average ARR 20:47 – SnapLogic hasn't broke the 9-figure ARR rate yet 21:05 – A company that can double its revenue has nothing to fear 21:34 – "What we're doing is building a robust business which, no doubt, is growing aggressively, but also has its feet on the ground" 22:50 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: If your company can double its revenue, it's a strong indicator that you are in good shape. The early market share you get is the best market share. Don't fret—opportunity knocks often. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his mone

Garth Moulton. He's invested and has advised a number of technology startups and was responsible for revenue growth for the channel for Pipl Inc. After 11 years of sales experience in the Bay area, Mr. Moulton had the perfect startup journey with Jigsaw, which was drawn up from 2 guys with a whiteboard to a $175M exit, in 2010, to Salesforce. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Speed of Trust What CEO do you follow? – Tim Ferris Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "That time is not boundless" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:18 – Nathan introduces Garth to the show 01:58 – Garth didn't get depressed after Jigsaw's exit 02:23 – Garth and Jim stayed at Salesforce for a year and a half, after the acquisition 02:43 – Pipl was running together with Jigsaw 02:48 – Garth met Pipl's CEO during the early days of Jigsaw and they partnered together 03:03 – Pipl would drive traffic to Jigsaw 03:51 – Pipl was a typical search engine, driving traffic to partners 04:31 – In the last 3 years, Pipl was more of a data company that sold API access and basic search tools to access data and profiles to 3 channels 04:46 – First channel is a search app like Spokeo and Instant Checkmate where Pipl supplies them the data 05:19 – Second channel is fraud alert and ID validation 05:44 – Pipl checks if the email is real 05:56 – Garth overlooked the companies that were going to use the data for sales and marketing 06:18 – Pipl is partners with Full Contact 06:39 – Nathan has been trying to find the mother of data sources 06:52 – "Jigsaw was the source of the data" 07:12 – LinkedIn is still the biggest source of data for B2B 07:50 – There's a LinkedIn private channel 08:26 – LinkedIn has gotten more and more aggressive in making the data available 08:58 – There have been CEOs who received a cease and desist order from LinkedIn 09:24 – Some of the companies are wholly dependent on LinkedIn 09:56 – Garth shares the same sentiment as Nathan that there's no mother data source 10:31 – The Data Dinosaurs' data accuracy is horrendous 12:30 – An average of a hundred corporations have bought the API access of Pipl 13:14 – Pipl's business solution average price point 13:21 – $1200 a year for unlimited searches, per person 13:37 – Team size is 40 13:47 – Team location 14:15 – Pipl is bootstrapped 14:27 – Garth became interested in Pipl, because it was completely bootstrapped 15:15 – Garth had an agreement that he would come on for a couple of years and expand the channel for Pipl 15:37 – Garth is on the cap table 17:00 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Data sources are sharing each other's data to grow and verify their own data—there is no mother of data sources. A company that is bootstrapped definitely has more freedom and control of their company. If you can start your business as early as you can, do it. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Benjamin Cohen. He's the CEO and leading T-REX, with a strong vision for the future of enterprise financial technology and its impact on marketing and making markets more transparent and efficient. He's built the T-REX team and the T-REX software platform by combining the most sustainable elements of finance with modern SaaS technology. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Influence What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn How many hours of sleep do you get?— Between 6 and 7.5 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wished that I knew that not everything was of the utmost consequence for my entire life" Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:24 – Nathan introduces Benjamin to the show 02:55 – T-REX is a fintech company that makes complex capital markets more liquid by making them more transparent and efficient 04:04 – T-REX provides a familiar framework where their clients can slice and dice everything 04:15 – "We're just making the risks more transparent" 04:20 – T-REX has an enterprise SaaS model 04:59 – Customers are paying $2k-20K per month depending on the functionalities they need 05:09 – Benjamin launched T-REX in 2012 05:55 – The Ecosystem Integrity Fund is T-REX's series A lead investor 06:12 – T-REX has raised $15M in total 06:26 - T-REX had 2 priced equity rounds 06:32 – Team size is 21 and based in New York 06:39 – Half of the team is based in Tel Aviv, Israel and are mostly software engineers 06:57 – The cost of living in Israel is a bit lower 07:35 – T-REX has over 225 users 07:51 – The 225 are all paying customers 08:28 – The model of T-REX is that investors are coming in and looking for different deals than what originators have out, which includes different loan portfolios—specifically in the renewable energy sector 09:34 – Loan's interest 09:44 – The secure ties 10:30 – Average MRR 11:13 – "I invested 2 years of my time before getting a dollar" 11:19 – It took Benjamin 2 years to raise capital 11:36 – Benjamin's fund was from his previous role in Macquarie Bank 12:12 – Renewable energy presented a great slate of a market 12:33 – Benjamin funded T-REX with a 6-figure capital 12:52 – A junior engineer's average salary from Tel Aviv 13:53 – Everybody in the company has equity 14:03 – Benjamin is the sole-founder of T-REX 14:32 – Customer churn is currently zero 14:54 – Benjamin is expecting T-REX to be incredibly sticky 15:20 – T-REX is selling additional seats and their customers can sell more modules 15:29 – T-REX can expand horizontally to different markets and vertically where they can sell different models 15:50 – Years ago, T-REX has set up their own broker/dealers 16:05 – CAC is dependent on the customers 17:11 – T-REX will do a $10K conference sponsorship and they need to be there 17:35 – T-REX series B closed in November 15th 20:00 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Be in the space that you know best and don't fear being a solo founder. It is actually GREAT to make mistakes and GREAT to fail, as long as you learn from it. Don't fear that every decision you make or action you take has a lifelong consequence in your life—it simply isn't true. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Pablo Estevez. He's a Mexican entrepreneur who co-founded HolaGus, an artificial intelligence company that focuses on automating customer service and sales via chat for Spanish speaking countries. Since founding his company, he has been distinguished for receiving awards like The Diamond Winner by MassChallenge. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – A lot Favorite online tool? — N/A How many hours of sleep do you get?— Usually 7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "That this is going to be really, really hard, I was going to work a lot of hours" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:14 – Nathan introduces Pablo to the show 02:00 – HolaGus develops AI to automate customer service and sales via any chat channel 02:11 – HolaGus charges businesses for every assisted conversation 02:39 – HolaGus's standard fee is 1-2 Mexican pesos 02:47 – HolaGus has a pay-as-you-go model 03:20 – HolaGus is a B2C business and is similar to GoButler 03:37 – "If we really want to scale the business, we have to focus on the AI" 04:04 – HolaGus was launched in 2015 04:10 – There are 3 co-founders 04:22 – HolaGus has raised capital and is about to close their third round 05:04 – HolaGus has raised a total of $1.4M 05:23 – HolaGus focuses on the customer's closing and how much automation they're able to create 05:39 – "We try to keep the bots, like, between 80-90%" 05:53 – HolaGus focuses on closing the biggest amount of clients that they can 05:58 – HolaGus has a lot of interesting commercial deals in the pipeline 06:09 – HolaGus has already sold 3 contracts 06:16 – HolaGus only started selling 4-5 months ago 06:21 – HolaGus is hoping to close 85 clients 06:55 – HolaGus is still on pre-revenue 07:10 – HolaGus has different projected revenues and models for their 3 customers 07:12 – HolaGus has an upfront development fee of $25K 08:02 – HolaGus pricing will depend on the technology 08:13 – HolaGus develops AI, specifically for a business 08:39 – HolaGus is now creating an ocean of knowledge 09:08 – "If we have a thousand clients, our AI gets smarter and smarter really quick" 11:08 – Pablo believes that they automate a lot 11:25 – Total projected conversations for the first 3 customers will be 20K-40K conversations 11:56 – HolaGus tries to charge a minimum of monthly consumption 12:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: AI technology can be complicated and needs continuous development. Play around with different payment models to see what works best and is most profitable. Starting and running a business is tough work—you just have to be dedicated. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Peter Aronson. He's an award-winning journalist who's has been featured on NPR and Marketplace. He's also been a vice president in the corporate world. Now, his startup helps Mexico transform that notorious Mexican tap water into perfectly drinkable clean-tasting purified water. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Founder's Dilemma What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — HubSpot CRM Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Peter wished he took business courses and knew about the GTD (Getting Things Done) methodology Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:12 – Nathan introduces Peter to the show 01:33 – People aren't supposed to drink the water in Mexico 01:41 – Mexico became the No. 1 consumer per capita in the world 02:08 – 70% of the consumed bottled water in Mexico is 5-gallon jug 02:21 – An average Mexican family is spending more for their water than on their broadband or landline 02:48 – Peter's company is Biluu 03:07 – Peter had been curious about the startup and business world 03:13 – Peter was the corporate vice president for US-Indian Joint Venture 03:30 – While in the Himalayas, Peter would boil his drinking water every day 03:35 – Eventually, Peter taught the people how to use a water purifier 04:00 – Peter searched how to properly filter water and what should be taken out 04:25 – Peter's wife is Mexican and he returned to Mexico 04:36 – Biluu is a for profit business, not a non-profit 04:44 – Biluu is currently doing direct sales and YouTube promotions 05:00 – The main challenge in Mexico is changing people's habits 05:12 – "We've had to establish trust" 06:12 – Biluu filtration system cost is $170 06:50 – For $170, they can get virtually unlimited purified drinking water for a year 06:58 – A cartridge will last for a year 07:11 – 1500 people are drinking Biluu's water 07:35 – Some of Biluu's filtration systems are in restaurants 07:53 – Biluu has sold around 100 units 08:10 – The previous water filters in Mexico weren't effective or scientifically proven 08:43 – 42% of Biluu's growth came from referrals 08:55 – Biluu isn't manufacturing by themselves 09:28 – Biluu has an exclusive license to the technology 09:39 – The deal is by volume commitment 09:57 – Biluu needs to maintain a 6-figure sales 10:14 – Biluu is totally self-funded 10:20 – Team size is 5 and all are based in Mexico City, Mexico 10:47 – Biluu is trying to look for brand ambassadors to reach out to people 11:06 – Biluu is also doing Facebook paid ads and Google AdWords 12:17 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: It's not easy to change people's habits, but you HAVE to try—especially if it's for the better. Learning from a community can be a life changing experience. Find a brand ambassador who has a good online reputation and large following. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Alex Mehr. He's the founder of Zoosk, which filed to go public in 2014. His current venture is MentorBox, a unique and new self-help concept. Before that, he was an aerospace scientist at NASA. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – How to Win Friends and Influence People What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — Trello Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— I try at least 8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "To take more risks" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:10 – Nathan introduces Alex to the show 01:43 – Zoosk announced to go public for $200M 02:24 – Zoosk decided to stay independent, so they didn't pursue going public 02:44 – When you go public, you make projections about the growth rate and what you want to do financially 03:05 – The expectations from the public market for tech companies who go public are different than those who do not 03:14 – Alex and the team didn't want the company to push hard for a quarter by quarter growth 03::50 – Zoosk was launched in 2007 04:00 – Alex and his co-founder split everything 50/50 04:21 – Alex and his co-founder have worked for 8 years and they never had a problem 04:40 – Alex and Shayan have different domain expertise and they respect each other's' domain expertise 05:30 – Zoosk has grown rapidly until 2014 05:36 – "But the company was not profitable" 06:40 – Alex still has his equity and is part of the board 07:36 – Zoosk is growing again 07:53 – MentorBox is a self-education self-improvement education box 08:07 – Alex has always been a book reader his whole life 08:33 – Alex would gift his friends books all the time 08:43 – 10% of the population's primary method of learning is reading 08:50 – There are 4 methods of learning: auditory, visual, reading, and kinesthetic 09:20 – The idea of MentorBox is a subscription for business books that Alex thinks everybody should read per month 09:38 – MentorBox makes the information concise so that you can study the main concepts in 10 minutes 09:46 – MentorBox delivers in 4 formats 10:28 – Tai Lopez is Alex's co-founder 10:41 – 7 years ago, Tai and Alex met at an online gaming conference 11:05 – It turned out that Tai reads 1 book a day 11:40 – Tai and Alex have a 50/50 deal with MentorBox 12:03 – Alex had a landing page to test MentorBox 12:19 – They had a video that explained the product 12:27 – Tai has a large social media following so he tested his ad on his social media 13:05 – In the first test, they were able to sell $80K worth of product 13:22 – MentorBox is priced at $89 a month 13:50 – MentorBox's retention 14:14 – MentorBox's space is education subscription 14:40 – Average retention in the space 15:12 – Tai and Alex knew that MentorBox would be a sustainable business 15:38 – LTV and CAC are both high 16:18 – MentorBox also relies on word-of-mouth marketing 16:37 – The cost per box drops depending on the volume 17:26 – MentorBox buys from distributors and publishers directly 17:48 – MentorBox is looking at getting directly from the author 18:18 – The number of books MentorBox has bought from Ryan Holiday 19:15 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The public market's expectations for companies that go public are very different and can put on additional pressures that, otherwise, wouldn't exist. Do what you love AND share what you love doing to other people. Be a risk-taker – you'll learn more that way. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Sean Ellis. He's the founder and CEO of GrowthHackers.com, he coined the term "growth hacking" in 2010 after using it to ignite growth for Dropbox, Eventbrite, LogMeIn and Lookout. He also founded and sold customer insights company Qualaroo, growing it to millions of dollars in recurring revenue. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Peep Laja Favorite online tool? — The Calm App Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wished my 20-year old self knew things are going to be pretty good" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:25 – Nathan introduces Sean to the show 02:03 – Sean speaks at The Capital Factory in Austin, Texas 02:07 – Sean's talk was about viral coefficients and why it's important to decrease the time of the original share to really drive growth 02:50 – If you don't have a lot value at the foundation of the growth, it's hard to make your business sustainable 02:56 – Sean tries to understands the value of the product first, then goes backwards from there 03:16 – Sean used the referral program for Dropbox 03:30 – Sean, together with the group, came up with the idea of giving away free storage for referrals 03:45 – Sean's friend tested a double-sided referral program prior to Dropbox 03:53 – Sean's friend is James Siminoff, founder of Ring and the previously the CEO of PhoneTag 04:45 – Sean provides advice on viral coefficients 04:55 – In the case of DropBox—"Referrals were strong before the referral program went in place" 05:12 – Understand what the motivation is for people to do refer 05:18 – Think about every step in the process; for example, what's the prompt that gets people to share? 05:42 – Optimize all the steps of the referral process 05:47 – The more you have qualitative and quantitative insights about what's happening, you're going to be more informed in the tests that you are running 06:41 – Eventbrite didn't have an incentive, but just a natural viral product in itself 07:18 – Eventbrite helps companies sell tickets 07:30 – Eventbrite doesn't only offer a convenient experience but also good SEO, social integration, and other factors that will help you sell tickets 08:00 – Sean worked for LogMeIn's marketing for 5 years 08:05 – LogMeIn is now a $5B company 08:07 – "Natural word-of-mouth was huge with LogMeIn" 08:10 – By the time Sean left LogMeIn, 80% of the users were coming in through word-of-mouth 08:15 – LogMeIn was spending more than $1M monthly with a 3-month payback on acquiring customers 08:21 – "Value drives word-of-mouth" 08:35 – At first, the majority of LogMeIn's users didn't really use the product 09:25 – The CEO and whole team worked together to find out the problem with the customer experience 09:55 – LogMeIn has always been cash flow positive 10:13 – Look up how Sean runs questionnaires in his Youtube videos and slideshows 10:31 – Qualaroo is about customer insights 10:45 – Sean acquired Qualaroo in 2012 10:49 – Qualaroo was acquired from KissMetrics 10:53 – Qualaroo was a side business and Sean was an advisor for it 11:08 – Sean built Qualaroo to millions of dollars of recurring revenue and sold it last year 11:45 – Sean bought it for less than a million dollars 12:00 – The revenue of Qualaroo was less than a hundred thousand dollars 12:25 – Qualaroo was acquired by Xenon 13:01 – Jonathan Siegel owns Xenon 13:14 – Sean wanted to sell Qualaroo and wasn't trying to get top dollar for it 13:57 – Sean had a 7-figure advance on the book, so he's not losing money 14:09 – Sean has signed with Crown Business 14:29 – Sean has self-published a book before 14:49 – Sean's background and Growth Hackers allowed him to get a great deal with Crown Business 15:00 – Sean is the guy who came up with the term "growth hacking" 15:09 – There are already a lot of publishers who approached Sean to write a book about growth hacking 15:22 – Morgan Brown is Sean's co-author 15:47 – Morgan and Sean hired an editor to write the proposal 16:10 – Sean's agent is Lisa DiMona 16:30 – The process is getting an agent to invest in your book, they help you with the proposal and they pitch your book 17:21 – Sean's plan to make the book a successful one 17:26 – First is to gain momentum to get on the New York Times' Bestseller List 17:43 – The weekly sales is what will determine whether you make the list 18:05 – "If you get on the list, then it's a lot easier to stay on the list" 18:32 – People's perception on growth is often a bit flawed 18:45 – Growth hacking is more about testing stuff and doubling down when something works 19:04 – Sean has some copies of his book for his Microsoft presentation 19:20 – Sean also has some copies for different companies 19:31 – Sean offers ticket bundles for Growth Hackers Conference in May, in LA 19:37 – Growth University's growth master training course has bundled with book sales 19:43 – Sean is running bundled ads, too 19:51 – Sean is getting sub $50 sales on

