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SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

3,082 episodes — Page 52 of 62

EP 520: Agency Hits $6M 2016 Revenue Helping 60 Clients with SEO with PowerDigitalMarketing CEO Nick Bjorn

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Nathan interviews Nick Bjorn. He is an entrepreneur by trade and digital marketer by evolution with over 8 years of professional agency experience. He has gained a national and global perspective on the evolving and digital world with an emphasis in search engine optimization or SEO. Nick is the co-founder of Power Digital Marketing which is based in San Diego, CA. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? – Eric Schmidt Favorite online tool? — Mixmax Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Commit to a skillset early on in life" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:45 – Nathan introduces Nick to the show 02:12 – Power Digital Marketing is a full-service digital agency 02:15 – Power Digital Marketing was created 4 years ago 02:18 – Nick has 2 other business partners who handle finances and team management 02:35 – Power Digital Marketing has 3 employees 02:40 – Power Digital Marketing's types of services described 03:15 – First year revenue was around $500K 03:33 – Power Digital Marketing has humble beginnings 03:50 – 2015 total revenue is $3.2M 03:57 – Estimate 2016 revenue is around $6M 04:10 – Power Digital Marketing typically has 6-month contracts 04:35 – Minimum amount per contract is $5K 04:43 – Retainers are at $50K a month 05:14 – Power Digital Marketing currently has 60 clients 05:25 – Average MRR 06:10 – 2017 revenue goal 06:35 – Power Digital Marketing and what they do for their clients 06:56 – Soccer Loco is one of Power Digital Marketing's clients 07:35 – SEO, organic rankings, paid ad initiatives are important for Soccer Loco 08:17 – Power Digital Marketing uses the keywords "cheap soccer cleats" for Soccer Loco intentionally 08:50 – Power Digital Marketing benefits well from link building 10:30 – Power Digital Marketing has PR professionals that build relationships with the clients 10:50 – Google now tracks backlinking and is reaching out to editors 11:43 – Power Digital Marketing relationship with SoccerNation.com 12:42 – "How do you find terms to target?" 12:47 – Do your due diligence 13:37 – Power Digital Marketing is currently in the process of developing their own page analytics software 14:20 – Connect with Nick on Twitter and email 16:35 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Creating content for SEO requires an understanding of the technicalities associated with backlinking. Track every campaign's effectivity as you step forward. Do your due diligence when it comes to finding the right terms and keywords that sell. 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 [email protected] – Nick's email address @Nick_Bjorn – Nick's Twitter handle Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 26, 201619 min

EP 519: GetAccept Hits $44k MRR, Helping 1100 Companies Get Deals Signed with CEO Samir Samjic

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Samir Smajic, one of the founders of GetAccept. GetAccept recently moved to San Francisco from Sweden because they are part of YC—a solution where you design, send, track, and market your proposals to get more deals digitally signed. Samir has a bunch of experience in project management, consulting, CRM, IT, computer software, business and more. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Never Split the Difference What CEO do you follow? – N/A 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? – "Doing whatever I felt good to do" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:55 – Nathan introduces Samir to the show 02:25 – Samir chooses skiing over snowboarding 02:35 – GetAccept helps sales reps close more deals by focusing on their sales document workflow 02:58 – GetAccept is a subscription-based SaaS business 03:07 – Average pay per user is $40/month or $200 per business/month 03:42 – GetAccept currently has 1,100 paying customers and 4,400 free customers 04:15 – Average MRR is $44K 04:20 – GetAccept was launched in December of 2015 04:47 – GetAccept already had revenue their first month 05:31 – Samir shares why GetAccept has a high conversation rate from free to paying customers 06:00 – GetAccept calls their customers to give them product information and ask them questions 06:50 – GetAccept helps their customers send their first contract 07:17 – Fully weighted CAC 07:35 – Total headcount expenses 08:28 – GetAccept has 200 new customers monthly 08:47 – GetAccept has paid marketing 09:09 – Spending is around $4000 for paid ads 09:20 – GetAccept's biggest competitors explained 11:00 - Gross customer churn 12:00 – LTV 12:25 – GetAccept is currently based in San Francisco 12:49 – GetAccept had raised capital and is still open 14:20 – Samir's focus is the growth of the company 14:34 – GetAccept has 4 co-founders 14:42 – If DocuSign offered to buy your business, would you accept? 15:30 – Connect with Samir on LinkedIn 17:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Focus on what YOU can do for your customers – assist them in ANY way possible. Doing the work you love and enjoy is more important than the bottom dollar. Let your competitors motivate you to improve what YOU are doing. 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 LinkedIn – Samir's LinkedIn account Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 25, 201620 min

EP 518: See 20 deals, invest in 2 between $75k-150k pre seed, likes b2b saas for investments

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Dinesh Kandanchatha. He's a founder, mentor, speaker, and above all, an entrepreneur. He encourages founders to ask all questions, navigate challenging decisions, and find the right answer that is sometimes difficult to face. He has bought, built, sold, lent, and/or invested in over 13 companies. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Essentialism What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs Favorite online tool? — Asana Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Don't be the smartest guy" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:48 – Nathan introduces Dinesh to the show 02:32 – Dinesh makes money by investing and capital gains against those investments 02:52 – Dinesh does consulting work too 03:45 – A board member's average retainers 04:33 – Dinesh total revenue as a credit investor in 2015 04:48 – A credit investor is someone who has net assets greater than $5M and earnings in the last 2 years that are greater than $200K 05:35 – Dinesh has built startups; some failed and some are successful 06:04 – Dinesh invests $75K to $150K in a company 06:14 – Dinesh often invests during Pre-Series A or Pre-seed 06:20 – Dinesh takes his capital and amplify it with his network and experience 07:08 – Dinesh's biggest failure happened right after he sold Precise Software Technologies in the late 90s 07:46 – The person that acquired Precise sued Dinesh 08:09 – Dinesh spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal battles 09:04 – Dinesh's most spectacular success is yet to come 09:20 – The business Dinesh is currently proud of 10:50 – Dinesh's equity rate in Protus IP Solution 11:10 – Dinesh has helped Macadamian technology scale up 12:03 – Dinesh has invested in real estate 12:30 – "If you get a few over the fence, you can make up all the difference" 12:45 – Dinesh usually sticks to B2B and SaaS 13:22 – Dinesh is currently working on Patriot One Technologies 14:49 – Dinesh is very passionate about the potential of technology 15:04 – Connect with Dinesh through Twitter and at Clarity.fm 17:27 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: "If you get a few over the fence, you can make up all the difference"—so, don't get discouraged if you lose some. Do what you know and stick to your strengths. When you get an idea that could meaningfully impact the society as a whole—it will not just be an investment, but your baby. 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 @DineshAtWork – Dinesh's Twitter handle Clarity.fm/DineshkAtWork – Dinesh's Clarity account Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 24, 201620 min

EP 517: $3.5M Raised, 6m Users Helping 47k Customers Sign Documents with HelloSign CEO Joseph Walla

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Joseph Walla, CEO and co-founder of a San Francisco based startup, HelloSign. The company launched in 2012 and it provides the easiest way for businesses to sign and collect legally binding documents online. The idea behind HelloSign was sparked by Joseph's first successful product alongside his co-founder, Neil O'Mara, of HelloFax. HelloFax launched in 2010 after attending the prestigious startup accelerator Y Combinator. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – High Output Management What CEO do you follow? – Bill Walsh Favorite online tool? — Google Apps Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Joseph wished he had moved to the valley earlier Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Joseph to the show 02:30 – Joseph first worked in HelloFax which is an on-the-go fax machine 02:43 – HelloSign has premium products and free products 03:00 – Pricing plans starts at $15 03:12 – API pricing plans differs by bucket 03:40 – HelloSign is cash flow positive in 2014 and 2015 03:50 – Total of $3.5M raised 04:24 – Joseph has been very disciplined with how they spend their money 05:15 – 2016 MRR 05:36 – HelloSign has 47,000 paying customers 05:46 – HelloSign has a 5-6M user base 06:05 – People convert from free to paid because of the volume of their transactions 06:54 – HelloSign team's operation 07:30 – Average salaries in the valley 08:45 – Total headcount expenses with 16 employees 09:35 – Average MRR from Nathan 10:00 – Average customer churn 10:55 – HelloSign is mainly in the SMB space but they also have some big clients 12:20 – Standard gross churn 12:40 – The amount HelloSign is willing to spend for a new user 12:49 – HelloSign doesn't spend much for a new user, but spends for a new paid user 12:55 – Joseph read an article on ForEntrepreneurs.com about SaaS metrics and acquiring customers that was beneficial for him 13:35 – HelloSign's CAC ratio 14:53 – Connect with Joseph through LinkedIn and Twitter 16:23 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Don't wait for a job or overcomplicate the process of getting started—get out there and figure it out as you go. Make that investment to turn a new user into a paid new user. Don't just sit and wait for something to happen, take action! 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 @JosephWalla – Joseph's Twitter handle LinkedIn – Joseph's LinkedIn account Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 23, 201619 min

EP 516: SalesHacker $2.5m 2015 Revenue Helping Sales Reps Get Smarter with CEO Max Altshculer

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Max Altschuler, CEO of Sales Hacker – a rapidly growing media company focused on the future of B2B sales. Max wrote the book Hacking Sales: The Playbook for Building a High Velocity Sales Machine which was recently published by Wiley. Aside from sales hack and angel investors, Max advises startups all around the globe. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The 48 Laws of Power What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — 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? – Max wished he could have studied Psychology a bit more Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Max to the show 02:07 – Sales Hacker is a media company ushering the future of sales 02:35 – Sales Hacker does crowdsourcing of content on their blog and holds conferences throughout the year 03:12 – The conferences are Sales Hacker's main revenue stream 03:20 – Sales Hacker's last conference was in June 2016 04:09 – The sponsored revenue for the last conference was $1.2 M 04:14 – Ticket sales was $300-400K 04:22 – Average ticket price was $400-500 04:28 – Total attendees 04:41 – The cost per conference is less than $1M 04:53 – Max shares how they manage the cost of the conference 05:51 – You need to find venue sponsorship 05:57 – Max helps clients with bigger conferences like Pulse 07:00 – Sales Hacker finds out which businesses are interested in the conference 07:33 – Have prospective sponsors sign up and pay early 09:15 – Sales Hacker's average revenue per event depends on the event 10:54 – Sales Hacker takes a percentage from the total profit of SaaSters 11:30 – 2015 total revenue is $2.5M 11:45 – Team size 12:04 – Max shares why he didn't build a SaaS business 12:59 – Sales Hacker's list size 13:55 – Max's goal for a VC round 14:07 – Max is from Udemy 14:35 – Max had 2 companies before Udemy 15:20 – Max's second business was Last Call 15:45 – Max's 3 favorite investments at the moment 16:50 – The average amount Max is investing in a business 18:00 – Max sets expectations of what he will and will not do for a company 18:36 – Max is trying to invest in B2B companies 19:21 – Connect with Max through LinkedIn, Twitter and his website 21:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Closing a business does NOT mean it was a failure – you gain experience and learn valuable lessons from that process. Take the time to research and know where to invest. Even if you're working with SaaS businesses, that doesn't mean you should or can build one 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 @MaxAlts – Max's Twitter handle LinkedIn – Max's LinkedIn account Sales Hacker – Max's business website Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 22, 201626 min

EP 515: 0 to $300k MRR in 16 Months Helping 300 ECommerce Brands Streamline with Skubana CEO Chad Rubin

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Chad Rubin. He builds e-commerce businesses. He owns a direct consumer e-commerce business called Crucial Vacuum and grew it from zero to a $20 million valuation in 7 years. He happens to be a Top 250 Amazon Seller. He co-founded Skubana with DJ Kunovac and built one of e-commerce's hottest operational software. Skubana is the only software that you'll ever need to manage and accelerate the growth of your ecommerce business. It's beautiful, intelligent, and highly intuitive and it also incorporates every feature imaginable to drive your future success, especially in ecommerce. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Virtual Freedom What CEO do you follow? – Gary Vaynerchuk Favorite online tool? — Trello or 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? – Go after passion and change a major in college Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:28 – Nathan introduces Chad to the show 02:17 – Chad shares how he made the zero to $20M valuation for Crucial Vacuum 03:48 – Chad shares what he thinks is Walmart's biggest mistake 04:27 – Skubana is making 50,000 orders a month 04:47 – Chad shares a mistake he made and how he lost money 05:08 – Chad had to minimize his headcount from 20 employees to 2 05:40 – Skubana is a SaaS business 06:00 – Number of customers that Skubana is currently serving 06:46 – Skubana's pricing: 07:07 – Minimum of $999 a month 07:10 – Pricing is customized and is based on users 07:34 – Average RPU 08:00 – MRR 08:05 – Skubana did a seed round 08:41 – Raised 880,000 on the first seed round 08:45 – Chad put in $1M 08:59 – James Thompson is one of Skubana's investors 09:43 – Chad messaged 10 people that he looked up himself to try and get them involved 10:10 – Chad starting building Skubana for 3 years and it just went live last year 10:29 – Chad raised the $880K when they had the prototype 11:15 – First year revenue 12:30 – Chad wanted Skubana to be available for everybody 12:40 – When Chad raised their pricing, a lot of their customers churned off 12:53 – Skubana is not an entry level software 13:27 – Chad individually called customers to inform them about the increase in pricing and they got emails too 14:12 – Most of Skubana's RPU growth is coming from new customers 14:27 – Chad shares how people find Skubana 14:48 – Chad wrote a book and hit #7 bestseller 15:22 – Chad has a subscription list from their blog because they're adding value 15:45 – Number of people on their list 16:22 – Skubana is pairing with other companies for a win-win sale 17:30 – Chad cares more about the quality of the customers as opposed to the quantity 18:05 – Chad shares about the successful webinars he held for certain companies 19:00 – Chad spends a lot of time guest blogging 19:25 – CAC is currently zero 21:20 – Team size 21:40 – Total overhead cost 22:00 – Team location is in NYC and New Jersey 22:10 – Chad is still thinking of raising another round 22:29 – Chad wants to raise $1M 23:30 – Connect with Chad through Youtube, Twitter and his email 25:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Mistakes happen for us to LEARN from it. Make your product KNOWN to the public at low costs by INCREASING your online presence. Need direction? Go hard after your passion! 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 Youtube – Chad's business Youtube channel [email protected] – Chad's email address @Ecommrenegade – Chad's Twitter handle Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 21, 201628 min

EP 513: $50M Raised, Helping 50k Customers Get Accurate Contact Data with FullContact CEO Bart Lorang

