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SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

3,101 episodes — Page 51 of 63

EP 589: HeptIo Growing Kubernetes Adoption With $8.5M Raised From Accel with Founder Craig McLuckie

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Craig McLuckie. He's the founder and CEO of Heptio, a startup focused on making Kubernetes accessible enterprises. Prior to starting Heptio, Craig was a product manager at Google where he founded the Kubernetes project, launched Google compute engine and created The Cloud Native Computing Foundation that he also shared. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Influence What CEO do you follow? – Andrew Grove Favorite online tool? — Lever 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 wished my 20-year old self understood the importance of kindness" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:25 – Nathan introduces Craig to the show 01:55 – Kubernetes is a technology that is used to run applications in a production setting 02:16 – The idea is to take the collective learning that Google instilled over the last decade of building and running applications 02:35 – Kubernetes is an open-source technology 02:53 – Kubernetes is being widely adopted by enterprises but there are still some gaps 03:16 – Heptio's job is to make Kubernetes more accessible to a broad array of developers 03:47 – Heptio generates revenue through support, training and professional service and consultancy 04:25 – Heptio is currently on pre-product revenue 04:50 – By providing Heptio's professional service, they connect with customers and understand where the key gaps are 05:12 – Heptio has raised $8.5M 05:20 – The people backing Heptio 06:17 – Nathan simplifies Kubernetes' description 07:50 – Craig explains how Kubernetes actually works in applications 09:07 – Heptio wants to present the perfect idea of how machines should be operating 09:23 – Kubernetes provided the steps from thinking about virtual infrastructure to logical infrastructure 09:49 – At Heptio, they bring the idea of logical infrastructure to companies everywhere so they can experience a better way to decode without worrying about the difficult task of configuring 10:22 – Heptio also helps companies organize themselves around the technology 10:53 – It is like helping people stack the bricks of technology 11:58 – John and Craig started Kubernetes in Google and they had successes in the past 12:20 – Craig demonstrated clearly the product market fit for Kubernetes so they were able to raise $8.5M 12:40 – Craig has spent time with the community 13:10 – Craig quantifies the adoption of Kubernetes 13:50 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Kubernetes is an open source technology that is used to run applications in a production setting. Demonstrating your product's market CLEARLY can lead to investors believing and trusting your product. Remember the importance of being kind. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Mar 5, 201717 min

EP 588: Zirra Raises $3M, Hits $50k MRR Helping You Get Company Data with CEO Aner Ravon

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Aner Ravon. He's the co-founder and chief product officer of his new company called Zirra. Zirra's mission is to solve the education and entry pain of the retail investors when it comes to equity investments. Before this company, Aner spent his time at Celltick as a VP of media and head of business unit. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Tipping Point What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs Favorite online tool? — Ask Wonder Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Not to worry so much" Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:42 – Nathan introduces Aner to the show 02:58 – Zirra steps into the void between data and excel analysis of the companies 03:10 – There's a big void in the data collection and actual decision making of a company for the people who want to invest 03:48 – Zirra is a service 03:52 – Zirra has an a la carte system which is pay-as-you-go 03:55 – Zirra has 2 main products 03:58 – Spotlight reports which costs $49 04:11 – Value packages for corporate investors which is a monthly subscription 04:29 – Average customer pay is $99 monthly 05:05 – Zirra started in August 2014 05:30 – Zirra first offered their services for free 05:45 – Aner shares how they decided to stop the free service 06:01 – Zirra had 150 free users 06:13 – Some of the free users are large equity firms 06:23 – Zirra started in Israel 06:35 – Microsoft was using ZIrra heavily, for free 07:00 – 80% of the free users converted to paid users 07:20 – Zirra managed the free service with free coupons 07:41 – Zirra didn't take away the credits, but started renewing them 07:48 – When users use up their credits, they'll be greeted with a pay wall 08:05 – Zirra's paywall: pay $49 to get the report or buy 10 reports for $299 08:40 – Zirra's revenue comes from pay-as-you-go and monthly subscriptions 09:10 – 15 customers are on monthly subscriptions 09:20 – 40-50 of the customers are habitual users 10:35 – Another product Zirra offers is deep report which sells from $1K-3K 11:45 – Team size is 15 12:39 – Zirra is based in Telavi, Israel 12:49 – Zirra has raised capital and closed almost $3M 13:19 – Zirra is founding new investors without going through another round because of their current Angel investors 13:51 – 2016 revenue 13:55 – 2017 goal revenue 14:28 – There are currently a hundred thousand companies in Zirra 14:55 – Zirra can deliver the report in just a few hours 15:30 – Zirra has 85 different data sources 16:09 – The resources are running through ZIrra's search engine 17:12 – Zirra's vision 18:19 – Aner thinks PitchBook and CB Insights are great services 18:28 – Zirra's ability to storify the data makes them different from their competitors 20:15 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Having access to and understand the data of the company will help inform that decision to invest. Shifting from a free service to paid is risky move, but needs to be done. Don't worry too much—it won't do very much for you in the end. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Mar 4, 201723 min

EP 587: Revue Raises $350k, Helping 1000 Customers Send Personal Newsletters with CEO Martijn De Kuijper

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Martijn de Kuijper, founder of Revue. He's a product guy and his company's focus is to get your thoughts to people's inboxes via newsletters. He previously founded Fosbury and Yunoo. Martijn is also a Techstars alum. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Zero to One What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Intercom Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Just keep doing what you're doing and don't get distracted by what other people are saying" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:30 – Nathan introduces Martijn to the show 02:10 – Revue focuses on personal newsletters like editorial newsletters 02:45 – Revue helps people share their content through newsletters 02:50 – Revue currently has a free and premium model 03:20 – Average customer pay per month is $7 03:45 – Martijn is a listener of The Top 04:10 – Revue was launched in January 2015 04:27 – Martijn started Revue on his own as a side project 04:30 – Martijn was working on the acquisition of Fosbury 04:59 – Martijn shares what Fosbury is about 05:24 – Martijn was in Techstars Texas 05:44 – Team size is 5 06:18 – Fosbury wasn't earning 07:08 – The money that Martijn received from the assets 07:42 – Martijn used the money from selling Fosbury to start Revue 08:12 – Martijn also sold Yunoo when he was 26 08:30 – The buyer is the software company AFAS from the Netherlands 09:20 – Martijn has raised $350K for Revue in convertible note 09:50 – Terms on the convertible note 10:05 – Revue currently has a thousand paying customers 10:23 – Martijn is currently focusing on growth rather than revenue 10:48 – Revue has 20K registered users at the moment with 10% active users 10:57 – Active users are the ones who send at least 1 email a month 11:27 – Monthly churn 11:35 – No paid CAC 11:49 – Revue has a content marketer 12:24 – Revue is currently sending 2M emails, monthly 12:40 – First year revenue 13:00 – Total 2016 revenue 13:26 – Martijn's current side project 14:30 – Where Martijn got his marketing ploy idea 16:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Don't be afraid to sell your company if it comes down to it. Study and strategize a marketing plan that works and at no cost. Just keep doing what you're doing and don't let what others say distract you. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Mar 3, 201719 min

EP 586: Zapnito ACV is $210K, Helping 12 Customers With Knowledge Networks and $650k Raised with CEO Charles Thiede

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Charles Thiede. He's the co-founder and CEO of the knowledge network platform called Zapnito. Zapnito helps organizations create privately, branded, expert communications and networks. He calls this "experts as a service". Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Lean Startup What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Product Hunt Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— I try to If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Do everything with courage" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:11 – Nathan introduces Charles to the show 01:41 – Zapnito is a SaaS platform 02:16 – The idea of Zapnito is to helps brands bring their audience back to the trusted sources of knowledge 02:40 – Zapnito's Slack channel 02:51 – The platform behind the scene that pulls the audience and brands together 03:40 – Each brand has their own slack domain 04:40 – Average customer pay per year is £60K 05:38 – Zapnito started in trading in March 2013 05:48 – Started as a marketplace for experts in 2014 06:38 – First year revenue 07:12 – Zapnito currently has 12 customers 07:57 – Average MRR 08:50 – Team size is 12 09:36 – Charles doesn't batch their sales calls 10:00 – Charles usually takes the calls 10:32 – Zapnito is based in London 10:50 – No customer churn and negative net churn 11:12 – The leverage Zapnito pulls to drive the RPU up 11:30 – "We focus on niche networks' 11:50 – Zapnito has scaled their number of networks 12:10 – CAC 13:21 – Zapnito was bootstrapped and raised angel money 13:40 – Zapnito has raised £650K in priced equity round 14:02 – Zapnito had 3 rounds 14:50 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Continually pivoting is not a disadvantage to your company, as long as you just keep learning from the experience. Do not hesitate to hire the people that you need. Do everything with courage. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Mar 2, 201718 min

EP 585: CaliberMinds Raises $1.1M Helping 12 Customers Close B2B Leads Using More Intelligence with CEO Raviv Turner

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Raviv Turner. He's the co-founder and CEO of CaliberMind – the first marketing, technology platform to apply machine learning in human language analysis to build detailed psychographic profiles. He has more than 10 years of experience leading products and development for high growth B2B SaaS companies. His previous roles include Director of UX at FullContact and VP of product at TapInfluence. Raviv is a mentor at Techstars Accelerator and holds a Masters in Interactive Media at NYU. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Hacking Marketing What CEO do you follow? – Bart Lorang Favorite online tool? — Asana, 7Geese and Slack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Doing my best If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Your network is your net worth" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Raviv to the show 02:25 – CaliberMind analyzes and boosts structured and unstructured data 03:18 – CaliberMind is a SaaS model 03:36 – Monthly billing starts at $2K 03:46 – Average customer pay per month 04:15 – CaliberMind was launched in 2015 04:48 – Raviv adapted the idea from the military 05:05 – Raviv was in product design for the past 15 years 05:23 – The analytics structure data 06:30 – CaliberMind currently has their first 12 customers 06:54 – CaliberMind has bundled packages of services 07:40 – CaliberMind was bootstrapped on their first year 07:55 – CaliberMind had raised their $1.1M seed round after seeing traction from the customers 08:20 – No customer churn yet 08:42 – CAC and LTV 08:56 – The account-based marketing 09:20 – Team size of 8 and based in Colorado 09:39 – Most of the team are developers and data scientists 09:46 – They have Nic Zangre who was a Director of Marketing at AdRoll 10:00 – Raviv shares how he convinced Nic to work with CaliberMind 10:26 – Nic has equity in CaliberMind 10:45 – Some companies that are in the space are Usermind and Pegasystems 12:25 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Work with people who share the same passion and vision as you do. Taking that leap out of your comfort zone is often risky and also, often, worth it. Find ways to help the people in your network without expecting something in return. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Mar 1, 201717 min

EP 584: FlightFox YC Founder: We Talk About When To Quit All The Time, $700k Revenue, Making Travel Way Easier with CEO Lauren Sullivan

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Lauren Sullivan. She's the co-founder of Flightfox, a site which Nathan recently used to book multi-country travel. Flightfox helped him understand the best way to leverage his points from his Chase Credit Card for travel purposes. Flightfox helps you search flights, manage your trip, and leverage your loyalty points, to help ease your trip planning experience and it is growing fast. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? – John Mackey Favorite online tool? — PocketSmith Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes, currently If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Lauren wished she had stopped working for someone else and started building her own company earlier Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:25 – Nathan introduces Lauren to the show 02:02 – Flightfox is an online and real-time platform that manages travel for individuals, companies and organizations 02:15 – Flightfox's revenue model is to charge per trip and they make money from commission 02:32 – Flightfox's expert will help match and plan a trip and they will authorize the credit card you use 03:33 – Flightfox books for companies, too 03:50 – The more complex the trip, the more expensive it is 05:10 – If Flightfox can't find you a trip, they won't charge you 05:34 – Flightfox was launched in 2012 05:45 – Flightfox was originally launched as a contest based, cloud source system 06:10 – There were a small number of the majority winning the contest 06:21 – The model was switched to a one-on-one 07:04 – The experts are contactors 07:15 – The experts get a fee per trip 07:40 – Most of them are full-time 07:50 – Flights metrics 08:03 – Flightfox is focused on companies and organizations 08:14 – CAC is a bit high 09:20 – There are at least 50 companies who have booked with Flightfox 09:35 – 5-10 companies are booking at least 30 trips per month 09:50 – Companies usually have 80 people 10:20 – In 2012, Flightfox has raised $850K 10:50 – Four Team members 11:50 – Flightfox has pivoted a couple of times already 13:19 – Lauren has been through alot with her company thus far, and has chosen to carry on 14:14 – 2016 total revenue 14:40 – Flightfox is close to breaking even 14:53 – Average MRR 15:11 – Raising another round will depend on the things that will happen in the future 17:00 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Changing your business model isn't easy – but, it's very normal to have to do so. Going through the most difficult times will test not just your patience, but your ability to make the best decisions. If it's what you really want, just keep going. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 28, 201720 min

EP 583: Socedo Does $1.5M+ In 2016, $200K MRR Now Helping 200 Customers Close More Leads with CEO Aseem Badshah

