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SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

What if you knew data behind the fastest growing SaaS companies today? Each morning join Nathan Latka as he spends 15 minutes interviewing SaaS founders. You'll learn how SaaS CEO's launched their startup and grew it into a business. SaaS Founders range from bootstrapped to funded, MVP to 10,000 customers, pre revenue to pre IPO.
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Now displaying: October, 2017
Oct 31, 2017

Christopher Day. He’s been a successful entrepreneur, having sold two companies to a Fortune 100 company before turning 40. He’s had businesses from residential painting to investment banking doing cross-border M&A transactions. Along the way, he has found time to mentor other entrepreneurs and participates in helping solve legislative issues to foster entrepreneurial growth in the State of Indiana. He’s now building a platform with DemandJump that is looking to solve prescriptive analytics and qualified traffic. The DemandJump team has discovered marketers only have 20% visibility of their actual ecosystem.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Good to Great
  • What CEO do you follow? – Jack Welch
  • Favorite online tool? — One Pager
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 4
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “The power of relationships”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:48 – Nathan introduces Christopher to the show
  • 02:36 – DemandJump sells their platform on a subscription basis
    • 02:41 – They have annual subscriptions and professional services
  • 03:10 – 82% of the revenue is from SaaS, 1% is from a one-time payment and the rest is for the other model
  • 03:48 – DemandJump allows marketers to have 100% visibility of their competitive ecosystem, which is the first time this has been made possible in history
    • 04:57 – They show marketers where to focus to capture traffic from their competitors
  • 05:15 – Average annual contract value is $45K with beta customers
    • 05:30 – Average annual contract value now is $100K -$250K
    • 05:43 – DemandJump has started to work with mid-market companies
    • 06:00 – Self-service for mid-market will be from $200 to hundred million
  • 06:27 – DemandJump currently has 22 customers
  • 06:50 – DemandJump is getting close to their million dollar revenue mark
  • 07:11 – DemandJump was launched in 2015
    • 07:36 – The traffic cloud was built in October 2016
  • 08:05 – 2016 revenue was $165K
  • 08:20 – MRR by December 2016 was $10K
  • 08:30 – 2017 goal is to hit $1.5 in ARR
  • 08:54 – DemandJump raised $4M with 18 Angel investors on their board
  • 10:08 – DemandJump is looking to raise another $5M with a 15% pre-money valuation
  • 11;12 – Christopher sold software companies before
  • 12:00 – Annual logo churn is 8-9%
  • 12:24 – Annual revenue churn is almost the same with logo churn
  • 13:00 – CAC is around $10K
  • 13:31 – Most of DemandJump’s customers pay annually upfront
  • 13:55 – Paid marketing spend was around $5K
    • 14:19 – 40% of DemandJump’s budget goes to sales and marketing
    • 15:49 – They will double or triple their paid marketing spend because of their target
  • 17:20 – Assumed LTV is 36 months
  • 18:54 – Team headcount is 17
    • 19:29 – They’re all based in Indiana
    • 19:40 – 7 are in engineering, 3 focus on customer success, 3 on sales, 2 on marketing and a newly hired CFO
  • 21:17 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Marketers will have a HUGE advantage if they have 100% visibility of their ecosystem.
  2. Paid marketing should be aligned to your target market, otherwise you’re just wasting your money.
  3. Relationships and networking is of the UTMOST importance.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 30, 2017

Gil Klein from MobFox where he’s the managing director and a C-level executive at Matomy Media Group. Having joined the company in 2006, he’s been the member of the executive management team since 2014. He previously served as senior VP of media and senior VP of clients for this particular group. He holds an MBA in International Management from the College of Management in Israel.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Good to Great
  • What CEO do you follow? – Brian O’Kelley
  • Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5.5
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Travel even more than you already have, experiment, take a lot of risks and spend as much time as you can with your family

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:57 – Nathan introduces Gil to the show
  • 02:30 – Matomy is a global performance company that holds a few entities
  • 02:44 – Gil personally runs and oversees MobFox, which is an mobile in-app audience SSP acquired by Matomy in 2014
    • 03:15 – The acquisition was for $12M in cash
  • 03:30 – Gil was with Matomy since 2006 and he helped the company grow
  • 04:00 – MobFox makes money when their clients make money
  • 04:17 – The tools of MobFox are usually for the developers and publishers focused on the in-app space
  • 04:48 – MobFox tries to contact the best demand partners in the space like YuMe, AppNexus and PocketMath
  • 05:50 – In 2015, MobFox generated $18M of the transaction volume
    • 06:10 – MobFox’s charges depend on the deals they have
  • 06:32 – MobFox usually keeps 17-20% of the transaction
  • 06:56 – MobFox has grown to 36%
  • 07:09 – Gil believes that MobFox is currently in a great space
  • 07:51 – In 2017, Gil’s goal is to stretch as much as he can
  • 08:21 – MobFox is currently working with 20-30K publishers, 4K are SDK-based
  • 09:13 – MobFox currently has 180 DSP (Demand Side Platforms)
    • 09:35 – A single DSP can have a thousand advertisers
    • 09:42 – “We connect to a programmatic player”
  • 10:00 – Current headcount of MobFox is 73-74
    • 10:11 – 50 are engineers and the rest in sales, retention, HR and finance
    • 10:26 – MobFox team is global
  • 11:29 – Gil can and will do anything to get new customers, like suddenly showing up with presents and asking for a meeting
    • 12:23 – “I try to listen to the customer”
  • 13:15 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Set numbers for your goals, but aim to SURPASS those numbers.
  2. Find the best partnerships that you can where you can mutually benefit each other.
  3. Don’t hesitate to TAKE risks!

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 29, 2017

Andrew Pitz. He’s an investment manager at Transamerica Ventures, the global venture capital fund of Transamerica that specializes in investing in insurtech, fintech and enterprise software companies. There, he has led the firm's investments in PolicyGenius, Digital Currency Group, Everplans, SmartAsset and Hixme.

Famous Five:

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:42 – Nathan introduces Andrew to the show
  • 02:16 – Transamerica and AEGON are global investment and insurance firms
  • 02:56 – $140K is the fund size they’re currently working with
    • 03:04 – The fund was already set-up from the beginning
  • 03:25 – Their first fund was in 2014, in the European market
  • 03:47 – They had 17 unique companies with 23 investments
  • 04:25 – They don’t share company information with their parent company
    • 04:39 – They don’t want the corporate parent to be involved in the business
  • 05:25 – They haven’t had any exits yet
  • 05:39 – Andrews shares fund-to-fund deals with FinTech Collective
    • 06:38 – They put in a $2M check and the total funds raised were $75K to $100K
  • 06:55 – They put in $1M to another fund to fund the deal they had
  • 07:00 – Their first fund was around $10M
  • 07:28 – FinTech Collective is based in New York
  • 07:38 – Some of the fintech companies they’ve invested in are Art Invest, MoneyLion, 401k and Elephant Tech
  • 08:24 – Andrew gets his salary and bonuses from the deals
  • 08:50 – Andrew shares how their boss missed deals that are worth billions now
  • 09:30 – There are instances where they need to let some deals pass
  • 10:00 – In a week, they’re receiving hundreds of newsletters from different companies (around 5000 in a year)
  • 10:13 – Andrew studies 500 deals and meets with around 250
  • 11:10 – Initial check size was $1-5M as a follow on investor
  • 11:34 – Andrew chooses PolicyGenius and Hixme
    • 12:40 – Andrew thinks PolicyGenius will have a good exit
  • 13:07 – H2O as an open source
    • 13:33 – Red Hat pioneered the open source
  • 14:36 – The goal is to invest in direct technology and create partnerships
  • 14:54 – Andrew shares the kind of partnerships they’re looking for
  • 15:14 – Andrew wanted to do work in Asia because of the many opportunities
  • 17:05 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. There are thousands of companies created daily—you have to research and choose which one to invest into wisely.
  2. Forming partnerships is MORE important than monetary gain.
  3. Technology can take you anywhere.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 28, 2017

