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

Mikus Opelts. He’s the CEO at Giraffe360. He started this company 7 years ago, in February of 2010, when he got involved with Giraffe Visual which provides interactive visualization services. It has now developed into something so much more.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – How Google Works
• What CEO do you follow? –  Elon Musk
• Favorite online tool? — Trello
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Everything I’m thinking about and planning for will take three times of the time than what I was hoping for”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:07 – Nathan introduces Mikus to the show
• 01:40 – Giraffe360 has the best visual tool technology
• • 02:00 - Giraffe360 has a virtual tool that works with virtual reality headsets
• 02:15 – 6 years ago, Mikus started the company
• 02:37 – It took 14 months to develop
• 03:16 – Mikus spent $200K on software development
• 03:34 – Mikus just raised $500K for their product development
• • 03:39 – It is a convertible note
  • 03:49 – Mikus describes how it’s like to raise capital in London
  • 04:15 – Mikus went through a hundred meetings before getting that $500K
  • 04:25 – 90% of the investment is from one company
• 05:15 – Giraffe360’s camera is free for companies who have a large volume of properties
• • 05:31 – Giraffe360 charges per property
  • 05:47 – Giraffe360 has developed their technology and it is on par with professional companies
  • 06:13 – 1 apartment tour costs €67 or $70
  • 06:28 – Minimum is 20 apartments per company
  • 06:45 – Payment is done monthly depending on the properties
  • 07:12 – Giraffe360 has sold their first 10 cameras in the market
  • 07:19 – There are 50 new cameras coming in at the end of February 2017
  • 07:39 – Giraffe360 already had 50 pre-sells who wanted to try the cameras
  • 08:00 – The incoming 50 cameras are almost sold out
• 08:30 – Average MRR
• 09:00 – Cost per hardware
• 09:10 – The hardware is made solely by Giraffe360’s engineering team
• 09:55 – People find out about Giraffe360 through word-of-mouth
• 11:20 - Giraffe360’s only team is the engineering team with 8 people
• • 11:28 – 3 people in the back office
• 11:50 – No customer churn yet
• 12:20 – Giraffe360 is similar to a SaaS model
• 13:13 – 2017 goal is to have 100 subscriptions and cameras in the market
• 14:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Create something of the BEST quality that will stand out from the rest.
• Raising capital takes perseverance; it may take 100 meetings before landing what you need.
• Great things take time—relax, be patient, and get things done.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Anders Fredriksson. He’s a Swedish, serial entrepreneur who recently moved to San Francisco to build his sales technology startup, ProLeads. He’s an engineer with a business mind and currently holds both CEO and CTO titles. Previously, he built and scaled ArrivalGuides.com as the founding CTO. Prior to that, he was the founder and CEO of Tablefinder.com, which he sold. He studied computer engineering and management at Chalmers University of Technology, but dropped out before getting his degree when he got funding for his first startup, Table Finder. Additionally, in 2007, Internet World named him the most prominent entrepreneur in Sweden.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup
• What CEO do you follow? –  Marc Benioff
• Favorite online tool? — Google Inbox
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I really wished I knew how easy it is to start a business, but also I wish I didn’t know how hard it was”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 02:20 – Nathan introduces Anders to the show
• 03:25 – Anders got $75K when he started Table Finder
• 03:50 – ProLeads is a platform that aggregates service data to optimize workflow
• 04:07 – ProLeads is a SaaS model with annual subscriptions
• 04:40 – Average customer pay per month is around $75
• 05:20 – ProLeads was launched in the USA, in 2014
• 05:40 – Anders was in 500 Startups, Batch 12
• • 05:43 – Anders was turned down 4 times
  • 05:58 – What Anders said to convince 500 startups to accept them
• 06:10 – ProLeads was doing $5K per month when they were just starting
• 06:53 – There were 2 co-founders and now they have 3
• 07:20 – Average MRR
• 07:50 – The amount ProLeads receives from 500 startups
• 08:08 – ProLeads also raised funds during the program
• • 08:20 – ProLeads totaled $500K from their fundraising
• 09:15 – Zesty is a longtime customer of ProLeads
• • 09:38 – Zesty has 50-70 seats in ProLeads
• 10:45 – ProLeads’ lowest pricing is $300 per month
• • 10:55 – ProLeads’ focus is mid-sized companies
• 11:14 – 2017 MRR goal
• 12:10 – Gross customer churn per month
• • 12:49 – ProLeads was growing their MRR
  • 12:56 – ProLeads had a problem during close demo day churn
  • 13:35 – ProLeads had monthly contracts
• 13:51 – Average monthly churn is quite low
• 14:22 – Team size
• 14:36 – CAC
• • 14:48 – No paid marketing
• 15:20 – The tools ProLeads uses:
• • 15:30 – Clearbit, Full Contact, and DiscoverOrg
  • 15:41 – DiscoverOrg was on The Top: Episode 512
• 17:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• BELIEVE in your own product—this will make it easier to convince other people to believe in it as well.
• Problems arise at the start of any business, learn from it and move on.
• Starting a business has both its hard and easy moments; either way, it’s worth the jump.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Devon Wijesinghe. He’s the founder and CEO of InsightPool. He co-founded the business in 2012; and, within a short time led the company from 2 to 60 employees. He is currently revolutionizing marketeering and sales across many social platforms.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
• What CEO do you follow? –  Travis Kalanick
• Favorite online tool? — Pardot
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Try and learn to concentrate on financial metrics and understand finance deeply

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:27 – Nathan introduces Devin  to the show
• 01:53 - InsightPool focuses on the sector of influencer marketing
• • 02:03 – “A brand needs to have an army of people syndicating their content with their own voices”
  • 02:15 - Insight Cool finds influencers for brands that they can work with
• 02:35 – InsightPool’s pricing model
• 03:10 – Average customer pay per month is $3K
• • 03:33 – What is included in $3K
• 03:53 – Devin was the solo founder
• • 04:00 – Devin sold a previous company for 9-figures in early 2012
• 04:50 – “Social became prevalent as the newest data set”
• 05:11 – Devin seeded a business idea for $250K
• • 05:33 – Devin has a formalized angel group
  • 05:41 – Devin is an advisor and investor
• 05:58 – David Cummings is Devin’s friend
• • 06:17 – David and Devin’s companies are the first ones in ATV lean and tech village
• 06:48 – He currently has 60 people on the team
• 07:21 – InsightPool is currently serving over a hundred enterprises
• 07:50 – MRR
• 08:23 – InsightPool has a sales team
• 08:49 – CAC LTV
• 10:00 – Average spending on CAC
• 10:25 – Gross churn
• 11:00 – Net revenue churn
• 11:53 – InsightPool did a series A round and got an investment of $8M
• 12:35 – InsightPool did a debt round last year
• 12:50 – The amount InsightPool is burning per month
• 14:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• A brand needs to have an army of people syndicating their content with their own voices.
• Go with what you think you are made to do.
• Learn how to make the metrics and finance dance – understand it deeply before taking that leap.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Nick Caruso. He’s the CEO and founder of Illumineto. He’s the VP of Sales in Eastern US & Canada with Notable Solutions and he was there for 6 years. Before that, he was at Kofax as a federal sales manager and he also served the country in the Marine Corps as a Captain.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Built to Last
• What CEO do you follow? –  Drew Houston
• Favorite online tool? — API.ai
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Nick wished he knew that starting a company was not as hard as he thought it would be and wished he’d started earlier