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Bart Lorang, a proven entrepreneur executive and manager in the global technology industry. He's very active in the startup community as an angel investor, strategic advisor, and speaker at many industry events. In fact, he supports entrepreneurs in his co-founder position and is managing director at V1.vc, a $5 million dollar, seed-stage fund dedicated to help crazy entrepreneurs change the world. More importantly, he's an entrepreneur himself. He's currently running FullContact which is responsible for communicating its vision and strategy. He's a visionary technologist with extensive experience conceiving, designing, building, marketing, and selling enterprise software solutions on a global scale. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Warren Buffett Favorite online tool? – DocuSign Do you get 8 hours of sleep? – No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – It's about how you make people feel. Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Bart to the show 02:35 – FullContact is a universal contact management platform 02:50 – FullContact is a SaaS business and payment is based on the number of contacts 03:08 – Developers can pay for a developer platform 03:17 – The developer access is Bart's largest revenue stream 04:00 – FullContact is continually building new features 04:14 – FullContact also offers KPI services 04:37 – HubSpot uses FullContact 05:10 – FullContact was founded in 2010 05:30 – There is no application yet that is focused on contacts 06:01 – First year revenue 06:28 – Bart had a couple of businesses before FullContact 06:56 – FullContact was funded through raised capital 07:17 – How can someone look at that market and tell that it is too big to bootstrap? 07:53 – "It's all about the size of your vision and how fast you want to execute" 08:30 – FullContact has millions of customers 08:55 – FullContact has above 50,000 paying customers 09:03 – Bart shares what's included in the free plan and paid plan 09:40 – Average monthly RPU 10:05 – Bart discusses the type of individuals using FullContact 11:05 – Average MRR 11:40 – FullContact in ARR 12:54 – Gross customer churn 13:18 – FullContact has an inside sales team helping their customers 13:37 – CAC 14:20 – Team location: they have a global presence 14:30 – Team size: 210-220 14:40 – FullContact had their Series C last August 2016 15:08 – How are investors in this space thinking about the SaaS valuation? 15:47 – They are looking at the SaaS business' multipliers 16:00 – FullContact's main competitors 16:35 – The MDM space 16:49 – Connect with Bart through FullContact and his email 18:18 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Analyze your business well and have a goal so you know where you're going to start. Funding is a very important part of business. It's NOT about how smart you are but how you make people feel. 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 [email protected] – Bart's email address Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 20, 201626 min

EP 514: $120M Raised, Helping 1m Consumers Get $100m+ In Credit Who Have No Other Choice with KreditTech CEO Alexander Graubner-Muller

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Alexander Graubner-Müller. He's the current CEO of Kreditech and started off as their CTO. He was a senior business development manager at Groupon and he was very active in the financial space such as an internship at Equity Derivatives in UBS. Alex is now in the Fintech space and running Kreditech. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk 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? Spend more time learning how to manage and build companies Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Alexander to the show 02:20 – Kreditech is an end-to-end consumer lending company 02:45 – Kreditech has a powerful rating data 03:05 – Alex shares what kind of credit score they'd assign to a customer as opposed to what a bank would 04:15 – Kreditech is focused on consumers 05:28 – Kreditech is a lending company 05:55 – Current total loans outstanding 06:23 – Most of the loans are short in maturity 07:08 – The kind of person Kreditech loans to 08:25 – Kreditech is growing fast—around 100% every year 08:50 – Kreditech made $40M in revenue in 2015 09:30 – Kreditech explains their interest rates 10:15 – Kreditech offers higher loans with lower rates for specific consumers 12:07 – Some people who apply for a loan won't usually be able to pay 12:33 – The fraction Kreditech will assume 15:17 – Total amount raised in funding rounds 16:40 – Loan origination 17:12 – Alex had to make sure to run the company on a fully-funded business plan 18:21 – Connect with Alex through LinkedIn, Twitter and his email 20:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: You can always work your way up – just give your ALL and embrace your company. Lending companies are different from the banks, but both have their advantages and disadvantages. Learn how to manage your company; NOT just how to manage people, but how to have your people work to make it more profitable. 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 [email protected] – Alex' email address @AGraubnerMuller – Alex' Twitter handle Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 20, 201625 min

EP 512: $70M ARR B2B SaaS with DiscoverOrg CEO Henry Schuck

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Henry Schuck, CEO of DiscoverOrg. He's a leading entrepreneur in sales intelligence and lead generation. Under his leadership, DiscoverOrg built the industry's most accurate, highest quality, contact database through a mix of technology and a team of live researchers who continually call into thousands of IT, marketing, HR, and finance departments. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good Boss, Bad Boss What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Gmail Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— I do If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Work harder than you could ever imagine working" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Henry to the show 02:13 – DiscoverOrg provides deep intelligence on the company and the contact information of buyers of 60,000 companies worldwide 02:38 – DiscoverOrg is selling the data on a subscription basis 03:09 – Henry worked for a company similar to DiscoverOrg when he was an undergrad 03:28 – Henry's colleague asked him to build a similar company which is now DiscoverOrg 04:04 – Henry's acquired iProfile 04:40 – DiscoverOrg is owned by TA Associates 04:58 – DiscoverOrg was self-funded in annual contract value in 2014 05:56 – Henry was approached by different private equity firms in 2012-2014 06:26 – Henry shares the reason why they chose TA Associates 07:45 – Customers pay annual access to the platform which is a SaaS platform and they pay for specific data 08:22 – Average annual RPU 08:46 – Average ARR 09:20 – How Henry manages churn 10:46 – CAC 11:16 – Henry and his team are based in Vancouver, Washington 11:27 – Team size is 315 11:40 – Lifetime value 11:55 – Customers stay with DiscoverOrg for 3-4 years 12:23 – What keeps you motivated in doing this? 12:30 – Henry has a 6 month old daughter and he wants her to see that he works hard, he also wants to make it a success for TA 13:29 – Connect with Henry through LinkedIn and Twitter 15:27 – Annual renewal rate is over 90% 15:46 – DiscoverOrg is continually building new data 16:00 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Teach users not only how to use a platform, but how to utilize it to INCREASE their revenue. Have a business that is profitable. Work harder than you could ever imagine working, that's where you add value. 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 @HenryLSchuck – Henry's Twitter handle LinkedIn – Henry's LinkedIn account Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 18, 201619 min

EP 511: How to Pivot $50K MRR SaaS Company with Ian Cullen CEO of Leadiro

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Ian Cullen, a demand generation expert and the co-founder of Leadiro, an account-centric data platform designed to enable account based marketing and sales development efforts at named accounts. Ian was previously the co-founder of Internal Results, which was acquired by Madison Logic in May 2016. He started his first business, Target 250 in 2001, grew it to a team of 130 staff and it was a leading B2B technology based, lead generation company which was sold in 2010. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Magic of Thinking Big What CEO do you follow – N/A Favorite online tool? — SimilarWeb Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Work hard because nothing happens overnight and if you really focus and you can achieve anything" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:37 – Nathan introduces Ian to the show 02:25 – Ian says he sold Target 250 for simply "not enough" 02:35 – Ian received investments from bench capitalists for Target 250 02:48 – After 6 months, Ian sold with a soft landing 03:19 – One year, non-compete, Ian set up an another company and sold it 03:48 – Chris is a partner and cofounder of Leadiro 03:57 – What Leadiro does and how they make money 04:00 – New startup, four months old, Leadiro is a B2b service platform that offers account-based marketing 05:19 – You can send cold emails to leads that are relevant 05:41 – Customers pay monthly or quarterly basis 05:55 – Average customer pays $ 20,000-40,000 per year but can be much higher, $ 6-10,000 per month depending on customer's volume 07:00 – Launched July 2016 07:06 – Serving under 20 customers 07:29 – Customers are people we know in the industry 07:57 – Our customers are people that are launching certain products into the market to a specific audience 08:25 – Do they need help in reaching out to a larger audience as opposed to their first party list of possible customers? 08:35 – Why are people buying your data instead of others? 08:41 – Our platform is proprietary, easy to use 08:59 – "You can upload a list of domains within 10 seconds [of using our product] and pull out a specific audience within those accounts" and get their email addresses 09:12 – For example, there are 200 companies you want to target, upload that to our platform, and you have a list of everyone who works in those companies (job title, level, function), and can select what you want 09:52 – Very common product, that people that win are those who market better 10:18 – Like Siftery, but Siftery doesn't get you the leads 10:53 – Leadiro's current revenue: $50,000 11:06 – Leadiro is self-funded 11:09 – Ian does not want to raise 11:19 – Team size: 6 people 11:31 – Hired people to develop full-time, remote, in New Zealand 11:56 – 3 in UK, 1 in Ireland, 2 in NZ 12:56 – 50,000 in MR divided by 20 customers = Monthly RPU: $2500 per customer 13:11 – Early cancellations, because they're in a learning stage 13:25 – One big struggle with this particular product—companies can download everything they need and leave 13:46 – Nathan wonders if these types of companies are SaaS companies or should there be a one-time fee where customers get what they need and leave? 13:55 – Something they are still working out, perhaps a 1-2 month subscription 14:22 – Discussion of competitors and who is doing the same thing well 15:21 – To connect with Ian, go to his LinkedIn 16:53 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Always think of how your product sets you apart from your competitors and SELL to that strength. A startup and any business for that matter is a work in progress—just keep at it. Work hard, focus in on your task, and you can achieve ANYTHING. 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 @Qwil – Johnny's business Twitter handle Blog - Johnny's business blog site Qwil.co – Johnny's business website Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 17, 201618 min

EP 510: HubDoc Hits $132k MRR, 1200 Customers, $2M Raised to Help You Accountants Manage Their Documents with CEO Yoseph West

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Yoseph West. He dreams of a world where accountants and bookkeepers never have to ask their clients for documents—that's why he joined HubDoc to lead growth. He previously co-founded Vuru, a stock analytics platform for retail investors and led it into its acquisition by Wave Accounting in 2012. Listen as Yoseph shares his experience with Vuru's acquisition and how he ended up now with HubDoc. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – William Rockefeller Favorite online tool? — Text Expander Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Stay patient Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:34 – Nathan introduces Yoseph to the show 02:10 – Yoseph co-founded Vuru to make investing easier 02:33 – Vuru was making money off ads, they then supposedly reached out to Wave Accounting 03:15 – The acquisition was a soft landing 03:36 – "All of us want to work with people that we're excited about" 04:29 – Yoseph and his team got a little excited as they talked more with angel investors 04:50 – Vuru was having a fundraising 05:30 – HubDoc offers SMBs a cloud accounting space 05:42 – There's a movement to make accounting space invisible 06:13 – There's a big shift in the accounting industry 06:40 – HubDoc has a feature similar to how bills and other documents are being consolidated in a bank 07:04 – HubDoc has over 700 web scrapers 07:50 – Business owners won't be bombarded with reminder emails from their accountants and bookkeepers using HubDoc 08:25 – HubDoc was re-launched in early 2014 08:55 – Number of HubDoc's paying customers 09:28 – HubDoc caters to bookkeepers and accountants who then add all their clients 10:40 – Average monthly RPU 11:20 – MRR 12:00 – CAC is quite low 12:18 – Customers stay for approximately 32 months 12:30 – Gross monthly churn is usually negative 12:40 – Bookkeepers are always continually adding new clients 13:45 – Lifetime value 14:10 – Team size is 22 14:27 – The Australian market is 3-5 times ahead of the American market 14:40 – HubDoc has raised capital 15:00 – The funding market in Toronto described 15:40 – 2017 revenue goal 16:49 – Follow Yoseph on Twitter and HubDoc is looking for content marketers and other marketing people so touch base if you're interested 19:00 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The future of accounting and bookkeeping is far better with technology; it's much faster and paperless. Acquisition is sometimes painful but there are always new opportunities ahead. Stay patient AND optimize for learning—there's time to learn and grow. 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 @YcWest – Yoseph's Twitter handle Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 16, 201622 min

EP 509: 21 Year Old Invests $500k To Re-Invent Webinars with Demio CEO Wyatt Jozwowski

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Wyatt Jozwowzki, co-founder and CEO of Demio, a smart, webinar platform on a simple mission. He's passionate about creating a great customer and user experience. Listen as Wyatt shares about Demio; from its inception to a Wyatt creating a working, webinar platform that is earning a revenue from only a few days on the market. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Jason Lemkin Favorite online tool? — Clarity.fm Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— seven to eight hours If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "That it was going to be 10 times harder than I thought" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:42 – Nathan introduces Wyatt to the show 02:08 – Demio is a web-based webinar platform built for marketing 02:18 – "We wanted to create a webinar platform that is actually easy and ready to use" 02:35 – Demio was just launched in November 9th of this year 02:54 – Wyatt has a company called Drip Apps as well 03:12 – Demio is the biggest software project that Wyatt has ever taken on 03:15 – Wyatt has been working with Demio for 2 years now 03:28 – Demio was in free beta for 3-4 months 03:38 – People used Demio for their webinars for free 03:48 – This was done to test Demio's reliability and performance 04:02 – Wyatt wants simplicity to be Demio's platform 04:51 – Wyatt has invested about half of million on Demio 04:48 – Demio has a team of 3 developers, 1 designer, and 1 QA manager 05:40 – Some of the team members are from Upwork and other online job postings 06:21 – Wyatt got his funding from Drip Apps' revenue 06:53 – Wyatt got the idea of Demio from a suggestion 07:30 – First software project of Wyatt's was a video ranking platform 07:45 – Drip Apps has Drip Core which has a $47/month subscription 08:09 – 470 users have signed-up 08:23 – Drip Apps was launched 3 years ago 08:53 – Drip Apps' 2015 revenue 09:15 – Drip Apps runs independently of Wyatt, freeing him up to work on Demio 09:52 – Demio was not really planned 10:20 – Nathan refers to Episode 252 and how Wyatt reminds him of Omar of Webinar Ninja 10:38 – Demio already has paying customers 10:46 – Demio is a SaaS business model and they currently have discounted annual pricing 10:59 – On launch day, Demio's price range was from $237 a year to $497 a year 11:08 – Price range increased on November 16th 12:20 – Wyatt's strategy for Demio 13:10 – Having a webinar is not that easy and is very challenging 13:40 – Demio is web-based and does not require any desktop software to be installed 13:42 – Wyatt is currently focused on expanding browser and mobile support 14:05 – There are a number of unique customers that have signed-up 14:30 – There are customers who have asked for refunds 15:49 – Connect with Wyatt through Twitter 17:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: There are huge challenges in the tech industry, but it's definitely worth it to keep pressing on. Streaming in real-time is one of the most difficult things to achieve in a webinar. Be consistent in working out those hurdles and challenges. 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 @WyattJawz – Wyatt's Twitter handle Upwork – Where Wyatt found his team members Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 15, 201620 min

EP 508: Siftery $4M Raised, 25,000 Users to Help You Find Software Tools with CMO Gerry Golyer

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Gerry Colyer, head of growth at Siftery. He was previously the VP of growth at HealthSherpa and co-founder of two startups. He's a graduate of Yale and Stanford. The CEO of Siftery was convinced there was a better way for companies to discover, select, and make better use of their software and so began their journey into filling this particular need in the market. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Hooked What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Buffer Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Not quite If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Gerry wish he had studied more in Computer Science Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:32 – Nathan introduces Gerry to the show 02:11 – Gerry's 500 company is Central Mayoreo 02:57 – Siftery helps users discover and choose the right software to reach their needs 03:20 – Siftery is currently tracking 10,000 software programs 03:30 – Siftery gets data from their recommendation engines 03:57 – Siftery has a small team in SF 04:11 – Siftery has 30 team members in Bangalore and Kiev 05:24 – How Siftery collects data 05:59 – There's a combination of data scraping from the web and getting recommendations from actual software users 06:48 – Siftery is trying to create tools for software buyers 08:10 – Siftery has no pricing model yet and currently free 09:13 – Monthly headcount expenses 10:00 – Advantages of having a development team in Bangalore 10:12 – Cost of living is Bangalore lower than in SF 11:00 – What number are you focused on every day? 11:11 – Data points being contributed in the community 11:31 – Number of vendors engaged in the platform 12:00 – Launched earlier in 2016 12:30 – Siftery is more powerful than Techcrunch 13:00 – How are you able to get updates so quickly? 13:05 – We get feedback from software reviews, friends in the 500, and other software owners 13:43 – 25 data contributors 14:00 – Utility metric 15:15 – Siftery's target area 15:50 – Connect with Gerry through email, Twitter and Siftery 18:05 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Meet people and build connections or, better yet, build companies. There are opportunities in the B2B space—find the gap and fill it. Having a team in another country can help startups build their business at a lower cost but still maintain the quality of 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 [email protected] – Gerry's email address @Ggiaco – Gerry's Twitter handle Siftery.com – Gerry's company website Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 14, 201620 min