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Aseem Badshah. He's the founder and CEO of the company called Socedo. Before that, he built his own full-service marketing agency called Uptown Treehouse that leveraged social media and digital channels to reach current and potential customers. He's upgraded and improved that initial business model with his current company, Socedo. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Crushing the Cashman What CEO do you follow? – Favorite online tool? — Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Aseem wished that he would have prioritized building relationships Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:15 – Nathan introduces Aseem to the show 01:50 – Aseem noticed that there was so much data on prospects for B2B marketers in an agency 02:07 – Socedo's goal 02:13 – Lead generation is what Socedo uses to get more customers 02:45 – Socedo provides behavioral data 02:56 – Socedo makes money from their software license 03:03 – Clients sign-up from 6 months to 1 year of license usage 03:11 – Average pay the company gives to Socedo monthly 03:25 – Socedo started in 2013 03:37 – In social media marketing, everything was setup for B2C marketers 04:25 – Social media is like a big CRM so Aseem leveraged it in a way to help B2B marketers 04:45 – There are 200 paying customers 04:50 – Socedo has raised $1.5M 05:00 – Socedo's revenue has tripled in 2016 05:10 – Average contract price 05:25 – Socedo started with SMB 05:50 – 2016 total revenue 06:05 – Socedo has 25 people 06:20 – 2017 goal 06:30 – Aseem is targeting 2x for 2017 06:41 – Aseem wants to focus on their current customers 07:17 – "It's not necessarily about growth at all costs; we want to focus on the fundamentals, focus on the relationship with customers" 07:35 – All 25 members are in Seattle 07:53 – The round was an equity round 08:32 – Socedo is currently cash flow positive 08:50 – Socedo is willing to take in new capital if they are ready 09:11 – Socedo has almost broken even 09:23 – How Socedo drives new customers 09:37 – Socedo doesn't spend much money on marketing 10:30 – The data source which Aseem thinks is the most accurate 10:39 – "Everyone is accurate in their own way" 10:52 – How Socedo matches data 11:10 – Socedo's goal is to get metrics as high as possible 11:31 – "We don't guarantee an accuracy rate, but our accuracy rate is pretty high" 12:00 – The data sources that are connected to Socedo's API are Full Contact, ClearBit and SellHack 12:34 – Socedo's unique data advantage 13:30 – As a B2B marketer, there's a bigger chance of a higher conversion rate 13:50 – Data sources that have the most accurate revenue numbers are Marketo and Salesforce 14:22 – Socedo doesn't have the marketing budget for each lead 14:45 – Socedo has the company size which can be used as a revenue basis for each lead 15:15 – Gross customer churn 15:36 – CAC 15:45 – LTV 16:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Social media is a big CRM that can be leveraged to build a better marketing space for B2B businesses. Focusing on fundamentals and customer relationships can be more advantageous than focusing on just growth. Each data source out there is accurate in their own way. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 27, 201720 min

EP 582: Simplero SaaS Team of 2 Makes $1M Per Year, Bootstrapped, Totally Happy Helping Users Sell Courses with CEO Calvin Correli

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Calvin Correli. He's the CEO of a holistically focused, multi-million dollar, online, all-in-one solution driven software company called Simplero. This company exists to reduce the stress associated with figuring out software systems and how to join them together. He's passionate about helping online business owners do exactly what brings them the most life. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – There Is Nothing Wrong With You What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — FastMail Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Not every night If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Invest in getting to know yourself, and who you are, and how you're different" Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:20 – Nathan introduces Calvin to the show 02:49 – Simplero is a tool that helps people sell online 03:20 – Simplero is a SaaS business model 03:30 – Simplero was launched in 2009 03:39 – Calvin started to charge people in 2010 03:50 – Number of current paying customers is 700 04:02 – One of Simplero's customers is Robin Green, who is an acupuncturist in California 04:25 – Robin decided to teach acupuncture online 04:42 – Robin made around $60K on her first program 05:10 – Simplero automates everything that can be automated 05:27 – Average customer pay per month 05:31 – Simplero charges monthly and takes a percentage of the revenue 05:51 – Simplero's main revenue stream 06:25 – 10% is from the revenue fee and 90% from the SaaS model 07:15 – Average MRR 07:21 – Average ARR per customer 07:50 – Average customer retention 08:25 – Calvin shares how he got their customer LTV 08:58 – Calvin is based in New York, but he has team members in Denmark and on the West Coast 09:56 – Most of the people in the business started 6 months ago 10:20 – Simplero is self-funded 11:25 – Calvin is happy with how his company is doing at the moment 11:40 – Calvin wants to show the world a different way to live 12:01 – Calvin's big dream is to be a presidential adviser for USA 13:00 – How do we measure happiness? 13:07 – Calvin is not a metrics guy 13:19 – There's a sweet spot for every person where they are happy and work doesn't feel like work 14:00 – How do we know if people are really happy? 15:10 – Productivity gains do not directly correlate to happiness gains 15:55 - The source of happiness vs. the thing you do for others or with others 17:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: There's a feeling of contentment you can find in helping others. Invest in yourself, first. There's a sweet spot for every person where they are happy and work doesn't feel like work. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 26, 201721 min

EP 581: DocSend $11M Raised, 2800+ Company Customers, 10,000+ Seats Because Links > Attachments For Docs with CEO Russ Heddleston

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Russ Heddleston. He's the CEO and co-founder of DocSend. Previously, he was a product manager for Facebook. He arrived at the B2B acquisition of the product Pursuit.com. Russ also had roles in Dropbox, Greystripe and Trulia. He received a BS in Computer Engineering and MS Computer Science at Stanford along with an MBA from Harvard. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? – Keith Krach Favorite online tool? — Gmail and Slack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Do things well and be patient with them—and then, they will turn out well later" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:33 – Nathan introduces Russ to the show 02:03 – Pursuit was a human resources to management referral program for employees 02:22 – Russ shopped their company to Facebook 02:38 – Russ explains why they made this decision 03:38 – Russ was the product manager for Facebook's pages team 03:55 – Russ worked both for the brands and personalities 04:15 – DocSend was launched in 2013 04:24 – DocSend's first version was made in 2010 05:18 – First year revenue was zero 05:27 – "We were focused on growth" 05:50 – DocSend was doing something of very high value; not necessarily for a broad user base 06:40 – DocSend has been approached by a hedge fund 06:59 – Most salespeople are using DocSend long term 07:37 – Average customer pay per month 08:42 – Most deals of DocSend are outbound deals 09:00 – Average enterprise prices: 09:24 – The price varies from $50-90 per month 09:40 – Outbound target for a team of 30 and above 10:10 – Average contract value depends on the size of the company 10:30 – Team size is 25 with 6 sales people 10:42 – Team location is San Francisco with 1 in New York 11:08 – Pricing plan was introduced a year after DocSend launched 11:35 – The current number of DocSend's paying companies 11:48 – There's a mix of logo and seat count 12:04 – Average seats per company 12:45 – Total number of users under paid plan 13:03 – DocSend has raised capital for $10M in VC and $1M in venture debt 14:03 – Venture debt was done post-series seed 15:00 – Average MRR 16:16 – Possible minimum average MRR 17:00 – Russ shares the difference of inbound self-serve and outbound 17:25 – Russ gets excited with outbound 18:25 – Gross monthly customer churn 19:01 – The churn for self-serve is quite high, but not for outbound 19:45 – Net negative churn 20:12 – The expansion would benefit the team 20:38 – As the company gets bigger, the more they need DocSend 20:48 – DocSend closed their last financing last year 21:00 – DocSend doesn't need to raise capital at the moment 21:25 – "We don't need to get acquired" 23:00 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Focusing on growth rather than revenue is never bad thing. Improve your product until you are no longer expendable to your customers. Do things well and be patient with them—in time, they will turn out for the better. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 25, 201726 min

EP 580: Self Funded Vainu SaaS Hits $400K MRR, 1000 Customers To Serve Up Business Data with CEO Pietari Suvanto

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Pietari Suvanto, cofounder of the company, Vainu. Vainu was founded recently and is a tool that defines piles of data from the web and turns into fact check and actionable company information. His vision is to understand more organizations around the world more than anybody else and his company currently has about a thousand customers in Europe, including FedEx and Santander Innoventures. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – How to Win Friends and Influence People What CEO do you follow? – Mike Bloomberg Favorite online tool? — Zoom Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Be a bit more braver" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:12 – Nathan introduces Pietari to the show 01:50 – Vainu is a SaaS business model 02:40 – Pietari shares a company that is searchable in Vainu 03:06 – Salesforce has a lot of organizations around the globe 03:50 – The uses of companies' data in Vainu 04:12 – Vainu gives the company's in-depth data 04:30 – Salespeople are the ones who uses Vainu 04:49 – Vainu's revenue stream is from the subscription per seat 05:05 – Average customer pay per month is €400 05:21 – Vainu was launched in 2014 05:33 – Vainu hasn't raised capital 05:37 – Vainu is based in Hilsinki, Finland, Amsterdam, and New York 06:00 – Number of paying customers is 1000 06:30 – ARR in 2016 €4.5M 06:55 – MRR goal in 2017 07:20 – Vainu is finding their customers through their software 08:07 – Pietari shares how they find the companies 08:50 – Vainu can check the company's' data in preview 09:30 – The number of salespeople in Vainu's team 09:55 – Gross customer churn is 1% 10:05 – CAC 10:24 – Assumed LTV per customer 10:40 – €20K-30K 11:04 – Pietari is hoping to raise capital 11:36 – Pietari would likely to raise €5-10M 12:30 – Pietari shares how they are different from their competitors 13:20 – Vainu hasn't bought any API access to any data providers 13:30 – Everything in their system is owned by them 13:50 – The best asset of Vainu 14:50 – Pietari shares how they access the revenue data 15:50 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Be the BEST in your market, having an asset that will set you apart from your competitors. Raising capital is always an option, but not always a necessity. Be brave—step out and believe you can do it. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 24, 201720 min

EP 579: Organifi Hits $25M 2016 Sales, 150k Customers, Indian Sourced Ashwagandha is Million Dollar Ingredient with CEO Drew Canole

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Drew Canole. He's a nutrition specialist, transformation specialist, and national spokesperson for the benefits of juicing vegetables for health and vitality. He is the founder of Fitlife.TV where he shares educational, inspirational, and entertaining videos and articles about health, fitness, healing, and longevity. More recently, his company, Organifi, is getting directly into the green juicing space with a physical product. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Think and Grow Rich What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Google Calendar Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "To stay fricking focused on one thing" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:30 – Nathan introduces Drew to the show 02:25 – Organifi is sourced from the best farms for their organic ingredients 02:34 – The ingredients are high quality, organic, non-GMO, soy free, and vegan 02:43 – Drew did clinical studies on their product and has sold over a quarter million bottles 03:20 – Drew started getting his audience from Youtube and Facebook, 6 years ago 03:33 – "Influence marketing has been our focus for the past 3 years" 03:48 – Drew has one of the largest, green juice followings online 03:56 – Drew started working on a their own concoction by looking at the gap in the green juice market 04:35 – The green juice that is available in the market is not good for the brain and body 04:56 – Drew recreated the world's most great tasting juice that helps mental cognition, weight loss, and boosts moods 05:14 – Organifi was launched in early 2015 05:44 – Organifi sold around 350K bottles 05:55 – Around 150K people bought the product 06:00 – Average reorder rate is 2.8 06:17 – Organifi's main product is a 30-day canister 06:55 – Organifi costs $79.95 on Amazon 07:08 – 20% of the sales is from Amazon and 80% is from other traffic 07:15 – 65% is from Organifi's website 08:00 – The cost of making Organifi 09:07 – "We're all about congruency" 09:25 – The most important ingredient of Organifi is the Ashwagandha 09:40 – Drew is importing Ashwagandha from an organic farm in India 10:18 – KSM Ashwagandha is the farm Drew chose 10:35 – Organifi's formulator is the one who visits India to check the farm and the farmers 11:25 – Gross margin is around 75% 11:45 – Marketing cost 12:25 – Software that Organifi is using 12:37 – Unbounce, Infusionsoft, Exit Intel, and Shopify 13:02 – Organifi has a subscription model 13:20 – The subscription has a 15-75% discount 13:40 – The subscription cost 14:43 – Organifi's 2015 revenue 15:15 – Net margin is around 15-20% 15:40 – Drew's influence benefits their net margin 17:04 – What Drew is doing with his wealth 17:07 – Organifi has no investors 17:34 – Total list size is around 1.4M 17:45 – Actively opening is 500K 18:15 – Team size is 70 18:45 – 2017 revenue goal 20:04 – Cost of affiliates 22:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Influence marketing is one way not just to increase your online presence, but also sales. A thorough study and being well researched is crucial in order to fill a gap in a field that is quite saturated. Stay congruent with your plans and actions. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 23, 201725 min

EP 578: Ripple Recruiting Passes 8,000 Ivy League Resumes With 15 Employers Paying $300/mo For Access with Ripple CEO Andrew Myers