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:06 – Nathan introduces Nick to the show
• 01:45 – Illumineto is a SaaS company and they charge monthly
• 02:00 – Nick has been in the technology field for 20 years and in sales for 15 years
• 02:15 – Nick wasn’t able to find a tool to help him close more deals
• 02:34 – Illumineto focuses on the individual sales rep and not the whole company
• 02:58 – Illumineto has a lot of sales reps from Fortune 500 companies
• 03:14 – Illumineto has been running for 6 months now
• 03:48 – Illumineto currently has a thousand of sign ups or users that represent several hundreds of logos
• 04:25 – Illumineto was founded in mid 2015
• • 04:30 – Beta in 2016
• 04:50 – Nick has sunk in $700K before starting
• 05:00 – Illumineto had an Angel round
• 05:23 – Illumineto has 3 co-founders
• • 05:32 – All of them had successful exits in different companies
  • 05:55 – There are 5 Angel investors
• 06:15 – Current team size is 4
• 06:50 – Average pay per user per month is $30
• 07:00 – Average MRR
• • 08:00 – Nick won’t disclose the amount, but Illumineto is profitable
• 09:00 – Nathan explains why he asks for numbers
• 10:15 – Illumineto has more than 100 paying customers
• 10:30 – Gross customer churn
• • 10:52 – 0% churn rate on paying customers
• 11:31 – Illumineto had paid advertising
• • 12:07 – They had thousands of people coming in for the premium model
• 12:50 – Illumineto leverages their connections in LinkedIn to get their customers from IBM
• 13:11 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• It is possible for a startup to be profitable in as early as 6 months.
• Leveraging your connections can help you engage with customers and increase sales.
• Start your business as soon as you can, you’ll learn as you go.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Ken Marlin. He’s the founder and managing partner of Marlin and Associates – an award winning mergers and acquisition business focused on investment banking. They are headquartered in New York city with offices in San Francisco, Washington DC and Toronto. Ken is also the author of The Marine Corps Way to Win on Wall Street: 11 Key Plans From Battlefield to Boardroom which was published in September. From 1971-1981, Ken rose in rank becoming a Marine Captain and Infantry Commander. He’s applied his Marine Corps principles to leading successful businesses.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? –  In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-run Companies
• What CEO do you follow? –   Fred Wilson
• Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn, Salesforce and Morning Star
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Pursue your passion and you’ll do well—play to your strengths and not your weaknesses

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:42 – Nathan introduces Ken Marlin to the show
• 03:00 – Ken is not doing it for the money
• 03:13 – Marlin and Associates tries hard to be the trusted advisor to people who want to buy or sell middle-market, technology companies
• 03:26 – Buyers and sellers pay Marlin and Associates retainers
• • 03:55 – “The bigger the deal, the smaller the percentage”
• 04:20 – Ken shares their success in 2016
• 04:42 – Marlin and Associates gets 8-10 clients a year
• • 04:58 – Marlin and Associates is service-oriented
  • 05:45 – Marlin and Associates negotiate with all phases of the transaction
  • 05:54 – Marlin and Associates help buyers understand the strengths and weaknesses of the companies they’re planning to buy
• 06:21 – “We always try to play the role of the honest broker”
• 07:09 – There are no risk-free transactions, so the question that should be asked is how much risk is there?
• 07:38 – The average amount of transactions
• 08:27 – The types of seller and buyers
• 09:05 – The #1 reason a deal blows up
• • 09:31 – From a seller’s perspective, transactions are made from trust
  • 10:00 – It’s important that they have a set of financial projections they’re going to meet
• 11:25 – “Perfection is to give people a set of forecasts that you’re going to meet and to meet it”
• 11:52 – Key principle from Ken’s book is “take the long view”
• 13:12 – There are people who buy companies without a clear understanding of how that acquisition helps advance them towards a strategic goal
• 14:30 – Ken talks about the acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft
• 16:41 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• There are no such things as risk-free transactions—the question that should be asked is how much risk is there?
• Give your client a set of financial projections that you’re going to meet—and, meet it!
• Work around your strengths, not your weaknesses.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Steven Benson. The founder and CEO of Badger Maps – the number one sales app in the Apple app store which helps salespeople become more successful. Badger shows salespeople their customers and leads on the map and connects them with their calendar to build a daily route.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Tools of Titans
• What CEO do you follow? –  N/A
• Favorite online tool? — Baremetrics
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Steven wished he had known that he’d learn more working for small companies than big companies

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:27 – Nathan introduces Steven to the show
• 02:00 – Badger Maps helps salespeople with their jobs
• 02:37 -  Badger Maps is a SaaS model
• 02:50 – Average customer pay per month is $35
• 02:58 – Badger Maps was founded in 2012
• 03:24 – Badger Maps has 3 co-founders
• 03:50 – Steven and the other co-founders didn’t really split the equity
• 04:00 – When splitting the equity, everyone gets a fair deal
• • 04:44 – Steven shares what to consider in splitting equity
  • 05:58 – Badger Maps has an accelerator clause
• 06:44 – First year revenue is $70K
• 07:10 – Number of current customers is 4K
• 07:40 – Apple ranked Badger Maps as #1
• 08:50 – There are Fortune 500 companies who use Badger Maps
• 09:01 – The number of customers is both team and individual sales reps
• 09:16 – Gross monthly customer churn is 3.3%
• 09:37 – The customers are finding Badger Maps through word of mouth, SEO, and SMM
• 10:08 – The amount Badger Maps is willing to spend to acquire new customers
• 10:46 – Badger Maps spent $12K on paid marketing
• 11:00 – Average CAC
• • 11:24 – Google is around $300
  • 12:06 – In San Francisco, people are spending 100% of LTV on acquisition
• 12:53 – Badger Maps is bootstrapped
• • 13:03 – Badger Maps had a loan from Lighter Capital
  • 13:45 – Steven shares how Lighter Capital makes loans for SaaS companies
  • 14:10 – Steven is paying 22-28% for the amount they have loaned and there’s no personal guarantee
• 15:06 – Total revenue in 2016 is around $1.2M
• 15:20 – Revenue goal in 2017 is $4.5M
• 17:05 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Be fair and make sure it is a great deal for everyone when splitting equity.
• Getting a loan can also be a good option for SaaS companies.
• In San Francisco, people are spending 100% of LTV on acquisition.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Andrew Gryaznov. He’s an artificial intelligence and a cloud computing evangelist based in Dublin, Moscow. He’s the founder of JSX Exchange – the cloud computing commodity exchange and has built several other services and tools ranging from SshTo.net, Plottico, and many others. Andrew is also a telecom and Linux expert and finalist at the GSOC 2005 Summit.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Startup Owner’s Manual
• What CEO do you follow? –  Brad Katsuyama
• Favorite online tool? — Trello
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— That depends
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Andrew wished he was more mindful of the global market