Kenny Ewan. He is in charge of the overall strategic direction for WeFarm where he oversees the day-to-day activities of the business. After graduating, he spent 7 years in Peru running an international NGO, specializing in work with indigenous communities. Kenny played the lead role in developing WeFarm, before launching it as a startup in 2015. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Chaos Monkeys What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Slack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I'm happy to let him make mistakes" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:18 – Nathan introduces Kenny to the show 01:49 – WeFarm is a growth focus model 02:29 – WeFarm offers their services to farmers 02:37 – WeFarm leads farmers to the sellers and WeFarm will take a small transaction commission 03:00 – WeFarm offers information in the space 03:08 – A farmer in Kenya who has no internet access can ask WeFarm a question, through SMS, for free 03:30 – 10-15 people in WeFarm's network will try to answer the question 03:45 – The people who answer want to share their knowledge about farming 04:12 – WeFarm has generated revenue, but they're still on pre-profit 04:20 – WeFarm just closed a seed round for $1.7M 04:27 – WeFarm started as an Impact project for Google and they won 04:36 – They used the prize as capital 04:42 – The prize was £500K 05:04 – Team size is 20 and is still growing; they're around the globe 05:41 – WeFarm uses radio to connect with more farmers 05:51 – WeFarm partnered with radio stations and invited farmers on 06:00 – 4-5K people were joining WeFarm in just an hour 06:12 – WeFarm also partners with businesses where farmers buy 06:45 – WeFarm currently has 140K farmers on their platform 06:55 – WeFarm measures activity by the number of users who actively contribute every month 07:55 – WeFarm is also available online 08:15 – WeFarm has a super active marketplace 08:32 – WeFarm doesn't incentivize people who answer inquiries, just like Quora 08:50 – WeFarm's roadmap this year 09:00 – WeFarm has 20 people 09:30 – WeFarm already has a couple of commercial contacts with a major retailer in UK 09:48 – "We have validated our revenue sources" 10:00 – 2017 target revenue is around $50K 11:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: A business does NOT always have to be revenue focused; helping people can be a goal in and of itself. We have a responsibility to help guide those who need it and access those who still do not have the internet. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, but be sure to learn from them. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Tyler Tate. He's the CEO of Crema.co, the coffee market place. Previously, he co-founded TwigKit, which is an enterprise search software and was the first design lead at Nutshell, which is a SaaS CRM platform. In each case, he used product strategy and design thinking to play its part in envisioning, designing and building products from the ground up. He's also co-authored the book called Designing the Search Experience which Morgan Kaufmann published in 2013. He's spoken at numerous conferences. While at TwigKit, he consulted for organizations such as The Financial Times, Thomson-Reuters, Qualcomm, Vodafone, ITV, Rolls-Royce, BASF and Gemalto, helping them design search-driven applications. He's originally from Alabama, went to University of Kentucky, and spent 7 years in UK. He's also lived in Seattle and currently resides in the San Francisco Bay area. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Tyler prefers reading blogs at the moment What CEO do you follow? – Michael Dubin Favorite online tool? — Trello Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Tyler wished he realized earlier how important a network is Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:35 – Nathan introduces Tyler to the show 02:41 – In TwigKit, Tyler was selling an expensive software product to large companies 03:00 – Tyler learned that he'd rather do something that is more marketing-driven than sales-driven—something that is more consumer-driven than enterprise 03:14 – Tyler's realization in switching to a coffee company from a SaaS business 03:28 – At Nutshell, Tyler was the first design hire 03:33 – Nutshell has 3 founders and a CTO 03:53 – Tyler, together with the whole team, was able to build something from the ground up 04:01 – Tyler had some equity in the business 04:38 – Tyler had put in $15K to Crema 05:05 – Tyler sold his equities back to TwigKit and Nutshell 06:03 – Tyler started working with Crema early 2015 06:08 – Tyler did a Kickstarter campaign and made $25K 06:19 – Tyler closed and had an Angel round 06:25 – A total of $325K was raised and $150K came from 500 startups 06:48 – 500 startups had a deal of $150K for 6% which is a standard deal 07:21 – Crema is a marketplace for coffee drinkers to subscribe to roast-to-order beans 07:35 – Crema has a platform fee on every order 07:43 – When you buy $18 worth of coffee, Crema takes a $9 platform fee and the other $9 goes to the roaster 07:58 – The price that you pay is almost similar to retail price and the roaster price is above their typical wholesale price 08:15 – The total price includes shipping and other fees 09:00 – $9 is a flat fee no matter the order size 09:46 – Crema's concept is a single-origin emphasis 10:12 – Crema does the co-production for the roasters 10:24 – Crema has a storytelling team that write journalistic write-ups for their website 10:43 – Team size 11:06 – Crema currently has 15 roasters 11:11 – With a total of 60 types of coffee beans 11:27 – Crema had 750 customers in January 2017 11:30 – Generated $17K on the platform 11:44 – Crema's growth is 28% month over month 11:48 – "We're targeting something like 10x growth" 12:07 – Crema's growth metric is based on GMV and revenue 13:55 – Average cart value is $17 for a typical purchase 14:08 – Each box of coffee is shipped individually 14:43 – A customer spends an average of $23 a month on the website 15:05 – Crema started in Kickstarter in October 15:13 – Crema has been generating organic traffic since then 15:48 – Crema has spent $5K for Facebook paid ads 16:06 – CAC is around $20-25 to convert website visitors to subscribers 17:02 – Crema ran surveys about people's coffee drinking preferences 17:29 – Crema had sample packs for new customers allowing them to try 4 different types of coffee 20:15 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Shifting from B2B to B2C is a breeze when you really know who you want to target. Great storytelling can engage consumers and connect them to the product. Do not hesitate to meet people, move around, and build a network for yourself. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jon Ferrara. He's in CRM—a relationship management entrepreneur and noted speaker about social media's effects on sales marketing. He's reimagined the CRM by building a simply smarter social sales and marketing platform. His most recent venture is called Nimble.com. It's the first CRM that works for you by building the updated contact data for you and then works with you everywhere you work. He's best known as the co-founder of GoldMine Software, one of the early pioneers in the Salesforce automation and customer relationship management in software categories for SMBs. He's recently been recognized by Forbes as one of the Top 10 Social CEOs and Top 10 Social Sales people in the world. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Think and Grow Rich What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff Favorite online tool? — Buffer Do you get 8 hours of sleep? — 7-8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Not to sweat shit so much" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:17 – Nathan introduces Jon to the show 02:13 – There was no Outlook, CRM or Salesforce when Jon had the idea of GoldMine 02:31 – Jon started on $5K with no bank loans and VC 02:35 – Jon ran GoldMine for 10 years, had 5M customers around the globe, sold it and retired at 40 02:44 – GoldMine was a software platform 02:55 – GoldMine started as a floppy disk until it became a CD 03:28 – Jon started GoldMine in 1989 and sold it in 1999 03:38 – GoldMine passed $70M in annual revenue, with 250 team members worldwide 04:00 – ARR wasn't necessary before when it comes to valuation 04:22 – Jon sold GoldMine for $125M in cash with no strings attached 04:55 – A year after GoldMine was sold, Jon was diagnosed with a head tumor 05:07 – "The most important thing you have around you is your health, next is your family, then your passion and business" 05:19 – Jon was 41 when they found the tumor 05:27 – "We are on this planet to grow our souls" 05:51 – After the tumor, Jon spent next 10 years of his life with his family and friends, adding value to people 06:15 – Jon got into photography and worked as the photographer for USC football for 10 years 06:42 – "You need to be your own advocate" 06:56 – Jon found a doctor who developed the technology to have a radiation beam reach the center of your head without touching any vital nerves 07:17 – The tumor disappeared after 7 weeks of radiation treatment 07:42 – The radiation is like burning the seed inside the watermelon without burning the watermelon's skin 08:18 – Jon started in social media in 2006-2008 08:33 – Jon saw that relationship managers are contact managers 08:58 – Jon looked at CRM and saw the gap 09:07 – You have to use salespeople to use CRM 09:08 – "That's why they're called salesforce because you force salespeople to use it" 09:27 – Nimble's team was formed in 2010, Alpha in 2011, and they turned the paywall in 2013 09:36 – "Just like with GoldMIne, I was early to the idea of an intelligent social relationship manager that works for you" 09:57 – Business is social and life is social 10:11 – First year revenue 10:21 – Jon got their first customer for Nimble the same way he got their first customer for GoldMine: 10:36 – Jon had a trusted advisor for his prospect 10:51 – Jon got his first $50K revenue in GoldMine from resellers 10:56 – Jon grew the $50K by mobilizing writers who write about technology and business 11:10 – In 2009-2011, there was no reseller because everything was cloud 11:27 – Jon looked for influencers 11:36 – Jon put in his own $3M to the company 11:48 – Jon also got some cash from Mark Cuban, Jason Calacanis and others 12:05 – Jon's money went to the company's capitalization 12:20 – Nimble currently has 100K customers and 10K paying companies 12:31 – An average of 3 seats per company 12:36 – Nimble is a SaaS business and is generating 80K website visitors with zero marketing 12:43 – Trial to paid conversion is 20% 13:05 – Nimble started at $15 per user per month 13:08 – It recently rolled out to $25 and will have $45 and $65 buckets with a $99 mark automation add on 13:16 – "Sales and marketing should never have been split apart" 14:07 – $200K average MRR 14:15 – Gross churn is about 3% 14:22 – "We provide a lot of value and satisfaction to our customers" 14:32 – Nimble just rolled with Microsoft Outlook mobile by providing 40M handsets for free 15:04 – CAC is really small because they don't have a large team 15:25 – You don't need to spend or overspend in order to build a company 15:35 – It is great to find people who want to grow with your help 15:42 – Rather than hiring a sales guy, Jon would rather hire someone who truly cares about the customer experience 16:16 – Jon's team is based in Santa Monica with remote workers in USA and Ukraine 16:53 – 2017 target revenue 18:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Engage with your customers and add value – don't always think about the sales. Share your passion with people on a daily basis, don't be afraid to bare your soul and make those conne