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Andrew Myers. He grew up in Denver, Colorado and recently left Yale before the start of his senior year to pursue Ripple Recruiting, full-time. He now serves as a CEO in a fast growing, 12-person startup. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Anna Karenina What CEO do you follow? – Kevin Ryan and Reid Hoffman Favorite online tool? —PersistIQ and 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? – "Go for it" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:34 – Nathan introduces Andrew to the show 01:56 – Ripple Recruiting allows employers to create their dream applicant 02:32 – The whole revenue model is based on the employers and Ripple Recruiting is subscription based 02:43 – Ripple Recruiting is both a marketplace and a SaaS business model 03:04 – Ripple Recruiting has three subscription packages 03:15 – Average contract size is about $300 a month 03:25 – Andrew shares the differences between the packages 04:25 – Andrew won't sell Ripple Recruiting at this time 04:50 – Andrew and his partner are first time founders 05:05 – Andrew and his partner both have strong opinions regarding their business 05:40 – Ripple Recruiting was launched in 2015 05:54 – First year revenue 06:03 – Andrew's focus is on user engagement, rather than revenue 06:36 – Total debt Andrew has for Ripple Recruiting 07:00 – Ripple Recruiting has raised in a seed round 07:12 – Ripple Recruiting will be in a series A, soon 07:24 – Ripple Recruiting has a syndicate 08:11 – No revenue in 2015 08:20 – Ripple Recruiting has 15 paying clients at the moment 08:30 – Average MRR 09:00 – Andrew shares the pitch to investors 09:10 – Ripple Recruiting currently has over 10K Ivy League students signed up, on the platform 10:36 – Ripple Recruiting's valuation 11:18 – Andrew wants to raise $2-3M is series A 11:30 – Andrew wants the highest valuation possible 12:11 – Andrew already has the strategies to build the syndicate 13:05 – Andrew wouldn't take a $13M deal 13:58 – Andrew has just started focusing on revenue in terms of sales stream 14:42 – The customers are paying for their access in Ripple Recruiting's database 15:52 – Andrew believes that they're doing it better than other competitors in the space 17:07 – Ripple Recruiting doesn't have an official hire number yet 17:23 – Andrew is seeing 20K students being hired on Ripple Recruiting 17:30 – No churn yet 18:58 – The whole Ripple Recruiting team ages between 22-25 20:50 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Being new to business allows you to be more optimistic, but listening to those who have done it can definitely help. A good pitch can drive good investors. Start early – if you truly feel that you should do it, then NOW is the right time. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 22, 201725 min

EP 577: Vinod Khosla, Others Invest $600k+ In Ex-Intuit Founder Providing Financing Against Invoices with Numberz CEO Aditya Tulsian

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Aditya Tulsian. He launched and led multiple small business focused software service and mobile offerings at Intuit India. He's also a management consultant at Diamond Consultant which is now PWC. He's a product manager. He's got an MBA and he's doing very big things especially in the SMB SaaS space. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? – Brad Smith Favorite online tool? — Slack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Adi just wished that he could have taken the chance earlier Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:07 – Nathan introduces Adi to the show 01:45 – Adi's company is Numberz 02:14 – Half of Numberz' revenue comes from their SaaS model and half is from commission 02:35 – One of Numberz' customers is NH1 Design 03:05 – How NH1 Design uses Numberz 03:50 – Numberz has receivable financing 04:15 – Numberz has 2 pricing plans 05:00 – Average customer pay annually is $185-195 05:26 – Transaction fee is 2% of every transaction that is done in Numberz' platform 07:00 – Adi was a business head in Intuit India 07:18 – Adi shares why he made the jump 07:35 – Adi has a design agency and they're stable financially 08:13 – First year revenue 09:20 – 2016 total revenue 09:33 – Numberz has more than 5,500 customers 10:02 – Average MRR 10:45 – Numberz' paying customers is 1,200 12:15 – Adi shares Numberz' growth 12:50 – MRR starting 2017 13:27 – Numberz has 3 channels of acquisition to get customers 14:20 – Numberz is spending $150 CAC 16:32 – Team size 16:38 – Numberz' location is in India 16:51 – Numberz has raised capital 17:23 – Total is $750K 17:35 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Taking the leap from corporate is more possible with financial stability. Having 2 streams of revenue for your business can increase your growth faster. Take the chance earlier – opportunities pass you by way too easily. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 21, 201720 min

EP 576: Will This Mobile Payments Startup Survive with CEO Rode Luhaaar?

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Rode Luhaäär. He's an enthusiast and entrepreneur who has years of experience as an e-marketer and digital strategist. During his career in the digital field, he's been overseeing execution and delivery of activities such as digital concept, e-business concepts, creative solutions design, software development, SEO, social media marketing, and global solutions. Over the last few years, he's been an active member of a startup community and currently manages a large software company called, Paytailor. Famous Five: Favorite Book? — Lean Startup What CEO do you follow? — n/a Favorite online tool? — n/a Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Think faster" Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:30 – Nathan introduces Rode to the show 03:10 – Paytailor is a smart payment solution allowing merchants to get paid the way they want 03:26 – Paytailor gives merchants an app and the users a card wallet 03:45 – Paytailor is a SaaS company 03:50 – Paytailor charges €10 monthly 04:05 – Paytailor's revenue comes from the monthly fee 04:10 – Average number of customers is 40 04:20 – MRR 04:28 – Paytailor has raised €70K in a convertible note 04:45 – Paytailor was launched in 2015 04:55 – Paytailor started as a side project 05:15 – Team size 05:24 – Paytailor's development is based in Estonia 05:38 – Why did you give up good pay in the digital field to start Paytailor? 05:52 – "We see a problem" 06:31 – Paytailor also has a 1.8% per transaction fee 06:58 – Paytailor's payment gateway 07:14 – Rode is 32 07:32 – What Rode is being paid as a founder 08:09 – Rode's plan for 2017 is to expand in Europe 08:30 – "We don't want to be a financial institution" 08:50 – Rode sees that they have to expand as they make adjustments 09:31 – Last month sales is €450 10:50 – Paytailor has 20 taxis as merchants 11:22 – Some of the merchants' usage is once a month 13:14 – Paytailor's focus is to test out different kinds of users 13:24 – Paytailor currently has 4 bars as merchants 14:44 – Paytailor's merchants are not using their service exclusively 16:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: If you can see a problem then try to create a solution. Expanding helps your company to improve and grow. You have to start somewhere – regardless of how small it is. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 20, 201719 min

EP 575: Fruitstreet Raises $6m From 180 Customers for HealthTech, New Kind of VC with CEO Laurence Girard

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Laurence Girard. He's the CEO and founder of Fruit Street. He was a pre-med student at Harvard University Extension School for three years before he decided to pursue Fruit Street full-time and move to San Francisco. In high school, he played soccer for the New York Red Bulls Academy as a goalkeeper, which sparked his initial interest in health. Later, he decided to pursue a career focused on social impact and spent a year volunteering in an emergency room unit in Huntington Hospital, Long Island. He's now exclusively focused in Fruit Street. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Science of Growth What CEO do you follow? – Milton Chen Favorite online tool? — eShares Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 5 out of 7 days If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Laurence would tell himself to put significant emphasis on the team when you are starting a company Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:25 – Nathan introduces Laurence to the show 02:10 – Fruit Street is a telemedicine software product that is licensed to healthcare professionals 02:19 – Fruit Street allows professionals to do HIPAA compliant video consultations with their client 02:32 – Each patient has their personal info integrated with gadgets like Fitbit 02:48 – Fruit Street uses a SaaS model and the professionals will pay a monthly licensing fee 03:09 – MRR is $15K 03:15 – Fruit Street was launched in May 2014 03:33 – Average customer pay per month is $200 for the software 03:43 – Fruit Street is starting to expand to get enterprise customers 03:57 – Current customer number is around a hundred 04:10 – 2016 total revenue 04:37 – Gross customer churn 05:30 – Current LTV 06:00 – Team size is 9 full time and Fruit Street has a joint venture agreement with Vsee 06:33 – Fruit Street is located in New York, and San Francisco 06:51 – Laurence wanted Fruit Street to be funded by physicians and not VC firms 07:00 – Getting the feedback from the physicians would help Fruit Street to improve 07:17 – Physicians can get Fruit Street more customers 07:29 – "Fruit Street is actually a public-benefit corporation" 08:08 – There is no tax benefit in being a public-benefit corporation 08:26 – Laurence wanted to attract investors that are primarily motivated by social impact and not by the financial outcome 08:54 – Fruit Street reached out to physicians through LinkedIn advertising 09:00 – Fruit Street gave the physicians a one-on-one call using Fruit Street's telemedicine software 09:18 – Fruit Street's lawyer is using eShares to manage their cap table 09:47 – Fruit Street has a structure that allows them to make quick decisions 10:00 – Fruit Street has 180 shareholders that are not in a syndicate 11:45 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: With new technology comes the advancement in telehealth, making it easier for patients to reach out to their physicians. Choose an investor that shares the same vision as you. Put a significant emphasis on the team you build when you are starting your business. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 19, 201715 min

EP 574: Buying $2m 600 Acre Pecan Farm, $450/acre/mo, Literally Shaking Money From Trees with Investor Luke Stronach

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Luke Stronach. He's spent the last few years raising money for his farmland fund. He's got one single family office as an investor. He's currently 44, he's taught finance, and most of his background is in low-income housing. He's really looking forward to coming to the show and he's a listener. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Fish That Ate the Whale What CEO do you follow? – Stewart and Lynda Resnick Favorite online tool? — Duolingo Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – If you want to have a meaningful life, you should be doing meaningful things Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:20 – Nathan introduces Luke to the show 01:46 – Luke shares what he likes about The Top 02:04 – Luke has raised less than $10M for his farmland fund 02:15 – Luke is currently in the process of moving to Atlanta 02:20 – Luke is about to close his first farm 02:28 – Luke's second orchard is under contract 02:34 – Luke wants to develop a 100 acre orchard in Georgia 03:06 – Luke mentions what farmland investors are looking for in a farmland 03:24 – Luke's first orchard had good irrigation 03:43 – It has 600 acres and was almost $2M 04:41 – 40% of North America's farmland is leased to farmers 04:50 – Investors buy the farmland, lease to farmers who rent per acre or have a revenue share agreement 05:35 – Many farmers are cash flow farmers 06:00 – There are differences across different crops 06:45 – Luke shares the farmer's perspective on crops 07:01 – Average rent per acre 07:40 – The farmers growing rice and corn are renting at $250 per acre 08:00 – Luke's return on his $2M investment 08:50 – The return will always depend on the yield which varies 09:06 – People look at farmland investing as a way to lock value into the land 09:12 – There are people who are after the yield and there are those who are not 10:05 – Luke shares what happened in 2007-2009 10:10 – S&P 500 lost 50% of its value 10:46 – Historically, farmland has done well with inflation 11:00 – Luke's opinion regarding inflation 11:14 – The returns in farmland can be attractive 11:57 – Farmland is not as big as commercial property 12:03 – Farmland investment is a hard space 13:10 – It is a persistence game 13:40 – Luke is currently in Alabama 14:00 – Nathan wants to study Luke's field and work with Luke 17:17 – There are so many things to do in Georgia and Luke will keep Nathan busy 18:08 – Luke makes software for farmers 18:59 – In Episode 450 of The Top, Nathan had Robert Leclerc, the founder of AgFunder 19:23 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The farmland investment industry is a hard space and requires persistency. People look at farmland investing as a way to lock value into the land. If you want to have a meaningful life, you should be doing meaningful things. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 18, 201723 min

EP 573: I Sell My Financial Data On This Podcast with BitMark CEO Sean Moss-Pultz

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Sean Moss-Pultz. He's the CEO and founder of BitMark, the property system for the digital environment. It enables an individual to claim ownership of personal data and digital assets akin to how land registrars track land titles or patent offices track patents. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – High Output Management What CEO do you follow? – Andy Grove and Yvon Chouinard 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? – "Luck plays a big role and you just can't quit" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:28 – Nathan introduces Sean to the show 01:53 – Anybody that has data coming out of Fitbit can establish ownership over that data and can list it for sale or protect it 02:11 – BitMark's business model is that they earn a small commission 02:31 – Fitbit's data is in your phone 03:08 – We don't have property rights on our data 03:40 – Download BitMark's software to sell your data or protect it 03:58 – BitMark is currently on beta mode and only desktop software 04:09 – BitMark works with IFTTT 04:56 – BitMark's software can generate a link for your data that you can share 05:40 – You can make around $50 a year for selling your data 05:59 – This is for location data alone 06:15 – "Data is the next big asset class" 06:30 – Can I use BitMark's data to sue someone for using my data? 06:50 – Sean has talked to lawyers and his father is a lawyer 07:42 – Sean thinks the court system will understand digital property titles 08:51 – BitMark was launched in 2014 09:00 – Sean's co-founders are from his previous company 09:42 – BitMark just closed a seed round for $1.7M 10:18 – BitMark is based in Taiwan, with 12 people 10:41 – BitMark has raised from WI Harper Group, which is Taiwan-based 11:08 – BitMark is currently on pre-revenue 11:17 – Sean is hoping for revenue this year 11:53 – Sean mentions how part of their expenses go towards his travelling expenses—going to and from New York and Taiwan 12:33 – BitMark will launch both in Asia and USA 13:10 – BitMark is actively recruiting buyers who are interested in health data 14:30 – Sean looks into location data, health data, fitness data, and financial data 14:50 – Nathan proposes a deal with Sean 16:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Our data is as unique as our thumbmark—protecting it isn't a bad idea. Data is the NEXT, big asset class. Luck plays a big role in your success and you just can't quit. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 17, 201719 min

EP 572: 400,000 Books Sold Teach How to Take $1000 to $1.5m with Author Phil Town