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:09 – Nathan introduces Andrew to the show
• 01:48 – Andrew shares his vision for why he built JSX Exchange
• • 01:51 – Computation will be the most influential resource
• 03:05 – JSX Exchange has invented a way to commoditize cloud computation
• 03:53 – Andrew shares what people without JSX Exchange are doing
• 05:02 – Andrew mentions how the financial exchange space can use JSX Exchange
• • 05:48 – Banks may own supercomputers
• 07:03 – JSX Exchange works with financial institutions who want accurate trade
• 07:46 – JSX Exchange wants to expand out of the financial space
• 08:18 – JSX Exchange is currently in pre-seed stage
• • 09:15 – Irish investors have put out less than $1M
  • 09:24 – It is an equity round
• 09:34 – Andrew was a solo founder for a period of time, but expanded
• 10:15 – Andrew has a team of 5 people who are all co-founders
• 10:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• There is a possibility that computation will be the most influential resource.
• Credibility is needed if you want to be successful in your space.
• Believe in your product.

Resources Mentioned:

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

David Darmanin.  He’s the CEO and founder of HotJar. Over the 12 years before founding HotJar, he generated hundreds of millions of dollars in growth consulting small to Fortune 500 businesses. He’s got multiple teams, developed brands, and ran hundreds of tests for his clients spanning across 19 languages, 12 currencies, and 13 different industries. HotJar is now used in over 150 sites around the world and the company is growing to €3 million euros in just under one year.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
• What CEO do you follow? – Jay Simons
• Favorite online tool? — Intercom
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – I wished I truly understood what marketing was

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 02:18 – Nathan introduces David to the show
• 03:03 – HotJar is a tool that allows site owners to see how their users are using their websites
• • 03:30 – Once you know the customer experience, it is easier to see what to improve next
  • 03:45 – Nathan experienced HotJar himself, in his website
  • 04:10 – HotJar is careful about what data to show in regards to privacy
• 05:05 – HotJar’s technology was expensive
• 05:30 – HotJar has a premium model
• 05:51 – Average customer pay per month is €50
• • 06:10 – It was only €30 when HotJar started
• 06:33 – HotJar is currently serving 10K customers
• 06:50 – The number of sites each customer has
• 07:30 – ARR
• 07:40 – MRR
• 07:55 – Revenue goal for 2017
• 08:15 – HotJar currently has a team of 22 people and 8 on the leadership team
• • 08:35 – There are 5 people in the founding team
  • 09:14 – There are 4 big pillars: marketing, customer success, product, and operation
• 09:57 – Gross customer churn is higher than net negative churn
• • 11:05 – “We are the dropping the smaller customers, but we are retaining and expanding the bigger customers”
  • 11:20 – Both have less than 10% monthly churn
• 11:41 – HotJar was founded in 2014
• 12:20 – “If you truly want to create a premium company and not just like a trial model which is disguised as a premium, you really need to think about how does that free package stand on its own 2 feet”
• 12:43 – HotJar minimized the number of interface and allowed users to delete them and create new ones
• 13:21 – David does not track the time the customer has converted from free to premium, but they track the cohorts
• 14:00 – CAC is extremely conservative
• 15:04 – The premium aspect Hotjar offers is brand building
• • 15:50 – There is brand value in doing different types of campaigns
• 16:17 – HotJar is bootstrapped
• 16:25 – HotJar sees other players who have raised capital
• • 17:14 – HotJar does not see raising capital as an advantage
• 17:34 – HotJar gets a lot of referrals
• 18:10 – HotJar just recently started with paid advertising
• • 18:40 – HotJar has an investment target model
  • 19:10 – HotJar has used this model to offer flexibility and freedom
• 20:40 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Churn is one of the biggest challenges of a SaaS business.
• If you truly want to create a premium company and product—think about how that free package stands on its own two feet.
• Check your options because NOT raising capital can be very possible and advantageous for you.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Rami El Chamaa. He’s the CEO and founder of Appointlet. He started earlier as a digital marketing manager at Eastline Marketing where he led lead generation, SEO, email marketing, and content marketing. Before that, he was with Ernst & Young.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Lean Startup
• What CEO do you follow? –  Elon Musk
• Favorite online tool? — Intercom
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – N/A