Ben Cantey. He's a San Francisco entrepreneur and has a passion about solving problems and changing lives through technology. He teaches entrepreneurship and lean methodology at universities and high schools on his free time. He's launching some bad-ass technology with a handful of math geniuses in a parking space. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Rough Riders What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Yesware Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 8 1/2 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Execute faster" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:18 – Nathan introduces Ben to the show 01:51 – Park Evergreen revolutionizes the way parking is sold and managed at airports 01:55 – Airports currently use a whole stack of services, suppliers and contractors that are outdated 02:15 – Park Evergreen uses geolocation technology to bring physical parking online 02:25 – Travelers can find a reserve pay per parking through Park Evergreen's app 02:35 – Park Evergreen is somehow a marketplace 02:49 – Park Evergreen is more focused on the traveler's experience 02:54 – Ben and his co-founders came from the consulting space 03:10 - Park Evergreen started out with customers who wanted to find paid street parking 03:23 – Park Evergreen currently has a couple of deals 03:30 – Park Evergreen started growing their revenue in June 03:54 – Ben is just happy that they got a great product market fit 04:03 – Most USA airports are now going into modernization projects 04:44 – There's an interesting balance between travelers who prefer to leave their cars and those who prefer to just take an Uber car 04:53 – Park Evergreen's average customers are business travelers who are gone for only a couple of days 05:18 – The airport modernization includes parking expansion 05:54 – Travels tend to get cheaper each year and more and more people are travelling 06:02 – The millennials demographic has the most frequent business and pleasure trips 06:28 – The parking growth is growing 4-5% per airport, per year 06:34 – Park Evergreen was founded in 2016 06:43 – Park Evergreen didn't want to compete with parking meters and pay machines 07:08 – Park Evergreen was making a couple of thousand a month 07:22 – Park Evergreen made $15K topline 07:33 – Park Evergreen's biggest cost was for CAC 08:02 – "It's a tough market, people are used to their options" 08:10 – Park Evergreen pivoted because they're tired of their mobile apps parking solutions 08:18 – SpotHero and ParkWhiz are the biggest in the space 08:28 – Park Evergreen has raised $150K from 500 startups 08:43 – Team size is 5 09:01 – The equity is divided by 5 co-founders 09:19 – Park Evergreen is bootstrapped and the 2 co-founders have been building everything for free 09:25 – Ben is in charge of closing deals and doing the strategy 09:40 – It's a balanced team 10:03 – The team had some contractual work on the side and some have full-time jobs 11:11 – Park Evergreen charges a flat fee per space that they manage per month 11:39 – The average is $100 per space 11:55 – The average top 10 US airports manage 18K parking spaces 12:00 – Some double or triple 18K 12:10 – Park Evergreen's market size in terms of market space is over 4M 12:50 – When a traveler books his flight, he books his parking space, too 13:06 – Park Evergreen shows the traveler 2 hours before his flight, the fastest route to the airport and to the parking space 13:22 – Park Evergreen can tell you exactly how long it will take a traveler to go from one place to another around the airport 13:46 – "I want our travelers to know when they look at their phones in the morning, before they leave their house, what time will they arrive at the gate, ready to get on the plane" 14:20 – Park Evergreen started their user acquisition in March for the contracts 14:30 – Park Evergreen is using SMS initially 15:08 – "The only way to park is to use Park Evergreen" 15:18 – Park Evergreen is doing 500 spaces for their initial pilot 15:35 – Park Evergreen's contracts are on an expansion plan 16:16 – As soon as you get to the airport, you can get a Park Evergreen ticket with a code that you will use to text 16:45 – You can pay Park Evergreen ahead of time via text 18:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Airport parking is a great space to be in at the moment because of the modernization projects that are on the way. To stay competitive in this space, provide the best traveler experience that you can. It's can be quite difficult to broaden people's understanding of their options, but that does NOT mean you shouldn't try. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments H