Christian Geissendoerfer. He’s the CEO of Yoose, the leading expert in location-based advertising in Asia and Europe. He’s an entrepreneur passionate about building businesses and leading teams. He recently started something parallel to Yoose which is a German Accelerator in Southeast Asia that helps German startups expand into that region. He loves living in Singapore and Vietnam, traveling the world and learning languages. He’s fluent in German, English, French and Spanish.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – A Monk and the Riddle
  • What CEO do you follow? – CEO Collaborative Group
  • Favorite online tool? — Xero and Zapier
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5.5
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Do it over again”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:50 – Nathan introduces Christian to the show
  • 02:28 – Yoose is a location-based mobile advertising company
    • 02:36 – Yoose helps brands to target people in specific geographic locations
  • 03:28 – Yoose is aggregating inventory from different mobile networks
  • 04:05 – Yoose is buying the inventory for the company and running campaigns on specific locations
  • 04:25 – Yoose is selling a premium product
  • 04:42 – Yoose charges per CPM
    • 04:59 – There’s current request for CPC charges
  • 05:23 – Yoose was launched in 2008, in Berlin, and moved to Singapore in 2010
  • 06:00 – 2016 revenue is in the million dollar figure range
  • 06:08 – Team size is 15 and the majority are based in Vietnam
  • 06:16 – Yoose is a bootstrapped business
  • 07:12 – Yoose is working on a different platform based on audience profiles and attribution
  • 08:10 – Customers use Yoose over their competitors because of the full service they offer
    • 08:49 – Yoose is also geographically focused
  • 09:12 – Yoose is currently working with the major media agencies and secondary agencies
    • 09:35 – There are 25-30 agencies in total
  • 09:47 – Yoose has partnerships in different countries that they serve too
    • 10:32 – Yoose and the partners both take a cut from the charges
    • 10:45 – “We are transparent on costs on both sides”
  • 11:00 – The EBIT (Earnings Before Interests and Taxes) margin in the space vary
    • 11:14 – Yoose is in the middle of the margin, depending on the country
  • 11:43 – At this stage, Christian is putting the capital back into the company
  • 12:46 – Christian has put all his personal money into starting Yoose
  • 13:08 – Christian has worked in France prior to Yoose
  • 13:43 – Christian initially wanted to build something similar to Tinder
  • 15:33 – German Accelerator works with the German government and has been in the US market for 5 years, they’re now expanding to Southeast Asia
    • 16:05 – Christian gets his salary from the government
  • 17:32 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Be transparent with your partners, so you’ll gain their trust. This will also lead to more partnerships.
  2. The corporate world can help shape and grow your skills but don’t regret taking another route to succeed.
  3. Create something that you want, yourself.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 27, 2017

Bonnie Crater. She’s the CEO of Full Circle Insights. She’s a 5-time VP of marketing and executive at many software companies in Silicon Valley. She’s been named one of the 100 Most Influential Women by the Silicon Valley Business Journal and one of the Top 20 Women to Watch by Sales Lead Management Association.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – N/A
  • What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff
  • Favorite online tool? — Docusign
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7.5
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “My path has been just fine”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:53 – Nathan introduces Bonnie to the show
  • 02:24 – Full Circle Insights helps marketing people accurately measure and track the impact of their marketing campaigns on pipeline and revenue
  • 02:50 – Full Circle Insights has an annual contract and usual contract which pays $30K a year
  • 03:00 – Full Circle Insights launched their product in 2012, but it was started in 2010
  • 03:10 – “Never start a company on December 31st”
    • 03:18 – The IRS would want a tax return for 1 day of business
  • 03:51 – Bonnie quit her VP of marketing job prior to Full Circle Insights
  • 03:58 – Bonnie was invited by her friends to start Full Circle Insights and there are 4 founders
  • 04:20 – Two of the founders were from Salesforce, including Bonnie
  • 04:49 – Full Circle Insights is built on Salesforce
  • 05:01 – Full Circle Insights was on Salesforce’s AppExchange
  • 05:54 – Bonnie was a CEO in 2001, but it was a failure and she had to hire and fire a hundreds of people
  • 07:35 – Bonnie was a VP of marketing a couple of times with different companies after the failure
  • 08:04 – Full Circle Insights was initially bootstrapped, they raised $11M
    • 08:14 – They raised money because they were going broke
    • 08:21 – They were paying themselves
  • 08:50 – First capital was raised in 2012
  • 09:12 – Her first product was built from the money the founders had put in
  • 09:32 – Dan, the CTO, is the developer
  • 09:53 – Full Circle Insights has around 150 customers
  • 10:12 – Team size is 35
    • 10:38 – 8 in engineering and product, 12 in sales, 4-5 in marketing, 7-8 in customer success and some in accounting
  • 11:17 – Full Circle Insights have broken around $4M in ARR
  • 11:33 – Full Circle Insights’ model is to double, then triple
  • 12:33 – Full Circle Insights has 90% renewal rate
  • 12:40 – Churn is usually from acquisition and CMO changes
  • 13:26 – Bonnie was hoping to have a 100% renewal rate in the coming years
  • 14:37 – Full Circle Insights has a sales rep who has a puppy that he brought to the tradeshow
    • 14:53 – The puppy became a booth magnet and they were able to acquire new customers
  • 15:25 – Fully weighted CAC is $18-20K
  • 15:30 – Payback period is less than 6 months
  • 16:30 – Lowest marketing expenses is digital marketing and the biggest is from tradeshows and events
  • 17:31 – LTV
  • 18:30 – Full Circle Insights’ new VP of sales
  • 19:01 – ARR target is $7M
  • 20:50 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Never start your business on the last day of the year.
  2. We all make mistakes and we just have to learn from it—just don’t make the same mistake twice.
  3. Be creative and do what you need to do to draw new customers in.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 26, 2017

Ron Jacobson. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Rockerbox and Hindsight. Ron was a project manager at AppNexus and a proud McGill alumni. Follow him on Twitter.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Made in America
  • What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk and Mark Cuban
  • Favorite online tool? — Spectacle
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “There are going to be a lot of highs and there are going to be a lot of lows, but you just got too keep moving”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:36 – Nathan introduces Ron to the show
  • 02:01 – Rockerbox is an online marketing technology company
  • 02:09 – Hindsight is a secondary offering which is an off-site analytics platform, complementary to Rockerbox
  • 02:28 – Rockerbox is a management service and Hindsight is the SaaS part
  • 03:00 – Rockerbox was launched in early 2014
  • 03:03 – Team size is 18
  • 03:13 – Target customers are marketers
  • 03:25 – Rockerbox has partnerships with publishers and data providers
    • 04:40 – Through different partnerships, they’re able to know the source of potential customers
  • 05:25 – First year revenue was $640K gross
    • 05:30 – 2015: under $2M , 2016 was around $4M and it will probably be $8M this year
  • 05:48 – 10% of the customers are on Hindsight
  • 06:50 – In 2016, Rockerbox has served 50 customers
  • 07:19 – Hindsight currently has around 13 customers with a MRR of $16K
  • 07:43 – Some of Rockerbox’s customers are Vimeo and Vanguard
    • 08:16 – CAC and LTV
    • 08:26 – No logo and revenue churn yet
    • 08:50 – Some small companies can’t scale and their pricing is “take it or leave it”
  • 09:32 – 5 team members are focused on Hindsight
  • 09:59 – Hindsight is self-funded and is based on Rockerbox
  • 10:14 – Ron shares why they raised funding despite doubling Rockerbox’s ARR
  • 11:05 – Ron has reached out to people whom he hasn’t talked to for decades just to acquire new customers
    • 11:16 – Ron shares the content of his email
  • 13:10 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Having fewer customers with a larger paywall works well, it allows you to focus more on your customers’ needs.
  2. Stick to your pricing and your target market.
  3. Through the highs and lows, just KEEP MOVING.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 25, 2017