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Phil Town. He's a two-time New York Times' best-selling author, hedge fund manager, and founder of Rule One Investing. He's teaching individuals how to take control of their financial futures so they don't have to find a fund manager or financial advisors. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Intelligent Investor What CEO do you follow? – Warren Buffett Favorite online tool? — Evernote Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – That USA will put us in a war and it will suck Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:30 – Nathan introduces Phil to the show 02:00 – What makes you qualified to talk about this? 02:08 – "By New York Wall Street standards, I'm completely unqualified" 02:23 – Most people invest using the concept of modern portfolio theory 02:50 – There are people who Phil follows for 30 years now 02:58 – Ben Graham developed the ideas and values of investing in the 30s and 40s 03:12 – Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger 03:41 – Phil has a principle of picking good companies while they're on sale 03:55 – Phil learned to use other people's money to build up their funds 04:22 – How much outside capital have you raised in your hedge fund to date? 04:32 – Under a hundred million 04:40 – Phil started to manage money through separate, managed accounts 04:58 – Phil can manage other people's money that don't have the investing capital for hedge fund 05:53 – The people who needed their accounts to be managed the most are getting the least attention 06:10 – How do you beat a company like Wealth Front 06:24 – Wealth Front is run by modern portfolio theory math 06:58 – "It's such nonsense and yet, it's the only math there is" 06:57 – A robo-advisor pretends that they can use volatility as a reference point for risk 08:10 – People need to know how to invest on their own 08:23 – Phil mentions the three things that he believes someone should do if they don't want to be an active investor 09:19 – Find a financial advisor who knows what they're doing 09:30 – The gap Phil wants to fill 09:56 – "An active fund cannot be the index" 11:05 – If you're not going to learn how to invest, you'll have fewer choices 11:43 – It is simple to invest correctly 12:00 – It's not true that there are losers and winners in investing 12:46 – "Investing is simply buying something that you understand for less than its worth" 13:20 – Phil started with real estate 14:02 – Warren Buffet is one of the best real estate investors 15:02 – Phil shares the essence of a good investment 16:05 – The essence of speculation or trading 16:40 – Nathan asks Phil for his opinion regarding Bill Ackman's Chipotle Mexican Grill 17:21 – Chipotle Mexican Grill has no leverage 18:40 – The one rule Phil applies to all different investment strategies is don't lose money 18:55 – Rule 2 is to remember rule 1 19:15 – Phil's 4-rule process 19:18 – First, am I capable of understanding this business? 19:22 – Second, does this business have protective characteristics that keeps competition a leg? 19:33 – Third, is this owned by people with integrity? 19:36 – Fourth, am I buying this at a big discount to its value? 20:35 – How do you handle imperfect planning? 21:13 – You have to have a big discount on the value that you're purchasing 22:48 – Phil's first book came out in 2005, second in 2010, and another one in 2018 24:55 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: People need to know how to invest on their own—if you're not going to learn how to invest, you'll have fewer choices. There is a difference between a good investment and speculation. Investing is simply buying something that you understand for less than its worth. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 16, 201728 min

EP 571: SenaHill Transacted $200M In FinTech 2016, 7 Predictions for 2017 with Founding Partner Neil DeSena

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Neil DeSena. He's one of the founders of SenaHill Partners. He was previously at Goldman Sachs, where he really led the creation of a pioneering and institutional training technologies system which has been used worldwide for over 20 years. He was the Managing Director, Global Head of REDI Products at Goldman Sachs from 2000 - 2006. Neil's leadership helped build a leading, global, multi-asset training system that has expanded data centers and global networking through Europe and Asia. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – n/a What CEO do you follow? – Duncan Niederauer Favorite online tool? — Salesforce Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Pay a little more attention to the details" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:20 – Nathan introduces Neil to the show 02:20 – Neil shares how their company is finding businesses to invest in 02:40 – Neil and his partners are all entrepreneurs and have experience running businesses 02:54 – Neil shares why they focus on FinTech 04:25 – Average total transaction volume that they've had in 2016 04:54 – Fintech in 2017 05:40 – Distributive ledger of concept is ready for primetime 06:00 – Symbiont is well positioned in the distributive ledger of concept space 06:24 – Symbiont will be at the point of formation for all other companies 06:34 – Companies can now be registered digitally 06:46 – Symbiont's founder, Mark Smith, was Neil's first advisor 06:50 – Mark also founded Lava Effects 07:00 – Mark teamed up with the most successful open source company 07:45 – Neil's prediction of how people will respond to Wall Street and their new administration 08:08 – "I'm not quite sure how things are going to work out" 08:14 – Banks have to adjust to it 08:55 – Neil discusses the economy of the distributive ledger 09:45 – The company that Neil thinks is well positioned to take advantage of the no churn economy in the FinTech sector 10:10 – Neil is also interested in the retirement sector 10:30 – There is still no new technology to work around retirement money 10:50 – Neil has seen possible companies, but not one from their portfolio 11:00 – Fundamentals being displaced by quantimentals 12:10 – Neil's opinion regarding Wealth Front winning over on the money the people currently have on Vanguard 13:20 – There are companies who are trying to bridge the gap between the Baby Boomers and Generation Y 13:50 – SenaHill hasn't made an investment yet, on an insurance company 14:40 – SenaHill's focus in 2017 14:50 – "We try to find companies that we can invest in and help and be with them for the life" 15:05 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Pay attention to the details. Wall Street can be unpredictable because of the new administration – regardless, banks will have to adjust. There are companies who are trying to bridge the gap between the Baby Boomers and Generation Y. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 15, 201718 min

EP 570: GrowSumo Helping 70 B2B SaaS Companies Grow Affiliate Programs, $100k New MRR So Far with CEO Bryn Jones

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Slater Victoroff. He's the CEO and founder of Indico Data Solutions. He's a poet, a coder, MMA fighter, vegan Buddhist, and Red Letter Christian. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – n/a What CEO do you follow? – n/a Favorite online tool? — Stack Overflow Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Slater hoped he had realized how much he loved programming Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:26 – Nathan introduces Slater to the show 02:45 – Indico is a text and image analytics provider 03:25 – Indico's business model 03:52 – The enterprise client is their main revenue channel 05:09 – Indico was founded in 2013 05:25 – Indico has raised $4.5M 05:30 – Indico started with a seed round 06:10 – How Slater managed having a bridge round 07:05 – First year revenue 07:31 – 2016 revenue 07:38 – Slater is hoping to hit a million dollar revenue for 2017 08:03 – Average MRR 08:22 – Indico is a SaaS company 08:42 – Indico currently has 20 customers 09:11 – Manulife is working with Indico 11:30 – Each client of Indico wants to have their own set of algorithms 12:00 – Nathan summarizes how Indico works 12:30 – Indico gives their customers an engine 13:20 – Slater worries about Facebook's echo chamber 13:33 – "Facebook's algorithm is not designed to create echo chambers" 15:17 – Customer churn 15:53 – Zero spent on marketing 16:00 – Most funding goes to the engineering team 16:12 – Team size is 10 17:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Having a bridge round does not mean you're losing money—prove that you are growing and need more funding. Learn how to work around echo chambers. Find out what you love to do and go for it. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 14, 201720 min

EP 569: GrowSumo Helping 70 B2B SaaS Companies Grow Affiliate Programs, $100k New MRR So Far with CEO Bryn Jones

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Bryn Jones. He's the co-founder and CEO of GrowSumo. GrowSumo graduated from Y Combinator in the summer of 2015, and they're building a marketplace for influencer programs. Prior to building companies, Bryn was also a member of a swim team. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – 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? – "To just go for it" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:15 – Nathan introduces Bryn to the show 01:41 – Nathan found Bryn through Product Hunt 02:42 – There are large enterprise clients who came from GrowSumo 02:53 – GrowSumo builds a marketplace for influencer programs 03:10 – GrowSumo charges a one-time annual fee 03:14 – GrowSumo takes a percentage of every dollar the influencer earns from the brand 03:22 – GrowSumo is an affiliate program on top of an affiliate program 03:33 – An influencer can be anyone 04:19 – GrowSumo has a month over month fee which is $300 a month 04:48 – It is for a new startup with no affiliate program 04:56 – It lets you go in and manage the program yourself 05:16 – For an enterprise account, GrowSumo automates the entire program 05:23 – GrowSumo helps you identify the influencers 05:32 – The enterprise account: $10K annually 05:36 – GrowSumo takes 10% from all payouts to influencers 06:20 – "You have a lot of customers today that are influencers and you just don't know where to find them" 07:03 – Bryn shares how they identify the influencers 07:43 – GrowSumo doesn't have the ability to qualify an influencer based on the list size they have 08:33 – GrowSumo was launched in August 2015 09:06 – GrowSumo has a lot of traction 09:20 – Percentage of customers that GrowSumo is currently working with 10:30 – GrowSumo's biggest competition are Commission Junction and Influitive 11:07 – GrowSumo hasn't raised capital yet, but they're going to soon 11:35 – Current Y Combinator terms 12:45 – Team size is 8 13:03 – Bryn is Canadian 13:50 – Number of unique new customers driven by GrowSumo 14:00 – GrowSumo has driven over $100K recurring monthly revenue 14:20 – GrowSumo still qualifies and chooses the customers 15:20 – GrowSumo is software and there is no need for an internal tool 16:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Find new ways to grow your following by leveraging websites that are popular in your niche. Having a feature that your biggest competitors do not offer will give you an edge. There is no clear path to success—the only way to succeed is to START trying. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 13, 201719 min

EP 568: 3,000 Brands Have Discounts on BonusWay, $63M in 2016 Volume, $5m Revenues, 40 employees, $9m raised with CEO Tatu Koistinen

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Tatu Koistinen, the CEO of Bonusway. His background is in loyalty and digital marketing and he has many growth stories to share. He's now building the most social e-commerce loyalty platform on earth. He's currently focused on building the leadership and culture of the business and he's also an Ironman triathlete. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Halo Effect What CEO do you follow? – n/a Favorite online tool? — Asana Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Trust yourself, act quicker, and be brave Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:16 – Nathan introduces Tatu to the show 02:00 – Bonusway creates more sales for ecommerce businesses 02:09 – Bonusway gets compensated when they create sales for a particular business 02:21 – Bonusway inspires consumers by informing them of the newest sales and shopping opportunities 02:48 – Bonusway is similar to a marketplace 03:15 – The companies that are partnered with Bonusway 03:40 – The biggest partner has the most amount of sales generated by Bonusway 03:53 – The sales that Bonusway has generated for Hotels.com 04:20 – The ways Bonusway connects with Hotels.com's customers 05:15 – Total volume of sales from all the partners combined is €60M 05:39 – Bonusway gets commission 06:20 – Sample computation of Bonusway's commission 07:17 – Bonusway's commission percentage varies per company 08:00 – Average 2016 revenue 09:10 – Tatu's idea for Bonusway's business model 10:05 – Bonusway was founded in 2011 10:24 – The number of people who bought in Bonusway's platform 10:50 – Bonusway is currently partnered with 3000 companies 11:10 – 2017 goal 12:00 – Total funding of Bonusway is €6.9M 12:20 – Bonusway had a previous capital raise 12:39 – Team size is 40 12:50 – Based all in Europe 13:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Be in the space where you feel most confident and know how things work. Having a unique business model equates to less competition in the space. Trust yourself, act quicker, and be brave. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 12, 201717 min

EP 567: EnvoyAmerica Does $160k in 2016 Helping Senior Citizens Get Around with CEO KC Kanaan

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K.C. Kanaan. He's the CEO and co-founder of Envoy America – a Scottsdale, Arizona based national company that operates a wide-sharing platform and mobile application that matches seniors and patients that can't drive or don't want to drive themselves with driver companions. K.C. is a senior executive with more than 30 years of general management, operational sales and marketing experience. He's known both for his command of the big picture and ability to execute on short-term strategies. He has inspired teams to strive for and achieve the impossible. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People What CEO do you follow? – Rafe Furst Favorite online tool? — Trello and 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? – K.C wished that he had known how to work more effectively with people Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces K.C to the show 02:33 – Envoy America provides service to seniors and patients that cannot, should not, and would choose not to drive 02:45 – Envoy America makes money on the time spent delivering the service based on hourly rate 03:05 – Envoy America is currently in Phoenix and will expand in Tucson, Arizona 03:19 – The plan is to expand to 3-5 other states 03:30 – Envoy America currently has 30 drivers in Phoenix 03:35 – On an average week, Envoy America delivers 75-85 trips, usually 2 hours per trip 04:01 – Envoy America's based rate is $39 per hour 04:20 – Average weekly revenue 04:25 – In 2016, Envoy America made $180K in revenue 04:55 – Envoy America was launched in 2015 05:15 – K.C. tried to help his parents find a reliable driving service—it was a challenge 06:00 – There are approximately 10M seniors in the US who need a reliable driving service 06:18 – K.C. and his partner invested about $100K in Envoy America and have raised $110K which is convertible note 06:36 – K.C has started a crowd funding campaign with crowdfunder.com and they're trying to raise an additional $500K 06:53 – What K.C will spend the funding on 07:35 – The drivers are all independent contractors 08:10 – Clients can reserve 08:26 – Most seniors rely on phone to make reservations 08:55 – The drivers can stay with the seniors wherever they want to go 09:35 – The drivers are paid $18/hour 09:48 – The drivers are responsible for their cars 10:00 – Envoy America has B2B sales and B2C sales 10:16 – In B2B, they have clinics as key clients 10:44 – Envoy America now leverages social media 11:03 – The keywords people use to find Envoy America 11:21 – Most of Envoy America's clients come from the businesses that they serve 13:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Transportation services for seniors are not very good, causing them to be isolated at home. The most taken for granted problem could be the problem that only YOU can solve. Take the time to grow in working with people more effectively. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 11, 201717 min

EP 566: Scollar Founder Sold Company to AutoDesk in 08 Now Making $99 Smart Pet Collar with CEO Lisa Tamayo