EP 507: $300k Raised, ChatBot Helps Your Audience Talk To You and Get Answer with CEO Abhimanyu Godara

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Abhimanyu Godara, founder and CEO of BOTTR.me. He previously managed portfolio investments at TLabs where he worked with over 40 startups around strategies and things similar to that. He's very well educated and now sitting on a platform that he thinks is going to be very exciting for him coming up. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Zero to One What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs 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? – "The world doesn't work the way you want it to work" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:31 – Nathan introduces Abhimanyu to the show 02:08 – BOTTR is a personal bot platform that one can converse with to ask questions they'd essentially want to be asking you (ex. How much for your services? When is the next podcast coming out?) 03:01 – BOTTR is like a personal assistant or replica of someone 03:09 – BOTTR is currently focused on influencers and celebrities 04:10 – BOTTR's current business model 05:05 – Still validating the potential of the business 05:40 – BOTTR currently has 250 paying customers 06:40 – BOTTR's next version will have all the data pre-filled for every user 06:58 – BOTTR will gather information from social media channels like LinkedIn 07:34 – BOTTR can make you save time because now you do not need to address every question that comes up in email as it can already answer most questions 07:44 – BOTTR had a funding round 08:25 – Current team size is 7-10 09:35 – Abhimanyu shares how users of BOTTR can get paid 10:00 – There are bloggers who have already reached out to BOTTR 11:15 – BOTTR is an ecommerce product to find information and services 12:16 – Connect with Abhimanyu through BOTTR.me/Abhimanyu 13:55 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Create something that is DIFFERENT in your space. Performing a pre-launch can help you gauge what you still need to improve upon. What you plan to do won't always work – ALWAYS have a plan B. 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 BOTTR.me/Abhimanyu – Abhimanyu's BOTTR account Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 13, 201616 min

EP 506: Klipfolio $7.9M Raised, 7000 Customers for Smarter Business Dashboards with CEO Allan Wille

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Allan Wille, co-founder and CEO of Klipfolio – a SaaS dashboard company headquartered in Ottawa. He's focused on making it easier and faster for SMBs (small to medium businesses) to monitor the health and performance of their businesses and they're taking an interesting approach. It is self-served, in the cloud, right to business users, eliminating them the need to work with IT procurement or make huge upfront investments. He has over 59,000 customers including Jet.com, Zendesk and Lifelock just to name a few. They also have the funding to back them. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Mixpad Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I should have spent more time understanding people" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:31 – Nathan introduces to the show 02:15 – Klipfolio is focused on SMBs or businesses that really want to grow 02:36 – There's a lot of difficult data a SMB just doesn't monitor 03:09 – Klipfolio helps SMBs monitor their business to make the best decisions 03:28 – Klipfolio is 100% SaaS and a subscription based business 03:35 – Average customer pays per month $70-80 03:57 – Klipfolio does not have outbound sales people 04:34 – Klipfolio is serving 7,000 customers for November 2016 04:57 – Average MRR 05:07 – Customers can start Klipfolio with payments as low as $24 a month 05:40 – Klipfolio was launched in 2001 05:56 – The cloud version was launched in 2012 06:03 – "We're always into monitoring real-time data" 06:30 – Klipfolio started out bootstrapped 07:06 – By the end of 2012, Klipfolio had 350 customers 07:12 – In the end of 2013, Klipfolio had 1,100 customers 07:54 – Klipfolio had their first seed round at the end of 2014 08:02 – Klipfolio did their Series A at the beginning of 2015 with a $6.2M 08:55 – Klipfolio is continuously raising capital 09:05 – Team size is 70 10:03 – Klipfolio is currently on Series B 10:55 – Allan thinks that they are in a good space 11:16 – SMB is a good field market for Klipfolio 11:50 – Allan shares why he thinks Dasheroo didn't do well in the dashboard space 13:30 – Allan shares his thoughts on their competitors 14:10 – Gross monthly customer churn 15:45 – CAC 16:00 – Lifetime value 16:46 – Klipfolio does webinars to educate their customers on their data 17:30 – 2016 revenue goal 18:22 – Connect with Allan through Twitter and his blog 20:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Focus on the needs of your customer in running their business AND be a part of their growth. It's important for businesses to have an editor or someone who can handle things that need to be customized. Spend more time understanding people, especially how they work in a team. 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 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 @Awille – Allan's Twitter handle Klipfolio.com/Blog – Allan's blog site Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 12, 201623 min

EP 505: Qwil.co Pre-Pays Contractors/Freelancers $10M in 2016 with CEO Johnny Reinsch

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Johnny Reinsch of Qwil which is a company that provides instant pay for the growing freelancer segment of the work force. He's the co-founder and CEO and also a cryptocurrency nerd. Listen as Johnny shares how he shifted his career path and why Qwil is different from most startups. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Zero to One What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Toptal 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 didn't have to go to law school" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:24 – Nathan introduces Johnny to the show 01:57 – Johnny got tired of making rich people richer so he started his own startup 02:28 – Johnny shares his learnings from the cryptocurrency company 02:50 – Qwil helps freelancers collect their pay on time 03:21 – Qwil has a low price point 03:40 – Qwil is a transactional based model 04:05 – Qwil started summer of 2015 04:20 – First year total transaction volume is in low seven figures 04:51 – Target transaction volume for 2016 05:05 – Qwil's funding rounds 05:45 – It is an equitable note 06:07 – "We are not disclosing a round at the moment" 07:20 – 2016 total transaction volume 07:40 – Qwil has a similar metric with GMD 08:51 – Some freelancers won't release their payment right away 09:35 – If freelancers keep their money in Qwil for 30 days, they won't be charged any fees 09:50 – Qwil can't touch the cash of the freelancers 11:30 – Qwil offers conveniences to the users 13:28 – Profit margin base 13:44 – Team size 14:10 – Number of contractors who have used Qwil is in the thousands 15:21 – "We are trying to make a freelancer's lifestyle much easier than it currently is" 17:10 – Connect with Johnny through his website, blog, and Twitter 18:50 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Be sure to USE and APPLY what you learned well. Be in a unique niche where competition is not very tough. School does NOT always lead you to your future, don't let it narrow your scope. 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 @Qwil – Johnny's business Twitter handle Blog - Johnny's business Twitter handle Qwil.co – Johnny's business website Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 11, 201622 min

EP 504: MailPlaneApp 10,000+ Customers With BetterGmail with CEO Lars Steiger

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Lars Steiger, the co-founder of Mailplane. Nathan found Lars when he was searching in the Gmail space. Listen as Lars shares how he ended up managing Mailplane solo and the reason why he would never sell is company. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – N/A What CEO do you follow? – Jason Fried Favorite online tool? — Basecamp Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Stay calm" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:38 – Nathan introduces Lars to the show 02:05 – Mailplane started as GmailSender in 2006, which was then an iPhoto plugin 02:28 – Mailplane was founded by Ruben, Lars joined in 2007 02:53 – Lars has an equity now with Mailplane 03:15 – Customers are more important for Mailplane 03:33 – Mailplane has an average of 10,000 customers 03:52 – Mailplane offers a 15 day free trial 04:17 – 5,000 users a month try the free trial 04:40 – Mailplane relies mostly on organic traffic 05:00 – Mailplane is a one-time purchase business model 05:30 – 10,000 people from Mailplane's email list have tried the free trial 05:57 – Lars does the coding for Mailplane 06:15 – Lars uses business development tactics from time-to-time 06:30 – Mailplane is completely bootstrapped 06:53 – Average revenue in 2007 07:40 – Ruben joined Evernote and left Mailplane to Lars in 2012 08:24 – Lars' goal for Mailplane 09:36 – How much will make Lars sell Mailplane? 10:37 – Lars won't sell Mailplane because of the customers 11:17 – The most important number for Mailplane is the number of users who are downloading updates 12:25 – Connect with Lars through his email and Mailplane 14:25 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Value and show appreciation to your customers, working to better address their needs. Sometimes, there's just no amount that can compensate for the hard work an entrepreneur has put into his business. Stay CALM, nothing to be gained by choosing the alternative. 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 MailPlaneApp.com – Lars' business website [email protected] – Lars' email address Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 10, 201618 min

EP 503: $125k for 5%, How To Grow Into $2m+ Valuation with InDemand CEO Alex Saidani

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Alex Saidani, founder and CEO of Indemand. Alex is a developer who started coding at the age of 11. He started his first business at the age of 13 and was the youngest founder of a team to participate in the DotForge accelerator program with Hashtrack. Indemand supports businesses with providing online ordering software and an hourly delivery network. On top of this, Alex also finds time to mentor people in their start-ups and provide them with the necessary support. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Steve Jobs Biography What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk 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? – "Don't waste time pursuing people who are not going to help you or create value" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:25 – Nathan introduces Alex to the show 01:52 – Alex went to the 500 startups program 02:12 – Indemand sells software to groceries and other retail stores 02:25 – Indemand charges the stores directly 02:36 – Indemand is a SaaS business 02:52 – Indemand started in 2015 03:14 – First year revenue 03:38 – Indemand's usual customers 04:15 – Indemand has worked with 150 companies and there are 25 active customers 04:28 – Most of the inactive customers are startups 05:04 – Indemand had to increase their fees to make money 05:10 – ARPU per month is around $250 05:22 – MRR 05:55 – October 2016 revenue was $25,000 06:45 – What do people get when they pay $400 a month? 06:51 – help with start-up, customize branding, end up with a customer facing application 07:14 – Users get to monitor all the orders in real-time 07:40 – Total transaction volume in October 2016, is around 200 orders 08:20 – Indemand had a capital raising 10:30 – Indemand's other expenses 10:46 – Indemand sources people from Fiverr to find information 12:00 – Alex and his team are based in California 12:18 – Connect with Alex through his LinkedIn and email 13:51 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: An entrepreneur can start as early as 13 years old—you're never too young or old for that matter! Raising fees is often necessary to meet your clients' demands and update your services. Don't waste your time on "non-value creating" people. 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 LinkedIn – Alex's LinkedIn account [email protected] – Alex's email address Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 9, 201616 min

EP 502: 30% Annual Yield AirBNB Investing with Andrew Keene

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Andrew Keene, president and CEO of AlphaShark Trading which is originally founded as KeeneOnTheMarket.com in 2011. Prior to that, he grew up working as a proprietary trader at Chicago Board Options Exchange. He began his career on a trade program and would eventually co-found the KATL group. He currently actively trades future equity options, currency options present in commodities, and was a regular guest/market commentator on such networks as Bloomberg, CNBC and Fox Business. His first love will always be trading but he's arguably even more well-known for building a trading room. He is especially proud of having taught his personal strategies trading for over 50,000 guests for years. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Automatic Customer What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk 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? – "Not to date a girl for 8 years and be engaged" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:38 – Nathan introduces Andrew to the show 02:32 – Andrew is based in Austin and San Diego 03:17 – Andrew is part of Entrepreneur Organization 03:55 – Andrew purchased a place in San Diego and put it on Airbnb 05:18 – "This year I expect to make $20,000 from that $70,000 investment" 06:24 – Andrew wants to get the "Super Host" status on Airbnb 06:33 – Airbnb advertises Super Host's properties more 06:53 – Andrew looks at Airbnb hosting as an investment 07:25 – The risk of having your properties in Airbnb 07:31 – Stand-alone is not covered by HOA 07:48 – HOA wants to ban short-term rentals in San Diego 08:10 – Hosts can take advantage of their cash-flow situation 08:50 – Andrew has made $5M from trading 09:30 – Andrew shares how he got into trading 10:32 – Andrew has a place in Chicago, too 10:38 – Andrew is making around $8,000 a year for his place in Chicago 11:16 – Andrew is starting his second deal 11:41 – People ask Andrew how he makes money through the investment 12:04 – Andrew is working on a book with Airbnb 12:11 – AirBNBopen in LA 12:25 – There are around 7,000 people who paid Andrew for trading information 12:35 – Andrew has more than 50,0000 people in his email list 13:09 – Andrew shares how his cash flow works with his property in San Diego 13:45 – Andrew names software that he uses other than Revestor 13:50 – AirDNA is where you can buy reports of any city 14:23 – Mashvisor use to search for rental properties 14:45 – You can use analytics and research by Revestor to get into the market 15:50 – Standard percentage for payment fees 16:30 – Nathan makes an offer to Andrew 17:55 – Email Andrew to connect with him 20:05 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Find the right investment and STUDY it as best as you can. Go to someone who is an expert in a market that you want to be in. Stay independent as long 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 [email protected] – Andrew's email address Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 8, 201622 min

EP 501: Track Uninstalls with $325k in Funding, 15 Customers, with CEO Pritesh Vora of Uninstall.io

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Pritesh Vora. He has over 10 years of experience specializing in building and growing innovative technology products. He was a formerly a partner at 1000Lookz and the business head at NotiPhi. He has also worked at TCS, one of India's biggest IT service companies across US, Europe and India. He has a Bachelor in Technology from MSIT. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Zero to One What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Buffer Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Definitely, knew more about how to see the business" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:22 – Nathan introduces Pritesh to the show 02:10 – Uninstall.io is Pritesh's current company 02:14 – Uninstall.io is a niche analytics company 02:40 – Uninstall.io provides analytics to popular mobile apps 02:50 – Uninstall.io is a SaaS business with monthly subscription and fees depending on the number of users and modules 03:02 – Average pay per customer is $100,000 a month 03:11 – Uninstall.io was launched in 2015 03:22 – Uninstall.io was bootstrapped for the first 6-8 months and raised $365K 03:50 – Uninstall.io is currently serving more than 150 apps 04:36 – ARR is currently $100K 04:48 – MRR is around $10K 05:00 – Uninstall.io currently has 15-17 customers 05:23 – Pritesh shares why companies leave after just a few months 06:37 – Pritesh and his team are still working on how to make customers stay 08:30 – Pritesh and his team are learning more about their customers' needs and data so that Uninstall.io can become indispensable to them 09:00 – People have a typical analytic scheme in their company 09:25 – Uninstall.io has 10 people on their team 09:44 – Uninstall.io is using shared resources to take the data from each account 10:00 – Average CAC 10:38 – Average monthly salary 11:12 – Pritesh and his team are based in India 12:00 – Lifetime value 12:47 – Pritesh still has around $150K in the bank 13:02 – Pritesh is currently spending $20,000 for the expenses 13:40 – 2015 revenue is around $45,000 14:12 – Connect with Pritesh through his Twitter, website and blog 15:55 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Work to know your niche and target market on a deeper level. Having a business is a continuous experiment—it's how one learns and adapts. Focus on your team first and look after them 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 @PriteshVora – Pritesh's Twitter handle Uninstall.io – Pritesh's business website Blog.Uninstall.io- Pritesh's blog site Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 7, 201619 min

EP 500: $5M Funding, $1.3M Revenue For LGBT Lifestyle Traveling like AirBNB with CEO Matthieu Jost