Arun Saigal. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Thunkable, a Ycombinator-backed startup in San Francisco. Thunkable is a platform that allows anyone to build their own mobile app without needing to know how to code. Prior to Thunkable, Arun was the lead android developer at Quizlet. He also worked at Khan Academy, Aspiring Minds and Google. He holds a BS in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – High Output Management
  • What CEO do you follow? – Shantanu Narayen
  • Favorite online tool? — Google Calendar
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7-7.5
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Investing in others is one of the best ways to invest in yourself”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:26 – Nathan introduces Arun to the show
  • 02:13 – Thunkable is a drag-and-drop tool to make a mobile app
  • 02:23 – The space is quite crowded
  • 03:08 – Thunkable is simple but powerful enough for non-coders to have a powerful app
  • 03:20 – Thunkable is currently free
  • 03:34 – Thunkable has raised $3.3M to date
  • 03:59 – Arun shares why they’ve raised first before implementing a paywall
    • 04:07 – They wanted to hire the team and have the platform that they needed with the money raised
    • 04:30 – They’ll start charging in a few months
  • 04:48 – Thunkable was launched in 2016
  • 04:53 – Team size is 10
  • 05:16 – Thunkable has turned on their revenue for a small stream
    • 05:35 – The charge is a high 5-figures and is an annual contract
  • 06:16 – Long-term model: charge for a premium product
  • 06:36 – When they turn-on their features, that’s when Thunkable will charge
  • 07:25 – Arun saw problems they didn’t know existed from those who were building an app for Thunkable
  • 08:30 – Arun wants to help people who really need an app for free to solve their problems
  • 09:00 – The conversations they’ll have with people who will use Thunkable for profit
  • 09:24 – Target price is $20 a month
  • 09:40 – Arun believes they can maintain profitability
    • 10:14 – Arun believes that SMBs need Thunkable more than the enterprise businesses
  • 11:03 – Thunkable’s goal is to capture most of the apps from the app store
  • 12:38 – December 2017 MRR goal is $10K
  • 14:16 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Assist those who need help in any way that you can.
  2. Choose your timing wisely when it comes to putting up your paywall.
  3. You learn and grow by investing in other people.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 24, 2017

Ian Blair. He founded BuildFire while he was in college and has grown up to become one of the most successful app builders with 30 employees and close to 10K apps in the app store. His expertise is online marketing and growth hacking.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Good to Great
  • What CEO do you follow? – David Skok and Jason Lemkin
  • Favorite online tool? — Ahrefs
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7.5
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Ian wished he would have taken a crash course on how the world actually works

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:55 – Nathan introduces Ian to the show
  • 02:37 – BuildFire is a mobile app building platform that allows non-technical people to build their own app with no coding required
  • 02:50 – BuildFire is like the WordPress for mobile app
    • 03:18 – BuildFire allows customization
  • 03:36 – Ian started BuildFire in college
    • 03:40 – BuildFire has a reseller program
    • 04:18 – In 2013, they were making $300K a year
    • 04:32 – It was just for white labelling
    • 04:42 – BuildFire was officially built with the technology in 2014
  • 05:02 – BuildFire has raised $2.5M so far in a convertible note
  • 05:46 – It was in 2015 when BuildFire broke their $1M a year mark
  • 06:20 – In January of 2016, BuildFire 2.0 was launched where they added customization
  • 06:48 – Since then, things took off
  • 07:05 – In December 2016, BuildFire was doing a little less than $300K a month
  • 07:33 – This year, BuildFire is developing
  • 07:59 – BuildFire has an ongoing subscription fee and upfront payment
    • 08:20 – BuildFire is getting close to $200K a month for their SaaS side
  • 08:33 – BuildFire is now leaning more into their professional services
  • 09:15 – Total number of customers
  • 09:25 – Customers pay starts at $59, $149 or $499 a month
    • 09:50 – Average a month is around $400 per customer
  • 10:40 – Team size is 40
  • 10:57 – Ian self-funded BuildFire initially
    • 11:11 – Their current CTO started the initial development for BuildFire
  • 12:00 – BuildFire gets customers mainly through online marketing
    • 12:20 – Paid ads spend is around $10K a month
  • 12:30 – BuildFire also has a lot of organic traffic and they’re going to tradeshows as well
  • 13:48 – Monthly logo churn
  • 14:25 – Revenue churn
  • 14:50 – BuildFire is on its way to a more predictable revenue model by the end of 2017
  • 15:31 – CAC
  • 17:00 – SaaS businesses are capital intensive
  • 20:00 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Listen to your customers and make adjustments to your products depending on their needs.
  2. Online marketing is a necessity for every businesses.
  3. College won’t teach you how the real world works.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 23, 2017

Jae Kwon. After graduating from Cornell in 2005 with a BS degree in Computer Science, he worked as a developer at Alexa and Yelp and has co-founded iDonethis, a productivity service. He since worked on open-source projects including a CoffeeScript compiler and interpreter written in Javascript, an end-to-end encrypted email system called Scramble.io, and a cryptocurrency exchange. He invented and refined The Tendermint Consensus Algorithm with the aim of liberating the blockchain from the costs and drawbacks of proof-of-work mining. His mission is to make the technology more accessible in order to accelerate the adoption of decentralized ledger technology.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Snow Crash
  • What CEO do you follow? – N/A
  • Favorite online tool? — GitHub and Chat
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 8
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Find the problem and solve it”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:37 – Nathan introduces Jae to the show
  • 02:46 – Bitcoin is something that you want to be small and accessible
    • 03:10 – Blockchain is not owned by any entity but is still secure
  • 03:24 – Tendermint is one of the engines that enable the creation of blockchain
  • 04:05 – Tendermint’s partner in Europe is Ponton
  • 04:46 – Tendermint was initially self-funded by Jae
  • 05:03 – Jae saw the need to build Tendermint
    • 05:08 – People were struggling with bitcoin fork
  • 05:51 – Proof of work is how bitcoin secures itself, which is like a lottery system
  • 06:40 – The transaction fee for block reward in bitcoin is much smaller
  • 07:55 – Proof of work in the blockchain has its drawbacks
  • 08:30 – The validators are the users of Tendermint—they validate the block and sign off and vote on what the next block should be
  • 09:20 – Jae’s opinion on Dash’s masternode
  • 09:50 – Cosmos is the internet of blockchain
  • 10:18 – Jae has all in his money in Tendermint
  • 10:31 – Team size is 20
  • 10:40 – Tendermint was funded through a fundraiser
    • 11:00 – “We avoid the term ICO because we don’t want to be associated with a security offering”
  • 11:13 – Tendermint released their own token and they’ll create the cosmos hub
    • 11:30 – The tokens will allow you to vote on the blockchain
  • 12:10 – Tendermint had a cap of $17M
    • 12:32 – They were accepting bitcoin and ether in exchange of an atom
  • 13:00 – Part of the liquidation went to the Cosmos software and development
  • 14:00 – Out of the $17M, less than $3M has been liquidated so far
  • 15:47 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. The block reward in the blockchain allows people to not just earn tokens, but contribute as well.
  2. Keep your liquidation conservative and focus on the development of your product.
  3. If you see a problem and you think you can create the solution, DO IT.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 22, 2017

Mateo Munoz. He’s the COO and managing director of the Americas for Duuzra or Duzzra Group. Mateo has been a crucial part of the management team that helped the company turnaround from group consultancy to its second series A and is leading it from its service-based model to a SaaS-based model.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Never Eat Alone
  • What CEO do you follow? – Falon Fatemi
  • Favorite online tool? — Glow Baby and Slack
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 4.5
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Listen a little bit more”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:49 – Nathan introduces Mateo to the show
  • 02:25 – Duuzra was launched in 2012 as an event technology company
    • 02:35 – It was on prem and they’ve worked with different companies
  • 02:58 – They saw where the market was going; so, they started a solution on the cloud
    • 03:18 – They got a little bit of the model wrong and there was some mismanagement
    • 03:31 – They’ve burned $3M from 2012-2015
    • 03:40 – Their current CEO is from a venture-traditional bank
  • 04:14 – Duuzra then rolled over and Mateo had to deal with the IRS because of their back taxes
  • 04:52 – Duzzra Group is from UK
  • 05:15 – Duzzra was opened up in USA as an Inc. founded by the original management group
  • 06:12 – Duzzra had their Series A
  • 06:45 – In 2016, Duzzra made over £2M
  • 07:12 – Current team size is 30 from the 80 people in 2015
  • 07:19 – Duzzra raised £2.3M in their series A
  • 07:32 – 20 people are in the UK, the rest are remote and are from other countries
  • 08:17 – Mateo was the VP in marketing and he also had his own advertising company
  • 08:42 – Mateo was offered the MD role by the CEO, he also acquired some equity
  • 09:11 – Series A was a typical venture, but it was done through private wealth
    • 09:28 – They’re currently looking into raising £5M for series B
  • 09:39 – Duzzra just released their SaaS product coming in as a beta product
  • 10:05 – Target revenue for 2017
  • 10:24 – Duzzra currently has a great team that is doing an amazing job
  • 11:24 – The valuation will be important, but they also want the investors to be happy with their series B
  • 12:30 – Duzzra has invested $400K on their new product
  • 13:08 – An average pay per customer is $2500 a month
    • 13:11 – The benchmark for Duzzra’s predictable revenue was the license for the actual event
  • 13:39 – Duzzra is moving to a completely different model
    • 13:51 – Duzzra is now a content delivery and engagement tool with analytics on the back end
    • 13:58 – Applications can be packaged quickly and easily
  • 14:36 – Duzzra currently has 10 paying customers for the SaaS side and they still have their full-service suite
  • 15:13 – CAC is around $3500
  • 17:15 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Sometimes you have to accept that there will be loss at times while building a company.
  2. If the business can maintain its credibility (even after burning millions) investors will still trust you and will invest.
  3. Listen to others and learn from them; don’t try to do it all on your own.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 21, 2017