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Lisa Tamayo. She's the CEO of Scollar, an open platform, multi-functional, smart collar for pets. She has over 25 years of experience in entrepreneurship and financial and strategic planning. She's the co-founder of Green Building Studio which was acquired by Autodesk in 2008. She's also the chairman of SoCo Nexus, an incubator accelerator in Northern California. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Pitch Anything What CEO do you follow? – Ben Horowitz 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? – "Trust Yourself" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:30 – Nathan introduces Lisa to the show 02:13 – Scollar is a smart collar 03:10 – The first product, Scollar Mini, was designed exclusively for the under-searched cats and small dogs market 03:29 – Scollar is currently on pre-order and has launched a Kickstarter campaign 03:52 – Scollar is like Fitbit for animals 04:10 – The Fitbit engineering team has partnered with Scollar Mini 04:26 – Scollar Mini is currently at $99 for pre-order and will retail at $149 04:35 – The pre-order started in mid-October 04:50 – Scollar is starting to build their following 05:15 – Scollar has negotiated with a bank to get credit 05:23 – Lisa and her partner have self-funded a part of it 06:00 – Lisa and her husband are the first founders of Green Building Studio 06:18 – Autodesk has bought all the assets of Green Building Studio 06:35 – Green Building Studio was Autodesk's market partner for a long time 07:28 – Lisa has almost $600k in Scollar 07:44 – Lisa discusses the spending 08:07 – Finding someone in hardware to help build the product are typically employed elsewhere 08:30 – It took Lisa a while to find the right team to work together 09:08 – Most funding went to the trial and error of the product 09:25 – Team size is almost 40 10:00 – Lisa shares the factors involved in asking for a loan 11:10 – It took the bank months to agree with Lisa and grant her the loan 11:40 – Working Solutions gave them the loan 12:10 – Working Solutions is a great option for quick capital 13:00 – The cost of making Scollar 13:19 – Cost per unit 13:43 – Possible wholesale price 14:50 – They might use the wholesale price in 2018 16:02 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Hardware is a far different process to create than software—it may take time to find and build the right team. There are many options for gaining capital – choose the one that suits your company best. Trust yourself and everything will fall into place. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 10, 201719 min

EP 565: Giraffe360 Hits $84k MRR Helping Real Estate Industry Record 360 Virtual Tours Quickly with CEO Mikus Opelts

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Mikus Opelts. He's the CEO at Giraffe360. He started this company 7 years ago, in February of 2010, when he got involved with Giraffe Visual which provides interactive visualization services. It has now developed into something so much more. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – How Google Works What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Trello Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Everything I'm thinking about and planning for will take three times of the time than what I was hoping for" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:07 – Nathan introduces Mikus to the show 01:40 – Giraffe360 has the best visual tool technology 02:00 - Giraffe360 has a virtual tool that works with virtual reality headsets 02:15 – 6 years ago, Mikus started the company 02:37 – It took 14 months to develop 03:16 – Mikus spent $200K on software development 03:34 – Mikus just raised $500K for their product development 03:39 – It is a convertible note 03:49 – Mikus describes how it's like to raise capital in London 04:15 – Mikus went through a hundred meetings before getting that $500K 04:25 – 90% of the investment is from one company 05:15 – Giraffe360's camera is free for companies who have a large volume of properties 05:31 – Giraffe360 charges per property 05:47 – Giraffe360 has developed their technology and it is on par with professional companies 06:13 – 1 apartment tour costs €67 or $70 06:28 – Minimum is 20 apartments per company 06:45 – Payment is done monthly depending on the properties 07:12 – Giraffe360 has sold their first 10 cameras in the market 07:19 – There are 50 new cameras coming in at the end of February 2017 07:39 – Giraffe360 already had 50 pre-sells who wanted to try the cameras 08:00 – The incoming 50 cameras are almost sold out 08:30 – Average MRR 09:00 – Cost per hardware 09:10 – The hardware is made solely by Giraffe360's engineering team 09:55 – People find out about Giraffe360 through word-of-mouth 11:20 - Giraffe360's only team is the engineering team with 8 people 11:28 – 3 people in the back office 11:50 – No customer churn yet 12:20 – Giraffe360 is similar to a SaaS model 13:13 – 2017 goal is to have 100 subscriptions and cameras in the market 14:00 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Create something of the BEST quality that will stand out from the rest. Raising capital takes perseverance; it may take 100 meetings before landing what you need. Great things take time—relax, be patient, and get things done. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 9, 201717 min

EP 564: Proleads Passes 100 Customers, $75 ARPU Helping You Find Better Leads with CEO Anders Fredriksson

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Anders Fredriksson. He's a Swedish, serial entrepreneur who recently moved to San Francisco to build his sales technology startup, ProLeads. He's an engineer with a business mind and currently holds both CEO and CTO titles. Previously, he built and scaled ArrivalGuides.com as the founding CTO. Prior to that, he was the founder and CEO of Tablefinder.com, which he sold. He studied computer engineering and management at Chalmers University of Technology, but dropped out before getting his degree when he got funding for his first startup, Table Finder. Additionally, in 2007, Internet World named him the most prominent entrepreneur in Sweden. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff Favorite online tool? — Google Inbox 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 really wished I knew how easy it is to start a business, but also I wish I didn't know how hard it was" Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:20 – Nathan introduces Anders to the show 03:25 – Anders got $75K when he started Table Finder 03:50 – ProLeads is a platform that aggregates service data to optimize workflow 04:07 – ProLeads is a SaaS model with annual subscriptions 04:40 – Average customer pay per month is around $75 05:20 – ProLeads was launched in the USA, in 2014 05:40 – Anders was in 500 Startups, Batch 12 05:43 – Anders was turned down 4 times 05:58 – What Anders said to convince 500 startups to accept them 06:10 – ProLeads was doing $5K per month when they were just starting 06:53 – There were 2 co-founders and now they have 3 07:20 – Average MRR 07:50 – The amount ProLeads receives from 500 startups 08:08 – ProLeads also raised funds during the program 08:20 – ProLeads totaled $500K from their fundraising 09:15 – Zesty is a longtime customer of ProLeads 09:38 – Zesty has 50-70 seats in ProLeads 10:45 – ProLeads' lowest pricing is $300 per month 10:55 – ProLeads' focus is mid-sized companies 11:14 – 2017 MRR goal 12:10 – Gross customer churn per month 12:49 – ProLeads was growing their MRR 12:56 – ProLeads had a problem during close demo day churn 13:35 – ProLeads had monthly contracts 13:51 – Average monthly churn is quite low 14:22 – Team size 14:36 – CAC 14:48 – No paid marketing 15:20 – The tools ProLeads uses: 15:30 – Clearbit, Full Contact, and DiscoverOrg 15:41 – DiscoverOrg was on The Top: Episode 512 17:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: BELIEVE in your own product—this will make it easier to convince other people to believe in it as well. Problems arise at the start of any business, learn from it and move on. Starting a business has both its hard and easy moments; either way, it's worth the jump. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 8, 201721 min

EP 563: InsightPool Near $300k MRR Helping 100 Big Brands Find Influencers with CEO Devon Wijesinghe

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Devon Wijesinghe. He's the founder and CEO of InsightPool. He co-founded the business in 2012; and, within a short time led the company from 2 to 60 employees. He is currently revolutionizing marketeering and sales across many social platforms. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Travis Kalanick Favorite online tool? — Pardot Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Try and learn to concentrate on financial metrics and understand finance deeply Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:27 – Nathan introduces Devin to the show 01:53 - InsightPool focuses on the sector of influencer marketing 02:03 – "A brand needs to have an army of people syndicating their content with their own voices" 02:15 - Insight Cool finds influencers for brands that they can work with 02:35 – InsightPool's pricing model 03:10 – Average customer pay per month is $3K 03:33 – What is included in $3K 03:53 – Devin was the solo founder 04:00 – Devin sold a previous company for 9-figures in early 2012 04:50 – "Social became prevalent as the newest data set" 05:11 – Devin seeded a business idea for $250K 05:33 – Devin has a formalized angel group 05:41 – Devin is an advisor and investor 05:58 – David Cummings is Devin's friend 06:17 – David and Devin's companies are the first ones in ATV lean and tech village 06:48 – He currently has 60 people on the team 07:21 – InsightPool is currently serving over a hundred enterprises 07:50 – MRR 08:23 – InsightPool has a sales team 08:49 – CAC LTV 10:00 – Average spending on CAC 10:25 – Gross churn 11:00 – Net revenue churn 11:53 – InsightPool did a series A round and got an investment of $8M 12:35 – InsightPool did a debt round last year 12:50 – The amount InsightPool is burning per month 14:50 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: A brand needs to have an army of people syndicating their content with their own voices. Go with what you think you are made to do. Learn how to make the metrics and finance dance – understand it deeply before taking that leap. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 7, 201721 min

EP 562: Illumineto Raised $700k raised, Passes 100 Customers with DC Team with CEO Nick Caruso

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Nick Caruso. He's the CEO and founder of Illumineto. He's the VP of Sales in Eastern US & Canada with Notable Solutions and he was there for 6 years. Before that, he was at Kofax as a federal sales manager and he also served the country in the Marine Corps as a Captain. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Built to Last What CEO do you follow? – Drew Houston Favorite online tool? — API.ai Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Nick wished he knew that starting a company was not as hard as he thought it would be and wished he'd started earlier Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:06 – Nathan introduces Nick to the show 01:45 – Illumineto is a SaaS company and they charge monthly 02:00 – Nick has been in the technology field for 20 years and in sales for 15 years 02:15 – Nick wasn't able to find a tool to help him close more deals 02:34 – Illumineto focuses on the individual sales rep and not the whole company 02:58 – Illumineto has a lot of sales reps from Fortune 500 companies 03:14 – Illumineto has been running for 6 months now 03:48 – Illumineto currently has a thousand of sign ups or users that represent several hundreds of logos 04:25 – Illumineto was founded in mid 2015 04:30 – Beta in 2016 04:50 – Nick has sunk in $700K before starting 05:00 – Illumineto had an Angel round 05:23 – Illumineto has 3 co-founders 05:32 – All of them had successful exits in different companies 05:55 – There are 5 Angel investors 06:15 – Current team size is 4 06:50 – Average pay per user per month is $30 07:00 – Average MRR 08:00 – Nick won't disclose the amount, but Illumineto is profitable 09:00 – Nathan explains why he asks for numbers 10:15 – Illumineto has more than 100 paying customers 10:30 – Gross customer churn 10:52 – 0% churn rate on paying customers 11:31 – Illumineto had paid advertising 12:07 – They had thousands of people coming in for the premium model 12:50 – Illumineto leverages their connections in LinkedIn to get their customers from IBM 13:11 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: It is possible for a startup to be profitable in as early as 6 months. Leveraging your connections can help you engage with customers and increase sales. Start your business as soon as you can, you'll learn as you go. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 6, 201717 min

EP 561: He Did $1b in 2016 Transactions (Takes on avg 3%) at his M&A Firm Marlin and Associates with CEO Ken Marlin

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Ken Marlin. He's the founder and managing partner of Marlin and Associates – an award winning mergers and acquisition business focused on investment banking. They are headquartered in New York city with offices in San Francisco, Washington DC and Toronto. Ken is also the author of The Marine Corps Way to Win on Wall Street: 11 Key Plans From Battlefield to Boardroom which was published in September. From 1971-1981, Ken rose in rank becoming a Marine Captain and Infantry Commander. He's applied his Marine Corps principles to leading successful businesses. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-run Companies What CEO do you follow? – Fred Wilson Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn, Salesforce and Morning Star Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Pursue your passion and you'll do well—play to your strengths and not your weaknesses Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:42 – Nathan introduces Ken Marlin to the show 03:00 – Ken is not doing it for the money 03:13 – Marlin and Associates tries hard to be the trusted advisor to people who want to buy or sell middle-market, technology companies 03:26 – Buyers and sellers pay Marlin and Associates retainers 03:55 – "The bigger the deal, the smaller the percentage" 04:20 – Ken shares their success in 2016 04:42 – Marlin and Associates gets 8-10 clients a year 04:58 – Marlin and Associates is service-oriented 05:45 – Marlin and Associates negotiate with all phases of the transaction 05:54 – Marlin and Associates help buyers understand the strengths and weaknesses of the companies they're planning to buy 06:21 – "We always try to play the role of the honest broker" 07:09 – There are no risk-free transactions, so the question that should be asked is how much risk is there? 07:38 – The average amount of transactions 08:27 – The types of seller and buyers 09:05 – The #1 reason a deal blows up 09:31 – From a seller's perspective, transactions are made from trust 10:00 – It's important that they have a set of financial projections they're going to meet 11:25 – "Perfection is to give people a set of forecasts that you're going to meet and to meet it" 11:52 – Key principle from Ken's book is "take the long view" 13:12 – There are people who buy companies without a clear understanding of how that acquisition helps advance them towards a strategic goal 14:30 – Ken talks about the acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft 16:41 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: There are no such things as risk-free transactions—the question that should be asked is how much risk is there? Give your client a set of financial projections that you're going to meet—and, meet it! Work around your strengths, not your weaknesses. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 5, 201721 min

EP 560: Badger Maps Does $1.2M in 2016, $120k MRR, Looking to 3x with CEO Steven Benson