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Matthieu Jost, who founded his first company when he was 17 and exited it when he was 21. Most recently, he started Misterb&b in 2015 and has become the world's largest gay hotel brand in the world. Listen as Matthieu shares how he managed his first business at an early age and how Misterb&b grew exponentially in less than 4 years. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – N/A What CEO do you follow? – Brian Chesky Favorite online tool? — RJ Metrics Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Being less naïve maybe" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:31 – Nathan introduces Matthieu to the show 02:00 – Matthieu's first company that posted TV series was sold to PlanetSeries (French equivalent of IMDB) for about $1 million 02:33 – The team composed of 4 people 02:53 – The company sold series' merchandise 03:18 – Matthieu built the company 03:38 – Matthieu studied Computer Science for two years to work in a radio station 04:38 – Matthieu shares how Misterb&b is different from Airbnb 05:00 – Misterb&b is a marketplace 05:25 – The sellers are the homeowners 05:36 – "It's not only for gay men, we are open to everyone in the LGBT community" 05:45 – There are straight women using Misterb&b because they find it cool and much safer 06:10 – Misterb&b is taking 4% from the host and 12% from the traveler 06:27 – Average booking for 3 nights is $300 06:40 – Misterb&b was founded at the last quarter of 2014 06:50 – Misterb&b was bootstrapped for 6 months and went on raising capital 07:02 – Total funds raised was $5 million 07:10 – Team size is 22 07:44 – Currently, there are 80,000 hosts in Misterb&b in over 135 countries 08:00 – Misterb&b has an average of 80,000 bookings per month 08:22 – Most of the travelers are solo travelers 09:16 – First year total transaction volume is 300K 09:35 – Total transaction volume for 2015 is $3M and 2016 total transaction volume goal is $7M 09:58 – Misterb&b is seasonal 11:00 – Misterb&b's 2015 average revenue is $480,000 11:12 – Misterb&b's 2016 revenue aim is $1.3 million 11:24 – Misterb&b is working on different types of ads 12:05 – There are around 300K people on Misterb&b's email list 12:12 – Average opening click-thru rate is 14% 12:50 – People are paying Misterb&b a flat-rate and they are getting 15,000 clicks 13:00 – Misterb&b also works with non-media companies 13:46 – 40% of Misterb&b's travelers are repeaters 14:28 – Follow Matthieu's company on Facebook and visit the website 16:33 – The Famous Five 17:16 – RJ Metrics was at The Top Episode 233 3 Key Points: It is always advantageous to start your business as EARLY as possible. Life is about making a choice; don't be afraid to step out and make that decision. Misterb&b is about building a worldwide community that promotes safe travel without discrimination. 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 Facebook – Matthieu's business Facebook account Misterbandb.com – Matthieu's business website Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 6, 201624 min

EP 499: GetSignEasy Passes $200k MRR and 130k Customers To Help Sign Documents withCEO Sunil Patro

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Sunil Patro, founder of SignEasy, a technologist, product thinker and entrepreneur. He has a decade of experience as a member of multiple early stage product team at Microsoft, Juniper Networks and Tokbox. Putting enterprise communication apps to carrier great routing system to consumer focused video conferencing software. After facing many problems to sign an important job offer while traveling in Mexico, he was inspired to build a product that could solve this hindrance. Since bootstrapping SignEasy in 2010, he led SignEasy to a growing and profitable company that putting 3M downloads with a 5-star rating in over 150 countries, ranked 1 of the top 15 apps and in top 100 downloaded apps for business including Apple's Best New Apps and Editor Choice Picks. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Crucial Conversations What CEO do you follow? – Jason Fried Favorite online tool? — Slack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Not everyday If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Just focus on being part of a great team and focus on learning things rapidly and just have an experience. Find the things you enjoy the most at work" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:32 – Nathan introduces Sunil to the show 02:33 – SignEasy is a cloud-based easy to use app 02:50 – SignEasy allows users to be completely paperless 03:00 – SignEasy is a SaaS model and has a free trial for 14 days 03:12 – Pay-as-you-go is also available 03:17 – Businesses can subscribe to pro and premium plans 03:34 – Sunil started coding SignEasy in early 2010 and launched around July 2010 03:35 – First year revenue 04:02 – Current number of customers in 2016 04:20 – 40-45% are on subscriptions and the rest are on one-time payment 04:33 – Average monthly RPU is $ 4 – 5 for pro and 80-90% are pro subscriptions 05:09 – Average monthly recurring revenue for SignEasy 05:58 – The difference of their payment plans before and now and how it affects their MRR 06:41 – SignEasy has grown high double digit over the last few years 07:07 – SignEasy is totally bootstrapped 07:25 – Team size 08:00 – Sunil is based in the bay area 08:52 – Gross monthly customer churn 09:02 – SignEasy is focused on SMB 09:45 – Customers can only pay SignEasy annually 10:35 – Lifetime value 10:46 – SignEasy hasn't done paid user acquisition yet 10:55 – Almost 100% of SignEasy users are inbound based or app store driven 11:57 – Sunil shares how they are reaching high number of downloads in app store 12:10 – SignEasy has been in the app store for 6 years 12:30 – There are many factors that app store considers 12:43 – SignEasy has been using keywords for app store 14:10 – SignEasy gets 60K downloads a month from app store 14:35 – In iOS, the conversion from free to paid users is 5-6% 14:44 – In Android, the conversion from free to paid users is half of the iOS 14:50 – The free trial is either 14 days or limited to 3 documents 15:15 – SignEasy's paid features 15:39 – SignEasy just launched a new feature wherein a user can send a document to sign to multiple people remotely and they can establish a work flow 16:00 – Sunil's philosophy 17:10 – Nathan made a mock offer of $ 15M and Sunil is open to it 17:47 – Find Sunil on Twitter and send him an email 19:27 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Build something that people want. Follow your passion and do what you drives your passion. Focus on being part of a great team and focus on learning things rapidly. 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. Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 5, 201622 min

EP 498: $130M Raised Wealthfront Crosses 100,000 Investors, $4.4B in AUM with CEO Andy Rachleff

Andy Rachleff, president and CEO of Wealthfront. He served as a member of the board of trustees and vice chairman of the Endowment Investment Committee for the University of Pennsylvania and as a member of the faculty for Stanford Graduate School of Business where he teaches course on Technology Entrepreneurship. Prior to Wealthfront, Andy co-founded and was general partner of Benchmark Capital, where he was responsible for investing number of successful companies. He has also spent 10 years as a general partner for Merrill, Pickard, Anderson & Eyre - MPAE. Andy earned his S from University of Pennsylvania and his MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Innovator's Dilemma 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? – "Associating myself with great people" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:41 – Nathan introduces Andy to the show 03:03 – Andy is retired for his Venture Capital business so he wants to give back 04:07 – David Swensen has been an investor on Andy's 2 venture capital firms 04:37 – The way Wealthfront generates investment mix is the same method David Swensen uses 05:09 - Wealthfront manages a diversified of portfolio of low-cost index funds in behalf of their client 05:20 – Minimum is $ 500 to open an account 05:55 – "If you like Vanguard, you're going to love Wealthfront" 06:00 – Wealthfront can minimize taxes using a software that Vanguard can't do 07:59 – Software works 24/7 so you can monitor your losses daily 08:36 – Wealthfront has been managing around $ 4.4B assets 08:53 – Wealthfront's asset management worth is much smaller than Vanguard 09:25 – "With every new technology that succeeds, it gets adopted at a faster rate" 09:47 – Automated Investment Services has been adapted at a faster rate than ETF 10:09 – Automated Investment Services are actually managing more assets than ETF 10:21 – Volume of individual metrics 10:54 – Wealthfront manages the first $ 10,000 for free and charges a quarter of a percent on a amount managed excessing $ 10,000 11:10 – Sample model is Dropbox 12:00 – "It is more of the client's satisfaction of our service" 12:25 – Percentage of sent invites by users 13:01 – The number of people actually invested in Wealthfront 13:51 – Average MRR 14:04 – Overtime, Wealthfront will introduce new services 14:51 – Wealthfront is a hybrid of old model and also new channels in the software 15:28 – "We want to build services that benefit our clients 16:03 – Wealthfront was launched in Dec 2011 16:12 – Team size is about 140 16:15 – Total capital raised is $ 130M 17:15 – "I'm willing to sacrifice some growth for a far more sustainable model" 17:55 – Connect with Andy through his email and Twitter 16:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: With every new technology that succeeds, it gets adopted at a faster rate. Sacrifice some growth for a far more sustainable model. Associate yourself with great people. 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 [email protected] – Andy's email address @Arachleff – Andy's Twitter handle Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 4, 201623 min

EP 497: Woopra $1M Raised, $1.6M 2015 Revenue, $300k MRR To Help Businesses Get Smarter with CEO Elie Khoury

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Elie Khoury, co-founder and CEO of Woopra – a customer intelligence platform that helps businesses essentialize customer engagement across all channels. He studied Computer Science in Lebanese American University where he booked the first generation of Woopra in 2007. In addition to Woopra, he co-founded YallaStartup, a non-government organization establish to proper entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs Favorite online tool? — Google Calendar 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 won't change a thing" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:32 – Nathan introduces to Elie the show 02:09 – Woopra is designed for businesses to help them consolidate their customer activities across channels 02:22 – Woopra is a SaaS model and has monthly subscription 02:34 – Woopra is self-funded but they raised an Angel round few years ago 02:43 – Raised about a million dollars in the Angel round 02:48 – It was an equity round 02:58 – There are 12 people in the team 03:08 – All are based in SF 03:18 – Woopra mainly focused on SaaS businesses but they cater to wide-range of businesses 03:39 – Woopra has around 1000 customers at the moment 03:50 – Woopra has 100,000 active projects and 1000 of that are paying customers 04:10 – Average RPU is around $30,000 a year for enterprise and $ 3000 a year for SMB 04:30 – Woopra introduced their enterprise edition a couple of years ago 05:05 – Average MRR 05:27 – Gross customers monthly churn is lower on enterprise than SMB 06:15 – CAC is $ 1-2,000 on enterprise 06:35 – Lifetime value 07:39 – Average monthly lifetime value 07:53 – Woopra has a sales team that engages with enterprise customers 08:08 – Woopra was launched in 2008 08:25 – Woopra has 15,000 active projects that are running for free 09:25 – 2015 total revenue around $ 1.5 million 09:50 – Woopra is in a good place at the moment 10:02 – "Raising funding is always an option. We are just waiting for the right fit and the right time" 10:13 – Woopra has to scale in a faster pace and identify the perfect marketing tool 10:44 – Connect with Elie through their blog and his email 12:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Raising fund is always an option. Just wait for the right fit and the right time. There is time to polish things out. Take things slowly. Embrace your ignorance. 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. [email protected] – Elie's email address Woopra.com/Blog – Elie's business blog Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 3, 201615 min

EP 496: PayByGroup $3.4M Raised, $10m in Transaction Volume to Help Groups Pay with CEO Camilo Acosta

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Camilo Acosta, CEO of Pay By Group, which is based out of San Francisco. Their team is working with global brands to make it easier for people to minimize the cost of any purchase at the online checkout. One of their customers expresses their gratitude for the company by saying that their "family reunion [wouldn't] happen without Pay By Group." Listen as Camilo shares how Pay By Group's revenue grew from zero in 2011 to nearly $30 million in 2016. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – High Output Management What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? —Hubspot Sales Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— "Now, I do" If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wish I moved to San Francisco earlier" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:36 – Nathan introduces Camilo to the show 02:05 – Pay By Group is a worldwide payment solution that allows families and friends to split the cost of their online purchases 02:20 – Pay By Group is plugged-in directly to online merchants 02:33 – Pay By Group is a checkout option 02:47 – Pay By Group charges the business and consumers 03:07 – Camilo gives an example on how to use Pay By Group using Walmart's website 03:44 – Pay By Group makes more money on the consumer charges 03:50 – Pay By Group is active on vacation rental sites like CaboVillas 04:19 – The organizer is free but every invite will be charged 2.9% 05:17 – Pay By Group is a pay-as-you-go model 05:34 – Pay By Group was founded in 2011 05:38 – Team size is 20 05:41 – Pay By Group raised $3.4 million in the second round 05:56 – The first round of raised capital 06:28 – Average order value: 06:46 – There's no one number because it depends on the merchants 06:56 – Vacation rentals is Pay By Group's current "bread and butter" 07:08 – Number of merchants currently using Pay By Group is over 300 07:20 – Pay By Group tracks the number of groups/families that have used their system 07:52 – Pay By Group had tens of millions of transactions 08:11 – 2011 total transaction volume number is zero 08:25 – Pay By Group was in 500 startups in 2012 08:58 – Pay By Group's first merchant was Rent Like A Champion 10:04 – 2012 total transaction volume number is less than a hundred thousand 10:30 – 2013 total transaction volume number is around $3 million 10:45 – Goal transaction volume number in 2016 is $30 million 10:57 – Pay By Group is seasonal 11:33 – The Top: Ep. 489 is the episode where Rent Like A Champion's CEO was featured 12:38 – Pay By Group's team is based in San Francisco 12:56 – Camilo's goal for Pay By Group 13:40 – Connect with Camilo through LinkedIn and his website 16:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Enjoy WHAT you do and WHO you work with—learn from them. The secret is simplicity; less is always more. Dream it and do your best to achieve it. Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. LinkedIn – Camilo's LinkedIn account PayByGroup.com – Camilo's business website CaboVillas – One of Pay By Group's vacation rental merchant Rent Like A Champion – Pay By Group's first merchant Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 2, 201617 min

EP 495: WebEx Killer +$5M In Revenue, 1.7M Users For Better Online Meetings with BusinessHangouts CEO Gary Guseinov

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Gary Guseinov, an investor, operator, and advisor in various technology companies including Business Hangouts, InCast, Playsino and Revenue.com. During his career, he has over $100 million in growth capital and structured complex financial transactions. He's also acquired over 300 million users for global technology product and services. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Power the Mind What CEO do you follow? – Mark Zuckerberg Favorite online tool? — Calendly 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 knew how to start a business with very little capital" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:26 – Nathan introduces Gary to the show 02:08 – Business Hangouts is a web-conferencing and webinar platform 02:17 – It is specifically designed for Google apps 02:47 – Gary has raised capital for USTechSupport in 2003 03:07 – Private from 2003 to 2007 03:15 – From September 2007 to 2012, it became public in Nasdaq 03:22 – It was bought out by a big marketing company in LA 03:29 – Gary was the co-founder and left the company because he needed a break 04:24 – "It takes a lot of processes when it comes to legal and accounting when you shift from private to public" 05:05 – SDC reviews the applications and processes 05:20 – Gary was in his mid-thirties when he started USTechSupport and didn't have any experience running a company 05:29 – Gary is now 46 05:40 – Gary acquired Business Hangouts from the previous owner 05:51 – Business Hangouts had 1.7 million enterprise users when it was acquired 06:02 – Over 700,000 registered users and 70,000 enterprise users 06:40 – Number of paying users 07:10 – Business Hangouts' competitors usually separate web conferencing and webinar leading to 2 different subscriptions 07:48 – Consumers wouldn't know what their monthly expenses were going to be 07:54 – Business Hangouts is not as complicated as their competitors 08:10 – "Our pricing model is very simple" 09:07 – Average monthly RPU is $70 10:40 – Business Hangouts is currently getting offers from investors 11:45 – "We try to build a business based on purely economics" 12:06 – "We think that we are a strong contender to multi-million dollar entities" 12:54 – Gary does not wish to disclose their MRR because they are not looking for capital at the moment as they are still a small company 13:57 – Gary's goal is to stay "at the radar" 14:18 – "You want to be good at what you're doing and you want the market to recognize that" 14:55 – Churn is less than 10% yearly 15:32 – Gary acquired the company for less than $10 million 17:00 – Gary can afford to put inside sales representatives in the demo 17:36 – Business Hangouts is completely bootstrapped 18:15 – Current CAC is zero 18:55 – Team size is less than 10 19:16 – Connect with Gray through LinkedIn 20:42 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Choose a business that is viable in the marketplace. Staying "at the radar" while doing an excellent job at what you do will help you become recognized by the marketplace. You CAN start a business without raising capital. Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. LinkedIn – Gary's LinkedIn account Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dec 1, 201623 min