Sandy Lohr. She’s a mother, wife, dog lover and leader of one of the best advertising technology teams in Silicon Beach. Growing up in the industry, she transitioned from client side to tech provider over 2 years ago. Her team strives daily to help local businesses globally find the best customer with her company, MatchCraft.  

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Jab Jab Jab Right Hook
  • What CEO do you follow? – Susan Wojcicki
  • Favorite online tool? — Accompany
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5.5
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Be humble”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:44 – Nathan introduces Sandy to the show
  • 02:18 – MatchCraft performs well and keeps its customers
  • 02:46 – MatchCraft is a tech company in the adtech space
  • 02:52 – 2018 will be MatchCraft’s 20th year
  • 03:02 – MatchCraft matches buyers and sellers and has mastered the craft for doing so
  • 03:10 – MatchCraft has 2 founders who came up with the strategy in 1998
  • 03:21 – Sandy is the CEO and she joined MatchCraft 2 years ago
  • 03:40 – MatchCraft acquired the client side of the company in 2014
  • 03:50 – MatchCraft has a technology platform that helps run programmatic searches
    • 04:15 – MatchCraft has been doing it a long time with scalability
  • 04:50 – MatchCraft is a managing service and SaaS model
    • 04:59 – The managing service is 70% of the business
    • 05:46 – MatchCraft doesn’t work with any merchants
  • 06:06 – Resellers of MatchCraft have over 6000 sales reps globally
  • 06:23 – Resellers pay MatchCraft their media fee
    • 06:35 – For the managing service, the fee is 17% to 12% depending on the volume
  • 07:08 – MatchCraft has strategy discussions with their resellers
  • 07:27 – The SaaS model varies, too
  • 07:57 – MatchCraft provides ad copy in different languages and formats
  • 08:50 – On the SaaS side, fees can go up to 7% of media spend depending on the volume
  • 09:50 – MatchCraft is a privately held company
  • 10:33 – Prior to MatchCraft, Sandy was on the client side and she was working for Advance Publications Inc.
    • 11:30 – Sandy shares what she was doing prior to MatchCraft
    • 13:15 – Advance Local Inc. bought MatchCraft and Sandy is now the active CEO in MatchCraft
    • 14:08 – Sandy’s background has always been in marketing and she enjoys learning about technology everyday
  • 14:25 – MatchCraft’s team size is nearly 100 and they promote diversity with their global offices
  • 15:13 – MatchCraft doesn’t have to raise capital
  • 15:39 – “We have extremely aggressive goals”
  • 16:19 – MatchCraft has grown 26%, year over year
  • 16:45 – MatchCraft has processed more than $100M ad spend annually
  • 17:03 – Sandy’s opinion on the idea of Time being sold and what she would do if they buy one of Time’s brands
  • 19:43 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. There’s nothing you cannot learn that you really WANT to learn.
  2. If your product is performing well, people will remain loyal to you and to your product/service.
  3. Acquiring a company requires your due diligence—make sure it’s WORTH it.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 20, 2017

Ben Kartzman. He’s the CEO and founder of Spongecell, one of the fastest growing companies in the United States. Earlier, Ben worked at venture-backed Guidester (now Searchandise.net) in product and business development. He graduated with honors from Carnegie Mellon with a dual BS in Human Computer Interaction and Information & Decision Systems.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Five Dysfunctions of a Team
  • What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos
  • Favorite online tool? — Mint
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Don't stress about your first job—just find things that are interesting for you, follow your passion and do those things

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:55 – Nathan introduces Ben to the show
  • 02:25 – Spongecell is one of the fastest growing companies because they are revenue driven
    • 02:36 – It was in 2009 when Spongecell first measured their revenue
  • 03:15 – 2017 revenue goal
  • 03:30 – $26M has been invested in the company and their largest investors is Safeguard
  • 04:27 – Nathan shares about his first investor report
  • 04:50 – Spongecell is a dynamic and creative company in the adtech space
  • 04:55 – Spongecell works directly with marketers
  • 05:21 – Spongecell’s technology manages different creative variations
    • 05:49 – The variations can grow very quickly
  • 06:04 – Spongecell sells licenses to a platform and beyond that, it is based on usage
  • 06:25 – The licenses are billed monthly and their biggest client is spending $3M a year
  • 06:47 – Spongecell is working with hundreds of customers
  • 07:20 – Spongecell is moving to target more enterprise customers
  • 07:39 – To fire clients, Spongecell raises the minimum
    • 08:47 – People are leaving because of the changes in the service
  • 09:30 – Usage-based charges per impression
    • 10:00 – For every 50 cents CPM, a company would spend $50K with Spongecell
    • 10:15 – Spongecell doesn’t get involved with the media side
    • 10:49 – Most clients have an allocated budget to be spent on Spongecell
  • 11:50 – Spongecell has a base amount and the average usage is based on how people are using it
  • 12:06 – Spongecell was launched in 2006 and they raised their first round in the same year
    • 12:41 – In 2009, they saw the need for programmatic media, which is the buying and selling of ads through technology
  • 13:22 – Spongecell has 95 people on the team
  • 13:53 – Average ARR
  • 14:35 – Spongecell’s intuition with their platform is one of the reason why companies choose them
  • 15:40 – Spongecell has promised to set up an Amazon database so clients can look up the data
  • 16:50 – Fully weighted CAC is changing as they’re slowly transitioning, but it is more than $5K
  • 17:43 – Ideal cohort of customers for Spongecell
  • 19:20 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. It’s not easy to let go of customers—however, there are times where it’s the best decision to make for your company.
  2. The transition to focus on enterprise clients isn’t as quick or as easy as it seems.
  3. Find your passion and GO with it.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 19, 2017

Chris Golec. He’s built three, successful, technology businesses in the last 18 years. Today, he’s the founder and CEO of Demandbase and his mission is to transform B2B advertising, marketing and sales through innovations and digital technology. Today, hundreds of blue chip enterprises across financial services, hi-tech, manufacturing, healthcare and telecom industries have adopted a demand based on the B2B marketing platform and account-based marketing technology to dramatically improve the way they acquire and grow customers.