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Steven Benson. The founder and CEO of Badger Maps – the number one sales app in the Apple app store which helps salespeople become more successful. Badger shows salespeople their customers and leads on the map and connects them with their calendar to build a daily route. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Tools of Titans What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Baremetrics Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Steven wished he had known that he'd learn more working for small companies than big companies Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:27 – Nathan introduces Steven to the show 02:00 – Badger Maps helps salespeople with their jobs 02:37 - Badger Maps is a SaaS model 02:50 – Average customer pay per month is $35 02:58 – Badger Maps was founded in 2012 03:24 – Badger Maps has 3 co-founders 03:50 – Steven and the other co-founders didn't really split the equity 04:00 – When splitting the equity, everyone gets a fair deal 04:44 – Steven shares what to consider in splitting equity 05:58 – Badger Maps has an accelerator clause 06:44 – First year revenue is $70K 07:10 – Number of current customers is 4K 07:40 – Apple ranked Badger Maps as #1 08:50 – There are Fortune 500 companies who use Badger Maps 09:01 – The number of customers is both team and individual sales reps 09:16 – Gross monthly customer churn is 3.3% 09:37 – The customers are finding Badger Maps through word of mouth, SEO, and SMM 10:08 – The amount Badger Maps is willing to spend to acquire new customers 10:46 – Badger Maps spent $12K on paid marketing 11:00 – Average CAC 11:24 – Google is around $300 12:06 – In San Francisco, people are spending 100% of LTV on acquisition 12:53 – Badger Maps is bootstrapped 13:03 – Badger Maps had a loan from Lighter Capital 13:45 – Steven shares how Lighter Capital makes loans for SaaS companies 14:10 – Steven is paying 22-28% for the amount they have loaned and there's no personal guarantee 15:06 – Total revenue in 2016 is around $1.2M 15:20 – Revenue goal in 2017 is $4.5M 17:05 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Be fair and make sure it is a great deal for everyone when splitting equity. Getting a loan can also be a good option for SaaS companies. In San Francisco, people are spending 100% of LTV on acquisition. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 4, 201721 min

EP 559: JSX Exchange Launches To Sell Computational Power to Financial Firms with CEO Andrew Gryaznov

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Andrew Gryaznov. He's an artificial intelligence and a cloud computing evangelist based in Dublin, Moscow. He's the founder of JSX Exchange – the cloud computing commodity exchange and has built several other services and tools ranging from SshTo.net, Plottico, and many others. Andrew is also a telecom and Linux expert and finalist at the GSOC 2005 Summit. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Startup Owner's Manual What CEO do you follow? – Brad Katsuyama Favorite online tool? — Trello Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— That depends If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Andrew wished he was more mindful of the global market Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:09 – Nathan introduces Andrew to the show 01:48 – Andrew shares his vision for why he built JSX Exchange 01:51 – Computation will be the most influential resource 03:05 – JSX Exchange has invented a way to commoditize cloud computation 03:53 – Andrew shares what people without JSX Exchange are doing 05:02 – Andrew mentions how the financial exchange space can use JSX Exchange 05:48 – Banks may own supercomputers 07:03 – JSX Exchange works with financial institutions who want accurate trade 07:46 – JSX Exchange wants to expand out of the financial space 08:18 – JSX Exchange is currently in pre-seed stage 09:15 – Irish investors have put out less than $1M 09:24 – It is an equity round 09:34 – Andrew was a solo founder for a period of time, but expanded 10:15 – Andrew has a team of 5 people who are all co-founders 10:50 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: There is a possibility that computation will be the most influential resource. Credibility is needed if you want to be successful in your space. Believe in your product. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 3, 201714 min

EP 558: 2 yr Old HotJar Passes $500k MRR Helping 10,000 Customers See What Website Visitors Are Doing with CEO David Darmanin

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David Darmanin. He's the CEO and founder of HotJar. Over the 12 years before founding HotJar, he generated hundreds of millions of dollars in growth consulting small to Fortune 500 businesses. He's got multiple teams, developed brands, and ran hundreds of tests for his clients spanning across 19 languages, 12 currencies, and 13 different industries. HotJar is now used in over 150 sites around the world and the company is growing to €3 million euros in just under one year. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing What CEO do you follow? – Jay Simons Favorite online tool? — Intercom 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 wished I truly understood what marketing was Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:18 – Nathan introduces David to the show 03:03 – HotJar is a tool that allows site owners to see how their users are using their websites 03:30 – Once you know the customer experience, it is easier to see what to improve next 03:45 – Nathan experienced HotJar himself, in his website 04:10 – HotJar is careful about what data to show in regards to privacy 05:05 – HotJar's technology was expensive 05:30 – HotJar has a premium model 05:51 – Average customer pay per month is €50 06:10 – It was only €30 when HotJar started 06:33 – HotJar is currently serving 10K customers 06:50 – The number of sites each customer has 07:30 – ARR 07:40 – MRR 07:55 – Revenue goal for 2017 08:15 – HotJar currently has a team of 22 people and 8 on the leadership team 08:35 – There are 5 people in the founding team 09:14 – There are 4 big pillars: marketing, customer success, product, and operation 09:57 – Gross customer churn is higher than net negative churn 11:05 – "We are the dropping the smaller customers, but we are retaining and expanding the bigger customers" 11:20 – Both have less than 10% monthly churn 11:41 – HotJar was founded in 2014 12:20 – "If you truly want to create a premium company and not just like a trial model which is disguised as a premium, you really need to think about how does that free package stand on its own 2 feet" 12:43 – HotJar minimized the number of interface and allowed users to delete them and create new ones 13:21 – David does not track the time the customer has converted from free to premium, but they track the cohorts 14:00 – CAC is extremely conservative 15:04 – The premium aspect Hotjar offers is brand building 15:50 – There is brand value in doing different types of campaigns 16:17 – HotJar is bootstrapped 16:25 – HotJar sees other players who have raised capital 17:14 – HotJar does not see raising capital as an advantage 17:34 – HotJar gets a lot of referrals 18:10 – HotJar just recently started with paid advertising 18:40 – HotJar has an investment target model 19:10 – HotJar has used this model to offer flexibility and freedom 20:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Churn is one of the biggest challenges of a SaaS business. If you truly want to create a premium company and product—think about how that free package stands on its own two feet. Check your options because NOT raising capital can be very possible and advantageous for you. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 2, 201724 min

EP 557: Appointlet Hits $35k MRR, Co-Founders Because of Reddit Helping 1100 Customers Schedule with Rami El Chamaa

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Rami El Chamaa. He's the CEO and founder of Appointlet. He started earlier as a digital marketing manager at Eastline Marketing where he led lead generation, SEO, email marketing, and content marketing. Before that, he was with Ernst & Young. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Lean Startup What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Intercom Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – N/A Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:30 – Nathan introduces Rami to the show 02:03 – Appointlet is an appointment scheduling software 02:34 – Appointlet is a SaaS based business and makes money through subscriptions 02:40 – Appointlet has monthly and annually pricing depending on the team price 02:51 – Average monthly revenue per customer is $50 03:17 – Appointlet's pricing has been set since 2012 04:18 – Rami's co-founder was working for his previous company and saw the tedious process of appointment scheduling through different websites 05:17 – Rami saw his co-founder's thread in Reddit regarding his webapp and Rami replied to him 05:31 – Rami is from Lebanon and met his co-founder through Reddit 05:45 – Rami is in charge of marketing growth and his co-founder is in charge of the coding 06:20 – The Reddit thread 07:05 – Rami and Jared don't talk much about equity 07:30 – Rami didn't have any idea about equity and just focused on marketing 08:05 – Rami now has 25% of the company 08:27 – Appointlet has 1100 paying customers 08:55 – Rami had been working with Appointlet for a year when he realized he needed to be compensated 09:16 – First year revenue 10:19 – Average RPU 10:35 – Rami focuses on listening to customers and creating a flow that lets the customer feel that they are being taken cared of 11:08 – Startups grow through support 12:08 – Rami has integrated branding techniques 13:00 – "The lifetime value of a customer usually drives the lifetime value of a new customer as well" 14:00 – Gross customer churn 14:10 – Appointlet is doing paid, targeted, marketing campaigns 14:40 – Appointlet spent $2-3K on a marketing campaign 15:07 – LTV 15:30 – Appointlet just hired their first customer support manager 15:58 – Appointlet is currently looking for software developers located in USA 16:05 – Salary range 16:49 – Appointlet is bootstrapped 16:59 – Appointlet is not interested in raising funds until they need it 17:36 – Appointlet is currently cash flow positive 18:55 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Opportunities can now be found on the internet – just look for someone with whom you share the same passion. Working for free isn't that bad as long as you make yourself indispensable. The lifetime value of a customer usually drives the lifetime value of a new customer as well. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket 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

Feb 1, 201722 min

EP 556: They 3D Printed Baby Sophia's New Foot Faster and Cheaper than Alternatives with Mecuris CEO Manuel Opitz

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Manuel Opitz: He is currently the founder of Mecuris. Before founding the company as the CEO, he worked as a medical IP broker in innovation management and as a technology scout in China. He graduated in Industrial Engineering and he has taken a keen interest in optimizing healthcare process chains by digitalization and 3D printing. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Thinking Fast and Slow What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Podio and Acuity Scheduling Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Don't try to do everything yourself" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:37 – Nathan introduces Manuel to the show 02:14 – Mecuris is in B2B and medical technology 02:30 – Mecuris provides patient specific prosthetics using 3D printing 02:58 – Manuel discusses the picture on their website 03:19 – Mecuris can be reimbursed by the insurance companies 03:38 – Mecuris gets paid as the service provider for medical supply stores 03:51 – Mecuris uses SLS—which is more costly but lasts 04:25 – The smaller the prosthetics, the cheaper it is 04:50 – Manuel shares the pricing 05:25 – The price for Sophie's prosthetics 06:15 – Insurance companies have their own prices 06:55 – Average number of prosthetics that have been 3D printed in 2016 07:28 – Mecuris only had prototypes in 2016 07:45 – Mecuris had 2 seed investors in November 08:39 – Mecuris raised under a million 08:55 – Mecuris had a pre-seed round 09:37 – The 6 founders put in 5-digit numbers per person and received a pre-seed government round 10:12 – Manuel shares how the 6 founders talked about the equity 11:26 – The founders who are operational are the software lead and product designer 11:52 – There are a total of 11 people in the office 12:07 – Mecuris was launched in May, 2016 12:52 – Manuel wants to enter the international market after Series A 13:09 – Talks with big companies are in the works 13:40 – Mecuris can do prosthetics in just 10 minutes 14:04 – Manuel discusses Sophie's prosthetics and what would be her option would be if there was no Mecuris 15:15 – Mecuris can do simulation work with their prosthetics 17:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Aim high—if you believe that you can enter the international market then do it. Sharing equity requires a good system, defining how you can benefit from one another. Collaborate with the experts in your field. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jan 31, 201720 min

EP 555: Sudo.ai Raises $2.3M at $10.3M Post Money Valuation to Fix CRM Space with CEo Francisco Larrain

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Francisco Larrain who has been an entrepreneur for most of his life. He was born and raised in Chile and is the co-founder and CEO of Sudo. He founded a company called Zappedy – a payment technology company that was backed by Eric Schmidt and acquired by Groupon. More recently, he led a project engineering team of a hundred plus people for Groupon's local business. Now, he's working on enabling high quality work for corporations and their teams. The co-founder and head of product, Amit, is also joining Francisco in this podcast. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – High Output Management (Francisco) What CEO do you follow? – N/A (Amit) Favorite online tool? — Splunk and Github (Francisco) Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No (Francisco) If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Francisco would tell himself that all these people that you look up to are much more human than you think and he'd would love to have more confidence. Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:29 – Nathan introduces Francisco to the show 02:11 – Amit codes late at night 02:27 – Team of 9 people and they all code 03:00 – Francisco explains the hedge fund with trigger power 04:00 – Francisco likes the entrepreneurial side of the Valley 04:37 – Francisco has raised $3M 04:45 – Sudo wants to fix the broken CRM of enterprise 05:15 – There are system problems and software problems 05:25 – A time consuming software will lead to people not using it 06:17 – Francisco has experienced problems with CRM in Groupon 07:20 – Francisco shares their plan with Sudo, starting with expense management 07:45 – There's a free-form format in the CRM where people can update 08:10 – Francisco wants to flip everything around 09:17 – Sudo is on pre-revenue and private beta 09:56 – There are 5 pilot companies 10:10 – Sudo will possibly start with monthly subscription system and will move to an account based system 11:00 – The key features of Sudo allows people to add contacts and notes from their meetings 12:30 – Sudo is very sticky with the representatives 13:43 – The $3M seed round was an equity round 13:59 – Francisco shares who their investors are 15:00 – Why the valuation was easy for Francisco 16:00 – Francisco shared the acquisition of Groupon on Zappidy 17:37 – The valuation that was negotiated for Sudo in the seed round 19:50 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: A time consuming software will lead to people not using it. The valuation is much easier if you've had a good exit before. We are all humans – even the ones in the highest positions that we look up to and respect. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jan 30, 201723 min

EP 554: Brandetize is Jack Canfields Internet Engine, Hits $4M 2015 Revenue with CEO Eric Berman

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Eric Berman: Since graduating from UCST, he's been a serial entrepreneur and business operator. He grew his first company to 400K and just missed out on going public. He has been a consultant for many other businesses and is now the CEO and founder of Brandetize, a full service, performance-based, marketing agency that partners with thought leaders such as Brian Tracy, Jack Canfield and many others. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – How to Win Friends and Influence Others What CEO do you follow? – Gary Vaynerchuk Favorite online tool? — Spark Hire Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7 and a half If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Continue to have an open mind, network as many people as you can and…follow your passions and be humble" Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:00 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show 02:33 – TheCollegeClub.com was Eric's first company 02:51 – It grew significantly 03:40 – The stock market crashed just before they become public in 2000 04:25 – They were burning $2M monthly with over 400 employees 05:46 – After the crash, Eric did some consulting 07:00 – They don't teach life skills in the educational system 07:18 – Eric approached Brian Tracy when Brian was struggling 08:00 – It was 2001, when Eric started working with Brian at no cost 08:16 – Eric shares the difference of Gary Vaynerchuk and Brian Tracy 09:08 – After working with Brian for more than 10 years, gurus are asking Eric if he can work for them 09:20 – Eric had a talk with Brian about him working with other gurus 10:00 – The brands that are going after Brandetize 10:40 – 2015 total revenue is close to $4M and 2016 is close to $5M 10:55 – 28 employees 11:16 – Brandetize doesn't have a MRR 12:30 – Eric predicts that Brendon Burchard will be the next Tony Robbins 12:56 – Brian Tracy brings the most revenue to Brandetize 13:50 – Eric shares their offer to the brands 16:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Have an open mind, be humble, and follow your passions. Even if you have a significant fall—this does not stop you from coming back. Offering your services for free can help you gain more in the end. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jan 29, 201718 min