EP 494: PDFFiller $10M+ Revenue, 200k Customers To make Document Signing/Management Easier with CEO Borya Shakhnovich

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Boris Shakhnovich, president of PDF Filler. He manages the daily operation and marketing campaigns but he is also responsible for the mission and vision of the company. Prior to his work at PDF Filler, Boris earned a PhD in Bioinformatics and he's a Bioinformatics Professor at Boston University. He later moved to Harvard University to work with Systems Biology. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Guerilla Marketing What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff Favorite online tool? — Google Analytics Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "That doing is more important than knowing" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Boris to the show 02:30 – Boris is the president and co-founder 02:47 – PDF Filler is a document management platform 02:51 – It allows people to do end-to-end document generation 03:40 – PDF Filler is a SaaS business model and they charge per month 03:46 – 3 tiers: professional, non-professional, and business 03:50 – Business is the most expensive at $15 a month 03:58 – Average customer pays per month 04:10 – In 2008, the founder started the business and ran it by himself until the end of 2011 04:25 – Boris joined the company 5 years ago and applied marketing technology to it 04:39 – PDF Filler has now close to 200,000 customers 04:58 – Monthly RPU 05:16 – PDF Filler was needed when it launched so it grew organically 05:30 – Gross customer churn per month is low 06:28 – PDF Filler works with the government institutions 06:58 – PDF Filler's digital marketing platform 07:08 - PDF Filler runs 60 million keywords on top of SEO and other SEM platforms 07:19 – Brings 4 million website views monthly 07:30 – Internal CRM with A/B Testing 08:22 – "We have a marketing technology that allows us to find sites that would be interested in collaborating with us and we have that as a partnership program" 09:00 – It is part-human and part-code 09:36 – Semantic search technology 10:06 – They write every code in house 10:50 – They have one of the largest SEM platforms and account in Google 11:44 – PDF Filler makes money on the first payment of their customers 12:20 – There are 160 team members divided across Boston 12:52 – PDF Filler is completely bootstrapped 13:14 – First year revenue was about $20,000 13:36 – 2015 total revenue is double digit millions 13:55 – Future plans with the business: 14:17 – Doing a lot of partnerships with private and government companies 14:43 – PDF Filler is a zero salespeople company 15:45 – Do you have an appetite for acquisition? Have you done it before? 15:50 – Absolutely, but we haven't done it before and are in the process of doing that now 16:05 – "Looking for companies that are complimentary to us and we can add value" 16:40 – "We would buy a competitor of a part of the business, not the whole business" 17:28 – They are currently looking into mail merge space, CRM space, and signature space 17:56 – Connect with Boris through his LinkedIn and website 20:28 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: If you can, strive to have a partnership with BOTH private and government agencies. A GREAT marketing technology will create TONS of organic website visits. DOING is extremely more important than knowing. Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. PDFfiller.com – Boris' business website LinkedIn – Boris' LinkedIn account Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 30, 201623 min

EP 493: DocHub $90k MRR, 15M Users To Make Document Signing Easy with CEO Chris Devor

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Chris Devor, founder of DocHub and other extensions. DocHub allows you to view, edit, and sign PDFs online for free to streamline the exchange of documents. Listen as Chris shares how DocHub is different from their competitors and why he won't easily jump into offers for a share of his company. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – N/A What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — New Relic 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 taken Computer Science and it would probably make my life easier" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Chris to the show 02:16 – Chris started DocHub 3 years ago 02:57 – DocHub integrates with different providers 03:17 – DocHub can be opened directly from Gmail 03:30 – The signature looks real 03:48 – Number of users is 15.4 million and 52.2 documents 04:18 – What does 15 million users mean? 04:29 – For every one document opened up equates to one user 05:08 – The monthly recurring expense led Chris to having a paywall 06:57 – Chris runs several of the operations 07:16 – Number of paying users in October is around 5,000 08:00 – MRR in October is about $95,000 09:30 – Chris owns 100% of DocHub 09:43 – Team size 11:00 – In the last 30 days, DocHub had 1600 new subscriptions and 650 new cancellations 11:21 – DocHub has 30-day free trial 11:40 – DocHub's revenue churn is 75% 12:23 – When can an investor invest or buy DocHub? 12:40 – It is still too early and Chris hasn't tried new features 13:38 – Chris is finding a good valuation for their company 15:40 – Nathan shows Chris a $200,000 check asking how much equity Chris is willing to give 16:25 – "It's too complex" 17:10 – Would you consider an offer for $5 million? 17:13 – "I will think about it" 18:50 – Connect with Chris through his website 20:19 – The Famous Five Key Points: A free trial is an EXCELLENT way to attract new customers—including a paywall helps, too. Always continue to BUILD and EXPAND your company. Choose a type of degree or diploma that will give you MORE opportunities in the future. Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. DocHub.com – Chris's business website Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 29, 201623 min

EP 492: $2M Raised, $12k MRR with DocuFirst CEO Randall Nachman

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Randall Nachman of DocuFirst, who has over 15 years of experience in mortgage lending and software development with a strong focus on business processes, work-flow, operation, sales and marketing. He founded a mortgage brokerage company in 2003 which grew from 2 loan officers to 135 loan officers and ranked 2nd in the region for total loan closings and volume. He then founded ATLOS, a document management in 2008 which is used by lenders and borrowers. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Trump: The Art of the Deal What CEO do you follow? – 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? – "Pay attention in class" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:34 – Nathan introduces to the show 02:31 – DocuFirst focuses on 3 core functions within software 03:12 – DocuFirst also focuses on document storage and management 03:39 – The files are stored securely that they can access anytime 03:44 – ATLOS and DocuFirst was launched in 2015 04:13 – First year for DocuFirst was close to $100,000 04:21 – DocuFirst's is a SaaS model and is subscription-based 04:58 – Average monthly RPU is $150 05:35 – ATLOS is for mortgage space but DocuFirst handles any type of forms 06:40 – DocuFirst is currently serving 80 unique companies 06:54 – Each company has an average of 6-7 users 07:06 – ATLOS has 4 companies they're serving 07:18 – ATLOS markets directly to the mortgage lending space 07:38 – DocuFirst's monthly revenue is $12,000 08:07 – Randall started in the document space because he wanted to automate his own business 08:43 – Why create a new brand if they are both running on the same software? 08:45 – ATLOS stands for Automated Tracking Loan Origination Software which is dedicated in the real estate space 09:18 – Team size for DocuFirst is 16 10:11 – DocuFirst's churn rate is low 10:33 – Average CAC is less than $100 11:00 – Randall has raised capital for both brands 11:31 – Randall raised capital because he wants to speed up the way they develop 12:08 – Randall and his team are based in Louisiana 12:51 – Randall considered spinning out DocuFirst as a separate entity 13:46 – DocuFirst's valuation 15:03 – Randall will not sell the business or get an offer 15:28 – Randall has been focus on developing DocuFirst 16:03 – DocuFirst is adding at least 10 customers a month 16:19 – Connect with Randall through DocuFirst and ATLOS 19:02 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: You can create a business with SIMILAR software, but DIFFERENT target market. Always work to develop and improve your business MORE. Education can lead you somewhere, so pay attention in class! Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. DocuFirst.com – Randall's second business website ATLOS.com – Randall's first business website Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 28, 201621 min

EP 491: $13M in Funding, Grow.com Hits $300k MRR, Helping 600 Customers w/ Better Dashboards with Rob Nelson CEO

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Rob Nelson, founder and CEO of Grow – a business intelligence platform. Nathan came across Rob when he was doing research in the intelligence space and Grow provided a lot of good feedback. Rob is a listener of The Top and happily accepted Nathan's invitation to be a guest on The Top. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The ONE Thing What CEO do you follow? – Aaron Skonnard Favorite online tool? — Calendly Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Don't ever quit" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:25 – Nathan introduces Rob to the show 02:00 – Grow is a powerful business intelligence platform and made specifically for SMBs 02:13 – Rob founded Grow in 2014 02:25 – Rob had a software company which was bootstrapped 02:34 – Rob struggled pulling up data from different platforms 03:29 – Rob sold the company and had a great exit 04:10 – Grow is a SaaS model and has subscription based pricing 04:20 – Grow doesn't charge based on the number of users 05:10 – Grow charges based on the number of metrics used 05:20 – Grow's RPU is $600 a month 05:30 – Users pay monthly but there's a 12-month commitment 06:06 – "If we can't get them hooked with the product in the first 3 days, they can walk away" 06:18 – 75% of the people continue after the 30-day trial period 07:05 – Rob doesn't know their exact churn 07:29 – Grow's usage stats 07:44 – Half of their customers log-in everyday 07:50 – 92% of the customers are logging in at least twice a month 08:00 – Grow is currently serving 600 customers 08:08 – Rob started with the concept in January 2014 08:30 – Rob hired a technical co-founder and gave him 20% of the business 09:00 – Rob and his team are based in Utah 09:45 – Team size is 70 09:58 – Grow raised a series A round and seed round 10:12 – Total amount raised was $13 million 10:14 – Total of $9 million was raised in series A 10:25 – Both are priced equity round 10:44 – Rob is a huge fan of bootstrapping during his first venture 11:28 – Rob decided to raise for Grow because bootstrapping just wouldn't work 11:50 – Total 2014 revenue is about $80 12:20 – 2015 revenue is $150,000 13:00 – Goal for 2016 revenue 13:33 – Rob closed the series A in July 14:03 – Fully-weighted CAC is about $3,500 15:00 – Why do you think Dasher didn't work out? 15:20 – "It's hard to build a company on $20 or $30 a month" 16:35 – Connect with Rob through his website 18:05 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: USE your experience to IMPROVE your business. Explore other options—if bootstrapped worked first, that doesn't mean it will work again. Don't EVER quit. Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. Grow.com – Rob's business website Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 27, 201621 min

EP 490: GoldenKey $3.4M Raised, 1000 Units Sold By Agents Using New Technology with CEO Tommy Sowers

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Tommy Sowers, who worked for McKinsey & Company and was the youngest senate confirmed assistant secretary in the Obama administration. On top of this, he is the founder of GoldenKey. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Getting Things Done What CEO do you follow? – Yvon Chouinard Favorite online tool? — Evernote 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? – "There is no risk and don't wait for it to be easy" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Tommy to the show 02:01 – GoldenKey is a no-commission real estate network 02:30 – Tommy didn't want to commission a real estate agent 2 years ago 02:50 – "People hack real estate agents in a lot of different ways" 03:49 – GoldenKey's revenue model is a marketplace 03:55 – Consumers pay on the services that they need 04:22 – "When you buy or sell your home, the commission rebate will go to you" 04:44 – In GoldenKey's platform, the supply are agents 04:50 – Agents offer unbundled services 04:56 – From zero, GoldenKey managed to have 1798 agents in 47 states, much higher than Red Fin 05:25 – The consumers are the home buyers or sellers 05:30 – GoldenKey currently has 1/3 buyers and 2/3 sellers 05:39 – Average of 1900 buyers and sellers 05:44 – GoldenKey has currently executed over 900 service transactions 06:11 – GoldenKey has saved consumers over $100,000 of commission 06:25 – GoldenKey doesn't share the number of monthly transactions publicly 07:30 – They get different fees for different types of services 07:45 – "This is not a do-it-yourself real estate and you actually have an agent with you" 08:25 – If I buy a property for $500,000, how much would go to GoldenKey? 08:30 – For search services, it is $50 which goes to the agent 08:50 – On average the consumers pay $2000 to have agents represent them through the transactions 09:07 – "The entire agent commission will be rebated back to you, which is usually 3% of the total transaction" 09:30 – Agents choose GoldenKey because they get something rather than nothing at all 09:40 – Agents can still do the traditional real estate commissioning 09:58 – "There are a lot of consumers in the USA who don't want to pay commission but need an agent's help" 10:31 – There are millions of real estate agents but they won't always have a client 11:51 – GoldenKey was founded in April 2015 11:58 – 18 full-time employees 12:00 – GoldenKey raised $3.4 million in venture capital 13:13 – GoldenKey is not a brokerage and CAC is zero 13:59 – GoldenKey is not a big technology company so they need money for the appropriate platform 14:33 – The product design team is based in San Francisco 14:54 – Others are distributed to other states 15:13 – "Rule of thumb is when you don't need to ask for money when you need money" 15:35 – GoldenKey spends around $100,000 a month 16:14 – GoldenKey joined NFX guild which is for companies building network and network effects 17:01 – Connect with Tommy on Twitter and his website 19:25 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Rule of thumb is you don't need to ask for money when you need money. A LOT of consumers in the USA want an agent's help, but DO NOT want to pay commision. There is NO risk. Don't wait for it to be easy—just jump right in! Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. @Sowers – Tommy's Twitter handle GoldenKey.com – Tommy's business website Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 26, 201622 min

EP 489: $200k Shark Tank Deal, Cuban/Sacca, 30,000 People Booked $12M Worth of Sports Weekend Housing from RentLikeAChampion CEO Mike Doyle

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Mike Doyle, CEO of Rent Like A Champion, a vacation rental platform for sporting events. He has hosted 50 thousand travelers and made over $12 million in sales. Mike is a Shark Tank survivor who received an investment from Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca and both Mark and Chris are still very involved in the business. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Trello Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Not now If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Start earlier and take advantages of those resources" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:30 – Nathan introduces Mike to the show 02:00 – Mike took a total of $200,000 from Mike and Chris for 10% of the company's equity 02:10 – Shark Tank was their first round of funding 02:27 – Mike wanted to get the deal and the exposure 02:38 – Rent Like A Champion's valuation during Shark Tank 02:52 – Rent Like A Champion is currently in the market for raising 02:59 – Rent Like A Champion's episode was filmed in June 2013 03:18 – In Rent Like A Champion's platform, the sellers are the homeowners who own properties around stadiums 03:29 – Buyers are the sports fans who are travelling to watch the games 03:33 – Rent Like A Champion is focused on non-urban destinations 03:33 – The focus is smaller towns where there are not enough hotels for fans to stay 03:46 – Rent Like A Champion was founded in 2012 04:07 – Since 2012, Rent Like A Champion has hosted under 60,000 fans 04:18 – Total booked destinations: 7500 different places to rent 04:24 – An average of 8 fans per rental 04:28 – Rent Like A Champion's market is families and groups 04:46 – Rent Like A Champion has over 3000 homes 04:51 – Rent Like A Champion has properties in over 100 towns in the USA 04:56 – About 25 towns are considered their core market 05:16 – 2012 total bookings equated to $630,000 and Rent Like A Champion kept 22% 05:29 – Rent Like A Champion is about to reach $4.5 million this year 05:58 – In 2015, Rent Like A Champion made under $3.3 million and kept $720,000 06:15 – Rent Like A Champion is getting a fee both from the seller and buyer 06:25 – 15% from the seller and 9% from the buyer 06:47 – Rent Like A Champion is seasonal 06:54 – Most of the bookings come from college football 07:05 – Rent Like A Champion is now partnering with 6 PGA tournament events 07:15 – Rent Like A Champion is also partnering with NASCAR races 07:55 – Most bookings come 68 weeks in advance 08:23 – In September, total of 750 groups booked 08:39 – Gross sales for September is about $1.35 million 09:05 – Average order value: 09:08 – $1600-2000 for a 2-night rental 09:36 – Team size is 5 full-timers and 5 part-timers 09:57 – Total transaction volume since 2012 is a little over $12 million 10:13 – How do you beat Airbnb? 10:17 – Rent Like A Champion considers non-hotel destinations 10:52 – "On the demand side, we're able to be so targeted with our advertising towards sports fans" 11:13 – If Sacca didn't miss out on the Airbnb deal, do you think you are going to be as aggressive as you are on Shark Tank? 11:28 – The night before Mike is going to film the episode, they still didn't think that Sacca was going to be one of the sharks 12:00 – Did we accurately see everything that went down on Shark Tank? 12:05 – "It's super condensed on what you see on TV" 13:03 – Schedule suddenly changes 13:14 – Average reorder rate is 50% 13:53 – Buyers book once a year 15:10 – How do you expand market shares after the sporting events? 15:14 – There's a ton of green space around college football 15:20 – Graduation is already big for Rent Like A Champion but they're still pushing it more 15:30 - Rent Like A Champion is starting to working with wedding planners for reunion weekends 16:08 – Rent Like A Champion is doing instant booking where list houses can put the availability of their houses depending on a scheduled game 16:53 – The pricing depends on the homeowners 17:08 – Rent Like A Champion can give homeowners guidelines in pricing 17:20 – Depending on the game, the amount of buyers vary 18:00 – What is it like working with Chris Sacca? 18:30 – "Chris and Mark have been incredibly involved and been receiving weekly updates" 18:45 – Chris and Mark are very responsive and prompt in replies 19:00 – Mike threw a big marketing event and Chris and Mark came to talk about an update segment in Shark Tank 19:39 – Connect with Mike through his business' website, Twitter and Facebook 21:15 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Your business will being to DEFINE itself as you keep moving forward. EXPAND your niche. Don't stay seasonal—continue to think bigger. Start as EARLY as you can and take advantage of those resources. Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan u