Famous Five:

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:50 – Nathan introduces Chris to the show
  • 02:28 – In the last two years, Chris has seen that there’s a dramatic increase in demand
  • 03:13 – Chris is seeing 50% growth in revenue this year
  • 03:22 – Demandbase just closed funding of $65M in May 2017, which is on top of the $90M they’ve raised
  • 03:50 – Chris shares the reason that they’ve raised another round
    • 03:53 – The ABM category
    • 04:10 – Demandbase has developed new innovations
  • 05:27 – ABM is more of a business process and Demandbase is much more of a platform
  • 05:41 – Demandbase has multiple products integrated into their solution
  • 06:10 – Demandbase was launched in 2007
  • 06:22 – Demandbase currently has a lot of options
  • 06:33 – Salesforce and Marketo are getting into the ABM category as well
  • 08:25 – By the end of 2017, they’ll pass the $100M revenue mark
  • 09:00 – Demandbase’s customer expansion
  • 09:44 – Current customer count is around 400-600
  • 09:57 – Team size is 300
  • 10:17 – Demandbase will probably break even or be cashflow positive in Q1 or Q2 of 2018
  • 10:55 – Demandbase is increasing investments ahead of plan and that allows them to generate new products
    • 11:13 – It makes new customers come to the platform
  • 11:44 – Demandbase has offices in San Francisco, Seattle, New York and London
  • 12:25 – Demandbase has 50-60 quota-carrying reps, 20-25 in marketing, 10-15 HR and the rest are in data, R&D and engineering
  • 13:20 – Account-based marketing allows you to save a lot of money
  • 13:58 – Customers pay annually
  • 14:09 – Payback period is around 12 months
    • 14:33 – Chris is lenient with their payback period
  • 15:13 – LTV
  • 15:30 – Chris won’t barter just to acquire new customers
  • 17:44 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Raising a large amount of capital will help develop the business quickly.
  2. Account-based marketing can save you more money.
  3. When you start a company, you’re working for EVERYONE.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 18, 2017

Ryan Taylor. He’s currently the CEO of the Dash Core Team. Dash is an innovative digital currency that offers a number of improvements over bitcoin. Ryan is an expert in the payments industry with over 15 years of experience in financial services and technology.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Mastering Bitcoin
  • What CEO do you follow? – Jack Welch
  • Favorite online tool? — BitInfoCharts
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Don’t worry about what everyone else has to say, follow what you really want to do”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:41 – Nathan introduces Ryan to the show
  • 02:21 – Dash is based on the bitcoin code base and operates with the same level of security
  • 02:28 – Dash has improved in 3 areas:
    • 02:31 – First is governance that allows people to vote on changes
    • 02:49 – Second area is that it’s self-funded
      • 03:14 – Dash has incentives for people to contribute to the network
      • 03:25 – Dash received its own funding from the network itself to operate
      • 03:44 – There are masternode owners in Dash
    • 05:48 – Team size is 50
      • 05:55 – Dash currently has 15 open positions
    • 06:44 – Dash has a more sophisticated economic system than the early coins
    • 07:00 – Getting donations for funds is what is primarily happening in the bitcoin world
      • 07:46 – Alot of them are ICOs that don’t have an ongoing source of revenue to sustain themselves
    • 08:15 – Ryan’s opinion on Civic’s model
    • 09:00 – Dash currently has 4500-4600 masternodes, which is a marketplace
    • 09:39 – An owner can own more than 1 masternode
      • 09:52 – There’s no way to know the number of masternode owners
    • 11:22 – The outcome of a vote
      • 11:30 – There are people who don’t vote, but there’s a minimum threshold
    • 12:30 – Utility-wise, Dash is aiming to create a world-class payment system
      • 12:39 – Some tokens are focused on smart contracts while Dash focuses on the payment
      • 13:05 – Dash is launching their landmark product next year called Evolution
      • 13:42 – Dash is aiming to make payments as convenient and secure as possible
    • 14:31 – The treasury is where they allocate transaction fees and block rewards that all cryptocurrency collect
      • 14:55 – With Dash, 45% goes to miners, 45% to infrastructure or masternode owners and 10% is set aside to the treasury
      • 15:33 – The treasury pot currently has $1.2M and the network is extremely well-funded
      • 16:20 – Dash incentivises each component of the network for it to remain functional
    • 16:44 – Dash has integrations that they’ve funded
      • 17:00 – Charlie Shrem just gave them a proposal to create a US debit card
      • 17:14 – Dash has worked with Alt36
      • 17:36 – Dash has funded cards
    • 18:00 – Dash’s miner plus masternode combo allows things to be done instantly
    • 19:42 – Ryan left his job at a multi-million dollar hedge fund to start Dash
      • 19:50 – Ryan believes that there’s monetary and non-monetary rewards at stake with Dash
      • 20:10 – Dash has the potential to bring cryptocurrency to a whole new audience
      • 20:30 – Most of those involved have put their own stake into the network
    • 21:29 – “My incentives are perfectly aligned with the network, the way it should be”
    • 22:18 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. A blockchain company that uses its own network to fund itself remains self-sustaining and self-functioning.
  2. Most ICOs rely on donations for funds, which can be unstable.
  3. Ignore the noise—do what YOU want to do.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 17, 2017

Johnny Warström. He’s the CEO and founder of Mentimeter. He’s an engineer from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. He’s worked in 10 countries and visited over 60. He loves adventures and growing his company and he’s getting married soon.

Famous Five:

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:44 – Nathan introduces Johnny to the show
  • 02:21 – Johnny founded Mentimeter with his three friends right out of university
  • 02:38 – Mentimeter is an interactive presentation
    • 03:00 – You can connect the audience's’ phones with the presentation and they can vote or participate
  • 03:53 – Mentimeter has a free and premium model
  • 04:04 – Mentimeter has over 10M users and 400K presenters who lead meetings
    • 04:31 – The presenters are the ones who pay
  • 04:50 – Mentimeter currently has 6K enterprise customers
  • 05:03 – Mentimeter is purely a B2B SaaS
  • 05:36 – Average customer pay per month is $150 a year
  • 05:56 – Mentimeter also offers packages
  • 06:13 – ARR is around $1.5M
  • 06:47 – Mentimeter was launched in 2003 and was initially bootstrapped as a side project
    • 07:00 – Johnny was part of Telecom and his co-founders were managing consultants
    • 07:18 – It took them 2-3 months to build Mentimeter and they showed it to their bosses
  • 07:40 – Mentimeter had their $350K angel round in 2004 and they have a total of $500K funds raised
  • 07:52 – Team size is 16 and everyone is based in Stockholm
  • 08:25 – Mentimeter has no paid activities and relies fully on organic growth
  • 08:53 – The goal of Mentimeter is to be a mass market product
  • 09:38 – Mentimeter has 1 in sales, 9 in product and 6 in marketing
  • 10:27 – Mentimeter was part of 500 Startups last spring
  • 11:17 – Fully weighted CAC
  • 11:42 – Payback period is almost instant
  • 12:20 – The team has been doing different experiments to increase customer engagement
  • 13:48 – Mentimeter is on -5 net churn
  • 14:22 – Mentimeter has a licensed model
  • 14:51 – 1% monthly churn
    • 15:18 – Some do not continue with their annual plan
    • 15:44 – Mentimeter won’t give money back, but there’s a 40-day refund
  • 17:00 – Johnny shares about a big, annual event in Europe that he’s a big fan of
    • 17:00 – Mentimeter has a built-in, voting module which functions as a simulation for a contest
    • 17:37 – Mentimeter received a lot of attention from that event 2 years ago
  • 18:12 – 2017 revenue goal is $2.3M
  • 18:17 – 2016 revenue was $800K
  • 18:52 – Johnny targets $10M in ARR for 2019
  • 19:22 – “We’re not looking for funding at the moment”
  • 19:38 – Johnny isn’t interested in selling the company at the moment
  • 21:33 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Keep an open mind—your side project can be your next successful business.
  2. Business ideas can come from the most unexpected of places—don’t discount your ideas.
  3. Success gained from organic traffic IS possible.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 16, 2017