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:30 – Nathan introduces Rami to the show
• 02:03 – Appointlet is an appointment scheduling software
• 02:34 – Appointlet is a SaaS based business and makes money through subscriptions
• 02:40 – Appointlet has monthly and annually pricing depending on the team price
• 02:51 – Average monthly revenue per customer is $50
• 03:17 – Appointlet’s pricing has been set since 2012
• 04:18 – Rami’s co-founder was working for his previous company and saw the tedious process of appointment scheduling through different websites
• 05:17 – Rami saw his co-founder’s thread in Reddit regarding his webapp and Rami replied to him
• 05:31 – Rami is from Lebanon and met his co-founder through Reddit
• 05:45 – Rami is in charge of marketing growth and his co-founder is in charge of the coding
• 06:20 – The Reddit thread
• 07:05 – Rami and Jared don’t talk much about equity
• 07:30 – Rami didn’t have any idea about equity and just focused on marketing
• 08:05 – Rami now has 25% of the company
• 08:27 – Appointlet has 1100 paying customers
• 08:55 – Rami had been working with Appointlet for a year when he realized he needed to be compensated
• 09:16 – First year revenue
• 10:19 – Average RPU
• 10:35 – Rami focuses on listening to customers and creating a flow that lets the customer feel that they are being taken cared of
• 11:08 – Startups grow through support
• 12:08 – Rami has integrated branding techniques
• 13:00 – “The lifetime value of a customer usually drives the lifetime value of a new customer as well”
• 14:00 – Gross customer churn
• 14:10 – Appointlet is doing paid, targeted, marketing campaigns
• 14:40 – Appointlet spent $2-3K on a marketing campaign
• 15:07 – LTV
• 15:30 – Appointlet just hired their first customer support manager
• 15:58 – Appointlet is currently looking for software developers located in USA
• • 16:05 – Salary range
• 16:49 – Appointlet is bootstrapped
• 16:59 – Appointlet is not interested in raising funds until they need it
• 17:36 – Appointlet is currently cash flow positive
• 18:55 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Opportunities can now be found on the internet – just look for someone with whom you share the same passion.
• Working for free isn’t that bad as long as you make yourself indispensable.
• The lifetime value of a customer usually drives the lifetime value of a new customer as well.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Manuel Opitz: He is currently the founder of Mecuris. Before founding the company as the CEO, he worked as a medical IP broker in innovation management and as a technology scout in China. He graduated in Industrial Engineering and he has taken a keen interest in optimizing healthcare process chains by digitalization and 3D printing.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Thinking Fast and Slow
• What CEO do you follow? –  N/A
• Favorite online tool? — Podio and Acuity Scheduling
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Don’t try to do everything yourself”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:37 – Nathan introduces Manuel to the show
• 02:14 – Mecuris is in B2B and medical technology
• 02:30 – Mecuris provides patient specific prosthetics using 3D printing
• 02:58 – Manuel discusses the picture on their website
• 03:19 – Mecuris can be reimbursed by the insurance companies
• 03:38 – Mecuris gets paid as the service provider for medical supply stores
• 03:51 – Mecuris uses SLS—which is more costly but lasts
• • 04:25 – The smaller the prosthetics, the cheaper it is
  • 04:50 – Manuel shares the pricing
• 05:25 – The price for Sophie’s prosthetics
• 06:15 – Insurance companies have their own prices
• 06:55 – Average number of prosthetics that have been 3D printed in 2016
• • 07:28 – Mecuris only had prototypes in 2016
• 07:45 – Mecuris had 2 seed investors in November
• 08:39 – Mecuris raised under a million
• 08:55 – Mecuris had a pre-seed round
• • 09:37 – The 6 founders put in 5-digit numbers per person and received a pre-seed government round
• 10:12 – Manuel shares how the 6 founders talked about the equity
• 11:26 – The founders who are operational are the software lead and product designer
• • 11:52 – There are a total of 11 people in the office
• 12:07 – Mecuris was launched in May, 2016
• 12:52 – Manuel wants to enter the international market after Series A
• • 13:09 – Talks with big companies are in the works
• 13:40 – Mecuris can do prosthetics in just 10 minutes
• 14:04 – Manuel discusses Sophie’s prosthetics and what would be her option would be if there was no Mecuris
• 15:15 – Mecuris can do simulation work with their prosthetics
• 17:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Aim high—if you believe that you can enter the international market then do it.
• Sharing equity requires a good system, defining how you can benefit from one another.
• Collaborate with the experts in your field.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Francisco Larrain who has been an entrepreneur for most of his life. He was born and raised in Chile and is the co-founder and CEO of Sudo. He founded a company called Zappedy – a payment technology company that was backed by Eric Schmidt and acquired by Groupon. More recently, he led a project engineering team of a hundred plus people for Groupon’s local business. Now, he’s working on enabling high quality work for corporations and their teams. The co-founder and head of product, Amit, is also joining Francisco in this podcast.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – High Output Management (Francisco)
• What CEO do you follow? –  N/A (Amit)
• Favorite online tool? — Splunk and Github (Francisco)
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No (Francisco)
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Francisco would tell himself that all these people that you look up to are much more human than you think and he’d would love to have more confidence.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:29 – Nathan introduces Francisco to the show
• 02:11 – Amit codes late at night
• 02:27 – Team of 9 people and they all code
• 03:00 – Francisco explains the hedge fund with trigger power
• 04:00 – Francisco likes the entrepreneurial side of the Valley
• 04:37 – Francisco has raised $3M
• 04:45 – Sudo wants to fix the broken CRM of enterprise
• 05:15 – There are system problems and software problems
• 05:25 – A time consuming software will lead to people not using it
• 06:17 – Francisco has experienced problems with CRM in Groupon
• 07:20 – Francisco shares their plan with Sudo, starting with expense management
• • 07:45 – There’s a free-form format in the CRM where people can update
  • 08:10 – Francisco wants to flip everything around
• 09:17 – Sudo is on pre-revenue and private beta
• 09:56 – There are 5 pilot companies
• 10:10 – Sudo will possibly start with monthly subscription system and will move to an account based system
• 11:00 – The key features of Sudo allows people to add contacts and notes from their meetings
• 12:30 – Sudo is very sticky with the representatives
• 13:43 – The $3M seed round was an equity round
• 13:59 – Francisco shares who their investors are
• 15:00 – Why the valuation was easy for Francisco
• 16:00 – Francisco shared the acquisition of Groupon on Zappidy
• 17:37 – The valuation that was negotiated for Sudo in the seed round
• 19:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• A time consuming software will lead to people not using it.
• The valuation is much easier if you’ve had a good exit before.
• We are all humans – even the ones in the highest positions that we look up to and respect.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Eric Berman: Since graduating from UCST, he’s been a serial entrepreneur and business operator. He grew his first company to 400K and just missed out on going public. He has been a consultant for many other businesses and is now the CEO and founder of Brandetize, a full service, performance-based, marketing agency that partners with thought leaders such as Brian Tracy, Jack Canfield and many others.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – How to Win Friends and Influence Others
• What CEO do you follow? –  Gary Vaynerchuk
• Favorite online tool? — Spark Hire
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7 and a half
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Continue to have an open mind, network as many people as you can and…follow your passions and be humble”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 02:00 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show
• 02:33 – TheCollegeClub.com was Eric’s first company
• • 02:51 – It grew significantly
  • 03:40 – The stock market crashed just before they become public in 2000
  • 04:25 – They were burning $2M monthly with over 400 employees
• 05:46 – After the crash, Eric did some consulting
• 07:00 – They don’t teach life skills in the educational system
• 07:18 – Eric approached Brian Tracy when Brian was struggling
• 08:00 – It was 2001, when Eric started working with Brian at no cost
• 08:16 – Eric shares the difference of Gary Vaynerchuk and Brian Tracy
• 09:08 – After working with Brian for more than 10 years, gurus are asking Eric if he can work for them
• 09:20 – Eric had a talk with Brian about him working with other gurus
• 10:00 – The brands that are going after Brandetize
• 10:40 – 2015 total revenue is close to $4M and 2016 is close to $5M
• 10:55 – 28 employees
• 11:16 – Brandetize doesn’t have a MRR
• 12:30 – Eric predicts that Brendon Burchard will be the next Tony Robbins
• 12:56 – Brian Tracy brings the most revenue to Brandetize
• 13:50 – Eric shares their offer to the brands
• 16:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Have an open mind, be humble, and follow your passions.
• Even if you have a significant fall—this does not stop you from coming back.
• Offering your services for free can help you gain more in the end.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Matt Ekstrom. He’s one of the founders of Prospectify and formerly co-founded HiringSolved. He’s in-charge of all things revenue for Prospectify, which is a promising sales and intelligence platform.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Sales Acceleration
• What CEO do you follow? –  Gary Vaynerchuk
• Favorite online tool? — Google Search and HubSpot
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I would have studied more about startups and being an entrepreneur”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:30 – Nathan introduces Matt to the show
• 01:55 – Prospectify is a SaaS model
• 02:14 – Prospectify’s long term goal is to be able to scale personalization from the sales standpoint
• 02:25 – Prospectify has monthly subscriptions
• 02:45 – Prospectify’s pricing:
• • 03:25 – The prices from the website are $40, $190, $490, and $975
• 03:33 – Average customer pay per month is $352
• 03:50 – Prospectify was launched in February 2016, and was in beta in January 2016
• 04:16 – Current number of customers is around 100
• 04:46 – MRR is over $20K
• 05:09 – Prospectify is based in Phoenix
• 05:20 – Prospectify just closed their first month
• • 05:25 – It was in Angels and a million dollar round
• 05:45 – Matt shares why he decided on an equity round and not a convertible note
• 06:31 – Matt uses the trajectory to argue for higher valuation
• 07:29 – Prospectify is about to launch their company search which includes 12 million companies starting in the USA
• 08:10 – The people Prospectify has targeted
• 08:18 – Prospectify’s customer base is diverse
• 08:45 – Annual customer churn
• 09:45 – Matt shares what he will do to keep customers paying and NOT cancel after receiving all the data
• 11:10 – Prospectify’s top data sources
• • 11:22 – Matt shares what they used to validate the concept of Prospectify
• 12:18 – Fixed cost per month for crawling
• 13:11 – Matt shares where to get credits
• 14:00 – Customer LTV
• 14:34 – Current team size
• • 14:45 – Headcount expenses
• 16:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Keep people up to date—that way, they will keep on paying.
• Decide whether an equity round or convertible note will be most advantageous for you.
• Discern what is the right track and try to stay on it.   