Jim Sweeney. He's the CEO and one of the founders of Clarify Medical. He began his entrepreneurial journey at Sharp Hospital where he worked full-time delivering hospital supplies while still in high school. He then spent 3 years in the US Army Medical Corps where he ran a remote, medical service dispensary serving 2500 families in Germany. He received a degree in business from San Diego State University. James has founded 12 medical companies including Caremark, Caps, Corum, Bridge Medical, CardioNet and co-founded Owned Outcomes. He's also led a successful leveraged buyout or LBO with McGaw Labs which he took public and is now owned by BBraun. His financing history includes raising venture capital and expansion capital for his ideas leading to over $25B in exit values of companies he founded. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Zero to One What CEO do you follow? – David Hale Favorite online tool? — N/A Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Between 4-6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Jim wished he knew "that the government would have the amount of influence on health care that they have, today" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:49 – Nathan introduces Jim to the show 02:53 – Clarify Medical has a first-mover advantage in the dermatology space 03:00 – They have well-established treatments for various skin diseases 03:17 – They've developed a device that will enable people to self-treat at home, using their smartphones 03:33 – The device will be launched directly to the patients 03:40 – The device is called Clarify Mobile UVB treatment system 03:59 – There are over 33M Americans who suffer from skin disease 04:21 – The device can be connected through the smartphone 04:51 – Jim has raised a little over $2B in venture capital 04:55 – Jim had an exit value of $25B for his companies 05:06 – There are exits via IPO and sales 05:40 – Jim shares why he decided to have an LBO with McGaw Labs 05:56 – Jim had been an employee of the company so he acquired the company with prior knowledge of what their issues were 06:26 – The deal was in mid-October 1990 06:33 – The company's valuation 07:27 – Jim bought the company with his friends 07:47 – The Clarify Mobile UVB treatment system device will sell for $600 or can be leased for $39 per month 08:15 – Jim expects to have long relationships with their patients because some of their skin diseases are life-long conditions 08:30 – If the device didn't exist, patients would spend $100 annually for therapeutic drugs which have various side-effects 09:30 – Obamacare has allowed Clarify to go directly to the consumers 09:43 – Jim thinks the total costs of Obamacare haven't been exposed 10:35 – Jim expects more medical companies will go directly to consumers 10:42 – The bad news is that people will spend more directly from their pockets than in the past 10:50 – The good news is doctors are now seen as customers 11:11 – The solution for healthcare is for patients to be more engaged with their healthcare providers 11:33 – Clarify will start generating revenue from the device later this year 11:36 – Jim has already raised $6M and is still looking to raise another $12-15M in the next few months 12:00 – Jim doesn't have a scientific explanation on how he came up with the pre-money valuation 12:22 – All of Clarify's financing at this point is from their pre series A round 12:43 – Team size is 12 but will double in the next few months 12:50 – The company is based in San Diego 13:00 – Jim can't disclose the cost of making the device 13:43 – The cost will carry a respectable margin 13:47 – The app will be sold for $9.99 per month, on a subscription basis 14:25 – Jim believes that Clarify's valuation will be into the billions for IPO exits 15:45 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: More healthcare providers are now going directly to consumers and are skipping the third-party service. Knowing a company by heart will make it easier for you to make a fair valuation. Making your employees a share holder of your company will definitely change their attitude towards the job, leading to a more successful company. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Bill Brice. He's currently the CEO of AlphaTrust Corporation which he launched in 1998, to capitalize on the sustained long-term shift from paper-based document businesses to fully electronic document processes. Bill is considered as one of the industry's pioneers and he's a leading authority of electronic signatures, especially around generating real economic impact and brand enhancement. He served as chairman of the board for the Electronic Signature and Records Association and is currently a member of the board of directors. Before his electronic signatures company, he started his entrepreneurial career, when in college, by co-founding Brice Foods and is chairman and CEO. He grew the company into a global enterprise best known for its chain of frozen yogurt stores. The company grew into 1500 franchise locations and 43 countries with manufacturing operations on 4 different continents. For his work, he was awarded as The Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the International Franchise Association, which is the world's oldest and largest organizations representing franchising worldwide. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — HubSpot Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "At that time, I wished I would know what happened with the internet before it happened" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:23 – Nathan introduces Bill to the show 02:36 – Bill was based in Dallas and that's where he started his yogurt company 02:57 – Bill's was the first company to bring frozen yogurt in Texas 03:15 – Frozen yogurt was first popularized in California 03:32 – Bill wanted to pioneer the first operational chain selling frozen yogurt in Texas 03:39 – Bill has turned to franchises and now has 1500 franchise locations 04:00 – The first franchise was $150K, $20K franchise fee and 5-6% royalties 04:34 – The frozen yogurt company had $150M in revenue 04:50 – In 1996, the franchise sold because someone wanted to buy it 05:09 – Franchise valuation is similar with other businesses 05:31 – The franchise was cash flow multiple 05:42 – 6-10x was the best multiple 06:15 – Bill was making a lot of software on the side of the yogurt business 06:53 – Bill was annoyed by the amount of paperwork a business had to go through 07:16 – A computer was about automating business 07:35 – Bill had a completely different team for his yogurt company than his e-signature company 07:41 – AlphaTrust is completely privately owned and funded 08:00 – Being privately funded allows them to focus on what they are doing 08:20 – AlphaTrust is in a specialized segment of a market 09:10 – AlphaTrust started on the enterprise businesses in the late 90s 09:24 – Some of AlphaTrust's clients are General Motors, ADP and AT&T 09:36 – Some of the big companies have millions of documents processed yearly 09:42 – AlphaTrust specializes in the high performance processing of documents 09:52 – AlphaTrust's customers still deploy and embed their software on premise 10:12 – AlphaTrust also operates cloud systems for their customers, but they support the plan and model the customers want 10:38 – The pro-side of AlphaTrust is quite small 10:53 – It accounts for only 10-15% of the revenue 10:56 – The rest of the revenue comes from licenses 11:50 – Average initial contract value is $50K-$500K 12:00 – Some of the customers pay for perpetual licenses 12:40 – AlphaTrust currently has 300 large enterprises 13:10 – Team size is 20 13:22 – AlphaTrust does direct sales, but they also have partner channels 13:46 – AlphaTrust has 20-30 specialists around the world who are part-timers 14:36 – AlphaTrust is happy with how they're doing at the moment 14:59 – Bill MIGHT sell the company to Salesforce if an offer comes 16:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The franchise business is the same as any other business – even when it comes down to the valuation. Working with big enterprises can set you apart in a saturated space. Saying "yes" to an acquisition isn't a terrible idea; instead, it's just a good way to exit. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Tobyn Sowden. He's the CEO of Redbrick, the second fastest growing software company in Canada and the birthplace of a product called Shift. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – How to Win Friends and Influence People What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — InVision Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I would tell myself technical, all the way" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:39 – Nathan introduces Tobyn to the show 02:00 – Profit Guide named Redbrick as the second fastest software company in Canada, by measuring revenue growth 02:25 – Profit Guide measured a whole 5 year period 02:30 – Redbrick had $200K revenue in 2010 and $10-20M in 2015 03:00 – Redbrick was launched in 2010 03:15 – Redbrick started from an app distribution perspective 03:38 – Redbrick has developed their own tools to track 04:20 – Redbrick's main software is Deskmetrics, which is integrated into Shift 04:31 – Deskmetrics currently has 500K active users 05:00 – Not all who downloads are active users 05:08 – The number of downloads are tracked 05:34 – SDK is a software development kit 05:59 – Deskmetrics provides consulting services 06:06 – Facebook is one of Deskmetrics' sources for customer acquisition 06:40 – Redbrick is currently spending around $30K for Facebook paid acquisition 06:54 – Redbrick is working with a team on Facebook and is committed to growing their spending into millions of dollars for growth 07:33 – Tobyn shares the idea of Shift 08:07 – Shift had a preview in September and people liked it 08:12 – Shift allows you to switch around your Gmail and google accounts 08:51 – Tobyn increased their team size and hired more developers 09:08 – Shift is a SaaS business with $20/year subscription fee 09:31 – Shift primarily uses Facebook for advertising 09:49 – Shift has around 30K installs and 10K active users 10:00 – Shift's free-to-paid conversion rate is around 4-5% 10:23 – Shift is 3-months old 10:48 – Tobyn needed to decide if they will launch Shift on December 20th or wait until 2nd week of January 11:16 – Shift is doing great at the moment and there's definitely a market for it 11:40 – Tobyn shares why they decided that Shift be a desktop download 12:53 – Tobyn wants to avoid integrations that will make Shift look like a browser 13:15 – Redbrick has 3 parts: the app distribution side, Deskmetrics and Shift 13:35 – The app distribution side is the major revenue stream 13:45 – Tobyn believes that their path is the app distribution side 14:16 – Team size is 37 and they're based in Victoria BC in Vancouver, Canada 14:31 – There are small teams in Poland and Brazil 15:12 – Deskmetrics is primarily a desktop software analytics platform 16:15 – An average customer pays $500 monthly 16:36 – Tobyn was charging per number of users, but they changed it 17:14 – Deskmetrics was launched in 2016 17:45 – Redbrick has a lot of predictive models that they used in terms of CAC 19:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Facebook is one of the best places, at the moment, for paid advertising. You can always go and develop more products, but recognize when it's wise to stick to the path you're already on. Charging per head can at times restrict your customers from using your product to its fullest potential. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Patrick McGinnis. He's the author of The 10% Entrepreneur which focuses on living your startup dream without leaving your day job, which was just published by Penguin Portfolio. He's also credited for coining up with the term "fear of missing out". He's a graduate of Harvard business school and is living in New York City. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup What CEO do you follow? – Sheryl Sandberg Favorite online tool? — Quip Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6-12 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Patrick wished he had more confidence in his abilities and more open to trying new things Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:30 – Nathan introduces Patrick to the show 02:10 – Patrick is a Wall Street refugee 02:21 – Patrick has his own advisory firm 02:29 – Patrick built up his portfolio of over 20 investments 03:04 – Patrick worked with his friend in Real Influence for free 03:14 – They sold $300K-$400K 03:19 – The business didn't push through and Patrick sold his shares 03:35 – Patrick was 33 03:46 – After a year, Patrick's friend asked him if he was interested in investing in a startup 03:51 – Ipsy has raised $100M 04:08 – Patrick is one of the first investors of Ipsy 04:32 – Ipsy's co-founder is Michelle Phan 04:49 – Patrick's friend who is the CEO of Ipsy met Michelle through Funny or Die 05:46 – Michelle's huge fan base made Ipsy spend zero on CAC 06:00 – How Patrick decided to invest in Ipsy 06:03 – Patrick's friend was already raising a round 06:33 – Patrick's friend already had a lead 06:38 – Patrick started his venture capitalist path in 2000 06:48 – Most of the deals Patrick looks at are simple deals 06:53 – Patrick invested in Ipsy in 2012 07:50 – Ipsy is one of Patrick's most successful investments 08:00 – Another one of his investments was Bluesmart 08:24 – He also invested in Affinity which is a big data company 09:04 – How many deals do you have to make to ensure there's a big exit in the portfolio? 09:12 – When Patrick started investing, he thought of the possible mistakes he could make as an investor 10:03 – As an investor, you have to invest in your area of expertise 10:08 – Second, think of the deal as a commercial deal, even with friends 10:21 – Third, don't follow other people 10:39 – Stay away from "will-to-be" syndrome 11:09 – Patrick was working with AIG's private equity fund 11:41 – Patrick shares why he wrote a book 11:48 – Patrick always talks to people about what he does as an investor 12:12 – As Patrick met with more and more people, he realized that he could actually help people believe in what he does 12:25 – "It's been a blast actually and I love writing, anyway" 12:56 – Patrick shares why he decided to have a publisher rather than self-publish his book 13:02 – Patrick wasn't a well-known media figure and a publisher would help his credibility 13:12 – Patrick got a great editor 13:24 – Patrick wanted to go global 13:34 – Patrick has sold an average of 50K copies 13:40 – A book update is given every 6 months 14:00 – Patrick gets around 10% royalties on sales 14:26 – Patrick's book is a bestseller in South Korea 14:48 – Patrick had an advance of around $100K prior to his book launch 14:58 – Patrick has an agent who is with UTA 15:38 – Patrick met his agent through his friend 16:02 – If you are generous to the world, it comes back to you in so many different ways 16:25 – "If you want to publish a book, you should know how hard it is" 16:40 – Publishing a book is like running a startup 16:54 – Patrick shared on a couple of podcasts which boosted his sales 17:03 – Patrick's book is in physical bookstores, too 17:20 – Patrick was also live in CNN Espanol in South America 17:37 – Amazon's ranking is always updated 17:44 – Patrick also has a group who does social media for him 18:22 – Launching a book is a process 18:56 – Patrick has a day job that covers the bills 19:12 – "Freelancing is great in terms of flexibility, but you build zero wealth" 19:48 – Patrick also invests in commercial real estate 20:04 – Patrick shares how he and his friend get dividends from real estate 23:25 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Investing in your friend's business is a commercial deal, so invest wisely. Be prepared—publishing a book is not a walk in the park and involves several processes. Freelancing is great in terms of flexibility, but you build zero wealth. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to list