Neha Sampat. She’s the CEO of Built.io, a 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant Vendor and 2016 Gartner Cool Vendor that provides a digital business platform that helps organizations excel their digital transformation. She’s a recognized industry leader and has led product marketing, cloud computing and online experiences for Sun Microsystems and VMware. She’s a proponent of diversity and outspoken advocate for nurturing women leaders in her industry. She was named the San Francisco Business Times’ 40 Under 40 honoree and one of 50 Women in Tech Dominating Silicon Valley in 2015. She is part of SF Business Times 2017 List of Most Influential Women in Business.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Moneyball
  • What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
  • Favorite online tool? — Alfred
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-7
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Do not start questioning yourself, you’re confident now. Keep that confidence, anything else will just slow you down”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:42 – Nathan introduces Neha to the show
  • 02:42 – Built is a digital transformation platform
  • 02:37 – Neha started Built 10 years ago when digital transformation wasn’t a thing yet
  • 03:21 – Built sells products to enterprise companies
  • 03:24 – Built is mainly a SaaS model, but they also offer services and license deals that may not be SaaS
  • 03:37 – Built started as a professional services company
  • 03:44 – Built is still bootstrapped
    • 03:59 – “We’re not a typical Silicon Valley company at all”
  • 04:08 – Built was made based on the real needs of customers
  • 04:27 – Team size is around 200, spread across India and San Francisco
    • 04:50 – The team in India is mainly the R&D team and the professional services team
    • 05:20 – Built has a real economic advantage having the majority of their team in India
    • 05:49 – Built is in the remote part of Mumbai
    • 06:16 – The office in India is where Neha’s co-founder’s family is from
    • 06:48 – Neha shared how they started building their office with a not-so-good internet speed in India
  • 08:12 – Built is slowly transitioning mainly to SaaS model
  • 08:45 – First million dollar year was in 2013
  • 09:13 – Neha started Built with her co-founder in 2007, and Neha took an advisory role at first
  • 09:42 – Neha used her own money to fund Built
    • 10:03 – Neha was very careful in handling her money
  • 10:16 – When Neha and her co-founder started Built, they wanted it to be a product company
    • 10:30 – Neha’s co-founder was from the integration space and gave her the idea of transitioning to Built in 2013
  • 11:30 – Average customer pay per month is $50K
  • 12:00 – Built currently has thousands of trial signups and hundreds of paying customers
  • 12:30 – Neha is a certified sommelier and when they go to conferences, they’ll have wine tasting events to get new customers
  • 13:40 – Gross logo churn
    • 13:48 – Built has a 90% retention rate and has maintained it
  • 14:12 – Fully weighted CAC and payback period is less than 10 months
  • 14:43 – Built tries to always get paid cash upfront
  • 15:10 – Gross margin
    • 15:24 – Some of the services are used to fund their SaaS
  • 16:06 – Most of the marketing is for conferences
  • 16:54 – End of 2017 revenue goal
    • 17:28 – They’re focusing on doubling their SaaS revenue
  • 19:11 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. If you build a product that begins by addressing people’s needs, you will always have customers.
  2. Don’t raise funds if you don’t need to, staying bootstrapped is an advantage.
  3. Cash is king, always try to get paid upfront.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 15, 2017

James Booth. He’s the founder of Scoota and he founded it in 2008. Prior to that, he was the co-founder and CEO of a company that led Europe’s rich media, providing infrastructure. He sold that to DoubleClick and Google back in 2007. He’s won numerous awards for his service to online advertising, an active Angel investor and a non-executive to a number of startups.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm
  • What CEO do you follow? – Joe Zawadzki, Jeff Green and Robert Grazioli
  • Favorite online tool? — Gmail
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – James hoped he knew the internet was coming

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:50 – Nathan introduces James to the show
  • 02:21 – The company that James exited was Tangozebra
    • 02:26 – They found the name by accident and in 1999, they couldn’t find a .com address
    • 03:17 – It was initially bootstrapped and they eventually raised capital
    • 03:49 – They had trouble articulating what they were doing
    • 04:24 – They raised $1.6M and part of the business went to a media group for 5 years before it was sold
    • 04:49 – Tangozebra was sold to Google for $30M
  • 05:15 – After the exit, James spent 6 months creating a business plan
    • 06:19 – James launched Rockabox (now Scoota) in 2007 with his co-founder, Torie
    • 06:51 – James had put in his own money at the start of the business
    • 07:08 – To date, they’ve raised £12M
  • 07:15 – Scoota is a technology company specializing in programmatic technology
  • 07:40 – Scoota charges a low cost per thousand fee with a benchmark of £1.50 per thousand
    • 08:05 – There’s also a managing service where Scoota takes a percentage
  • 08:37 – Self-service is high-margin and media is low
  • 09:17 – Two-thirds of the revenue comes from the self-service side
  • 09:30 – Team size is 30—based in London and looking to open a New York office
  • 09:53 – Scoota has global campaigns as well
  • 10:41 – In the early days, James would make up all sorts of things just to get new customers
    • 10:59 – In 1999, James had a conversation with a journalist where he spilled out mockups that gave them the exposure they needed
    • 12:17 – Suddenly, there was a story about them
  • 13:00 – Average number of customers
    • 13:33 – 40 agencies and hundreds of brands
  • 14:04 – It was in 2013 when Scoota broke their million dollar ARR mark
  • 14:26 – In 2016, Scoota hit $10M from their managing service side
  • 15:50 – Average ARR in 2016 was a little under $5M
  • 17:33 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Digital advertising has improved tremendously profitable and continues to grow.
  2. Continue to create something even after your first, big exit.
  3. At the start of every business, you have to do what you can to get the first customer.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 14, 2017

Zooko Wilcox. He’s the creator of Zcash and has more than 20 years of experience in open decentralized systems, cryptography and information security along with startups in general. He’s recognized for his work in Digicash, Mojonation and many other things that he has worked on. He’s also the founder of Least Authority. If you’re following him on Twitter, you’ll know that he sometimes blog about health science and is very active in Twitter and the crypto space.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Constellation Games
  • What CEO do you follow? – N/A
  • Favorite online tool? — Signal
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 8
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “That he would start learning by doing than learning from going to school”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:44 – Nathan introduces Zooko to the show
  • 02:28 – Zcash is a cryptocurrency similar to bitcoin
  • 02:55 – Zcash is like the SSL version of bitcoin
  • 03:20 – Zooko explains why additional security is needed in the crypto space
  • 04:33 – Bitcoin is mainly used for payment transactions
  • 04:40 – Other uses of blockchain is widely proliferating and apply the same technology
    • 05:18 – In any transaction, you need to protect not only the identity of the person, but the transaction in the system as well
    • 05:38 – In bitcoin, there’s no identity needed for the bitcoin address but the flow of funds—where the bitcoin is going may be visible to anyone who’s in the blockchain
  • 06:55 – Zooko shares his partnership with JP Morgan for their blockchain security solution
    • 07:00 – They had an open, public blockchain which is as global as bitcoin
    • 07:26 – The Zcash blockchain has had huge success going around the world
    • 07:50 – It was successful because it made it to the top tier of the blockchain system
    • 08:50 – Zooko really wanted Zcash currency to be more available globally and they received more users from China
    • 10:00 – Yunbi is one of the exchangers in China
    • 10:45 – The strategy was to attract users from different places
    • 11:13 – Some crypto projects have pre-money and some have ICOs or pre-sale
    • 11:44 – The Zcash blockchain started mining, where people can get their own Zcash tokens
    • 12:44 – Zooko changed the algorithm for mining coins
  • 14:30 – Zooko has raised $3M and promised investors that they will get a cut from the mining
    • 15:28 – There are transaction fees, but it’s different from what the investors get from the mining
    • 15:45 – It’s the miners who give the share of the reward over to the founder and they choose to do so
  • 16:17 – Zcash is still early in the space
  • 17:06 – The fundraising happened early 2015
  • 17:50 – Zcash has a unique structure to their system
  • 19:35 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. While blockchain system is known to be secure, it doesn’t hurt to have additional security features in place with cryptocurrency.
  2. ICOs and pre-sales are quite the trend for blockchain companies.
  3. You can’t learn everything from going to school—learn by DOING.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Oct 13, 2017

Maksim Balashevich. He’s a former IBM software engineer and co-founder of a successful, hosting business in Belarus. He now manages the overall product and leads the Santiment team. He’s a veteran leader, having spent more than a decade trading successfully using Santiment and Elliot Wave as analysis. He’s also a guru in yoga and meditation.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – N/A
  • What CEO do you follow? – Nick Szabo
  • Favorite online tool? — Blockchain and Reddit
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Move faster to the same goal