Resources Mentioned:

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

Wayne Silbermann. He has founded a number of startups from South Africa including one of the first world’s music discovery services which was originally founded by Mark Shuttleworth. His most recent venture, Sortd, is a new email platform that’s on a path to fundamentally changing the way people communicate and manage work. Sortd has ranked as the number 1 app for Gmail on Product Hunt.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Tipping Point
• What CEO do you follow? –  N/A
• Favorite online tool? — WorkFlowy
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Wayne would tell himself that there’s plenty of opportunities out there and you can pick and choose what you’re passionate about

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:35 – Nathan introduces Wayne to the show
• 02:20 – Sortd transforms the Gmail interface into a more organized system to manage lists—similar to Trello for Gmail
• • 02:50 – Wayne discovered that many people use the Gmail Inbox as a to-do list
  • 03:29 – Sortd allows you to drag-and-drop your emails to your to-do lists
• 03:50 – Sortd is currently free
• • 04:00 – Wayne shares how they are going to monetize Sortd according to agencies that use it
• 05:00 – Wayne has a number of ventures which are his sources of income
• 05:30 – The number of free users
• • 05:45 – The behavior of active users
• 06:40 – Total capital which is self-funded
• • 06:50 – The money goes to development
• 07:29 – Sortd works under Gmail and there’s no need to add another app
• 08:05 – Why would people use Sortd?
• • 09:00 – Sortd allows you to “communicate using email as a medium in the context of your priorities”
  • 09:33 – It is like you’re running two applications under 1 tab
• 10:11 – Sortd was in the chrome store since 2014
• 10:45 – Sortd has 3 full-time developers
• 11:16 – The revenue of the other business
• 11:40 – The funding environment in South Africa
• 12:48 – Wayne is looking to raise around a million dollars for Sortd
• 14:20 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Having a number of ventures can help you create a product that is dedicated to helping people.
• Email is one of the most used applications—that’s why startups are finding ways to make life easier for email users.
• There are tons of opportunities out there—pick and choose what you’re passionate about.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Daniel Araujo. He’s the CEO at Attentive.US – a competitive intelligence platform that gives real-time information to teams that use SalesForce, Hubspot, Pipedrive or Full Contact. He’s the next Googler, loves data visualization and all things technology.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Peak
• What CEO do you follow? –  Jeff Bezos
• Favorite online tool? — HubSpot
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Roughly
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Daniel would tell himself to learn as fast as he can