EP 553: Prospectify Raises $1M at $4M Post Money Valuation, $25k MRR, for Better Prospecting with CEO Matt Ekstrom

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Matt Ekstrom. He's one of the founders of Prospectify and formerly co-founded HiringSolved. He's in-charge of all things revenue for Prospectify, which is a promising sales and intelligence platform. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Sales Acceleration What CEO do you follow? – Gary Vaynerchuk Favorite online tool? — Google Search and HubSpot 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 would have studied more about startups and being an entrepreneur" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:30 – Nathan introduces Matt to the show 01:55 – Prospectify is a SaaS model 02:14 – Prospectify's long term goal is to be able to scale personalization from the sales standpoint 02:25 – Prospectify has monthly subscriptions 02:45 – Prospectify's pricing: 03:25 – The prices from the website are $40, $190, $490, and $975 03:33 – Average customer pay per month is $352 03:50 – Prospectify was launched in February 2016, and was in beta in January 2016 04:16 – Current number of customers is around 100 04:46 – MRR is over $20K 05:09 – Prospectify is based in Phoenix 05:20 – Prospectify just closed their first month 05:25 – It was in Angels and a million dollar round 05:45 – Matt shares why he decided on an equity round and not a convertible note 06:31 – Matt uses the trajectory to argue for higher valuation 07:29 – Prospectify is about to launch their company search which includes 12 million companies starting in the USA 08:10 – The people Prospectify has targeted 08:18 – Prospectify's customer base is diverse 08:45 – Annual customer churn 09:45 – Matt shares what he will do to keep customers paying and NOT cancel after receiving all the data 11:10 – Prospectify's top data sources 11:22 – Matt shares what they used to validate the concept of Prospectify 12:18 – Fixed cost per month for crawling 13:11 – Matt shares where to get credits 14:00 – Customer LTV 14:34 – Current team size 14:45 – Headcount expenses 16:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Keep people up to date—that way, they will keep on paying. Decide whether an equity round or convertible note will be most advantageous for you. Discern what is the right track and try to stay on it. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jan 28, 201719 min

EP 552: $300k last 12 months To Help Sales People Find Perfect Gifts with CEO Greg Segall

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Wayne Silbermann. He has founded a number of startups from South Africa including one of the first world's music discovery services which was originally founded by Mark Shuttleworth. His most recent venture, Sortd, is a new email platform that's on a path to fundamentally changing the way people communicate and manage work. Sortd has ranked as the number 1 app for Gmail on Product Hunt. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Tipping Point What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — WorkFlowy Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Wayne would tell himself that there's plenty of opportunities out there and you can pick and choose what you're passionate about Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:35 – Nathan introduces Wayne to the show 02:20 – Sortd transforms the Gmail interface into a more organized system to manage lists—similar to Trello for Gmail 02:50 – Wayne discovered that many people use the Gmail Inbox as a to-do list 03:29 – Sortd allows you to drag-and-drop your emails to your to-do lists 03:50 – Sortd is currently free 04:00 – Wayne shares how they are going to monetize Sortd according to agencies that use it 05:00 – Wayne has a number of ventures which are his sources of income 05:30 – The number of free users 05:45 – The behavior of active users 06:40 – Total capital which is self-funded 06:50 – The money goes to development 07:29 – Sortd works under Gmail and there's no need to add another app 08:05 – Why would people use Sortd? 09:00 – Sortd allows you to "communicate using email as a medium in the context of your priorities" 09:33 – It is like you're running two applications under 1 tab 10:11 – Sortd was in the chrome store since 2014 10:45 – Sortd has 3 full-time developers 11:16 – The revenue of the other business 11:40 – The funding environment in South Africa 12:48 – Wayne is looking to raise around a million dollars for Sortd 14:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Having a number of ventures can help you create a product that is dedicated to helping people. Email is one of the most used applications—that's why startups are finding ways to make life easier for email users. There are tons of opportunities out there—pick and choose what you're passionate about. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jan 27, 201718 min

EP 551: Sortd, 200,000 users, $500k invested so far, launched2014, othe rbusness funding this that does $1m/yr. Raising $1m sortd

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Jan 26, 201716 min

EP 550: Attentive Raises $150K in Portugal to Solve Sales Problem with CEO Daniel Araujo

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Daniel Araujo. He's the CEO at Attentive.US – a competitive intelligence platform that gives real-time information to teams that use SalesForce, Hubspot, Pipedrive or Full Contact. He's the next Googler, loves data visualization and all things technology. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Peak What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — HubSpot Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Roughly If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Daniel would tell himself to learn as fast as he can Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:42 – Nathan introduces Daniel to the show 02:10 – Attentive is a SaaS platform that integrates with CRMs 02:20 – Attentive alway looks for information and updates in real-time 02:42 – Attentive offers monthly subscriptions and an additional setup fee for clients who want to use other CRMs 03:03 – Average customer pay per month 03:16 – The integration is a one-time fee and will depend on the client's preferences 03:55 – Attentive does track every person that is in your pipeline 04:40 – Every behavior of a lead notifies the user 05:00 – Daniel shares what their setup looks like 05:09 – The information that needs to be filled out for the setup are on the website 05:44 – There are clients who will give a list of companies they want to track 06:21 – Number of paying customers monthly 06:37 – Attentive just launched a new interface 07:00 – MRR 07:08 – Team size is 5 which includes a newly hired Head of Growth 08:00 – Attentive has raised $150K 08:12 – The first $100K was from a big VC in Portugal and the rest is from an advisor round 08:50 – There are key people who are helping build Attentive 09:00 – Initially, it was convertible note but everything is converted to equity now 09:19 – The valuation conversation with an Angel investor 10:05 – Daniel shares how he started raising Attentive's capital 10:28 – There are still people who are using Attentive's Slack bot for free 10:38 – The investors believe that Attentive could grow 10:58 – 10% of the company is for the investors, the rest belongs to the 3 founders of Attentive 11:17 – Daniel shares how the 3 founders split the rest of the company 11:40 – Daniel wants to move Attentive to the US because they want to compete in that market 12:10 – Daniel will focus on having an MRR of $5-10K before raising another round 12:40 – Valuation for Series A will depend on the metrics 13:50 – Attentive is trying to get on the Boulder acceleration program 15:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Believe in your product so that other people, too, will believe in it. Deciding the valuation for another raising depends on the MRR or the metrics. Learn as FAST as you can. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jan 25, 201718 min

EP 549: Propeller CEO on Why He'll Win CRM Space After Exit to Samsung with Eric Bouck

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Eric Bouck. He's the CEO and founder of Propeller, a CRM that lets you sell from gmail. Prior to Propeller, Eric was the co-founder and CEO of Zigzag Software which was eventually sold to Samsung. He also spent some time working as a director for Samsung. He also worked as a Group Product Manager at Dell EMC and spent 4 years with this company. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Inspired What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Webflow Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Marry the right person" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:26 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show 02:05 – Propeller is the CRM that creates daily tools that salespeople can use to set their meetings, do their email and phone calls, share presentations and documents, and research etc. 02:31 – Propeller is a SaaS business and they have monthly and annual subscriptions 02:50 – Average revenue per customer monthly 02:54 –$50 per month 03:15 – How does Propeller win on a very crowded market? 03:24 – There's a lot of companies who try to make their own niche 03:42 – Propeller has a unique mix of deep integration with Gmail combined with the ability to do multiple step campaign 04:45 – Propeller is an all-in-one CRM – you won't be needing another product 05:10 – Propeller was launched September 1st 05:15 – Growth is 21% month over month 05:22 – A little over 50 customers at the moment 05:26 – Propeller is bootstrapped 05:39 – Eric got decent money from the exit 06:23 – No revenue churn at the moment 07:00 – Team size, they are also remote 07:36 – Eric is not open to acquisition talks at the moment 08:00 – The leading companies in the CRM space are Salesforce and Dynamics 08:35 – Pipeline and Hubspot are getting positive feedback as well 09:00 – Eric shares his opinion of Outreach 09:25 – Eric mentions Propeller having an AI 09:55 – The core differentiator of the products 10:04 – An example of how Propeller makes getting your emails done easier 11:00 – Nathan's acuity to batch schedule 11:20 – CRM pricing 11:42 – Deliver the VALUE 12:00 – Eric shares their vision as a company to make salespeople more effective 12:12 – Eric shares how he got their first 5 customers 12:46 – Eric has also spent for paid marketing 12:58 – LTV is $1500 13:30 – CAC LTV ratio 15:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: If your market is crowded, you have to work HARDER to differentiate yourself. The value is not in losing sales or making more sales—the value is found in whether or not you provide an effective product. Don't live with regrets—it's gotten you to where you are now. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jan 24, 201718 min

EP 548: $200M FinTech Fund Bullish on Kabbage with Santander Innoventures Partner Manuel Silva

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Manuel Silva. He's a partner at Santander InnoVenture. Prior to that, he was the founding member of BBVA Ventures which focused on lending, new platforms, financial inclusion, and private banking. He's worked across Latin America and Europe and holds a BA in Business Administration from CUNEF, a MSc in Political Science, and a MPhil in Development Economics. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – N/A What CEO do you follow? – Rob Frohwein Favorite online tool? — Crunchbase Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "There's so much to do in this world" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Manuel to the show 02:25 – Manuel is involved in all investments at Santander 03:10 – Manuel is separate from the Santander group 03:31 – Manuel facilitates the relationship across the banks 03:48 – The banks refer to the Santander's franchises all over the world 04:24 – Manuel shares how they worked with Kabbage 05:01 – "It's a successful investment, it's a successful partnership" 05:20 – Kabbage is the perfect example of how Santander wants to work 05:30 – The fund size for innoventure at Santander 06:45 – Manuel shares how Santander plays in the venture capital world 06:48 – Santander does equity investment only 08:05 – Santander works out the opportunities for the CEO and the company 08:55 – The companies in Santander's portfolio is not complete because there are still companies unannounced 10:00 – Manuel shares how they work in the round and in the FinTech space 10:03 – FinTech space has a level of maturity and density in entrepreneurship 11:00 – Companies that Santander have invested in are data driven 12:13 – Santander wants banks to partner with startups so that these companies can access the reach these banks have 14:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: FinTech has the maturity to deal with the problems that come up in the industry—this sets them apart. Santander exists to bring together a partnership between banks and startups. Be focused in your task and goals as there's so much to do. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible and giving FREE money now from Nathan. Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jan 23, 201717 min

EP 547: Handshake.com Raises $24M, Helping 1000+ Customers Manage Store Product Purchasing with CEO Glen Coates

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Glen Coates. He's the co-founder and CEO of Handshake. It focuses on putting the right product on every shelf in every store. He goes between Sydney, San Diego and New York City. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team What CEO do you follow? – Dave Yarnold Favorite online tool? — Boomerang for Gmail Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Glen wished he knew how intense running this company was going to be and to spend a lot more time making music and going surfing. Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:37 – Nathan introduces Glen to the show 02:15 – Handshake is about getting the right product on every shelf, in the world 03:30 – Handshake brings the Amazon-like buying and selling platform to businesses 03:55 – Handshake Rep is the mobile app used by sales reps who work for the brand 04:21 – Handshake Direct is the mobile and web-based ecommerce for B2B 05:00 – Handshake is a SaaS business and they sell to manufacturers and distributors 05:10 – Handshake's customers are the manufacturers, distributors, and their customers who log into Handshake 05:22 – Handshake has a similar model to Salesforce 05:40 – Glen started working with Handshake in 2010 and got their first customer in 2011 05:51 – First year revenue 06:16 – Average number of customers at the moment 06:51 – The pricing model is per seat per year for Handshake Rep, Handshake Direct is made-to-order 07:37 – Average customer pay per month 08:24 – December 2016: total average revenue range 09:35 – Handshake used to have monthly contracts 09:59 – Most of the contracts now are annual contracts 10:07 – Total capital raised is around $24M inclusive of Series B 10:29 – Series B closed in February 2016 10:40 – Handshake isn't in any acquisition talk 12:03 – What Glen and his team is building is grand in scale and requires a lot of hard work 12:44 – Team size and location 13:05 – Glen shares the number of people per team 14:10 – LTV 14:15 – "I don't think much about lifetime value" 16:51 – "I care about delivering 100% growth with a better payback period than I care about delivering 200% growth with like a terrible payback period" 17:05 – Handshake growth is 100% annual 17:30 – Glen shares the flagged payback period in VC communities 18:48 – Glen is currently burning close to $500K a month 18:56 – Glen thinks that it should take at least 6 months before having to raise again 19:50 – Glen usually raises for a couple of years and each time he raises gives them 2 years of runway 20:15 – Gross annual customer churn 20:30 – Churn has come down when they shifted their market 21:25 – Glen shares what they did to combat high monthly churn 22:38 – Handshake always has a negative revenue churn 23:30 – Glen wouldn't sell Handshake for Nathan's sample offer 25:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: It's difficult to create a SaaS that is web-based and mobile-based – it takes hard work. Delivering 100% growth with a better payback period is better than delivering 200% growth with a terrible payback period. Raising usually takes 6 months and it is the CEO's responsibility to decide how he can leverage each raise. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jan 22, 201728 min