Clate Mask and he has been educating and inspiring entrepreneurs for over a decade. He's recognized by the small business community as a truly visionary leader. His passion for small business success stems from his personal experience, taking Infusionsoft from a struggling startup to an 8-time Inc. 500 and Inc. 5000 winner. As CEO, he's leading Infusionsoft on its mission to create and dominate the market of sales and marketing software for small businesses. Under Clate's leadership, the company has landed 4 rounds of venture capital including a $55M series D led by Bain, with contributions from prior investors including Signal Peak Ventures and Goldman Sachs. He's also named Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, a Top 100 Small Business Influencer by Small Business Trends, and one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs of 2013 by Goldman Sachs. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm and The Advantage What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff Favorite online tool? — Thumbtack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Never If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Clate wished he knew that business, not law, was the path for him AND that building a team and culture is far more fun than making money. Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:18 – Nathan introduces Clate to the show 02:28 – When you serve small businesses, make sure you have the right target customers 02:35 – There are 27M small businesses 03:02 – "You got to get it right. You got to get the market fit" 03:20 – Infusionsoft focuses on businesses with 2-25 employees but the sweet spot is 2-10 employees 03:28 – Average customer pay per month is $250-300 03:54 – "It's CRM, marketing automation, sales automation, e-commerce on one suite" 04:03 – Majority of Infusionsoft's revenue is SaaS 04:10 – Infusionsoft's $3.4B payments processed 04:36 – Infusionsoft created their own payment solution 2 years ago 05:04 – It triggers all kinds of Infusionsoft's automation 05:50 – Infusionsoft started in 2002, as a software company 05:56 – Infusionsoft pivoted in 2007 and decided to really go for it 06:16 – "We started, like every small business, with no intention to build something big" 06:34 – Clate saw how Salesforce moved upfront quickly and that opened up the opportunity for Infusionsoft 06:43 – "Why not be the Quickbooks to sales and marketing software" 06:53 – Infusionsoft's dark days 06:56 – In the first 3 years, every day was a fight for survival 07:43 – The second dark day for Infusionsoft was when their product market fit went off and the churn rate went up to a 8% gross monthly customer churn 08:08 – Infusionsoft had raised $17M when their churn skyrocketed 08:38 – Infusionsoft's churn rate is usually 2-2.5% 09:15 – Infusionsoft has raised a total of $125M and about half was capital for the business 10:00 – "When you create something that's growing, there's always a new investor who wants to replace an old investor" 10:27 – When the round becomes "over-subscribed", you have to take a percentage of what you've raised and make it available for your existing shareholders to sell some shares 11:09 – Infusionsoft currently has around 600 employees and still continues to grow 11:20 – Infusionsoft has around 135K users 11:30 – Infusionsoft just completed their 10 year adverse completion 11:56 – There are more things coming up for Infusionsoft 12:27 – Average MRR 13:19 – Clate shares why they haven't gone public 13:58 – What happens is private money is easier to raise 14:06 – Historically, public valuation was better than private valuation, but that shifted over the years 15:00 – When the market changed in 2014, Clate had decided that it's better to stay private as long as they could 15:30 – Infusionsoft is currently between $100M – 150M ARR 15:51 – The leverage that Clate pulled to turn their monthly churn 16:10 – Infusionsoft is serious about helping small businesses succeed 16:22 – The breakage model that results in you having a lot of churn 16:45 – Infusionsoft says "no" to thousands of businesses every month 17:06 – The challenge when you serve small businesses is you that have to tweak and adjust to get the LTV-CAC ratio right 17:17 – Infusionsoft is currently at $4 LTV for a dollar CAC 17:44 – The LTV-CAC ratio is the number that every SaaS business has to manage well 18:15 – It's better to look at your revenue in unit churn 18:42 – The upfront fee was the number one factor for Infusionsoft's churn moving from 8% to 2% 21:05 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: When you serve small businesses, make sure you have the RIGHT target customers and be committed to helping your customers. Going public requires a deep understanding of how adaptable you can be in an ever changing market. The LTV-CAC ratio is the number that every SaaS business has to manage well—that's the trick. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email

Amarpreet Kalkat. He's the CEO and co-founder of Frrole, an AI (artificial intelligence) startup that is redefining consumer intelligence. He loves building things, be it product, revenue streams, teams or organizations. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Travis Kalanick Favorite online tool? — Klout Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Amarpreet would tell himself to focus and prioritize Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:22 – Nathan introduces Amarpreet to the show 01:50 – Frrole provides consumer intelligence 01:53 – Frrole relies on public data to build insights about the consumers 02:07 – Frrole works with companies' marketing teams 02:35 – eBay and Flipcut are some of Frrole's customers 02:44 – It is crucial for marketing teams to understand their customers 02:57 – Frrole works with eBay's shipping insides team 03:02 – eBay wants to understand their customer's shipping experience 03:34 – Frrole has data partnerships with Twitter and Facebook 03:40 – Frrole has official access to data 04:11 – Frrole looks at the attributes and annotations as a guide for the data they need 04:30 – Frrole is SaaS business and customers pay them for the insights 05:00 – Average customer pay per month is around $32K per year 05:28 – "Personally, I don't believe in locking customers in" 05:37 – Frrole has a 30-day walk out clause 05:46 – Most of Frrole's customers pay quarterly 06:08 – Frrole started as a B2C in the news discovery product, in 2012 06:14 – In 2014, Frrole pivoted to a B2B model 06:46 – Frrole currently has 13 team members 06:52 – The team is in Bangalore and Amarpreet goes back and forth between Bangalore and San Francisco 07:11 – Amarpreet is currently in San Francisco looking for a sales guy 07:25 – Amarpreet ideally looks for a co-founder kind of role 07:39 – Amarpreet is willing to give 5-10% equity 07:49 – Frrole has raised a couple of small angel rounds 08:00 – Frrole has raised a total of $250K 08:05 – Frrole currently has 18 paying customers 08:23 – Average MRR 08:45 – Average customer churn 09:36 – Frrole has 1 sales guy in Bangalore 09:50 – CAC 10:15 – Frrole spends $500-1K a month for paid marketing 10:39 – Frrole is recently experimenting with LinkedIn for marketing 11:18 – Frrole sponsors an email list and a banner ad 11:28 – It worked out okay 12:00 – Frrole is currently breaking even 12:10 – Salaries in Bangalore are way less than in the USA 12:26 – The best web developer in India would cost around $30K 13:58 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Customers will use your product if they see the value – locking in is not always necessary. Marketing people need to dig deeper to understand and serve their customers well. Know what your priorities are and focus in. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Amit Shanbhag. He bootstrapped RocketReach from 0 to over 300K registered users in its first year. RocketReach and RocketReach API are trusted by some of the largest companies on the planet like Apple, Google, Chase and Morgan Stanley—just to name a few. He has more than a dozen patents and has started his professional life writing code for geostationary satellites. He's also a judge for the MIT $100K competition and hopes to invest more time and money back into the startup ecosystem. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – N/A What CEO do you follow? – Sundar Pichai Favorite online tool? — Google Search Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 4-5 If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – Amit would tell the young ones to take risks, give everything you're doing a good shot, and that worrying isn't productive Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:28 – Nathan introduces Amit to the show 02:08 – Amit was in Episode 465 and just passed 100K paying customers 03:03 – RocketReach has 300K signup users 03:31 – RocketReach has doubled its growth 04:00 – "We tried to go more into the lead generation space" 04:21 – The end customers hold RocketReach responsible for higher quality data, which is out of their control 05:04 – RocketReach is similar to LeadGenius 05:10 – LeadGenius charges higher for their data 05:48 – LeadGenius uses a combination of people and software to gather data 05:56 – Amit wants RocketReach to rely purely on software, without human intervention 06:25 – The other problem with the lead generation space is when the users don't follow up with the leads generated for them, then put the blame on RocketReach for not having quality leads 06:51 – Amit isn't sure if Lead Genius is doing something about this problem 07:36 – CAC is quite high 07:52 – The lead generation part of RocketReach hasn't really piloted 08:17 – RocketReach was getting $3K – 7K per delivery set, but the retention rate is low 09:00 – RocketReach is using a lot of open APIs like AngelList and Crunchbase 10:17 – Most of the APIs that RocketReach uses are paid APIs 10:55 – Amit has decided that RocketReach will not continue down the lead generation path 11:06 – Amit wants customers to think of RocketReach as a productivity tool that is accessible on their browsers 11:26 – "We wanted to become more of a de facto productivity tool for sales" 11:33 – RocketReach focuses on features that can make a team more productive 12:17 – RocketReach doesn't have the self-serve team feature on their website, at the moment 12:57 – RocketReach currently has 7 team members and is still bootstrapped 13:02 – RocketReach has one of the highest revenues per employee in the lead generation space 13:12 – If RocketReach had continued with the lead generation model, it would have made sense to raise 13:25 – RocketReach is trying to scale without hiring a sales team 14:20 – RocketReach has an average of $70 monthly RPU 14:30 – But the number of paying users is complicated 15:25 – RocketReach's 120K users mentioned in Episode 465 is the number of registered users 16:13 – Amit doesn't see the need to reveal the number of paying customers 17:18 – Customers are paying anywhere from 1K-50K 17:42 – Gross customer monthly churn is 7% 17:53 – The churn has gone down a bit 18:56 – RocketReach has 2 different revenue streams 20:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The lead generation space isn't as easy as it seems. It IS possible to stay bootstrapped while, at the same time, scaling your business. Take risks, give your best shot, and worry less! Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