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:42 – Nathan introduces Daniel to the show
• 02:10 – Attentive is a SaaS platform that integrates with CRMs
• • 02:20 – Attentive alway looks for information and updates in real-time
• 02:42 – Attentive offers monthly subscriptions and an additional setup fee for clients who want to use other CRMs
• 03:03 – Average customer pay per month
• 03:16 – The integration is a one-time fee and will depend on the client’s preferences
• 03:55 – Attentive does track every person that is in your pipeline
• • 04:40 – Every behavior of a lead notifies the user
• 05:00 – Daniel shares what their setup looks like
• • 05:09 – The information that needs to be filled out for the setup are on the website
• 05:44 – There are clients who will give a list of companies they want to track
• 06:21 – Number of paying customers monthly
• • 06:37 – Attentive just launched a new interface
• 07:00 – MRR
• 07:08 – Team size is 5 which includes a newly hired Head of Growth
• 08:00 – Attentive has raised $150K
• • 08:12 – The first $100K was from a big VC in Portugal and the rest is from an advisor round
  • 08:50 – There are key people who are helping build Attentive
  • 09:00 – Initially, it was convertible note but everything is converted to equity now
  • 09:19 – The valuation conversation with an Angel investor
• 10:05 – Daniel shares how he started raising Attentive’s capital
• • 10:28 – There are still people who are using Attentive’s Slack bot for free
  • 10:38 – The investors believe that Attentive could grow
  • 10:58 – 10% of the company is for the investors, the rest belongs to the 3 founders of Attentive
  • 11:17 – Daniel shares how the 3 founders split the rest of the company
• 11:40 – Daniel wants to move Attentive to the US because they want to compete in that  market
• 12:10 – Daniel will focus on having an MRR of $5-10K before raising another round
• 12:40 – Valuation for Series A will depend on the metrics
• 13:50 – Attentive is trying to get on the Boulder acceleration program
• 15:20 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Believe in your product so that other people, too, will believe in it.
• Deciding the valuation for another raising depends on the MRR or the metrics.
• Learn as FAST as you can.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Eric Bouck. He’s the CEO and founder of Propeller, a CRM that lets you sell from gmail. Prior to Propeller, Eric was the co-founder and CEO of Zigzag Software which was eventually sold to Samsung. He also spent some time working as a director for Samsung. He also worked as a Group Product Manager at Dell EMC and spent 4 years with this company.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Inspired
• What CEO do you follow? –  N/A
• Favorite online tool? — Webflow
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Marry the right person”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:26 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show
• 02:05 – Propeller is the CRM that creates daily tools that salespeople can use to set their meetings, do their email and phone calls, share presentations and documents, and research etc.
• 02:31 – Propeller is a SaaS business and they have monthly and annual subscriptions
• 02:50 – Average revenue per customer monthly
• • 02:54 –$50 per month
• 03:15 – How does Propeller win on a very crowded market?
• • 03:24 – There’s a lot of companies who try to make their own niche
  • 03:42 – Propeller has a unique mix of deep integration with Gmail combined with the ability to do multiple step campaign
• 04:45 – Propeller is an all-in-one CRM – you won’t be needing another product
• 05:10 – Propeller was launched September 1^st
• • 05:15 – Growth is 21% month over month
  • 05:22 – A little over 50 customers at the moment
• 05:26 – Propeller is bootstrapped
• 05:39 – Eric got decent money from the exit
• 06:23 – No revenue churn at the moment
• 07:00 – Team size, they are also remote
• 07:36 – Eric is not open to acquisition talks at the moment
• 08:00 – The leading companies in the CRM space are Salesforce and Dynamics
• • 08:35 – Pipeline and Hubspot are getting positive feedback as well
• 09:00 – Eric shares his opinion of Outreach
• 09:25 – Eric mentions Propeller having an AI
• 09:55 – The core differentiator of the products
• • 10:04 – An example of how Propeller makes getting your emails done easier
• 11:00 – Nathan’s acuity to batch schedule
• 11:20 – CRM pricing
• • 11:42 – Deliver the VALUE
  • 12:00 – Eric shares their vision as a company to make salespeople more effective
• 12:12 – Eric shares how he got their first 5 customers
• 12:46 – Eric has also spent for paid marketing
• 12:58 – LTV is $1500
• 13:30 – CAC LTV ratio
• 15:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• If your market is crowded, you have to work HARDER to differentiate yourself.
• The value is not in losing sales or making more sales—the value is found in whether or not you provide an effective product. 
• Don’t live with regrets—it’s gotten you to where you are now.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Manuel Silva. He’s a partner at Santander InnoVenture. Prior to that, he was the founding member of BBVA Ventures which focused on lending, new platforms, financial inclusion, and private banking. He’s worked across Latin America and Europe and holds a BA in Business Administration from CUNEF, a MSc in Political Science, and a MPhil in Development Economics.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – N/A
• What CEO do you follow? – Rob Frohwein
• Favorite online tool? — Crunchbase
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “There’s so much to do in this world”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:40 – Nathan introduces Manuel to the show
• 02:25 – Manuel is involved in all investments at Santander
• 03:10 – Manuel is separate from the Santander group
• • 03:31 – Manuel facilitates the relationship across the banks
  • • 03:48 – The banks refer to the Santander’s franchises all over the world
• 04:24 – Manuel shares how they worked with Kabbage
• • 05:01 – “It’s a successful investment, it’s a successful partnership”
  • 05:20 – Kabbage is the perfect example of how Santander wants to work
• 05:30 – The fund size for innoventure at Santander
• 06:45 – Manuel shares how Santander plays in the venture capital world
• • 06:48 – Santander does equity investment only
• 08:05 – Santander works out the opportunities for the CEO and the company
• 08:55 – The companies in Santander’s portfolio is not complete because there are still companies unannounced
• 10:00 – Manuel shares how they work in the round and in the FinTech space
• • 10:03 – FinTech space has a level of maturity and density in entrepreneurship
• 11:00 – Companies that Santander have invested in are data driven
• 12:13 – Santander wants banks to partner with startups so that these companies can access the reach these banks have
• 14:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• FinTech has the maturity to deal with the problems that come up in the industry—this sets them apart.
• Santander exists to bring together a partnership between banks and startups.
• Be focused in your task and goals as there’s so much to do.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Glen Coates. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Handshake. It focuses on putting the right product on every shelf in every store. He goes between Sydney, San Diego and New York City.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
• What CEO do you follow? – Dave Yarnold
• Favorite online tool? — Boomerang for Gmail
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Glen wished he knew how intense running this company was going to be and to spend a lot more time making music and going surfing.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:37 – Nathan introduces Glen to the show
• 02:15 – Handshake is about getting the right product on every shelf, in the world
• • 03:30 – Handshake brings the Amazon-like buying and selling platform to businesses
  • 03:55 – Handshake Rep is the mobile app used by sales reps who work for the brand
  • 04:21 – Handshake Direct is the mobile and web-based ecommerce for B2B
• 05:00 – Handshake is a SaaS business and they sell to manufacturers and distributors
• 05:10 – Handshake’s customers are the manufacturers, distributors, and their customers who log into Handshake
• 05:22 – Handshake has a similar model to Salesforce
• 05:40 – Glen started working with Handshake in 2010 and got their first customer in 2011
• 05:51 – First year revenue
• 06:16 – Average number of customers at the moment
• 06:51 – The pricing model is per seat per year for Handshake Rep, Handshake Direct is made-to-order
• 07:37 – Average customer pay per month
• 08:24 – December 2016: total average revenue range
• 09:35 – Handshake used to have monthly contracts
• • 09:59 – Most of the contracts now are annual contracts
• 10:07 – Total capital raised is around $24M inclusive of Series B
• • 10:29 – Series B closed in February 2016
• 10:40 – Handshake isn’t in any acquisition talk
• 12:03 – What Glen and his team is building is grand in scale and requires a lot of hard work
• 12:44 – Team size and location
• • 13:05 – Glen shares the number of people per team
• 14:10 – LTV
• • 14:15 – “I don’t think much about lifetime value”
  • 16:51 – “I care about delivering 100% growth with a better payback period than I care about delivering 200% growth with like a terrible payback period”
  • 17:05 – Handshake growth is 100% annual
• 17:30 – Glen shares the flagged payback period in VC communities
• 18:48 – Glen is currently burning close to $500K a month
• 18:56 – Glen thinks that it should take at least 6 months before having to raise again
• 19:50 – Glen usually raises for a couple of years and each time he raises gives them 2 years of runway
• 20:15 – Gross annual customer churn
• • 20:30 – Churn has come down when they shifted their market
  • 21:25 – Glen shares what they did to combat high monthly churn
  • 22:38 – Handshake always has a negative revenue churn
• 23:30 – Glen wouldn’t sell Handshake for Nathan’s sample offer
• 25:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• It’s difficult to create a SaaS that is web-based and mobile-based – it takes hard work.
• Delivering 100% growth with a better payback period is better than delivering 200% growth with a terrible payback period.
• Raising usually takes 6 months and it is the CEO’s responsibility to decide how he can leverage each raise.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Josh Muccio: He’s the host of The Pitch Podcast and he recently launched Season 2 on January 11^th. Before The Pitch Podcast, he was the founder of iHeart Repair, which he sold in 2014. He is a father of 2, soon to be 3. Josh is 29 and he loves the tech world. He’s in Florida and loves skiing and takes 2 ski trips every winter.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Slight Edge
• What CEO do you follow? –  Nicholas Quah
• Favorite online tool? — Slack and Google Drive
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “To create more stuff and just put it out there”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:38 – Nathan introduces Josh to the show
• 02:35 – The Pitch Podcast is similar to the TV show SharkTank
• • 02:53 – Season 2 is where investments happen on air
• 03:05 – Josh shares why Season 1 of The Pitch Podcast was challenging
• 03:40 – Sheel is Josh’s co-host
• 04:09 – Josh discusses iHeart Repair
• 05:20 – iHeart Repair was sold in 2014
• 05:25 – Revenue was around $750K annually
• 05:59 – Josh just didn’t see his future with iHeart Repair
• 06:25 – Josh had a broker who helped him with the exit
• • 06:43 – MTechRepair bought iHeart Repair
  • 07:12 – Josh did the Wordpress site for iHeart Repair
  • 07:35 – Josh installed Woocommerce in iHeart Repair’s site
• 08:30 – Josh shares what happened after the exit
• 08:50 – Josh shares how he met Sheel
• • 09:10 – Josh had a dream that he was going to have a podcast
• 09:30 – Josh shares how he met Spencer Handly of Blab
• 09:52 – The start of the daily hunt
• 10:45 – Josh shares how Sheel approached him
• 11:25 – The advertisers in the podcast are the main revenue stream
• 12:00 – Nathan asks Josh for his feedback regarding promoting his product
• 12:49 – Josh plans to stay in their business model
• 12:54 – Average revenue for Season 1 of The Pitch Podcast
• 13:11 – Season 2 pre-sold revenue
• • 13:30 – There are 2 advertisers per show
• 14:15 – 250K total downloads for Season 1
• 14:42 – The idea of Season 2
• 15:13 – The amount Josh spent on his Facebook ad trial
• 15:31 – Press is the most successful growth channel for The Pitch Podcast
• 16:07 – If Season 2 flops, Josh would stop the podcast
• 16:25 – Nathan makes an offer to Josh
• 18:51 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• The services market is tedious and requires a thorough study.
• If you don’t see your future in it – put an END to it.
• Do NOT hesitate to create more and put it out there.