EP 546: The Pitch Made $80k in Year 1 Sponsor Revenue, 700,000 Downloads with Producer Josh Muccio

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Josh Muccio: He's the host of The Pitch Podcast and he recently launched Season 2 on January 11th. Before The Pitch Podcast, he was the founder of iHeart Repair, which he sold in 2014. He is a father of 2, soon to be 3. Josh is 29 and he loves the tech world. He's in Florida and loves skiing and takes 2 ski trips every winter. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Slight Edge What CEO do you follow? – Nicholas Quah Favorite online tool? — Slack and Google Drive Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "To create more stuff and just put it out there" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:38 – Nathan introduces Josh to the show 02:35 – The Pitch Podcast is similar to the TV show SharkTank 02:53 – Season 2 is where investments happen on air 03:05 – Josh shares why Season 1 of The Pitch Podcast was challenging 03:40 – Sheel is Josh's co-host 04:09 – Josh discusses iHeart Repair 05:20 – iHeart Repair was sold in 2014 05:25 – Revenue was around $750K annually 05:59 – Josh just didn't see his future with iHeart Repair 06:25 – Josh had a broker who helped him with the exit 06:43 – MTechRepair bought iHeart Repair 07:12 – Josh did the Wordpress site for iHeart Repair 07:35 – Josh installed Woocommerce in iHeart Repair's site 08:30 – Josh shares what happened after the exit 08:50 – Josh shares how he met Sheel 09:10 – Josh had a dream that he was going to have a podcast 09:30 – Josh shares how he met Spencer Handly of Blab 09:52 – The start of the daily hunt 10:45 – Josh shares how Sheel approached him 11:25 – The advertisers in the podcast are the main revenue stream 12:00 – Nathan asks Josh for his feedback regarding promoting his product 12:49 – Josh plans to stay in their business model 12:54 – Average revenue for Season 1 of The Pitch Podcast 13:11 – Season 2 pre-sold revenue 13:30 – There are 2 advertisers per show 14:15 – 250K total downloads for Season 1 14:42 – The idea of Season 2 15:13 – The amount Josh spent on his Facebook ad trial 15:31 – Press is the most successful growth channel for The Pitch Podcast 16:07 – If Season 2 flops, Josh would stop the podcast 16:25 – Nathan makes an offer to Josh 18:51 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The services market is tedious and requires a thorough study. If you don't see your future in it – put an END to it. Do NOT hesitate to create more and put it out there. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket The Pitch Podcast – Josh's Podcast iHeart Repair – Josh's previous company MTechRepair – The company that purchased iHeartRepair Woocommerce – Josh installed this program into iHeartRepair Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jan 21, 201723 min

EP 545: Unomy Raises $3.4M, $160k MRR Helping Businesses Get Leads with CEO Gal Harzvi

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Gal Har-Zvi: He's a passionate entrepreneur who lives and breathes B2B sales, marketing, and everything in between. He's one of the founders of Valueshine Ventures, the technology holdings company and a successful online marketer for various software categories and verticals. He's currently the CEO and founder of the company called Unomy. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Pitch Anything What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Calendly, ZoomUS, Yesware, SalesLoft, Boomerang Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Just do whatever you love and are passionate about and everything will be good" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:42 – Nathan introduces Gal to the show 02:14 – Unomy provides sales intelligence solutions 02:27 – Unomy makes money by selling annual subscriptions 02:40 – Unomy was launched in 2014 02:53 – Raised capital after 6 months 03:00 – Launched the current version focused on enterprise sales a year ago 03:25 – First year revenue 04:05 – Unomy currently changed their business model because the first one was not successful 04:21 – 2015 revenue 04:36 – 2016 revenue goal 05:03 – Unomy currently has mid-market businesses, but gradually switching to larger accounts 05:36 – Average customer pay annually 05:49 – Average number of current customers 05:58 – Unomy has currently raised capital 06:08 – Unomy did a seed round and a few convertible notes 06:18 – Unomy is going to raise a Series A 06:39 – Gal shares why they are raising capital 06:56 – Unomy's competitors are raising capital as well 07:21 – Unomy will probably raise $5-6M 07:40 – Unomy's valuation 08:33 – In any round, a founder should expect to lose anywhere between 25-35% of their company 09:17 – Gal and Nathan discuss what an average deal is 09:45 – There are a lot of VCs in Israel 10:20 – Unomy has 3 branches 10:48 – Team size is 24 10:56 – Gross annual churn 11:35 – Customer's LTV 12:02 – CAC 13:20 – Number of companies in Unomy's database 13:58 – Gal shares what makes them better than their competitors 15:00 – Unomy has a variety of categories 15:30 – Unomy was founded to help sales companies, not investors 16:06 – Unomy uses more sources than others 17:19 – Unomy has a guarantee and if you get a bounce email, you can get your money back 17:38 – Unomy does real-time verification 19:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: In any round, a founder should expect to lose anywhere between 25-35% of their company. A company should focus on why it was founded in the first place. Do what you love and are passionate about and the rest will take care of itself. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jan 20, 201721 min

EP 544: RevBoss $700k 2015 Revenue, Now $90k MRR to Help Customers Drive Revenue with CEO Eric Boggs

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Eric Boggs: He's the CEO at RevBoss – a sales prospecting SaaS company. RevBoss helps B2B sales teams grow pipelines and win more customers. Prior to RevBoss, he was the founder and CEO at Argyle Social and was a one-man sales team at Bronto Software. Eric is in North Carolina with his wife and 3 small children. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Things About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Matt Williamson Favorite online tool? – Stripe Do you get 8 hours of sleep? – No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "To not worry so much about the long term—that things just have a way of working themselves out" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:35 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show 02:10 – Eric shares what happened to Argyle 02:42 – Argyle raised $1.5M 03:52 – Argyle's buyers 05:32 – Eric was only 22 when joined he Bronto 05:39 – Eric was a one-man sales team for 2 and half years 06:32 – Eric went to business school after Bronto 07:05 – Bronto is now an Oracle company 07:12 – RevBoss is a SaaS company that helps B2B seller relations find more prospects and win more customers 07:45 – In between the Argyle wind down and RevBoss, Eric was a consultant for a year 08:20 – RevBoss' competitors 09:20 – RevBoss started as a services company and launched in September 2016 09:47 – Building a services business is easy, growing it is hard and turning it into a SaaS business is much harder 10:26 – Eric shares the weird things he encounters in the business 11:07 – "We're cannibalizing ourselves a little bit" in the short term, in regards to services revenue vs. recurring Saas revenue 12:12 – Average customer pay per month 12:28 – Weighted MRR 12:39 – RevBoss raised a seed round for $1.1M 13:45 – Eric sold 20% of the business for $1.1M 14:50 – Total 2015 revenue 15:01 – Team size and location 15:41 – Projected LTV 16:27 – CAC 16:34 – All inbound sales 17:20 – Gross churn 17:59 – Eric plans for the worst after his experience with Argyle 19:50 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Recurring SaaS revenue will beat out services revenue in the long run. Your worst experiences are your greatest teachers. Don't worry too much about the long term—things just have a way of working themselves out. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jan 19, 201724 min

EP 543: Bant CEO Hits $32K MRR, Helping Companies Get Higher Quality Leads with CEO Andrei Breaz

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Episode 543 Summary: In Episode #543, Nathan interviews Andrei Breaz. He's the founder and CEO of Bant.io which is a B2B leads company. Before that, he was the founder of Keptify, which was acquired by Well Investments. He also worked as the CTO of Harty Hanks and is highly experienced in the B2B sales space. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Think and Grow Rich What CEO do you follow? – Anthony Robbins and Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Trello Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Andrei wished he would have caught the entrepreneurial bug sooner Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:50 – Nathan introduces Andrei to the show 02:25 – Bant initiates conversations for companies with their ideal prospects 03:10 – Bant is a service model and not a SaaS model 03:47 – Bant is on the prospecting and lead generation stage 04:05 – Bant doesn't sell data 04:10 – Bant uses the data they generate using their own software 04:35 – The distinct data points that Bant uses 05:10 – Average customer pay per month is $1200 05:39 – The price reflects a medium plan which is a customized plan 05:44 – There's 100% money-back guarantee 06:00 – Andrei shares their definition of a hot lead 07:13 – Bant was launched in early 2015 07:30 – Bant is self-funded 08:00 – Number of current customers 09:08 – MRR 09:30 – Andrei is aiming for $1.5M next year 09:34 – 2015 total revenue 10:10 – Bant's actual clients 10:25 – Most are SMBs 10:50 – Team size and location 11:10 – Bant gets their customers from referrals and word of mouth 11:30 – Bant ran a $ 200 adword campaign when they started 11:41 – Andrei shares Bant's process 12:28 – LTV 12:55 – Bant's CAC is marginal 13:10 – No sales team, but there are account managers 14:18 – Monthly gross customer churn 15:10 – Bant has their own database and has researchers who validate their leads 15:55 – 8 contractors on research 16:03 – 3rd party data apps that Bant is using including Builtwith 16:50 – Andrei shares LinkedIn as one of their main data sources 17:15 – Andrei shares his thoughts regarding LinkedIn being acquired by Microsoft 18:55 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Do NOT rely on just one large source of data, have a variety of sources. Businesses can spend less time hiring the right people if they go through right channels providing the right prospects. Once the entrepreneurial bug bites you—just go for it. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jan 18, 201721 min

EP 542: HipLead Hits $120k MRR Helping 30 Customers Get More Leads with CEO COnor Lee

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Conor Lee, founder and CEO of HipLead. The company helps leading B2B companies scale their outbound sales with high quality lead generation outbound campaigns. Before founding HipLead, Conor founded several other companies including TellFi which was in the Y Combinator, Winter 2011 batch. Prior to that, he worked as a lobbyist in statewide political campaigns. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? – Zapier Do you get 8 hours of sleep? – No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Conor wished he had spent more time in tech than in politics Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:30 – Nathan introduces Conor to the show 02:07 – Conor shares what happened to TellFi 02:58 – Conor had a co-founder who wanted to keep it going 03:19 – Conor shares how the exit happened 04:10 – HipLead helps companies scale their outbound sales 04:35 – HipLead's pricing 04:55 – Current number of customers is 30 05:18 – HipLead was launched in 2013 05:30 – Conor is the solo founder, but he had a co-founder for awhile 06:25 – Conor has the majority of the shares of the company 07:35 – Conor and Nathan discuss cap tables 08:00 – Conor hired a lawyer for his legal documents 08:17 – Use the startup attorneys 08:31 – HipLead is bootstrapped 08:50 – HipLead's loan 09:20 – Conor shares why he got the loan 10:00 – Conor shares how the loan works 11:30 – The type of loan is only for specific companies 12:00 – The company name that provides the loan is Lighter Capital and it is based in Seattle 12:21 – Annual customer churn: less than 15% 12:58 – CAC 13:09 – Customer's LTV 14:15 – First year revenue 15:40 – 2015 revenue: $900,000 15:50 – Current ARR 15:59 – Conor is also looking into raising capital 16:10 – Team size of 16 16:29 – Team location is in San Francisco and other remote locations 18:35 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: We need to be more open about exits—there are times where you just have to pull the plug. If you need funds and do not want to share equity, try a bank loan. Make sure your legal documents are in order, especially in the case of a split from your co-founder. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jan 17, 201721 min

EP 541: VerticalIQ Hits $175k MRR, Helping 140 Banks Prep for Company Meetings with President Bobby Martin

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Jan 16, 201722 min

EP 540: Cliently Hits $8k MRR, Aims for $5m Valuation Next Round with CEO Spencer Farber

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Spencer Farber. He is the CEO and founder of Cliently and he's been in the industry for 10+ years working across many spaces. He discovered one thing—the constant pain for companies is to define creative ways to generate leads and THAT is what he's trying to solve with Cliently. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Marc Benioff's books What CEO do you follow? – Mikita Mikado Favorite online tool? — Trello Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – People are going to throw curveballs and you just need to understand how to deal with them Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:42 – Nathan introduces Spencer to the show 02:12 – Cliently helps a client engage with prospects 02:23 – A lead is only valuable if you're able to do something with it 02:33 – Cliently is a SaaS model 02:40 – Cliently's subscription plans starts at $99 to $599 a month 02:50 – Average RPU 03:18 – There are clients who pay annually 03:45 – They currently have 70-80 customers 04:02 – Cliently is bootstrapped with $30K and friends and family with $75K 04:22 – Cliently was launched in February 2016 05:00 – Spencer shares about a client in Australia and how they are using Cliently 05:20 – The client is BigReviewTV 05:28 – Cliently creates custom campaigns for them 06:10 – "We are not trying to be a CRM but we are trying to put the pieces together that are essentially going to help engagement" 06:45 – Cliently is using different APIs 07:00 – Spencer is looking to partner with Bond.co in the future 07:21 – Spencer shares how Cliently is going to beat the "other guys" in their space 08:12 - Spencer wanted to raise capital 08:54 – Cliently is using multiple sources for their leads 09:49 – Cliently's target MRR 09:58 – Spencer would raise $500K on an equity round 10:30 – Spencer would give up 10-15% to get the target MRR 11:06 – Spencer shares how Cliently's system is unique 11:34 – Team size 12:05 – Gross customer churn 13:05 – Team location 15:00 – The Famous Five 17:18 – Connect with Spencer through email 3 Key Points: A lead is only valuable if you're able to do something with it. Stand out in your space—give your client more reasons to stick with you. If you have a dream, pursue it. Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket [email protected] – Spencer's email address Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jan 15, 201718 min