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:53 – Nathan introduces Maksim to the show
  • 02:30 – Santiment builds information for the emerging cryptocurrency token economy
  • 03:30 – When Santiment had their ICO, they’ve established a token for their platform
  • 03:36 – To get access to Santiment, you can buy the monthly subscription by paying in dollars or by depositing your tokens into the platform
    • 04:12 – There’s no revenue on the SaaS side yet
  • 04:33 – Santiment has raised $500K in July 2017
    • 05:03 – Santiment has sold 45K tokens
  • 05:17 – Santiment’s token name is San
  • 05:44 – Santiment got 720 participants on their token sale
  • 06:14 – Santiment has 8 full-time people and a few contractors
  • 06:29 – Santiment hasn’t liquidated their funds yet
  • 06:43 – Santiment got 12K ethereum from their presell, which they used to fund the development of the business
  • 07:44 – Maksim is hoping to start charging in 3 months, but it seems like it will take 6 months
  • 08:10 – From the community’s response, Maksim can’t charge for Santiment yet and people are asking for specific kinds of data
    • 09:34 – It’s not that they will not charge, but they can’t charge just yet
  • 10:00 – Maksim shares how Santiment works in the crypto economy
  • 11:15 – Prior to ICO, Santiment didn’t take additional capital and just used the presell
  • 11:46 – Maksim shares how they came up with the number of tokens to issue
    • 11:49 – For crowdsale participants, it is 54% of their outstanding
    • 12:04 – For presell participants, for every 12K ether contributed, Santiment will issue them 50M tokens
    • 12:21 – The rest will be part of the team’s tokens, which is currently locked
  • 13:55 – Maksim hasn’t seen any active competitors yet
  • 14:34 – Iconomi is one of Santiment’s partners and is also in the same space
  • 16:16 – Maksim’s prediction for the next blockchain that will do well
    • 16:48 – Maksim personally likes Polkadot which connects blockchains
    • 17:10 – There are also projects that introduce the token economy
    • 17:24 – There’s a growing number of blockchain companies providing decentralized storage solutions
  • 18:17 – Maksim shares the latest issue on hacking in cryptocurrency where $7M was stolen
  • 21:00 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. When to charge for your service isn’t an easy to decision to make—you have to consider the community and the value that they want to get from the company.
  2. In recent hacking events with ICO, security issues are being called into question.
  3. If possible, start working towards your goals as EARLY as possible.

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 12, 2017

Michael Litt. He’s the co-founder and CEO of a leading video marketing platform called Vidyard. While he’s not bringing leading video-based technologies to market, he serves as general partner at Garage Capital, a seed stage fund focused on supercluster companies looking to expand their networks in the Silicon Valley. He also sits as Communitech’s board of directors, a KW-based organization designed to help companies start, grow and succeed. 

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – N/A
  • What CEO do you follow? – Shannon Stubo
  • Favorite online tool? — Coinbase
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – You need a big support network and focus your energy into building a business

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:41 – Nathan introduces Michael to the show
  • 02:16 – Michael was in Episode 414 of The Top and back then, they only had 132 people on their team
  • 02:30 – Vidyard now has around 250 employees
  • 02:38 – Vidyard has 3 offices
  • 02:44 – Vidyard has launch multiple products including a self-serve product called Viewedit
    • 03:13 – Vidyard just had 100K users sign up after launching Viewedit, which is free
    • 03:33 – It’s currently a chrome extension
  • 04:22 – Michael shares how they spent their last amount that was raised
    • 04:51 – Vidyard had their series C in January of 2017
    • 05:30 – Michael believes that the CFO should be the “house of no”
    • 06:00 – Everybody should be accountable for their finances and Vidyard uses Adaptive Insights for budgeting
    • 06:43 – Vidyard has to be very careful with their lifeline and maintain their cash flow
  • 07:23 – Michael’s goal as the CEO
  • 08:39 – Vidyard’s RPU has grown over time
  • 08:53 – Target for upsell is 30% of net new revenue
  • 10:03 – Annual logo churn
  • 10:13 – Net retention
  • 10:42 – Over thousands customers are using Vidyard’s platform
  • 10:57 – Viewedit is being used in tons of organizations
  • 11:46 – Michael believes Vidyard will double, year over year
  • 13:00 – Streaming cost for Vidyard
    • 13:11 – Vidyard streams over 50M videos a day
    • 13:15 – Vidyard subscribed on the Netflix model
  • 14:41 – Weirdest strategy Michael employed to get new customers
    • 15:08 – The strategy was inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk
    • 17:17 – Michael shares how they were able to get customers from companies in other countries
    • 19:10 – New CMOs in a company are one of the best target customers, so Michael looks out for new CMOs announcements
  • 19:54 – Payback period is usually 18 months
    • 21:02 – Payback period reflects your company’s status
  • 21:20 – CAC
    • 21:35 – Michael is also looking into zero-cost marketing
  • 22:09 – Michael won’t sell Vidyard to Salesforce, even with a $300M offer
  • 22:55 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Use your funds conservatively and make everyone accountable for budgeting.
  2. How your company is doing reflects on your payback period.
  3. Make sure you have a big support network in place.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 11, 2017

Barry Clapp. He brings over 30 years of experience in sales and management to Centage. Beginning with IBM, he held successional positions with increasing responsibility on software and internet businesses. At DigitalGlobe, a satellite imagery company, he served as VP of international sales opening distribution in over 20 different countries.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Biography of Richard Branson
  • What CEO do you follow? – Marcus Lemonis
  • Favorite online tool? — Salesforce
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Be bolder, take more risks and get more equity from businesses with potential

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:43 – Nathan introduces Barry to the show
  • 02:12 – Centage makes a budgeting and planning tool simple
    • 02:20 – Every company budgets and most use Excel, which can be very difficult
    • 02:49 – Centage automates budgeting to replace Excel
  • 03:10 – Centage is a SaaS business
  • 03:18 – Centage was launched in 2002
  • 03:37 – Centage’s current business model is a changing from their previous licensing model
  • 04:27 – Centage is in the SMB space and they have less competitors
  • 04:55 – One of their competitors, Adaptive Insights, has just raised $175M
  • 05:13 – Centage has raised a total of $13.5 M
  • 05:50 – Barry shares what he did prior to Centage
  • 06:24 – The top three PE firms for Barry, in Boston
  • 07:16 – Centage’s customer pays an average of $35K to $40K a year
  • 07:26 – Centage has also sold services in their first years
  • 07:48 – Pricing is per seat
  • 08:18 – Centage currently has a thousand customers or 10K users
    • 08:46 – Most customers have 3 or more subsidiaries
  • 09:06 – Barry is hoping to break the $30M ARR number
  • 09:20 – Centage just launched their new product that is currently on beta
  • 09:57 – 30% of Centage’s customers are on subscription and the 70% are installed on premises
  • 11:07 – 2016 ARR was $12M
  • 12:43 – Team size is around a hundred with some remote
  • 13:13 – Average CAC
    • 13:36 – Centage has an inside sales model
  • 14:29 – Annual logo is quite higher than the previous model
  • 14:41 – Centage has 80% retention rate
  • 15:43 – Centage’s product has been continuously improving over the years
  • 16:32 – Centage has always made 10-12% of their revenue from upselling
    • 16:52 – Centage sells additional training
  • 17:11 – Barry shares the weirdest thing they did to acquire new customers
  • 18:50 – Gross margin
  • 19:10 – Centage runs webinars, goes to tradeshows, spends at least $10K a month on Google AdWords and total marketing spend is around $100K a month
  • 21:06 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Be BOLD and take risks now!
  2. Shifting from a previous model does NOT mean that you should force your current customers to shift as well.
  3. If people see value and how you can make life easier for them, they’ll stay loyal to your product.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 10, 2017

Gustav Mellentin. He’s the founder and CEO of Adform in the adtech space. Before that, he was an engineer in the banking world with an MBA, and was also doing consulting. He just recently came back from a European holiday.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Daring Greatly
  • What CEO do you follow? – Jorgin Vig Knudstorp
  • Favorite online tool? — Vivino Wine App
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Be bold and do what you think is right

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:46 – Nathan introduces Gustav to the show
  • 02:20 – Gustav shares his European holiday experience
    • 02:30 – It was pure leisure
  • 02:50 – Adform is a tech company that has developed an ad tech platform
  • 03:13 – Adform typically takes a percentage of the spend in the trading model which is on a monthly fee
    • 03:27 – Adform also has a per usage model for their application software
  • 03:50 – Average fee from the data model starts at $5K
  • 04:23 – Most of the revenue from Adform is from the trading space
  • 04:42 – Adform’s data model is the fastest growing part of the business and 10% of the revenue comes from it
  • 06:07 – Adform takes around 10% from the trading model
    • 06:21 – Gustav believes 10% is healthy for spend
  • 06:55 – Adform was launched in 2002
  • 07:10 – Gustav shares how they came up with Adform
  • 07:41 – First year revenue
  • 08:15 – Adform has past their million dollar mark in revenue, in 2010
  • 08:40 – Team size is 780 globally
  • 09:01 – Adform was initially bootstrapped, then they raised $5M in equity and $20M from debt
  • 10:23 – Gustav shares about the deal they made
    • 10:40 – “At the end of the day, it’s all about trust”
  • 12:50 – Adform has a great management team that is able to manage their number of employees
  • 14:20 – Adform’s DMP or data management platform was launched 18 months ago
    • 14:34 – Current number of customers is around a hundred
  • 15:16 – Gustav has flown his whole team in
    • 15:38 – Gustav shares what people do at their end-of-the-year party
  • 16:18 – Target revenue by end of 2017 is $50M to $100M
  • 17:00 – Gustav is one of the major shareholders of Adform
  • 18:00 – Gustav shares what other entrepreneurs could learn from his story of entrepreneurship with his personal relationships
  • 20:27 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Zero revenue can turn into millions if you focus on your goals.
  2. Keep your people happy and make them feel that they’re part of the company’s success.
  3. Entrepreneurship and personal relationships can grow at the same time.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 9, 2017