David Tavor. He has more than 20 years of experience as a general manager and founder of Biotech Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Company. He served as a fighter pilot and a commander in the Israeli Air Force and retired with the rank of a colonel. Mr. Tavor holds an MA degree in political science and national defense studies and MBA studies. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Born to Life What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs Favorite online tool? — David's common sense Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— About 3 or 4 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Lean on yourself" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:15 – Nathan introduces David to the show 02:04 – ParaSonic develops an ultra-sonic bomb that destroys lice and lice eggs 03:39 – ParaSonic developed a comb that treats lice in just one stroke of the comb 03:50 – The clinical trial was just completed and it was a success 04:52 – ParaSonic started in 2014 05:08 – The company was established within a technological incubator 05:16 – The incubator has 23% equity 05:45 – The incubator had put in $600K 05:51 – ParaSonic has raised an additional $1.6M 05:56 – ParaSonic is also in the process of raising $2M 06:28 – The rounds are equity rounds 07:28 – David's wife, Dana, is also part of the company 08:11 – ParaSonic has 5 team members who are mostly engineers 08:46 – The comb is going to be an over-the-counter product 09:05 – There will be 3 types of combs 09:25 – The comb's bristles are disposable 10:17 – David is also a chairman of 2 other companies 10:46 – One company developed a toothbrush where you can see your plaque through an app while you're brushing 12:17 – David is a freelancer for Colgate 13:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Developing a product in an industry that you are already familiar with is best for you. Consumers will believe in your product when you use the product yourself. Trust and lean on yourself. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Alessio Alionco. He's the founder and CEO of Pipefy, which is part of 500 Startups. He's a passionate product manager. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup What CEO do you follow? – Jason Lemkin Favorite online tool? — Yesware and Salesforce Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Alessio would tell himself to be aggressive with his goals Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:56 – Nathan introduces Alessio to the show 02:12 – Pipefy is a workflow cooperation software 02:21 – Alessio got Pipefy's idea from his previous company 02:36 – Alessio uses a CRM to manage Pipefy 02:45 – Pipefy has a dozen of processes 03:12 – "We coordinate people's work" 03:36 – Pipefy provides guidelines for a smooth, business process 03:48 – Pipefy is more of a people coordination solution and Zapier is similar to IFTTT 04:00 – Pipefy charges per user, per month 04:10 – Average customer fee is $200/month 04:20 – Pipefy started at the end of 2014 04:26 – Pipefy had its beta 04:36 – Pipefy released pre-signups in April 2015 04:51 – Pipefy became one of the most voted products of the day 05:23 – There was no revenue in 2015 05:32 – Pipefy started charging in August 2016 05:47 – Pipefy now has more than 400 paying customers 06:00 – Average MRR 06:54 – Pipefy offered a special price for customers who renew their subscriptions 07:00 – Pipefy has more than 60K customers who use them for free 07:24 – Only a small portion of the customers converted 07:40 – SMBs don't have business processes in place and aren't willing to pay for one 08:06 – Pipefy wants to focus on companies that are close to being considered enterprise companies 08:42 – Pipefy has raised a seed round of $2.2M 08:50 – Some of the investors are Zendesk's founders, Valour Capital, Redpoint Ventures, FundersClub and AngelList 09:06 – Pipefy has raised a total of $2.6M 09:13 – Team size is 33 09:32 – 27 are in Brazil and 6 are in San Francisco 09:55 – Pipefy is still hiring more people 10:00 – CAC 10:30 – Overall CAC is around $900 per company 10:50 – LTV is still hard to predict 11:34 – Pipefy's per seat pricing 12:10 – Pipefy negotiates deals with companies with over 10K employees 12:33 – 2017 revenue goal 12:50 – "It's really a huge funnel to raise the seed round" 13:00 – The series A dynamic is completely different 13:26 – 2016 total revenue 14:00 – Pipefy is aiming for a $200K MRR which is 10x the growth 16:05 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The best time to switch to a paid version of your product requires careful consideration to ensure the conversion takes place. Some SMBs rely on free business software and services for their processes—therefore, you may need to adjust your target audience. Be aggressive with your goals and just go for it. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Christopher Gibson. He's the co-founder and CEO of Recursion Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company leveraging the latest automation, computation and biological tools to perform drug discovery at scale. Chris holds a BS in bioengineering, a BA in managerial studies, and a bioengineering PhD from the University of Utah. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Perry Fell Favorite online tool? — Slack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 5.3 to 5.4 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Chris wished he knew where he was going to go so he could get to where he is now, faster Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:42 – Nathan introduces Chris to the show 02:12 – Recursion shortcuts the long, arduous path of drug discovery into the market 02:24 – Recursion combines the best elements of biology, automation, and computation 02:34 – Recursion partners with large pharmaceutical companies 02:45 – Recursion partnered with Sanofi Genzyme 02:51 – Sanofi had drugs that didn't end up in the market 03:10 – The challenges involved in being target-based 04:00 – Recursion earns from partnerships and royalties 04:20 – Recursion also has an internal pipeline for the drugs that they've developed themselves 04:43 – Recursion doesn't earn from the internal pipeline 05:51 – Recursion and what they receive from their partners 06:28 – There are partnerships with very, little upfront 06:34 – There are partnerships that have 8 figures, upfront 06:46 – The number of scientists that will work on the drug is also considered 07:22 – If Recursion is successful with their deals, they get royalties 08:38 – The royalties' lifeline 08:56 – Recursion has 40 people 09:25 – Recursion was launched in 2013 09:34 – They sat in their office until January 2014 10:01 – Chris was part of a program where he was paid a stipend, so he broke even 10:20 – Chris' parents were excited about his PhD 10:37 – Recursion has raised $19M in equity and $5M non-diluted from grants and private foundations 11:28 – Recursion's valuation as a platform company 12:14 – If Recursion will be successful, they will impact the society in a big way 12:41 – It is vision-based 12:54 – First year revenue was 6 figures 13:12 – "Our deals have been strategic in terms of the way we put them together" 13:45 – 2017 target 16:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Different sources of revenue benefit a company. The valuation of your company depends on how your company is currently performing and how well they will perform in the industry. First year revenue isn't always nil. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Gregg Freishtat. He's a technology executive with over 20 years of experience leading innovative and transformative companies. He founded 4 venture-backed startups, all of which had successful exits and is now building a company called SalesWise. He's deeply rooted in venture capital and the management of internet technology companies having led several through acquisitions. He's also handled developing and disruptive technologies, convergence of telecom plus internet, personal finance and online banking, web-based analytics and digital media, such as online marketing and currently relationship intelligence. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? – Mark Benioff Favorite online tool? – FullStory Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Don't sell your first company for $20M, when you can sell it for $50M" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:18 – Nathan introduces Gregg to the show 01:59 – SalesWise is a business relationship intelligence platform 02:03 – SalesWise helps sales leaders gain visibility of the most important relationships they have 02:17 – SalesWise is a SaaS company, but doesn't charge per seat 02:21 – SalesWise believes in democratizing data 02:31 – SalesWise prices based on the company size 02:52 – Average customer pay per month 02:53 – $500/month for entry level companies with less than 100 employees 03:00 – A company with 2K employees pays $2500 a month 03:11 – SalesWise was founded in 2015 and their current product was launched 4 months ago 03:33 – Gregg sold his last company to Outbrain 04:23 – SalesWise was bootstrapped for 6-8 months 04:50 – Gregg has raised a total of just over $3M 04:58 – All priced rounds 05:02 – Gregg's initial capital was a convertible note 05:12 – SalesWise has 12 team members and is currently hiring sales and marketing people 05:46 – SalesWise's current number of customers 06:00 – Average MRR 06:10 – The whole team is based in the Atlanta Tech Village 06:30 – Anticipated customer churn 07:16 – Some of SalesWise's competitors are Salesforce and Xero 08:17 – The guys in the BI space, like Domo and Tableau 08:43 – SalesWise isn't into web scraping 08:38 – SalesWise uses Clearbit 08:55 – SalesWise is breaking the linear relationship you have with email 09:29 – SalesWise walked directly into the APIs of Salesforce and Gmail 10:45 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Use your frustration as motivation to make things better. Keep building companies – you're constantly learning and contributing to the industry while doing so. Don't settle for less or devalue yourself and your company – reach beyond your expectations. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Matthieu Vaxelaire. He's the CEO of Mention where he moves all Trello cards to the right and closes deals. He splits his time between Paris and New York City. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Rand Fishkin Favorite online tool? — Hull Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6-7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Do more things and read less as you learn much more by doing than reading" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:17 – Nathan introduces Matt to the show 01:37 – Mention is Google Alert on steroids 01:51 – Mention is a SaaS business 02:05 – Mention has different segments of customers 02:08 – The SME customers pay an average of $65 monthly 02:13 – The mid-market customers pay an average of $400 monthly 02:25 – Average customer pay per month 03:20 – Most of Mention's customers don't like sharing their information 03:40 – Ogilvy uses Mention to track the campaigns they're building for their clients 04:17 – Mention is also an inferential tool 04:49 – Mention raised capital at an early stage 05:03 – Mention raised a total of $500K 05:11 – There are 45 people on the team and 10 are in NY, the rest are in Paris 05:50 – Prior to Mention, Matt worked at eFounders which is a startup studio 05:57 – Mention was one of the startups built by eFounders 06:20 – Mention has over 600K users and over 4K paying customers per month 06:42 – Mention's free version 07:20 – Mention uses a number of features 07:53 – There's no touch sales in the SME market 08:01 – The mid-market is inside-sales driven 08:15 – There are 2 groups of inside-sales teams: the inbound and outbound with 6 people in each group 08:50 – Average MRR 09:28 – Mention is more focused on gross MRR churn 09:35 – SME gross churn is 2% 10:43 – Mention is almost in a negative net churn 11:20 – Mention has an average of 10K signups per month 11:47 – Mention is currently spending $5-10K on paid advertising 12:04 – Mention is exploring other advertising options like G2 Crowd 12:20 – Mention's first trial result with G2 Crowd isn't that encouraging 12:44 – Mention uses a strong open-content strategy to drive people to their website 13:17 – CAC 14:00 – Matt is willing to spend up to $1K to generate new mid-market customers 14:17 – 2017 goal 14:58 – Mention is currently in the process of raising 15:07 – An $800K MRR by the end of December 2017 is a good number 17:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Sometimes, you got to spend to acquire those new customers. Paid advertising isn't the only solution to drive traffic to your site. Get out there and start moving—you learn more by doing than by reading. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

In Episode #629, Nathan interviews Jennifer Reyna. She's got a lot of energy and more importantly, she studied business creation and development in Mexico. She's created 3 startups so far, Agri DeliCo which is a socio-company, Brain Fusion which is embedded in software development, and Gaszen or gas management. They've raised over $650K in Mexico and have developed their own working product. She's a mother, lover, sister, and daughter that enjoys her life and lives with zero regrets. She said, after all, there's only one life and she's in a constant pursuit of the best version of herself. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Lean Startup What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Slack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "That hard work can make everything happen for sure" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:34 – Nathan introduces Jennifer Reyna to the show 02:22 – Jenny realized that people complain about their gas 02:38 – Jenny created a device that works with stationary tanks 02:48 – Gaszen has an application where the consumer can see his gas consumption, statistics, and choose the best gas supplier 02:59 – Gaszen monetizes through selling information to gas suppliers 03:08 – Gaszen also monetizes from a consumer who wants automation 03:34 – Gaszen isn't in the market yet and is still finishing its development 03:41 – Gaszen will start selling in April 03:43 – Gaszen already approached gas suppliers and has pre-ordered from them 03:57 – There are already 2 gas suppliers who have bought from Gaszen 04:05 – Gaszen also has real estate clients 04:31 – Gaszen has partnered with 3 real estate firms 04:35 – Gaszen is currently in discussion with 15 more real estate firms in Mexico 04:48 – The firm buys the device for $77 04:59 –The device will go directly to the buyer of the house 05:21 – Gas suppliers get a discounted price for buying the device in bulk 05:48 – Mexico has problems with gas suppliers giving updates 06:08 – Each gas supplier bought 5k units of the device 06:19 – The amount per piece will be $50 06:38 – Having clients before the actual launch of the product is good for Gaszen 06:49 – Gaszen's first Kickstarter 07:07 – Gaszen raised 80K Mexican peso 07:19 – Gaszen had 111 backers 07:41 – Gaszen is B2B focused 07:48 – Gaszen has raised their first seed round with a total of $350K 08:05 – It was an equity round 08:14 – Gaszen started 2 years ago 08:26 – Gaszen had Angel investors and won the biggest Hackathon in the world 08:47 – Gaszen raised $300k with Angel investors 09:13 – From the gas suppliers, Gaszen charges after the 6-month trial, a monthly fee is charged per device or per device and user 09:32 – Gaszen charges 9 Mexican pesos per automated service 09:59 – Gaszen has no MRR currently 10:23 – The team has 5 people in management and 3 junior engineers 10:43 – The team is based in León Guanajuato, México 11:03 – It costs Gaszen $36 to make the device 11:30 – The whole device is made in Mexico 11:43 – The volume needed per year is 50K units in order to get a better price 12:13 – Gaszen wants to keep manufacturing in Mexico, if possible 13:45 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Look at the most common problem and create a solution. If you can keep sourcing and manufacturing locally and with a good price, the better. Keep at it—hard work definitely pays off. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