Resources Mentioned:

• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Drip – Nathan uses Drip’s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
• Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
• Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
• Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
• The Top Inbox  – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• The Pitch Podcast – Josh’s Podcast
• iHeart Repair – Josh’s previous company
• MTechRepair – The company that purchased iHeartRepair
• Woocommerce – Josh installed this program into iHeartRepair
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Gal Har-Zvi: He’s a passionate entrepreneur who lives and breathes B2B sales, marketing, and everything in between. He’s one of the founders of Valueshine Ventures, the technology holdings company and a successful online marketer for various software categories and verticals. He’s currently the CEO and founder of the company called Unomy.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Pitch Anything
• What CEO do you follow? –  N/A
• Favorite online tool? — Calendly, ZoomUS, Yesware, SalesLoft, Boomerang
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Just do whatever you love and are passionate about and everything will be good”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:42 – Nathan introduces Gal to the show
• 02:14 – Unomy provides sales intelligence solutions
• • 02:27 – Unomy makes money by selling annual subscriptions
• 02:40 – Unomy was launched in 2014
• • 02:53 – Raised capital after 6 months
  • 03:00 – Launched the current version focused on enterprise sales a year ago
• 03:25 – First year revenue
• 04:05 – Unomy currently changed their business model because the first one was not successful
• 04:21 – 2015 revenue
• 04:36 – 2016 revenue goal
• 05:03 – Unomy currently has mid-market businesses, but gradually switching to larger accounts
• 05:36 – Average customer pay annually
• 05:49 – Average number of current customers
• 05:58 – Unomy has currently raised capital
• • 06:08 – Unomy did a seed round and a few convertible notes
  • 06:18 – Unomy is going to raise a Series A
• 06:39 – Gal shares why they are raising capital
• 06:56 – Unomy’s competitors are raising capital as well
• 07:21 – Unomy will probably raise $5-6M
• 07:40 – Unomy’s valuation
• 08:33 – In any round, a founder should expect to lose anywhere between 25-35% of their company
• 09:17 – Gal and Nathan discuss what an average deal is
• 09:45 – There are a lot of VCs in Israel
• 10:20 – Unomy has 3 branches
• 10:48 – Team size is 24
• 10:56 – Gross annual churn
• 11:35 – Customer’s LTV
• 12:02 – CAC
• 13:20 – Number of companies in Unomy’s database
• 13:58 – Gal shares what makes them better than their competitors
• 15:00 – Unomy has a variety of categories
• • 15:30 – Unomy was founded to help sales companies, not investors
• 16:06 – Unomy uses more sources than others
• 17:19 – Unomy has a guarantee and if you get a bounce email, you can get your money back
• • 17:38 – Unomy does real-time verification
• 19:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• In any round, a founder should expect to lose anywhere between 25-35% of their company.
• A company should focus on why it was founded in the first place.
• Do what you love and are passionate about and the rest will take care of itself.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Eric Boggs: He’s the CEO at RevBoss – a sales prospecting SaaS company. RevBoss helps B2B sales teams grow pipelines and win more customers. Prior to RevBoss, he was the founder and CEO at Argyle Social and was a one-man sales team at Bronto Software. Eric is in North Carolina with his wife and 3 small children.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Hard Things About Hard Things
• What CEO do you follow? –  Matt Williamson
• Favorite online tool? –  Stripe
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep? –  No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “To not worry so much about the long term—that things just have a way of working themselves out”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:35 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show
• 02:10 – Eric shares what happened to Argyle
• • 02:42 – Argyle raised $1.5M
  • 03:52 – Argyle’s buyers
• 05:32 – Eric was only 22 when joined he Bronto
• • 05:39 – Eric was a one-man sales team for 2 and half years
  • 06:32 – Eric went to business school after Bronto
  • 07:05 – Bronto is now an Oracle company
• 07:12 – RevBoss is a SaaS company that helps B2B seller relations find more prospects and win more customers
• 07:45 – In between the Argyle wind down and RevBoss, Eric was a consultant for a year
• 08:20 – RevBoss’ competitors
• 09:20 – RevBoss started as a services company and launched in September 2016
• • 09:47 – Building a services business is easy, growing it is hard and turning it into a SaaS business is much harder
• 10:26 – Eric shares the weird things he encounters in the business
• 11:07 – “We’re cannibalizing ourselves a little bit” in the short term, in regards to services revenue vs. recurring Saas revenue
• 12:12 – Average customer pay per month
• 12:28 – Weighted MRR
• 12:39 – RevBoss raised a seed round for $1.1M
• 13:45 – Eric sold 20% of the business for $1.1M
• 14:50 – Total 2015 revenue
• 15:01 – Team size and location
• 15:41 – Projected LTV
• 16:27 – CAC
• • 16:34 – All inbound sales
• 17:20 – Gross churn
• 17:59 – Eric plans for the worst after his experience with Argyle
• 19:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Recurring SaaS revenue will beat out services revenue in the long run.
• Your worst experiences are your greatest teachers.
• Don’t worry too much about the long term—things just have a way of working themselves out.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Episode 543