Nov 25, 201623 min

EP 488: Hireology $26M Raised, $1.2M MRR, Helping 4000 Customers Hire More Effectively with Hireology CEO Adam Robinson

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Adam Robinson, CEO and co-founder of Hireology where's he's on a mission to help business owners make better hiring decisions using data and processes. He's known in the recruiting industry, an expert speaker, and author with over 20 years of experience in the field of hiring and selection management. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm What CEO do you follow? – Phil Knight Favorite online tool? — Evernote Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Take more risks" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:35 – Nathan introduces Adam to the show 02:03 – Hireology is a talent technology platform built specifically for owner/operators 02:14 – Hireology helps the owner with the technology they need in their hiring and employment process 02:30 – Hireology has a monthly subscription plan 02:36 – Hireology is a SaaS business model 02:46 – Hireology is different from Toptal and Upwork 03:03 – Hireology was founded mid 2010 and the product was launched in January 2012 03:13 – Adam had a recruitment and outsource business before Hireology 03:28 – Adam learned from this business that their clients had terrible interviewing skills 03:32 – Adam created an interviewing system and clients started asking to buy it 03:44 – Adam sold the business 04:13 – Hireology first customers were from Adam's personal and professional network 04:40 – Hireology is currently working with under 4000 individually owned businesses in USA 04:50 – Around 100 brands 06:20 – How Adam sees Hireology's future 07:15 – Adam had a client who was responsible for 40% of their revenue for 3 years 07:35 – Hireology ended up doing 4000 hires for the company 08:00 – Average RPU per month is $300 per location 08:14 – Kickers Hireology is using to increase RPU 08:18 – Based on employee count per location 08:39 – Hireology doesn't increase the price of modules but increases its numbers 08:50 – Most of Hireology's system is proprietary technology 09:15 – Hireology has 7 close partners that they white-label and sell through their platform 09:30 – Average MRR is $1.2 million 09:47 – Gross monthly customer churn 10:35 – Hireology is an all-inside sales operation for up-selling 11:05 – Team size is about 100 11:11 – Based in Chicago 11:27 – CAC 11:40 – Between $7-10 depending on the client's industry 12:22 – Lifetime value 12:45 – Adam wants a business whose name is on a sign and whose personal balance sheets are invested in the business 13:15 – "There are 7 million employers in the USA that nobody is talking to and that's the market we want to be in" 13:27 – Find Adam in Twitter, LinkedIn and his website. Shoot him an email at [email protected] 16:00 – Hireology was bootstrapped for the first 2 years and did an institutional raise in 2014 16:12 – Raised $26 million in 2 round from 2014-16 16:45 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Find your target market and tap into that market. Don't rely on a client to stay with you forever—the sooner you accept that it's part of the business, the better. You need to TAKE more risks! Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. @Adrobins – Adam's Twitter handle Hireology.com – Adam's business website LinkedIn – Adam's LinkedIn account [email protected] – Adam's email address Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 24, 201620 min

EP 487: $8M in Agency Revenue, 12% Target Net Margin with BeFoundOnline.com CEO Dan Golden

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Dan Golden, a veteran digital marketing executive and speaker who still spends time diving into analytics and making strategic recommendations for his clients. He has spent a lot of time on the client side with large agencies. Dan co-founded the digital agency "Be Found Online (BFO)" and has led the BFO team from his roots as a paid search agency to a full service performance digital marketing agency. Listen as Dan talks about how he turned his side project, BFO, to a now, successful agency, making a 6-figure revenue. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Great Game of Business What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Nudge Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Enjoy the journey" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:28 – Nathan introduces Dan to the show 02:30 – Be Found Online is a digital marketing agency 02:36 – BFO's focus is to drive traffic and help their clients make money through that traffic 02:45 – BFO's processes have evolved over time 03:15 – BFO was a side project for Dan and was called Be Found Local 03:26 – Dan and his co-founder merged their businesses and started in January 2009 03:40 – First year revenue for BFO was $200,000 03:51 – 2015 revenue: $7 million 04:15 – Dan shifted their goal from profitability to finding the right clients that fit BFO 04:50 – Dan aims for 12% net revenue 05:35 – Team size: 05:37 – 50 full-timers in the USA 05:43 – Total of 70 employees 06:02 – The BFO army has grown considerably 06:40 – BFO spends $50,000 a month on their software 07:10 – "A lot of technology we do is client-specific" 07:45 – "Many of the largest SaaS companies came from an agency model because an agency sees all the client-specific tools being used in the agency" – Nathan 08:43 – "I don't want to build something that is slightly a better version of something out there" – Dan 09:50 – BFO has 60-80 active clients 10:00 – BFO has served over 100 clients since they started 10:14 – BFO has a big project yearly called "Perfect Client" 10:20 – BFO is doing research and client analysis for every client they've worked on to figure out where they can do their best work, which client is the best to work with, and where to add value 10:29 – BFO has turned down a lot of clients 10:45 – "I don't want to double our client base, I want to find the right types of clients." 11:02 – BFO wants to focus on enterprise clients 11:10 – Average that the customer is paying BFO 11:15 - $10,000 – $15,000 a month in fees 11:50 – How do you calculate lifetime value? 12:13 – Clients stay with BFO for a minimum of 12 months 12:48 – BFO is making a minimum of $600,000 a month 13:11 – Get in touch with Dan through Twitter, LinkedIn and BFO blog 15:50 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: GREAT things can turn out unexpectedly. Business goals can change from time to time—be OPEN and FLEXIBLE for these changes. Make sure to ENJOY the journey. Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. @TheGoldenDan – Dan's Twitter handle LinkedIn – Dan's LinkedIn account BFO blog – Dan's business blog Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 23, 201619 min

Ep 486: Agency Hits $2M In Revenue, 49 Employees, $36k ACV with RapidBoostMarketing CEO Ali Salman

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Ali Salman who heads Rapid Boost Marketing where they exclusively work with professional service providers. Rapid Boost has grown to over $2 million in annual sales over the last 2 years with a goal of $25 million by 2020. They have generated over 120,000 ideal client inquiries for service firms and practices in the last 12 months. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk and Nathan Latka Favorite online tool? — Ninja Outreach Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Sometimes more than that If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Get out of school faster" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:38 – Nathan introduces the show 02:09 – Rapid Boost Marketing is an agency 02:17 – Average contract size is anywhere between from $1500 to $6000 and majority of the contracts are from $2000 - $3000 02:28 – Rapid Boost Marketing has a big lead generation 02:53 – The revenue for 2015 is $800,000 and end of 2016 is more than $2 million 03:10 – Average monthly retainer is $2000 - $3000 and the average contract is from 18-24 months 03:30 – Average RPU 03:53 – Currently, Rapid Boost Marketing is working with 72 customers 04:45 – Rapid Boost Marketing can help a lawyer increase his revenue but it will also depend on the area and how salable the lawyer is 06:09 – Rapid Boost Marketing has 4 packages and it includes the paid media 06:15 – 30% of the packages goes to paid media 06:36 – They are focused on content and search engine optimization 06:50 – Team size 07:13 – Monthly headcount expenses equate to about 50% of their revenue 07:36 – Revenue in September 2016 is $857,000 08:22 – January, February, and March are their down months 08:29 – Average revenue for 3 months is $80,000 - $90,000 09:05 – Rapid Boost Marketing's clients are described 10:17 – How Ali priced his own salary 10:50 – Connect with Ali through his Twitter and LinkedIn 13:16 – Ali founded the company in 2012 13:33 – First year revenue in 2013 is a little over $130,000 13:46 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Start AS EARLY as possible in business. Know your niche client and market WELL so you can grow quickly. Your people--both your employees and your clients--contribute to your company's success, without them, there is no success. Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. @CanadianLMPro – Ali's Twitter handle LinkedIn – Ali's LinkedIn account Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 22, 201617 min

EP 485: $2.5M Foot Doctor Revenues, Launches InfoProduct, Does $750K with Dr Dan Margolin

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Dr. Dan Margolin, a practicing Podiatrist with over 27 years of experience and a practice that ranks from the top 3% in the country. Dan's second and current practice is widely successful compared to his first. Listen as Dan talks about podiatry and his new business which he co-founded, Effective Management. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The 10x Rule What CEO do you follow? – Tony Hsieh Favorite online tool? — Testing Academy 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 wish I knew to look for mentors a little bit more" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:35 – Nathan introduces Dan to the show 02:15 – A podiatrist deals with health issues concerning the feet including sprains 02:32 – Dan generates revenue from his patients and sometimes, from insurance companies 02:39 – Dan's ultimate goal is for the patients to be well 02:51 – In the long-term, Effective Management will be the bigger stream of revenue 03:10 – A podiatrist earns $ 300,000 to $ 500,000 a year 03:26 – The Podiatry Survival Blueprint – a video of Dan's job description 03:47 – Dan generated $2.4 million in podiatry in 2015 03:55 – Effective Management earned $300,000 in its first year 04:14 – Dan loves helping people so he launched the Effective Management program 04:50 – Expenses hindered Dan to just give away the program 05:25 – Team size 05:43 – Go to BasicStaffTraining.com to find Dan's info product 06:41 – He provides 4 different products 07:27 – There is an initial fee and monthly recurring fee 08:04 – 2016 revenue is a bit over $400,000 08:12 – There are 300 different companies in their system 08:30 – The Podiatry Survival Blueprint is sold at $6500 09:15 – Dan uses Schoox to run the membership page 09:44 – Current MRR 09:58 – Dan contacted his own patients as prospective clients 10:35 – Connect with Dan through his website and get a free copy of his book Fast Tracking Your Prosperity 12:15 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: There are TONS of ways to help people, be it in your field or not. Find people who will help you run the business, ESPECIALLY in the areas where you struggle. Have a mentor and be involved. Be a sponge and absorb everything. Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. DrDanSpeaks.com – Dan's website Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 21, 201614 min

EP 484: $7M Raised with StartEngine CEO and CrowdFunding SnapWire CEO

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Ron Miller, CEO of StartEngine,who was in Episode 40 of The Top and Chad Newell, CEO and founder of Snapwire. Listen as Ron and Chad explain how the new rule of SEC in equity crowdfunding helped their companies. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Ron: The E-Myth What CEO do you follow? – Chad: Sean Malarkey Favorite online tool? — Ron: Internal Email / Chad: Google Sheet Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Ron: No If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – "It's all about confidence." – Ron Miller Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Ron and Chad to the show 02:30 – StartEngine is the nation's leading platform that allows entrepreneurs to directly connect with potential investors to raise capital 02:45 – The new law opened up the possibility for everyone to become an investor 03:11 – It allows companies to advertise broadly 03:24 – StartEngine was launched in June 2015 03:30 – Total amount invested is $20 million 03:42 – 60,000 unique users have joined their community 04:00 – StartEngine charged 5% of the total capital from the proceeds raised 04:20 – Entrepreneur can raise up to $50 million a year in the online public offering and StartEngine charges $50 per investor 05:10 – "We are currently focusing on the US market and there's no SaaS in there" 05:30 – What made Chad decide to use StartEngine 06:40 – Why StartEngine is ground-breaking 07:00 – The congress' limitation on investing in a company 07:31 – "Real wealth is made by being an early investor" 07:54 – The new law is a radical shift 08:51 – Nathan believes that the best investors are customers 09:10 – Snapwire has 300,000 photographers in the platform 09:22 – Buyer ratio is much smaller than the photographers 09:45 – Snapwire has pay-as-you-go and a SaaS model 10:08 – Snapwire's revenue is 50% from pay-as-you-go and 50% from SaaS 10:20 – 9,000 images have been bought in Snapwire since their launch 10:30 – Snapwire was founded in 2014 10:34 – Snapwire has raised $2.8 million 11:15 – Snapwire raising in StartEngine opened up a lot of opportunities 11:45 – Can you use StartEngine after a price round? 11:52 – The main advantage is that companies can set their terms 12:03 – Some companies have to essentially create a second priced or non-priced round 12:58 – The good thing about equity crowdfunding is you have to disclose everything 13:08 – Disclosure statement is clear 13:41 – Lawsuits and CAP table 14:10 – There's a disclosure and subscription agreement that investors sign 14:30 – "I think there's an immersion of risk" 16:14 – There are limits to investments and to returns 16:28 – During crowdfunding, there's also a limit on the amount of investment that a company will accept 17:00 – "As far as information rights, you can be very clear in the disclosure" 18:00 – It is not allowed to give out public information even if it is unintentional 18:15 – Upon investing, you will get a shareholder report that is in compliance with security exchange commission requirements 18:40 – "Competition can't reverse engineer your strategy in execution" 19:06 – StartEngine has 12,000 – 14,000 investors 19:20 – Total of 15-18 companies have raised in StartEngine 19:30 – 14 team size in StartEngine 19:36 – StartEngine raised capital through seed round and Series A 19:47 – Total of $7.7 million raised 19:54 - Ron didn't use their platform to raise 20:25 – Average value of an investment is $1400 20:40 – StartEngine's biggest competitors are Seed Invest, Next Seed, WeFunder and Flash Funder 21:11 – What should people look for in the marketplace? 21:23 – If certain companies are establishing themselves in a specific niche area 21:43 – Success rate of the companies 21:57 – Support the companies can provide to entrepreneurs 22:13 – Connect with Ron through his email 22:34 – Contact Chad at [email protected] 24:53 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Real wealth is made by being an early investor. The good thing about equity crowdfunding is the disclosure. Be confident in yourself. Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. [email protected] – Ron's email address [email protected] – Chad's email address Show Notes provided

Nov 20, 201629 min

Ep 483: Pipedrive Passes $10M ARR, Helping 30,000 Customers w/ CRM with CEO Timo Rein