Christopher Engman, the founder of companies like Vendemore, Retain24, TaxiSystem and many others and he’s also an active investor. One of his companies, which he’s now active and an investor in is called Climeon. He’s also involved with Proof Analytics, Trigger Bee and many others.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Inside the Tornado
  • What CEO do you follow? – N/A
  • Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Put learning fast in front of prestige”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:38 – Nathan introduces Christopher to the show
  • 02:14 – All of the companies Christopher founded are profitable and are growing companies
  • 02:50 – Christopher’s biggest exit was Vendemore
    • 03:04 – Christopher ran it for 9 years
    • 03:12 – Vendemore was initially bootstrapped and raised funds
    • 03:51 – The exit was three years ago
    • 04:42 – Christopher and his wife owned 75% of Vendemore
  • 05:40 – Christopher took 50% of his Vendemore exit to start Climeon
    • 05:53 – It has 350 shareholders
  • 06:11 – Christopher believes that Climeon will be the next dominant player in mechanical engineering
  • 07:13 – It is easier to raise funds if you have a number of shareholders
    • 07:28 – The next round for Climeon will be a big round
  • 08:08 – Christopher shares how Climeon works
    • 09:50 – The process of energy transformation inside the Climeon
  • 10:37 – Christopher believes in the potential of Climeon
  • 11:24 – Team size is 40
  • 11:41 – Climeon has less than 10 customers
  • 12:10 – Climeon’s target clients are steel plants, cement plants and those in geothermal energy
  • 12:36 – Christopher runs sales and marketing
  • 12:42 – Climeon’s founder is in CTO side
  • 12:54 – Christopher shares how he found out about Climeon
    • 13:20 – Christopher’s shares in the company is quite big
  • 14:05 – The starting contract value of Climeon
  • 14:40 – Climeon is getting several hundreds of millions of dollars per client
  • 14:51 – Christopher doesn’t get commission from the sales
  • 16:40 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Building companies isn’t always about revenue, but the value you bring.
  2. If you believe in something, go for it.
  3. Turning heat into electricity is the future of energy.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 8, 2017

Daniel Chait. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Greenhouse, which designs tools that help create and navigate a new world of work. Daniel has been a technology entrepreneur in New York for nearly 20 years. Before Greenhouse, he co-founded Lab49, a global firm providing technology consulting solutions for the world’s leading investment banks. He’s a proud graduate of the computer engineering program at the University of Michigan.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Nudge
  • What CEO do you follow? – Kim Scott
  • Favorite online tool? — Trello
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7.5
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “The dotcom crash”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:35 – Nathan introduces Daniel to the show
  • 02:10 – Greenhouse sells recruiting software that corporations use to design and execute their hiring process
  • 02:40 – Greenhouse is a SaaS company
  • 02:50 – Average customer pay per year varies
    • 03:05 – The pricing model depends on the size of the company
  • 03:40 – Greenhouse tends to price higher than their competitors’ because they offer a premium software solution
  • 04:05 – Greenhouse is in the recruiting software space which is currently crowded
    • 04:15 – Daniel shares some of their competitors depending on the categories
    • 05:10 – The competition is extremely fragmented
    • 05:33 – Greenhouse falls into all the categories, from the smaller ones to enterprise
  • 06:05 – Greenhouse offers three tiers
  • 06:24 – Greenhouse was launched in 2012
  • 06:32 – First year revenue was around $50
  • 07:33 – Post product revenue is around $1M
  • 08:25 – Greenhouse currently has 2000 customers
  • 09:03 – Team size is 195, based in San Francisco and New York
  • 09:30 – Greenhouse has raised $16M from their series C round
  • 09:53 – Daniel enjoyed doing their fund raising and he believes in their investors
    • 10:13 – Every round is different
    • 10:40 – This was the first time that Daniel raised outside the investment
  • 11:19 – Greenhouse has a world-class retention rate
    • 11:36 – 97% of their customers have renewed
  • 11:55 – Most of the team is in inside sales
  • 12:36 – Daniel shares where their expansion comes from
  • 13:11 – Greenhouse’s newest product is Greenhouse CRM which is still in beta
  • 14:10 – The inside sales team job is heat mapping the products used by a customer
    • 14:41 – The expansion is through additional growth
  • 15:15 – LTV-CAC ratio
    • 15:48 – “We have a healthy ratio”
  • 16:04 – Payback period
  • 17:00 – The weirdest thing Daniel did to acquire new customers
    • 17:43 – They went from market research to marketing
  • 17:57 – ARR
    • 18:07 – Daniel on hitting the $50M ARR mark by end of 2017
  • 19:40 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Create something that will make you stand out in a competitive and crowded market.
  2. Focus on how you can increase your customer retention rate—perhaps it’s by adding new products that will better serve them.
  3. Raising a capital round can help you gain new customers.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Oct 7, 2017

Todd Fisher. He’s the co-founder and CEO of CallTrackingMetrics, a top rated call automation and lead management platform serving over 30K businesses around the globe. Todd developed the initial software and continues to be the driving technical force behind the company. He has also made a number of notable developments in the technical field, especially within the Ruby on Rails community.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – N/A
  • What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk and Steve Jobs
  • Favorite online tool? — it
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Get your shit together”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:30 – Nathan introduces Todd to the show
  • 02:00 – CallTrackingMetrics has 30K paying customers
  • 02:45 – CallTrackingMetrics sells phone numbers and provides functionality and features to those
    • 03:08 – It can track which ads resulted to a phone call
  • 03:27 – CallTrackingMetrics was launched in 2011
  • 03:40 – Todd started with Revolution Health Group in 2005, then in Captico in 2008
  • 04:24 – Todd started with a website that accepts credit cards for CallTrackingMetrics
  • 04:58 – Todd met his wife in 2008, and who is also part of the CallTrackingMetrics company
  • 06:00 – First year revenue was around $10K MRR
  • 06:26 – In 2012, CallTrackingMetrics had 1700 customers which became 5K in 2013
    • 06:43 – Currently, they’re passing 30K customers
  • 07:05 – Todd shares how they increased the number of their customers
    • 07:42 – The first few customers found CallTrackingMetrics through a small landing page which was put into Google AdWords
    • 08:30 – Todd’s conversation with Living Social’s founder, Erin
    • 08:55 – Todd learned the RIGHT way to target customers through AdWords the HARD way
  • 09:28 – Todd tracks their own app
  • 09:46 – Last month, they spent 6-figures on AdWords and they also did other paid channels
    • 10:49 – Average CAC
  • 11:20 – Customers pay an average of $2K a month from a marketing agency
    • 11:46 – Call tracking is an enhancer for their campaign
  • 12:08 – CallTrackingMetrics has two types of customers
  • 12:43 – 20% of the 30K customers are marketing agencies
  • 13:16 – Last month’s MRR is around $1.2M
  • 15:04 – Churn is around 6% monthly
  • 15:43 – Team size is 23,
    • 15:55 – 3 in sales, 2 in marketing, 5 engineers and most are in support
  • 17:35 – The Famous Five
  • 20:08 – CallTrackingMetrics is totally bootstrapped

 

  • Key Points:
  1. Continue to explore what you want to do until you find something that will make you content and happy.
  2. Ask around for opinions and don’t make decisions out of frustration.
  3. Create something that adds value and brings joy to others.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
  • 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
  • GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
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