Summary:

In Episode #543, Nathan interviews Andrei Breaz. He’s the founder and CEO of Bant.io which is a B2B leads company. Before that, he was the founder of Keptify, which was acquired by Well Investments. He also worked as the CTO of Harty Hanks and is highly experienced in the B2B sales space.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Think and Grow Rich
• What CEO do you follow? –  Anthony Robbins and Elon Musk
• Favorite online tool? — Trello
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Andrei wished he would have caught the entrepreneurial bug sooner

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:50 – Nathan introduces Andrei to the show
• 02:25 – Bant initiates conversations for companies with their ideal prospects
• 03:10 – Bant is a service model and not a SaaS model
• 03:47 – Bant is on the prospecting and lead generation stage
• 04:05 – Bant doesn’t sell data
• • 04:10 – Bant uses the data they generate using their own software
  • 04:35 – The distinct data points that Bant uses
• 05:10 – Average customer pay per month is $1200
• • 05:39 – The price reflects a medium plan which is a customized plan
  • 05:44 – There’s 100% money-back guarantee
• 06:00 – Andrei shares their definition of a hot lead
• 07:13 – Bant was launched in early 2015
• 07:30 – Bant is self-funded
• 08:00 – Number of current customers
• 09:08 – MRR
• 09:30 – Andrei is aiming for $1.5M next year
• 09:34 – 2015 total revenue
• 10:10 – Bant’s actual clients
• • 10:25 – Most are SMBs
• 10:50 – Team size and location
• 11:10 – Bant gets their customers from referrals and word of mouth
• 11:30 – Bant ran a $ 200 adword campaign when they started
• 11:41 – Andrei shares Bant’s process
• 12:28 – LTV
• 12:55 – Bant’s CAC is marginal
• • 13:10 – No sales team, but there are account managers
• 14:18 – Monthly gross customer churn
• 15:10 – Bant has their own database and has researchers who validate their leads
• • 15:55 – 8 contractors on research
• 16:03 – 3^rd party data apps that Bant is using including Builtwith
• 16:50 – Andrei shares LinkedIn as one of their main data sources
• 17:15 – Andrei shares his thoughts regarding LinkedIn being acquired by Microsoft
• 18:55 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Do NOT rely on just one large source of data, have a variety of sources.
• Businesses can spend less time hiring the right people if they go through right channels providing the right prospects. 
• Once the entrepreneurial bug bites you—just go for it.

Resources Mentioned:

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

Conor Lee, founder and CEO of HipLead. The company helps leading B2B companies scale their outbound sales with high quality lead generation outbound campaigns. Before founding HipLead, Conor founded several other companies including TellFi which was in the Y Combinator, Winter 2011 batch. Prior to that, he worked as a lobbyist in statewide political campaigns.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
• What CEO do you follow? –  Elon Musk
• Favorite online tool? – Zapier
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep? – No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Conor wished he had spent more time in tech than in politics

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:30 – Nathan introduces Conor to the show
• 02:07 – Conor shares what happened to TellFi
• • 02:58 – Conor had a co-founder who wanted to keep it going
  • 03:19 – Conor shares how the exit happened
• 04:10 – HipLead helps companies scale their outbound sales
• 04:35 – HipLead’s pricing
• 04:55 – Current number of customers is 30
• 05:18 – HipLead was launched in 2013
• 05:30 – Conor is the solo founder, but he had a co-founder for awhile
• 06:25 – Conor has the majority of the shares of the company
• 07:35 – Conor and Nathan discuss cap tables
• 08:00 – Conor hired a lawyer for his legal documents
• • 08:17 – Use the startup attorneys
• 08:31 – HipLead is bootstrapped
• 08:50 – HipLead’s loan
• 09:20 – Conor shares why he got the loan
• 10:00 – Conor shares how the loan works
• • 11:30 – The type of loan is only for specific companies
  • 12:00 – The company name that provides the loan is Lighter Capital and it is based in Seattle
• 12:21 – Annual customer churn: less than 15%
• 12:58 – CAC
• 13:09 – Customer’s LTV
• 14:15 – First year revenue
• 15:40 – 2015 revenue: $900,000
• 15:50 – Current ARR
• 15:59 – Conor is also looking into raising capital
• 16:10 – Team size of 16
• 16:29 – Team location is in San Francisco and other remote locations
• 18:35 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• We need to be more open about exits—there are times where you just have to pull the plug.
• If you need funds and do not want to share equity, try a bank loan.
• Make sure your legal documents are in order, especially in the case of a split from your co-founder.

Resources Mentioned:

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