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Timo Rein, CEO and co-founder of Pipedrive, a provider of sales CRM software that gives sales teams control over their selling processes. After spending $15,000 on a CRM for his own business that ended up being a total waste of money, Timo brought together a few engineering friends to create a better CRM solution for his own needs. This was the genesis of Pipe Tribe, which now has over 30,000 small business users worldwide and has reached $13.4 million in VC funding. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Turning Pro What CEO do you follow? – Stephen Curry and Gregg Popovich Favorite online tool? — Slack and Viber Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— "No, still trying." If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – "Take action. It is important to work hard first. Discover who I am and know where my energy flows." Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:47 – Nathan introduces Timo to the show 02:31 – It was in 2002 when Timo spent $15,000 on a business 02:41 – It turned out that the business wouldn't have much return 02:56 – Pipe Tribe helps small businesses around the world control their complex processes 03:23 – Pipe Tribe was founded in June 2010 and the product came out March 2011 03:30 – Current team size 03:48 – They have an office in Estonia and Manhattan 04:28 – Timo is based in California 04:50 – In 2010, revenue is zero 05:30 – 2015: total revenue 06:16 – Current ARR 06:30 – They are doing about a million dollars per month 06:48 – They have 30,000 paying customers 07:00 – Pipe Tribe's pricing 07:07 – They have 3 plans at the moment 07:25 – Average customers' pay per month 08:21 – They are doing cohort tracking 08:30 – Monthly customer churn 08:37 – Churn tends to be quite high 09:32 – The churn depends on the tool and business size 10:45 – CAC will depend on the company's growth 12:00 – 25% of new sign-ups are paying annually 12:28 – How do you drive the company? 12:45 – Timo and his co-founders built the company from the ground up 13:22 – They have an internal goal 13:33 – They raised $9 million from Series A 13:53 – Some of the money they raised was from seed investors 14:13 – Timo won't sell his business for $90 million or even $150 million 14:49 – Timo sees the company as a work undone 15:11 – "When you build a startup, it seems like you're building an airplane while you are on air" 16:22 – They have a revenue goal and customer goal 16:45 – Connect with Timo through his LinkedIn 18:25 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The world around us changes—the economy goes up and down. When you build a startup, it seems like you're building an airplane while you are on air. Take action. It is important to work hard first. Discover who you are and know where your energy flows. Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. LinkedIn – Timo's LinkedIn account Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 19, 201622 min

EP 482: Snip.ly $50k MRR, 1000 Customers For Lead Gen on Social Media Sharing with CEO Michael Cheng

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Michael Cheng, co-founder of Sniply, an innovative new marketing tool that helps companies caption the value of content sharing in social media. Sniply links has generated over 150 million clicks and is used by notable brands such as IBM, Salesforce and Greenpeace. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Steve Jobs Biography What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs Favorite online tool? — Google Translate 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 rush it" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:39 – Nathan introduces Michael to the show 02:09 – Sniply is a content marketing platform 02:11 – It allows people to generate ROI from the links they share 02:30 – It is a SaaS subscription model 02:32 – Premium has a customized ability on call to action and other features 02:49 – Sniply was launched in 2014 02:59 – Sniply generates money from the subscription 03:20 – Price range is $39 per month to $3000 per month 03:29 – Monthly RPU is $70-80 03:45 – Most of the users are the social media team of a company 03:51 – Dropbox, Outbrain and Autodesk use Sniply 04:42 – The "Name your Price" option on Sniply's website 05:03 – The "Name your Price" option allows Sniply to gauge the customers' needs and price range 05:20 – It also allows Sniply to make an exception for non-profit groups that can't afford the price 05:33 – It gives them a better idea of how to fill in the gaps when they release a new feature 05:48 – "People are very reasonable when naming their own price" 06:25 – Sniply can still reject customized requests 06:50 – It's difficult to measure the downside 07:06 – There's a dedicated page for Enterprise 08:33 – Sniply is currently hitting 12,000 to 30,000 registered users 08:44 – Revenue is $600,000 and about $50,000 a month 09:00 – One thousand paying customers 09:12 – Sniply is bootstrapped 09:50 – Team size 10:48 – A small team helps Michael to prioritize and be more flexible 11:10 – Some startups invest in wrong features and wrong people 11:30 – They are based in Vancouver, Canada 11:37 – Gross customer churn per month is 5% 11:45 – Customer acquisition cost on average 11:53 – Michael doesn't do ads 12:00 – Cultivate relationships with bloggers 12:26 – Most of the bloggers are also marketers 12:40 – Total customer growth per month is 5% 13:46 – Connect with Michael on Twitter or email 16:08 – Total 2015 revenue is $400,000 and aiming for $600,000 this year 16:23 – Michael is now investing on a new platform that automatically converts blog posts to videos 17:07 – Not currently looking at acquisition 17:20 – Michael owns 33% of the business; there are two other founders 17:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: A small team size has a lot of advantages. Business takes time—don't rush it. Having a "Name your Price" option gives a company a better idea of the needs and desires of customers together with their preferred price. Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. @Michaelhsc – Michael's Twitter handle [email protected] – Michael's email address Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 18, 201620 min

EP 482: Snip.ly $50k MRR, 1000 Customers For Lead Gen on Social Media Sharing with CEO Michael Cheng

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Nov 18, 201620 min

EP 481: 4400 Flashlights Sold, $79 Price, $23 COGS, 55% Net Margin with TrueGunner CEO Tanner Larsson

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Nathan interviews Tanner Larsson, co-founder of 80/20 Media, CEO of e-commerce brand incubator BuildGrowsSale.com. He's also the founder and facilitator of an exclusive e-commerce syndicate called Black Label – composed of the best and brightest marketers, CEOs, and entrepreneurs in the e-commerce space. He recently published his first book called Ecommerce Evolved which offers readers a box view of how successful e-commerce brands build, grow, and scale. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Rocket Fuel What CEO do you follow? – Ed O'Keefe Favorite online tool? —FastStone Capture Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Not even close If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "You don't have to fund everything out of your own pocket, there are other options available" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:27 – Nathan introduces Tanner to the show 02:15 – Tanner's ecommerce world started in 2001 02:20 – Started in eBay and Tanner became a powerseller 02:31 – Tanner was doing $ 50,000 - $ 100,000 a month in eBay 03:00 – "There's no reason not to sell a physical product" 03:25 – Tanner and his team have a number of e-commerce brands 03:36 – 2 main brands have done $6.5 million in a year 03:48 – They had a problem in production 04:06 – "We've had different bottlenecks that prevented us from growing at the rate we could have grown" 04:30 – The flashlight market 04:38 – Tanner doesn't want to sell what everybody is selling 04:47 – The gap they saw is between the lower price entry level flashlight and high-end flashlight 05:03 – Tanner and his team develop their own flashlight and a kit 05:17 – Truegunner.com 05:25 – The flashlight is in a sales funnel 05:34 – The funnel path 06:02 – The bestseller flashlight is the M600 tactical utility flashlight 06:07 - $22 manufactured price from China 06:32 – They had a much higher per unit cost and much lower profit margin on the first order 06:43 - First order was at a minimum which is a thousand 07:03 – Total is $30,000 tied up which equals to $3 per unit price 07:52 – It took 7 months before the first order started production 07:58 – The back and forth from the manufacturing county took time 08:05 – Shipping takes a week which includes the revises that needed on the product 08:30 – "If you're building your product from the ground, there's a whole back and forth with the manufacturer" 09:00 – Started selling on November 2015 09:05 – Sold about 4400 units for 12 months 09:21 – Total money in from this product is around $ 150,000 - $ 160, 000 09:50 – 99% of the funds came from Tanner 10:12 – The downside is some raw materials are specialized 10:27 – They have to buy raw materials in advance to prevent going out of stock 11:28 – Most of their sales are funnel driven 11:43 – They were using ultracart but shifted back to infusionsoft 12:09 – They are also using Hotjar records visitor interaction. Like heat mapping 12:43 – They spend $13 per user acquisition on the front end 13:03 – They breakeven in the funnel 13:30 – They also have subscription plans 14:01 – They have 7000 paying user 14:36 – They also have drop-off rates 16:00 – Connect with Tanner through his website 18:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Look for alternative funding. Don't shoulder everything. If you don't know something, that doesn't mean you can't explore. Sourcing from manufacturers abroad takes patience and a lot of research. Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. BuildGrowScale.com – Tanner's website Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 17, 201620 min

EP 479: $45M Raised, 5000+ Project Management Customers with Mavenlink CEO Ray Grainger

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Rey Grainger, founder and CEO of Mavenlink, where he's leading a mission to re-invent the way businesses do work. Ray brings over 25 years of experience in software and technology consulting to Mavenlink. He also invests in several technology companies through Accenture technology ventures including enterprise knowledge manager vendor InQuira. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff Favorite online tool? — Evernote Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— I don't If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "That I would actually end up achieving what I have setup to do" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:24 – Nathan introduces Ray to the show 02:28 – Ray likes corporate world more 03:00 – How Accenture invested in AI Technology 03:20 – Ray left Accenture in 2005 when InQuira started to get into the market 03:48 – Ray already had an idea for Mavenlink 04:45 – Mavenlink is SaaS business management solution 05:09 – Mavenlink is a subscription based business model 05:50 – First year revenue is zero 06:08 – Product development was in February 2009 06:25 – Began monetizing at the beginning of 2010 06:40 – Mavenlink was bootstrapped 07:05 – Before starting Mavenlink, Ray sold some of his stocks of Accenture 07:40 – Before they were able to monetize, Ray and his team already spent almost a million dollar 08:03 – Mavenlink has a broad customer base in over a 100 countries 08:13 – From SMB to large public companies 08:55 – Mavenlink has an inside sales team for each deal 09:30 – Mavenlink partnered with Google 09:38 – Google promoted Mavenlink in their marketplace 10:45 – "The amount of money you have in your bank account influences you" 11:16 – Ray had to look for creative ways to acquire customers 11:41 – Mavenlink sponsored 2 technology conferences 12:35 – It is difficult to say how much one is willing to spend to acquire a business 13:30 – "You have to manage it by channel and see what you're going to get for the payback" 13:48 – Gross monthly customer churn 13:52 – "We offer a solution that directly impacts the profitability of the company" 14:18 – Clients who stay with Mavenlink continues to grow 15:41 – The upsell part of Mavenlink 16:06 – Mavenlink target seat price 16:29 – Mavenlink has taken a substantial amount of venture capital starting in 2011 16:52 – Team size 17:18 – Follow Ray on Twitter and LinkedIn 18:56 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The amount of money you have in your bank account influences you. Corporate life can hone great entrepreneurs. Achieve what you have set up to do and aim for the big one. Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. @mavenlink – Ray's Twitter handle LinkedIn – Ray's business LinkedIn account Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 16, 201620 min

EP 480: YC Backed Polymail Raises $1M, hits 20k Users with CEO Brandon Foo

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Brandon Foo, co-founder and CEO of Polymail (YC S16) – an email platform making businesses and companies more productive. Previously, he co-founded CTRL LA Collective, a co-working space in LA. He graduated from UCLA where he co-founded Bruin Entrepreneurs which is now the biggest entrepreneurship organization at UCLA. Listens as Brandon shares how he built Polymail and why entrepreneurs prefer it over Gmail. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – N/A What CEO do you follow? – Aaron Levie Favorite online tool? — Asana Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7-8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Spend more time with side projects and less on school work" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:35 – Nathan introduces Brandon to the show 02:08 – Polymail is a super-powerful email platform designed for business users 02:18 – With just 1 app, you can do a lot with your email 02:37 – It is a complete stand-alone email client 03:15 – How are you convincing people to make the switch? 03:20 – Polymail supports multiple accounts 03:52 – People are looking for a complete product experience and Polymail has that 04:31 – A lot of features of Polymail are not in the regular Gmail 04:54 – Polymail started in 2015 05:02 – Launched a Mac prototype in December 2015 05:12 – There's a tremendous traction 05:38 – Brandon built a small community of people who were invited to try the app 05:48 – They have a Slack group so Brandon can get feedback on a daily basis 06:10 – When they officially launched Polymail, these people downloaded the app and left reviews 07:12 – Polymail is a free app at the moment 07:20 – Polymail pro is in the works but you can sign-up for it now 07:41 – Polymail pro has much more advanced features 08:00 – Over 20,000 daily active users of Polymail 08:12 – 150,000 total downloads and people who signed up 08:27 – Every time Polymail will release a new feature, they will email the whole list of people who signed up to get them engaged in using Polymail 08:52 – Brandon had raised around a million dollars 09:12 – Brandon used a convertible equity 09:24 – Team size of 5 09:48 – The goal for Polymail is to build the platform for external communication on top of email 10:08 – "Email is a critical product for business people so we saw the opportunity there" 11:23 – Polymail is not for a short-term outcome 12:00 – They just wrapped up their seed round 12:30 – They wrapped it up in September 2016 12:48 – Target people 12:56 – A lot of the users are solo entrepreneurs 13:45 – There's no significant changes with Gmail for the past 10 years 14:09 – Maybe because they make money from ad revenue and let Gmail be a generic email platform 14:40 – Find Brandon on Twiter 16:44 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: An update on a product can make non-active users use the product again. Consistent feedback from a group of customers can significantly improve the product. Spend more time with side projects and less on school work. Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. @Foolywk – Brandon's Twitter handles Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 16, 201619 min

Ep 478: Fans Pay $500K To Keep Favorite Shows, Will This Kill Netflix with CEO Ben Dobyns

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Ben Dobyns, CEO and founder of Zombie Orpheus Entertainment. He's started giving the company's films away for free ever when he started the company—a tradition he's proud to continue today. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Art of Game Design What CEO do you follow? – Jamie Wilkinson Favorite online tool? — 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? – "Take the time to pursue the dream. Shortcuts will disempower you and empower other people" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:33 – Nathan introduces Ben to the show 01:57 – Ben had a terrible experience with Hollywood distribution in 2008 02:10 – Ben didn't get paid for the film they made 02:18 – The company owed Ben $ 30,000 03:23 – "Independent films will lose your money if you invest in them" 03:34 – Ben launched his new company in 2010 and paid their investors back after a year 03:47 – Zombie Orpheus Entertainment was launched in 2010 03:59 – "We're going to give people free films and share them" 04:10 – Ben had a realization that each film will be a form of advertising 04:33 – At the end of every episode, there's a message that will lead viewers to give Zombie Orpheus Entertainment money 05:08 – Journey Quest series on Youtube 05:45 – Ben will let the viewers choose if they want to continue watching or not 06:04 – Based purely on fan contribution, Ben and his team are able to continue the show 06:16 – They made $ 30,000 for season 1 and from Kickstarter is $ 112,000 which funded season 2 06:28 – Zombie Orpheus Entertainment is now out of the investment cycle 07:07 – Zombie Orpheus Entertainment built a fan base on Facebook and Youtube 07:36 – Zombie Orpheus Entertainment had 1,117 unique backers for Journey Quest 07:57 – On Kickstarter, average contribution is $ 97 per backer 08:33 – The fan base is big for Zombie Orpheus Entertainment 09:01 – Ben done 3 Kickstarters this year 09:18 – Attack in the Darkness – raised $ 25,000 09:28 – The Gamers – raised $ 174,000 09:49 – Raised $575,000 for the 3 seasons of Journey Quest 10:04 – Ben setup a pre-funding page with public metrics for journey Quest 10:14 – 4,200 people added their names in the email list 10:29 – They launched with 4,600 names in their list on day 1 10:45 – Kickstarter attracted more people 11:06 – RenewJourneyQuest.com is the pre-funding page 12:00 – Ben has one of the best Kickstarter planning sheet 12:20 – The sheet is not currently for public use 12:36 – With Journey quest, the needed budget was $ 325,000 for the production 12:55 – Ben didn't aim for profit for this Kickstarter 13:10 – Season 3 of Journey Quest will be moved to BackerKit for pledge management 13:55 – Ben isn't looking for an exit or an IPO 15:00 – What Ben is doing is similar to a SaaS business model 15:50 – Ben has been offered venture capital but he won't accept it 16:55 – Ben is going to release their world bible and their intellectual property to allow their commercial derivatives 17:45 – Ben uses Kickstarter to have a merchandise fusion with a reward program 17:55 – Ben is really picky with merchandise quality 18:25 – Keep Zombie Orpheus Entertainment's shows alive by dropping a dollar or $ 5 at Patreon 21:07 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Use bad experiences as education and motivation. Venture capital is not always an option. Take the time to pursue the dream. Shortcuts will disempower you and empower other people. Resources Mentioned: 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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. Patreon – Ben's pledge page Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 14, 201623 min