In Episode #628, Nathan interviews Iddo Gino. He's the CEO and co-founder of RapidAPI which he founded when he was 16 years old. He's listed on the Forbes 30 under 30 list and previously, he was the co-organizer at Hacking Gen Y. Originally from Israel, Iddo, currently resides in San Francisco, California where he runs RapidAPI and runs JavaScript projects on the side. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Stewart Butterfield Favorite online tool? — GitHub Do you get 8 hours of sleep? — 6-7 hours If you could let your 10-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wish I knew what I didn't know back then" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:22 – Nathan introduces Iddo to the show 01:57 – RapidAPI let developers find APIs online 02:09 – RapidAPI has a marketplace model where developers can pay for the APIs 02:16 – RapidAPI's processing fee is from 10% - 25% 02:30 – The fee depends on the API vendor 02:46 – RapidAPI is like a point connection for developers to find APIs 02:55 – Iddo was part of Hacking Gen Y 03:09 – Iddo realized how powerful APIs were while he was at Hacking Gen Y 03:18 – Iddo created the first version of RapidAPI 03:41 – Together with Iddo is his co-founder, Mickey Haslavsky 03:49 – Team size is 20 03:58 – The engineering team is in Israel and marketing and sales teams are in San Francisco 04:10 – Developers' salaries in Israel 04:34 – RapidAPI just announced their seed round in November 04:44 – Total amount raised was $3.5M and an equity round 05:00 – RapidAPI started as an open-source project 05:40 – There are 148K apps or projects that have used Slack in RapidAPI 05:54 – Slack is a free API and the service is free, but there are paid APIs 06:43 – Average MRR 07:06 – The fee is charged from the API and not the consumer 07:16 – Any consumer transaction in RapidAPI is free 07:31 – One of the most popular paid APIs is Twilio 08:01 – If someone connects to Twilio API through RapidAPI, that's when RapidAPI takes the processing fee 08:31 – "RapidAPI is all about neighboring developers to connect with APIs" 08:40 – RapidAPI will soon open a facility for developers 09:12 – Iddo volunteered for Hacking Gen Y and helped Hackathons 09:21 – Iddo was working on creating apps and websites prior to RapidAPI 09:36 – Iddo is currently 19 and his parents are just excited for him and what he does 09:54 – Iddo still thinks of going back to college, but is currently enjoying RapidAPI's success at the moment 11:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: APIs are powerful and having a one point connection is beneficial for the developers. In the process of helping people, you also learn from them. Being an entrepreneur at an early age opens you up to the opportunity to learn more. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

In Episode #627, Nathan interviews Mark Mader. He's the CEO of Smartsheet. He's passionate about delivering superior, customer experiences. Mark strives to find innovative ways for customers to collaborate more intelligently using the Smartsheet platform and its partner ecosystem. Prior to Smartsheet, Mark served as SVP of Global Services for Onyx Software, leading the consulting and consumer operation team in America, Europe and Asia. In 2015, he was recognized as Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of Technology for the Pacific NorthWest. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Play Bigger What CEO do you follow? – Stat Mandella Favorite online tool? — Tripit Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – "You tell me what the major trends are in the next 3 decades, in tech, and I would make you a lot of money" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Mark to the show 02:21 – Smartsheet is a software SaaS company 02:27 – The people who subscribe to Smartsheet are teams and enterprise teams 02:47 – Smartsheet is similar to Trello's space but in the enterprise class 02:57 – Smartsheet has everything from time tracking to other things that are more diverse in nature 03:23 – Smartsheet serves 65K distinct brands on a paid basis 03:30 – Each brand pays an average of $1K annually 03:36 – The range is $200 to $1.6M annually 04:08 – Average MRR is $5.4M 04:20 – Smartsheet has been growing really well for the past 4 years 04:43 – "As you grow bigger, the gross rate is more challenging" 04:47 – Smartsheet isn't only focused on getting new customers, but on helping their customers grow as well 05:23 – 2016 revenue 05:37 – 2017 target ARR 06:10 – First year revenue was zero 06:37 – Smartsheet's promise didn't change, but how they brought the product to the market changed dramatically 06:55 – 60% of Smartsheet's revenue came from customers who learned about Smartsheet organically 07:18 – Smartsheet's first million ARR was in 2010 08:02 – Smartsheet has raised a total of $70M 08:16 – Mark feels that they have a really good platform 08:21 – Team size 08:55 – Have the balance sheet in your model if you want to invest more this year 09:06 – Smartsheet is still trying to focus on efficiency in their growth model 09:34 – Smartsheet's current status is that they have the decision to slow their growth or drive profit overnight 09:57 – "Control your own destiny" 10:06 – Smartsheet is currently not cash flow positive, but still a healthy business 10:20 – Smartsheet is based in Seattle, Washington and will have an office in Boston 10:48 – Smartsheet has a diverse funnel 11:02 – Smartsheet spends millions of dollars in paid advertising a year 11:34 – One of Smartsheet's keys to growth is to go where the action is 11:39 – "Dominate in the world of collaborative, work management and partner effectively with the tools people use and love" 11:50 – "Partner with the places where heat exists" 12:08 – It's about having an ecosystem mindset 12:30 – Gross customer churn 13:17 – Smartsheet has a broad population service 13:31 – "The key to sustain long-term growth is not just keeping up, but expanding" 13:59 – Smartsheet can still grow by 30% in 2017, without new customers 14:17 – Smartsheet charges the people who create new work in their application 15:00 – Smartsheet's safe LTV 15:25 – Smartsheet looks at their specific sources and campaigns 16:06 – Smartsheet's cohort analysis 17:22 – Smartsheet's last round of raising was in 2014 19:16 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Focus not only on acquiring new customers, but helping your current customers to grow their company. The key to sustaining long-term growth is not just keeping up, but expanding. Dominate in the world of collaborative, work management and partner effectively with the tools people use and love. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

In Episode #626, Nathan interviews Derek Thompson. He's a Senior Editor at The Atlantic, one of the biggest media companies out there. His first book, Hit Makers, is about the science of hits, pop culture, and technology and why people like what they like. He currently resides in New York. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Homo Deus What CEO do you follow? – Mark Zuckerberg Favorite online tool? — Evernote Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Take more risks because people are fundamentally resilient and can handle the downside of those risks" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Derek to the show 02:15 – The reason people go into journalism is because they seek answers to questions 02:21 – For Derek, the best reason to write a book was to answer questions 02:29 – Derek loved writing about what people like 02:33 – People say a book has to have an "elevator pitch" 02:39 – Books are more of a broken elevator 03:36 – "Creativity is the ability to come up with surprising answers to familiar problems" 04:36 – Derek wrote his book to allow himself the opportunity to be curious about anything he found interesting 05:00 – Derek worked with Penguin Publishing 05:10 – Derek had an agent, Dell Ross, who was Derek's proposal doctor 05:35 – Derek and his agent sent the proposal to every publisher they could reach 05:43 – Derek also talked directly to publishers 06:06 – There are a lot of different audiences for a single book 06:10 – Derek's agent was his first audience member 06:18 – Derek picked his agent because she's unsentimentally intelligent and has a motherly approach 07:27 – Hit Makers came out in February 2017 08:08 – The rating in Amazon was quite high for a first-time book writer 08:40 – "Self-publishing is riskier" 09:15 – The average amount an author gets for the book sales 10:30 – Derek hasn't talked about his advance with his agent 10:58 – The delta was probably about 2X 11:11 – There are publishers who believed that Derek's book wouldn't work at all 11:20 – Almost all book proposals from first-time authors are rejected and the best example of this is J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter 12:46 – "The future of popularity is a very tricky business" 13:13 – The easiest metaphor for the science of popularity is the weather 14:09 – One of the theses in the book was to ask the question: is virality a myth? 16:45 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Creativity is the ability to come up with surprising answers to familiar problems. Most book proposals from first-time authors are rejected, but there will be that ONE who will believe in you. People are fundamentally resilient, so TAKE that risk – the regrets of not taking that risk will be more difficult to handle. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

