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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: Page 1
Feb 10, 2017

Lisa Tamayo. She’s the CEO of Scollar, an open platform, multi-functional, smart collar for pets. She has over 25 years of experience in entrepreneurship and financial and strategic planning. She’s the co-founder of Green Building Studio which was acquired by Autodesk in 2008. She’s also the chairman of SoCo Nexus, an incubator accelerator in Northern California.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Pitch Anything
  • What CEO do you follow? –  Ben Horowitz
  • Favorite online tool? — Evernote
  • Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Trust Yourself”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:30 – Nathan introduces Lisa to the show
  • 02:13 – Scollar is a smart collar
    • 03:10 – The first product, Scollar Mini, was designed exclusively for the under-searched cats and small dogs market
    • 03:29 – Scollar is currently on pre-order and has launched a Kickstarter campaign
  • 03:52 – Scollar is like Fitbit for animals
    • 04:10 – The Fitbit engineering team has partnered with Scollar Mini
  • 04:26 – Scollar Mini is currently at $99 for pre-order and will retail at $149
    • 04:35 – The pre-order started in mid-October
  • 04:50 – Scollar is starting to build their following
  • 05:15 – Scollar has negotiated with a bank to get credit
  • 05:23 – Lisa and her partner have self-funded a part of it
  • 06:00 – Lisa and her husband are the first founders of Green Building Studio
    • 06:18 – Autodesk has bought all the assets of Green Building Studio
    • 06:35 – Green Building Studio was Autodesk’s market partner for a long time
  • 07:28 – Lisa has almost $600k in Scollar
  • 07:44 – Lisa discusses the spending
  • 08:07 Finding someone in hardware to help build the product are typically employed elsewhere
    • 08:30 – It took Lisa a while to find the right team to work together
  • 09:08 – Most funding went to the trial and error of the product
  • 09:25 – Team size is almost 40
  • 10:00 – Lisa shares the factors involved in asking for a loan
  • 11:10 – It took the bank months to agree with Lisa and grant her the loan
  • 11:40 – Working Solutions gave them the loan
  • 12:10 – Working Solutions is a great option for quick capital
  • 13:00 – The cost of making Scollar
    • 13:19 – Cost per unit
  • 13:43 – Possible wholesale price
    • 14:50 – They might use the wholesale price in 2018
  • 16:02 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  • Hardware is a far different process to create than software—it may take time to find and build the right team.
  • There are many options for gaining capital – choose the one that suits your company best.
  • Trust yourself and everything will fall into place.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Drip – Nathan uses Drip’s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
  • Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
  • Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
  • Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
  • The Top Inbox  – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
  • Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
  • Freshbooks – Nathan doesn’t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
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