EP 477: 3,000 Employees, 30+ Years in Business for Medical Care And Peace of Mind with CEO Debbie Johnston

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Debbie Johnston, recognized as Entrepreneur of Richmond and the founder of Care Advantage – a dynamic and compassionate care company that is devoted in giving back to the community. She's the author of The School of Heart Knocks. Listen as Debbie shares her inspiration in starting Care Advantage and her experience in Secret Millionaire. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Think and Grow Rich What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs Favorite online tool? — Facebook Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Never If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – "Start your business earlier, you know more than you think." Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:54 – Nathan introduces Debbie to the show 03:10 – Adoption is close to Debbie's heart 03:28 – Care Advantage is a full service care company 03:54 – Care Advantage has a special care division 04:30 – Care Advantage is all over the country 04:50 – Payment for the services is by the hour 05:12 – Care Advantage reimbursed in the state they're in 05:44 – Care Advantage doesn't do a lot of Obamacare 06:40 – Debbie started years ago 06:47 – Debbie was running out-patients in a hospital 07:34 – Debbie first used Care Advantage to his brother-in-law and parents 09:05 – "We can't put a price on a peace of mind" 09:50 – Care Advantage has different price for each service 10:30 – Each office has 3-5 people 11:40 – Number of people Care Advantage has served is over 10,000 12:30 – The need of an RN will depend on the patient 12:49 – Some people want 24 hours of an RN a day 13:38 – Secret Millionaire picked Debbie 13:56 – Debbie likes the producer so she said yes 14:14 – "It was one of the hardest things I have done in my life" 14:40 – Debbie was proud after it was aired 14:51 – Debbie has worked with charities like Reach International 16:28 – "It's what we do that makes me happy, giving someone peace of mind makes me happy" 16:55 – Connect with Debbie through her Facebook and website 18:55 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Giving someone peace of mind can be a source of happiness. You can't put a price tag on perfect health care. Starting your business earlier could make more differences in the future. Resources Mentioned: 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 quality of Toptal developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. DebbieJohnston.com – Debbie's website Facebook – Debbie's Facebook account Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 13, 201622 min

EP 476: NomadicMatt 1.6M Monthly Views, $400k Travel Insurance Sold Monthly with Matt Kepnes

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Matt Kepnes of NomadicMatt.com, the man who went from everyday worker to travel writer. Matt grew up in Boston and he didn't take his first trip until he was 23—a cruise to Montreal. After he started a life as a young professional, he decided to travel the world, so he headed to Costa Rica in 2004, Taiwan in 2005, and never looked back. Listen as Matt talks about the success of his blog and how he grew it from a simple online journal. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Influence 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? – "Value eating healthy" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Matt to the show 02:53 – Matt was working in administration 03:16 – Number of unique website users on average per month is 1.2 million 03:27 – Matt started the blog in 2008 after 14 months of traveling 03:50 – Matt built the blog as an online resume 04:17 – Matt is getting more visitors in 2010 04:29 – Matt wanted to write guidebooks so he made his blog a guidebook 04:56 – 2/3 of Matt's income comes from affiliates 05:30 – Matt's book is The Ultimate Guide to Travel Hacking 05:40 – Matt self-published the book 05:46 – Matt's book with a publisher is How to Travel the World on $ 50 a Day 05:53 – Matt is only getting royalties from the book 06:18 – Matt met the publisher in 2012 06:40 – How Matt negotiated with the publisher 07:51 – Sold around 50,000 to 60,000 copies 08:30 – Royalty percentage per book 09:50 – Matt shifted the blog from an online journal to a website generating money 10:44 – The affiliate offer page in the website are in the home page 11:35 – Average percentage people spend on travel insurance 12:10 – Matt sells 400-500 plan policies per month 12:45 – Other affiliates of Matt 13:21 – Matt is already with the affiliate for years 14:18 – Matt spent some of his time guest blogging 14:38 – Matt does 2-3 guest blogs per month 15:03 – Matt is always traveling 15:11 – Matt's email list size 15:54 – Matt has a team in different places 17:00 – Connect with Matt through his website, Twitter and Instagram 19:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Travel not only de-stresses you, it opens your eyes to global opportunities. Having affiliates is a good way to increase revenue. Eat healthy. You are what you eat. Resources Mentioned: 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 quality of Toptal developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. @NomadicMatt – Matt's Instagram account @NomadicMatt – Matt's Twitter handle NomadicMatt.com – Matt's website Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 12, 201624 min

EP 475: VayStays Helps 150,000+ Quickly Plan Vacations, $5M In TTM Transaction Volume with CEO Chris Brusznicki

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Chris Bruznicki, CEO of Vaystays, which is a vacation rental marketplace tool used by propriety manager like Wyndam. He has been featured in Entrepreneur and was awarded the bronze star. Listen as Chris tells us how Vaystays is earning and what made him decide to raise capital. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs Favorite online tool? — DocuSign Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – "Networking is super important and consider raising capital" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Chris to the show 02:20 – Vaystays is used by professionals managing a vacation companies 02:27 – People who have houses in Tahoe and the like will have the vacation companies manage their properties 03:44 – Vaystays gives them a marketplace for distribution 03:55 – Vaystays provides open cable like service 04:17 – Team size and location 04:26 – Vaystays is making 5 million transactions and Chris is earning 13% of every transaction 04:51 – Vaystays was founded in 2010 06:10 – Average order value is $ 2000 07:10 – Vaystays' software automates all the check in procedure 08:15 – Vaystays takes percentage both from the traveler and seller 09:15 – Vaystays is transparent in their website about the pricing 09:30 – Pricing varies depending on the season 10:30 – Vaystays is connecting specific needs to specific supplies 10:40 – Total transaction volume 11:55 – Vaystays business model 12:20 – Vaystays is in the process of creating subscription fees 13:50 – The marketplace still has lifetime value 15:09 – Vaystays currently has 2000 propriety management companies 15:15 – Average is 10 units per company 16:10 - 25,000 stayed in their properties in September 16:30 – Now is a slow period for Vaystays 18:03 – 312 bookings in September 18:48 – Vaystays has been self-funded for a long time 19:05 – Did a price round for fundraising 19:33 – $ 650,000 revenue in the last 12 months 19:47 – Valuation 20:56 – Chris has 2 co-founders 22:30 – Chris and his co-founders thought about a high valuation 22:53 – They came up with something between $ 3-6 million 24:24 – Connect with Chris through his LinkedIn and his email 16:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Look for quality partners who can support you. Networking is important – it can lead to tons of opportunities. Consider raising capital if you see a reason to do so. Resources Mentioned: 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 quality of Toptal developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. Vaystays.com – Chris' website [email protected] – Chris' email address Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 11, 201631 min

EP 474: SharkTank No Deal, $6M Raised, $4.2M in 2015 Revenue, 10,000 Customers To Help Clean Up Your Online Image with Brandyourself CEO Patrick Ambron

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Patrick Ambron, co-founder and CEO of BrandYourself.com, which helps people look better online. He's an instructor at General Assembly and was included INC's 30 under 30 list. Listen as Patrick talks about his experience on SharkTank and how it boosted his company's revenue. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Made to Stick What CEO do you follow? – Reed Hastings Favorite online tool? — X.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? – "I wish that when I was building my business, I knew how important it was to have people who don't have your strengths" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Patrick to the show 02:00 – Patrick got a $ 2 million deal on SharkTank but didn't take it 02:11 – Patrick didn't take the deal because they wanted 25% 02:30 – Patrick's episode was aired 2 years ago and it was a good exposure 02:40 – Patrick did over $ 1 million in revenue while they were on SharkTank 03:10 – Patrick said No on-air 04:07 – BrandYourself provides software and services that helps someone look good online 04:28 – Users buy BrandYourself's subscription 04:40 – User base is from college students to high level professional 04:55 – BrandYourself is a SaaS business 05:03 – Half of the revenue comes from professional customized services 05:10 – BrandYourself handles issues online that is affecting the customers' livelihood 05:30 – 10,000 paying customers for software 05:35 – A few thousand paying customers for professional services 06:12 – $ 10,000 annual RPU for professional services 06:40 – MOR is $ 7,000 on the software 07:19 – $ 533,000 per month in revenue 07:35 – BrandYourself has advisors 08:30 – The professional services customers problems that BrandYourself is getting 09:10 – One example is an employee who was fired and ranting online 09:20 – One of the usual problem is what they call "You Shot Yourself in the Foot" 10:36 – BrandYourself was founded in 2009 10:40 – 2015 revenue 10:50 – Target for 2016 10:52 – BrandYourself has raised about $ 6 million recently 11:19 – Team size 11:28 – Team location 12:30 – Gross monthly customer churn 13:30 – Lifetime value 13:40 – Customer acquisition cost 13:45 – All of their leads are organic 15:30 – BrandYourself won't theoretically spend for a customer 15:40 – BrandYourself do retargeting 15:56 – Paid acquisition is not a necessary channel for BrandYourself 16:31 – What if Reputation.com buys BrandYourself for $ 40 million, will you say yes? 16:40 – "That's not the goal right now" 16:55 – "What we really want to do is help people prevent issues and be pro-active" 18:26 – Current valuation 18:58 – Connect with Patrick through his website and Twitter 21:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Find someone who can fill your gaps. Help people prevent issues and make them pro-active. Saying "No" on national TV can also be beneficial and increase your revenue. Resources Mentioned: 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 quality of Toptal developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. BrandYourself.com– Patrick's website @PatrickAmbron – Patrick's Twitter handle Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 10, 201625 min

EP 473: Raising $500k To Help Charity Event Organizers, $16M Donated with DonationMatch CEO Renee Zau

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Renee Zau, co-founder and CEO of DonationMatch, a product donation network for school and charity events that works similarly to match.com. She's obsessed with increasing a win-win partnership between brands and non-profit that don't cost money but can generate more for everyone involved. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – E-myth Revisited What CEO do you follow? – Craig Newmark Favorite online tool? — Streak and Asana Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Almost If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – "Believe in yourself and talent even if it is different from someone else's' idea on what you should do" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Renee to the show 02:08 – It takes 300 hours to secure in-kind and other donations from a benefit event 02:31 – DonationMatch streamlines the product for companies and reduces the work for school and charities 02:50 – Sahara Sam's receives 100s to 1000s requests of tickets a year to raffle off at charity events 03:26 – Doing a research and checking legitimacy takes time for companies 03:55 – DonationMatch has matched $ 16,000,000 worth of donation goods 04:14 – DonationMatch offers premium model 04:22 – DonationMatch can be used for free 04:35 – Companies can upgrade to premium which is $ 49 a month 04:48 – DonationMatch is a SaaS business 04:54 – DonationMatch has around 100 active companies at the moment 05:02 – DonationMatch has a low customer churn 05:40 – DonationMatch still get a value from their non-paying customers 06:09 – DonationMatch started in 2010 but officially launched in 2013 06:37 – DonationMatch is bootstrapped 06:49 – DonationMatch had $ 100,000 credit card debt 07:10 – Renee and her co-founder are also doing stuff outside of the company 07:33 – 2015 revenue is $ 19,000 07:37 – Goal for 2016 07:49 – As of October 2016, they have around $ 40,000 revenue 08:00 – DonationMatch is usually getting an annual payment from non-profit organizations 08:25 – Holiday season is when companies usually hire DonationMatch 08:40 – September 2016 revenue 09:10 –Total number of paying customer 09:44 – DonationMatch has 100 customers 10:12 – DonationMatch is currently raising $ 500,000 10:40 – Renee feels their valuation is $ 1.5 to 2 million 10:47 – Based on their traction 11:05 – Customer acquisition cost is about $ 1 11:55 – DonationMatch has 13,000 non-profit users 12:30 – DonationMatch has about 10% of non-profits in San Diego 13:25 – They also have national brands in their system 14:05 – DonationMatch is open to offers and already talking to people and investors 14:30 – Connect with Renee through her email, website and Twitter 16:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: You can create a win-win partnership if you know the right ingredients. Believe in yourself and your talent even if it is different from someone else's idea on what you should do. Take the risk – even if it means having a $ 100k debt. Resources Mentioned: 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 quality of Toptal developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. [email protected] – Renee's email address DonationMatch.com – Renee's website @ReneeZau – Renee's Twitter handle Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 9, 201619 min

EP 472: $65k Crowdfunded on Angel List and 75,000 Pre-Launch Email With Youngry CEO Ash Kumra

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Ash Kumra, an award-winning entrepreneur, author, public speaker, and talk show host recognized twice by the White House as an entrepreneur making an impact. Listen as Ash shares how he runs Youngry, a media company he co-founded that informs, inspires, and elevates young and hungry minded entrepreneurs to thrive. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Inside Steve's Brain What CEO do you follow? – Mark Benioff Favorite online tool? — Lead.com 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 not be worried about other people's things" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:44 – Nathan introduces Ash to the show 02:10 – Youngry is an entrepreneur media company 02:27 – Youngry provides helpful information from successful entrepreneurs 02:38 – Youngry's business model provides e-commerce product 03:40 – Youngry provides a community for early stage entrepreneurs to get the best content to help them thrive 05:04 – Ash and his team decided to launch Youngry with an equity crowd funding 05:12 – The new law stating that both credited and uncredited can invest in a deal 05:27 – Difference of credited and uncredited 05:48 – Worked with AngelList 05:53 – AngelList launched an equity crowd funding called Republic 06:15 – Republic.co 06:40 – Minimum amount to invest is $ 10 06:50 – Minimum goal to hit is $ 50,000 06:55 – Youngry hits $ 65,920 07:00 – Crowd safe is a form of a safe note 08:25 – What if people want to donate but think that valuation is crap? 08:30 – "It is not a donation but an actual investment" 08:45 – Questions about crowd funding should go to the crowd forum 09:08 – Youngry made a $ 2 million value 10:00 – Ash and his partner had $ 50,000 as a side money 10:30 – Youngry already made $ 65,000 revenue 11:00 – Youngry is various focus 11:23 – Influence remarking as an e-commerce marking 11:28 – Bigger brands see the value of audience that Youngry is generating 11:32 – In 60 days, Youngry generated 50,000-75,000 audience 12:05 – The crowd funding campaign helped Youngry get fraction from the larger brands 12:28 – Youngry's event sponsorship 13:15 – Launch date of Youngry is December 1 2016 13:30 – Connect with Ash through [email protected] 15:38 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Equity crowdfunding can be beneficial to both startups and investors. Study and learn the process before investing – even the legal matters. Mind your own business. Don't worry too much about other people's problems. Resources Mentioned: 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 quality of Toptal developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. [email protected] – Ash's email address Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nov 8, 201617 min