In Episode #625, Nathan interviews Josh McCarter. He's the co-founder and CEO of Booker Software, a leading business management and marketing solution serving over 10,000 health and beauty businesses. Josh has served in a variety of senior executive board roles at various technology companies including Arbitech, Spafinder and Autobytel. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Make Big Happen What CEO do you follow? – Steve Case, author of The Third Wave Favorite online tool? — OpenTable Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Startups are a blast, but they are not easy" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:23 – Nathan introduces Josh to the show 01:59 – Booker is a business management and marketing solution for health and wellness businesses 02:08 – Booker is like OpenTable 02:16 – Booker does everything for a business to run 02:31 – Booker gains revenue from their subscriptions averaging $150-250 monthly 02:48 – Booker also has merchant processing 02:53 – Booker also sells its add-on product, Frederick 03:50 – Josh started to focus on the spa industry because of the technology from his previous company 04:25 – "It's important to understand what type of customers you serve best" 05:31 – Josh shares how he spun out of business in his previous company 06:00 – Make sure you have the right type of structure when you spin out a business 06:10 – Give preferences to the shareholders 06:18 – It took Josh 6-9 months to get all the right structures and licensing in place 06:30 – Josh had a series A for $150K in 2011 06:42 – Spafinder had put in the initial capital for Booker 07:17 – Booker's current team size is around 200 07:26 – Booker has raised a total of a million 07:47 – You have to do a proper valuation for a spin out 08:30 – First year revenue 09:00 – Booker is currently at 10K locations 09:20 – There is a fee per location 09:34 – A company who has more locations pays more 10:05 – Average MRR 10:25 – Booker does a lot of upselling and retention 10:41 – Booker makes sure that they keep their existing customers happy 10:50 – "You've got to focus on upsell opportunities" 11:20 – Booker's merchant processing 11:37 – Online booking for spas is more common 11:58 – First Data is Booker's newest investor 12:54 – Average total transactions 13:15 – Josh is currently not in any acquisition talks and isn't raising a round 13:23 –"We've got some good runway" 14:05 – Gross customer churn 14:30 – "50% of our churn is the people who ran out of business" 14:39 – Failure rate of the SMB market is quite high 15:00 – CAC 15:05 – Most SMBs in SaaS and marketing business spend $1500-3500 to acquire new customers 15:40 – Frederick came to Booker for partnership 16:10 – Frederick was able to look at how SMBs are retaining their customers 17:22 – Frederick was able to get high conversion and retention metrics 18:14 – Frederick is integrated heavily into Booker 18:38 – Team location 20:16 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: It's important to understand what type of customers you serve best. Make sure you have the right type of structure in place when you spin out a business. Startups are a blast, but they're definitely not easy—be willing to put in the work. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dave Currie. He's an entrepreneur-leader in the sales intelligence space, specifically for advertising, media, and the tech industry. Since 2014, he's directed the company on a rapid innovation and growth trajectory. They are recognized by their customers and the industry as one of the largest, agile, fast-growing, private companies and the best place to work in America—the company, TheListInc.com. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Kyle Porter Favorite online tool? — N/A Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Absolutely If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Balance is as important right now as you thought about it then. Being healthy is #1. Work and everything fall into place when you got your priorities stacked up the right way" Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:40 – Nathan introduces Dave to the show 03:20 – The List is also known from their other products 03:34 – Winmo was launched last year 03:41 – Winmo is the lead brand 03:52 – Winmo is a subscription-based, sales intelligence platform 04:01 – Winmo provides sales intelligence to national advertisers 04:28 – Winmo has an annual subscription 04:45 – Annual subscription increases the valuation 04:55 – Winmo has been completely bootstrapped since day 1 05:09 – The List started in 1995 and went online in the early 2000s 05:25 – Dave came into The List in 2005 05:45 – The List is a joint venture with a company in the UK 06:08 – The team currently has 85 members 06:27 – Average annual customer pay 06:38 – Winmo initially charges $400-500 per user annually 07:07 – CAC 07:14 – "We're very deliberate with our marketing efforts" 07:24 – 2014 paid marketing expenditure was around $100K, but was toned down currently to $50K 08:03 – The $50K would go to Google AdWords and some retargeting 08:17 – Dave's target CAC 08:50 – Dave's looking into 25% conversion rate 09:17 – Winmo has 4 targets in the UK and USA 09:44 – Winmo also sells to marketing services agencies 10:19 – Winmo has a good customer retention 10:46 – Winmo is just a bit stronger in the media space over the agency 11:30 – Winmo's customer retention is a bit lower than revenue retention 12:05 – Lifetime Value 12:24 – Dave calculates retention on a 90-day cycle 13:06 – The question of when you consider a customer a "new customer" 14:10 – Average number of customers 15:35 – Average MRR 15:52 – Dave shares what is considered healthy in his business' space 16:28 – Dave is part of the succession team of The List 16:46 – Dave and the team is not looking into going out and will just stick to being bootstrapped 17:05 – Dave won't sell the company for $90M or higher 19:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Be deliberate with your marketing – it pays off in the end. A healthy business can stay bootstrapped for a very long time, and still be OK. Regardless of whether you're young or old, new to business or not, balance is KEY. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

In Episode #623, Nathan interviews Richard Brasser. He's the foremost expert in helping companies increase the effectiveness and influence of their Salesforce's strategic use of social communication. He does this through his company, rFactr. Richard pursues his focus in enabling salespeople to leverage social communication and build more meaningful relationship. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm What CEO do you follow? – Tony Robbins Favorite online tool? — Outlook Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Very rarely If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Richard wished he knew the concept of compounding interest and the concept of deferred asset allocation Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:34 – Nathan introduces Richard to the show 02:15 – Companies need to engage their buyers in a more meaningful way 02:32 – rFactr is focused on enhancing sales people's ability to connect with people 02:51 – rFactr's platform is called a social port 03:15 – rFactr has a per month/per user model 03:26 – rFactr is not a marketplace 03:33 – rFactr is directly plugged into companies' CRMs 03:55 – Average customer pay per month 04:15 – rFactr has channel activations 04:40 – rFactr's starting price is $5K a month 04:49 – rFactr was launched in 2009 04:57 – rFactr was bootstrapped for the first 8 years 05:04 – rFactr had a seed round and will probably have a series A 05:17 – rFactr has raised a total of $9M 05:32 – Richard played golf on tour for 7 years 05:45 – Richard made a good amount from playing golf 06:01 – Richard was already 7 years in business when he needed someone for the operations and finance side of the company 06:08 – Richard's partner was just exiting his software company when he joined rFactr 06:25 – Nathan tells Richard about Episode 615 where he had Shin as a guest whose company makes carbon fiber golf shafts 06:47 – Richard hasn't seen Shin's product 07:05 – The seed round is an equity round 07:17 – The last round was in 2010 07:40 – The company has been around for 16 years, but the main product was developed 9 years ago 07:51 – Richard's company started as a strategy and consulting firm 08:33 – Richard shares how the first company was valuated 09:31 – Team size is 18 09:39 – rFactr has 220 paying customers 09:44 – Average MRR 10:29 – Richard shares why they're having the small companies together with the biggest ones 11:25 – Gross customer churn 11:37 – CAC 12:08 – rFactr has no paid marketing 12:23 – Team's location 13:45 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Small companies may not be able to pay as much as the big companies, but the level of help they need is similar. Use your money from your exit for your new company. Paid marketing isn't always necessary—know your options to better decide if it's right for you. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

In Episode #622, Nathan interviews Nektarios Liolios. He's the CEO and co-founder of Startup Bootcamp, Financial Technology, and Insurance Technology—the leading innovation program in the financial and insurance industry. They provide funding, mentorship, office space in the heart of London, Singapore, New York and Mumbai and access into their global network including investors and VCs, up to 10 folks, each time they do it. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Slack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Nektarios wished that at 20, he would have known that he didn't know everything and to be less scared Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:28 – Nathan introduces Nektarios to the show 02:08 – Startup Bootcamp FinTech is a network of accelerators 02:17 – It is cohort-based 02:24 – The programs are industry focused programs 02:58 – Startup Bootcamp FinTech has 400 companies that have graduated 03:12 – Startup Bootcamp FinTech was launched in January 2014 03:29 – Nektarios shares how Startup Bootcamp FinTech started 03:56 – "To add real value, you need to be super sharp in your focus" 04:20 – Startup Bootcamp FinTech doesn't take investments, but they take equity 04:30 – Startup Bootcamp FinTech takes 6% equity 05:52 – Startup Bootcamp FinTech has a variety of programs 06:35 – One of their teams is in Singapore 07:30 – Walnut Algorithms of France is part of their program 07:47 – It was built thinking it would revolutionize the algorithm industry 07:57 – Startup Bootcamp FinTech usually works with pre-seed startups 08:05 – Their products are not ready to launch yet 08:38 – Startup Bootcamp FinTech had 60 companies that are FinTech focused 08:52 – Buzzmove is one of the companies that have raised the most 09:05 – It provides accurate data for home insurance 09:25 – It is a data provider solution 09:35 – It sells to insurance providers 09:54 – Startup Bootcamp FinTech programs are funded by the industry players 10:26 – Nektarios shares what drives their company 11:07 – Who will win, Betterment or Wealthfront? 11:49 – It is difficult for Nektarios to discern which company will succeed 12:25 – Nathan shares his interview with Andy of Wealthfront 12:58 – Startup Bootcamp FinTech is the only program with the global reach 13:08 – Startup Bootcamp FinTech offers every entrepreneur in the globe access to their network 13:24 – The Global Insurance Accelerator is their only competition 13:34 – Nektarios shares what he thinks of the insurance space 13:58 – Insurance people are relevant to the industry 14:24 – Startup Bootcamp FinTech creates fund structure for every program 14:42 – Startup Bootcamp FinTech needs a minimum amount to run a program 15:05 – Every location of Startup Bootcamp FinTech has 5 people 15:53 – Startup Bootcamp FinTech isn't driven by a commercial perspective 17:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: To add real value, you need to be razor sharp in your focus. Insurance space has so much potential to be a lucrative space—it's less crowded and there are so many problems to solve. Just go for it—take the consequences as it's going to be a ride. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

In Episode #621, Nathan interviews Nevin Shetty. He's the co-founder and CEO of Blueprint Registry, an innovative wedding registry platform where you can shop for products from a variety of retailers based on the layout of your home. The company has generated over $10M in their first 2 years of operation. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Smarter Faster Better What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — SimilarWeb Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I should've learned computer programming" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:25 – Nathan introduces Nevin to the show 02:00 – Blueprint Registry is a wedding registry platform for newly-engaged couples 02:23 – Blueprint Registry gets commission from the retailers on their platform 02:38 – An example of Blueprint Registry's partners is Target 02:43 – Nevin explains how their platform works and how it is different from the traditional wedding registry 03:08 – Instead of couples going to different retailers physically, they can just go to Blueprint Registry 03:23 – Blueprint Registry has a unique visual representation of your home 03:45 – Blueprint Registry was conceptualized in January 2015 03:49 – Nevin shares how he came up with the idea 04:04 – Blueprint Registry's co-founder is a designer 04:13 – Nevin found his co-founder through networking 04:55 – The equity conversation with the co-founder 05:21 – Blueprint Registry was launched in 2014 05:29 – Blueprint Registry did $225K of gross sales 05:44 – Average cart value 05:53 – Blueprint Registry raised $700K with friends and families 05:58 – Blueprint Registry did $4M in sales in 2015 06:04 – Blueprint Registry did $6M in sales in 2016 06:12 – Blueprint Registry has had 2000 users 06:19 – Blueprint Registry is originally focused on weddings but now they have people who use them for baby registries, house warming parties, and fundraising 06:40 – Blueprint Registry spends the most on development and marketing 07:25 – Team size 07:46 – Blueprint Registry just closed a million dollar seed round 08:00 – It was an equity round 08:09 – The friend and family round was a convertible note 08:12 – Nevin shares why he decided to have an equity round 08:45 – Blueprint Registry's value depends on gross and growth 08:55 – 2017 target revenue 09:09 – Blueprint Registry deals with seasonality 09:30 – There's no monthly subscription 10:20 – Nevin wants to keep Blueprint Registry as accessible as possible 10:35 – Blueprint Registry was founded in New York and they stayed for a year and a half 10:38 – Blueprint Registry is currently based in Seattle 11:15 – Blueprint Registry's biggest competitors 11:26 – The wedding registry market is a huge market 11:38 – Zola, Myregistry, Honeyfund are some of the newest in the market 11:53 – Blueprint Registry has the lowest fees 12:00 – 2.5% of credit card processing fee 12:25 – Nevin will accept Zola's $20M imaginary acquisition depending on their vision 13:43 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Finding co-founders is easy, choosing the right one is hard. In a saturated space, having the best features that set you apart can make all the difference. An acquisition will not always depend on the price. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives