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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: 2017
Nov 30, 2017

Rob Frohwein. Back in 2008, he recognized that companies like eBay offered automated access to small business transactional data via APIs. He also realized that small businesses could simply share this data to allow underwriters to make better, faster credit decisions and provide a great user experience. Because of that, he co-founded Kabbage in Atlanta, Georgia, to leverage the power of real-time data automation through technology. The company has since expanded to serve all small businesses throughout the U.S., providing billions of dollars to more than 100,000 customers.

Nov 29, 2017

Tom Coburn. He’s the cofounder and CEO of Jebbit. He left Boston College to pursue the company and is currently in the Forbes 30 under 30 list. He’s also the cofounder of Enjoy Life Education, a non-profit that empowers teens to be the best versions of themselves, and SSC Ventures which invests in Boston College entrepreneurs.

Nov 28, 2017

 Zach Benson. He’s the cofounder and CEO of Assistagram and he’s one of the standouts in the world of online entrepreneurship, especially, influencer marketing. He’s a TedX speaker, social media trainer for international brands like The 4 Seasons, Ritz Carlton and Vice Roy. He was a past participant on “So You Think You Can Dance”. He doesn’t only manages his own Instagram network of millions, he’s also guiding other influencers and Fortune 500 companies through Assistagram to social media success.

Nov 27, 2017

Nadim Hossain. He has over 17 years of experience in building marketing and selling cloud applications. Prior to founding BrightFunnel, he was VP of marketing at Power Reviews, paving the way for a $170M exit. He was also the marketing executive at Salesforce from 2007-2010. He has a BA from Cornell and an MBS from Stanford.

Nov 26, 2017

Greg Harris. His company is Quantum Workplace and he started with a vision to create tangible measures for leadership strength inside of companies. His company surveyed tools for measuring employee engagement and recognizing the best places to work. It’s grown into an engagement platform that talent-minded companies use now to accelerate performance.

Nov 25, 2017

Harpreet Singh. He’s one of the cofounders of Kvantum. He’s in a lot of positions based in data science including big companies like Target and Sapient.

Nov 24, 2017

Garrett Moon. He’s the CEO and founder of CoSchedule, the web’s most popular marketing calendar and the fastest growing startup in North Dakota. As a thought leader, Garrett has been blogging and speaking about content marketing, social media marketing, and startup businesses for more than six years.

Nov 21, 2017

Max Percherskyi. He’s a passionate SaaS entrepreneur whose mission is to connect professional SaaS companies and startup hubs to help them form long-term relationships and good, win-win partnerships. Currently, he’s connecting angel institutional investors, cofounders, exceptional talent and partner companies across three different countries to make the PromoRepublic ventures succeed at a global scale. Prior to cofounding PromoRepublic, he worked in marketing agencies for ten years and was responsible for business development, digital marketing and sales.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Top 101 Growth Hacks
  • What CEO do you follow? – Jason Lemkin
  • Favorite online tool? — WorkFlowly
  • 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? – Max would tell himself that not all people will love him

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:37 – Nathan introduces Max to the show
  • 02:22 – PromoRepublic is a social media content automation tool that helps SMBs create their social media presence
  • 02:38 – PromoRepublic is a SaaS business
  • 02:45 – Pricing starts at $15 a month for an annual package
  • 02:55 – ACV is $20 a month
  • 03:00 – Max was in Episode 403
  • 03:27 – PromoRepublic will soon have a $100 plan
  • 03:53 – CAC is now $150-170
  • 04:18 – Paid channels spend varies every month
  • 04:33 – Affiliate network is the one that is working now
  • 05:28 – PromoRepublic has raised $1.85M in total
  • 06:12 – Team size is 22
  • 06:26 – PromoRepublic has 3 offices
  • 07:30 – PromoRepublic hired a sales guy to sell their high value plans
    • 08:29 – There’s commission for every plan sold
  • 10:00 – PromoRepublic has around 5,500 customers, 3000 are from AppSumo
  • 10:32 – Most of the customers from AppSumo just bought the product; some are active, some aren’t
  • 12:33 – Last month’s MRR was $20K
  • 12;54 – Logo churn is around 5.8%
  • 14:07 – 2016 revenue was €110K
  • 14:33 – 2017 total revenue will be around $300K
  • 15:08 – PromoRepublic is going to receive a grant and will take an additional loan
  • 17:25 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Your team size must align with your profitability.
  2. Paid advertising takes time—test to see which ads will work the best.
  3. Use your capital wisely.

 

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
Nov 20, 2017

Sravish Sridhar. He’s the VP and General Manager at Kinvey Progress and was previously the CEO and founder of Kinvey before it was acquired by Progress. He’s also an angel investor in multiple startups with successful exits.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm
  • What CEO do you follow? – Matt Barbey
  • Favorite online tool? — If This Then That
  • 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? – “I would never become a movie actor”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:50 – Nathan introduces Sravish to the show
  • 02:18 – Kinvey’s acquisition closed on June 1st and was announced on June 28th
  • 02:30 – Kinvey does “backend as a service”, which is a term that they coined
  • 02:58 – Schneider Electric has a lot of apps that are used to interact with its hardware, employees and customers
    • 03:13 – Kinvey is in charge of the backend features that an app needs
  • 03:44 – “We make every frontend developer become a backend developer”
    • 03:55 – Developers don’t have to learn the backend processes, they can simply drag and drop
  • 04:07 – Kinvey has three types of customers:
    • 04:10 – First, those who are building apps as a hobby or trial and pay nothing up to $200 a month
    • 04:22 – Second, business edition customers who pay an average of $24K a year per application
    • 04:44 – Lastly, enterprise edition customers who pay around 6 figures a year
    • 05:03 – ACV is around $80K to $90K
  • 05:24 – When Sravish came up with the idea for Kinvey, he knew it should be a venture-backed company
    • 05:46 – Sravish funded the initial capital of $150K
    • 06:06 – Kinvey has raised over $15M before the acquisition
  • 06:30 – It took Kinvey 15 month to launch their product
    • 06:43 – In the second year, they started to build their revenue
    • 07:10 – In 2013, they were doing high 6-figures in revenue
    • 07:24 – They broke their million dollar mark in 2014
  • 07:54 – Sravish invested in startups to learn strategies and build his financial portfolio
  • 09:20 – Sravish has three things he looks for when investing in a startup:
    • 09:22 – The team’s relationship with each other
    • 09:39 – The space of the startup
    • 09:55 – The potential he has to help the startup to grow
  • 10:40 – Kinvey has over 50 enterprise customers
  • 12:54 – The acquisition of Kinvey by Progress was for $50M
  • 13:13 – Sravish shares how the board and himself decided on the acquisition
  • 14:40 – Sravish’s discussion with Progress
  • 15:43 – Team size prior to acquisition was 44 and everyone stayed after the acquisition, current team size is 65-70
  • 16:00 – Kinvey had multiple offers and it took them 2-3 months to decide
  • 16:40 – Progress matched the best offer
  • 17:00 – Kinvey and Progress are both based in Boston
  • 17:58 – Kinvey had direct sales models and enterprise sales reps
  • 18:10 – CAC is $95K to $100K and LTV is $2.1-2.2M
  • 18:33 – Payback period is 13-14 months
  • 19:04 – Kinvey has 98% retention rate
  • 20:40 – Progress has been thoughtful with their employees’ restricted stock units (RSU)
  • 23:40 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Choose the deal that will be a great fit for the long-term.
  2. Always consider the company and, most importantly, your team’s future when making decisions.
  3. Investing isn’t just about the financial gains, it’s about your ability to believe in and help a company grow and succeed.

 

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
Nov 19, 2017

Chris Savage. He’s the CEO and cofounder of Wistia, a leading video platform that enables business teams to harness the connective power of video. They help over 400K businesses connect better with their customers using video as the medium.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Masters of Doom
  • What CEO do you follow? – Ben Chestnut
  • Favorite online tool? — Quip
  • 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? – “Persistence is the difference between success and failure”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:51 – Nathan introduces Chris to the show
  • 02:17 – Wistia is a SaaS business
  • 02:20 – Wistia is a platform where you can upload your videos and customize them for your site
  • 02:49 – Wistia charges based on the number of videos
  • 02:55 – ACV is $100 a month and it’s 25 cents per video
  • 03:38 – Wistia is already 11 years old
  • 04:09 – Wistia didn’t make money their first year
  • 05:08 – Chris and his cofounder needed at least 15K a month to live
  • 05:55 – Wistia made a mistake when they weren’t charging based on the storage
  • 06:35 – Chris explains their decision to change their pricing
  • 07:04 – Gross margin is in the 70s
  • 07:43 – Total number of customers
  • 08:00 – Wistia still has a free trial for 3 videos
    • 08:05 – There are a few hundred thousand free users
  • 09:21 – One the best things Wistia offers is inspirational and useful content for free accounts
  • 10:05 – Wistia gets 15% of direct, attributable conversion from free accounts
  • 10:30 – Wistia has raised two rounds with a total of $1M
  • 11:09 – “We are very focused on long-term”
  • 11:29 – Chris wants Wistia to be less complex for users
  • 12:27 – Customer churn is 1.6% a month
  • 12:47 – On a unit economic basis, Wistia is consistently expanding
  • 13:11 – LTV is approaching $5K
  • 13:20 – CAC
  • 16:00 – Stretch goal in December of 2017
    • 16:09 – Wistia is focused on profitability
  • 17:06 – Wistia is doing a more than million dollars a month in revenue
  • 17:22 – Wistia has raised less than what they’re making monthly
  • 18:50 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Changing the price of your product won’t necessarily equate to profitability—balance is the key.
  2. Converting customers from free to paid takes a lot of testing and patience.
  3. Persistency is the difference between success and failure.

 

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
Nov 18, 2017

Roy Mann. He’s a career entrepreneur, artist and 3D printing enthusiast. His experience is in the field of product development and marketing and before co-founding dapulse, Roy was part of Wix’s senior management team, which is a big, runway success. Prior to joining Wix, he founded the online social game, Save an Alien.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
  • What CEO do you follow? – Avishai Abrahami
  • Favorite online tool? — FullStory
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7-8
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Whatever you learn, you learn—and in the end, we all die”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:50 – Nathan introduces Roy to the show
  • 02:27 – dapulse is a tool for managing operations for teams
  • 02:38 – dapulse is a SaaS product
  • 02:40 – dapulse has a free trial of 14 days
  • 02:52 – ACV
  • 04:00 – Roy was in Episode 404 of The Top
  • 04:06 – Team size is 70
    • 04:14 – 1/3 is in engineering and they’re expecting to grow to 100 this year
    • 04:40 – Most of the team are in Israel and some are in the USA
  • 05:00 – dapulse currently has 15K customers
  • 05:15 – dapulse raised $25M at the start of 2017
    • 05:34 – They’ve raised a total of $34M
  • 06:13 – MRR is over $1M and $13M ARR
  • 06:33 – dapulse is a B2B company, but their approach is like a B2C
    • 07:06 – dapulse aims at individuals who will potentially purchase the product for their team
  • 07:16 – dapulse has spent $1.5M just last month on online ads
  • 07:45 – CAC
  • 08:24 – Payback period
  • 09:37 – dapulse’s campaign can attract a high number of customers
  • 10:27 – Roy wants to build a product that fits everyone
  • 10:42 – dapulse has a negative net revenue churn
  • 11:18 – Monthly logo churn is between 1.5% to 2%
    • 12:13 – Churn is calculated on the top line
  • 13:48 – dapulse has -.05 net revenue churn
  • 14:20 – dapulse sells to large companies through their Instagram ads
  • 15:40 – dapulse doesn’t give an incentive for those who post about their user experience
  • 16:47 – 2017 ARR goal is $17M
  • 17:21 – December 2016 ARR is $6.5M
  • 18:10 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. A B2C approach can still get you customers, even if you’re B2B company.
  2. If people gain value from your product and enjoy it, they will share about it.
  3. We all make mistakes, just make sure you learn and move on.

 

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
Nov 17, 2017

Mark Organ. He’s the founder and CEO of Influitive, helping companies mobilize their advocates to produce massive increases in referral leads, reference calls, social media participation and more. He revolutionized B2B marketing and the founding CEO of Eloqua, the world leader in marketing automation software, which was acquired by Oracle for $871M. In between, he was the go-to marketing consultant for SaaS companies in North America and Asia. 

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Getting to Yes
  • What CEO do you follow? – Dara Khosrowshahi
  • Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn
  • 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? – “How important it was to build new relationships with people”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:40 – Nathan introduces Mark to the show
  • 02:17 – Mark left Eloqua even before the acquisition
    • 03:25 – It was the VCs that pushed Mark to leave
    • 03:54 – Mark still had a great exit from the company
  • 04:10 – Influitive helps companies grow by getting more value out of their happy customers
  • 04:46 – Mark saw the importance of mobilized customers when he was still in Eloqua
  • 05:13 – Influitive created communities where companies invite their customer advocates
  • 05:51 – ACV is $50K annually
  • 06:10 – Influitive currently has 270 customers
  • 06:33 – ARR is close to $10M
  • 06:51 – it would take 4-5 years for Influitive to reach their $100M ARR mark
  • 07:02 – Influitive was founded in 2010
  • 07:21 – Influitive has raised $50M
    • 08:09 – Mark shares why he had to raise
  • 09:13 – Influitive’s growth is faster than Eloqua’s
  • 09:40 – 2016 revenue
  • 10:05 – Influitive is averaging more than 50%, year-over-year growth
  • 10:50 – Influitive is cash flow positive on some months
  • 11:08 – Team size is 125 with 8 people in sales
  • 11:22 – “I want all the sales guys to make money”
    • 12:03 – Increased quotas make it impossible for salespeople to hit their numbers
  • 12:55 – CAC is around $40K
  • 14:10 – Payback period is a year to 15 months
  • 17:01 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. VCs are there for a reason, trust them.
  2. Reaching one’s quotas takes a much longer time than it did a decade ago.
  3. Networking and relationships are crucial to your personal and business life.

 

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
Nov 16, 2017

Naveen Gupta. He’s an entrepreneur with experience building startups and growing a hundred million dollar profit and loss statements. Before cofounding BirdEye, which is his current company, he held executive positions at RingCentral, Monster and Yahoo. He’s launched industry-leading products across advertising, consumer search, social media and monetization. He lives in Sunnyvale, California with his wife and two kids.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Predictable Revenue
  • What CEO do you follow? – Brian Halligan
  • Favorite online tool? — Outreach and ZoomInfo
  • 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? – Naveen wished he would have taken more risks and pursued his dreams of starting a company

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:40 – Nathan introduces Naveen to the show
  • 02:19 – BirdEye is the leading SaaS product that helps businesses on their customer journey
  • 02:54 – The two things that drive purchases are customer experience and business ratings
  • 03:20 – BirdEye grows 160%, year-over-year in revenue
  • 03:33 – BirdEye has 25K paying customers
    • 04:40 – Business model is based on location and not per seat
    • 05:20 – On average, a business would have 2-3 locations
  • 05:47 – BirdEye caters from SMBs to enterprise businesses
  • 06:07 – BirdEye has a broad platform which has different functionalities
  • 07:42 – Pricing on SMBs start at $3K and $100K for enterprise per year
  • 08:12 – ACV is around $5K
  • 08:33 – 50% of the revenue is SMB, 30% mid-market enterprise and 20% for channels
  • 09:00 – ACV is per location
  • 09:24 – MRR is close to $2M
  • 10:43 – BirdEye was launched in 2012
    • 10:55 – They came up with the idea after looking for a surgeon with great reviews to take care of their mother
  • 12:07 – BirdEye was initially bootstrapped
  • 12:33 – BirdEye has raised a total of $33M
  • 13:16 – Team size is 170 globally
    • 13:48 – Around 60 are on engineering, 70 on the sales sides and the rest are in different departments
    • 14:30 – BirdEye is investing heavily on hiring the best people
  • 14:45 – CAC is around $1K for a new business
  • 15:05 – Payback period is 3-4 months
  • 15:21 – 60-70% of their contracts are paid up-front, annually
  • 16:00 – Revenue churn
  • 16:11 – Net churn is close to 0.5%
  • 16:28 – BirdEye is still too young to calculate LTV
    • 16:48 – Naveen’s estimate is 3-5 years
  • 17:05 – Paid ads spent annually is $200K
  • 17:55 – Gross margin is 85-90%
  • 18:43 – To acquire new customers, they email potential clients and ask them if they want to know their competitors’ reputations and how they compare to them
  • 19:24 – 2016 ARR was close to $13M and 2017 will be close to $30M
  • 19:37 – 2015 ARR was $5M and 2014 was $1.5M
  • 21:10 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Have a business model that will benefit not just your own company but your customers as well.
  2. Most people rely on business reviews before trying out a product or service.
  3. Hire the best people and you’ll have the best product and provide the best customer experience.

 

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

Nov 15, 2017

David Barrett. He started programming at the early age of 6 and has been aspiring to become an expense report magnate ever since. He attended the University of Michigan where he worked in a virtual reality lab before moving to Texas to render 3D graphics engines for the video game industry. Next, he moved to California to join Travis of Uber in building a peer-to-peer file transfer technology called Red Swoosh, which was acquired by Akamai in 2007. In 2008, David left that company to start Expensify and has since been relieving the world’s frustration one expense report at a time.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Good to Great
  • What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
  • Favorite online tool? — Google Docs
  • 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? – “It is possible for everyone else around you to be wrong and for you to be right”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:46 – Nathan introduces David to the show
  • 02:38 – Expense reports have been overlooked
  • 02:56 – David took the opportunity that will take care of expense reports
  • 03:18 – Expense report is synonymous with any business
  • 03:52 – David shares how his eagerness to help the homeless led him to create an expense report reimbursement app
  • 05:09 – David was in Episode 655 of The Top
  • 05:16 – Expensify isn’t looking to raise another round at the moment as they just raised $25M
  • 05:23 – Expensify is currently profitable and not burning capital
  • 05:27 – Team size is 120
  • 05:33 – Expensify was founded in 2008
  • 06:04 – Expensify currently has 42K customers
  • 06:21 – Expensify also has millions of free users
  • 06:49 – Pricing has a free account which offers 10 receipts a month and a paid account starts at $9 per active user
    • 07:15 – Enterprise plans also start at $9
  • 08:21 – ARR is still under $100M
  • 09:44 – The expansion is the bulk of Expensify’s revenue growth
  • 10:40 – Expensify has a $5 plan for a group
  • 11:10 – Revenue retention is over 100% annually
    • 11:24 – Every 3 years, a customer pays 500% more
  • 12:55 – The most effective strategy to acquire customers is to hand their product to the individual employees and promote it within their own companies
    • 14:14 – David shares how the payment shifts from the employee's personal card to the company’s expenses
    • 16:16 – The target is to share to at least one other person
  • 16:35 – Expensify doesn’t have any paid channels
    • 16:40 – They do lots of conferences which is more for establishing brand leadership
    • 17:25 – They spend a single digit million, annually, for their conference
    • 17:32 – Their conference is ExpensiCon
    • 18:00 – Only 100 selected people can join
  • 19:35 – David believes that the cost of sales doesn’t equate to the cost of customer acquisition
    • 21:38 – The most important decisions are not quantifiable
  • 22:40 – David won’t sell Expensify for $300M
  • 16:10 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Getting your own clients to refer you is the best way to grow your customer base.
  2. The most important decisions for your company are sometimes not quantifiable.
  3. Focus on the best possible brand or product you can offer.

 

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
Nov 14, 2017

Jeremiah Wilson. He founded Convirza over 15 years ago. As the patent-holding inventor of The Maculon, the original, passive, remote conversation monitoring device and sales management system, he shaped the call tracking and marketing analytics industry. He’s positioned the capital raises and recent acquisition.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – 48 Laws of Power
  • What CEO do you follow? – N/A
  • Favorite online tool? — Salesforce 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? – “I wished I believed in myself more”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:51 – Nathan introduces Jeremiah to the show
  • 02:22 – Convirza acquired a portion of their competitor’s assets to expand their customer base
  • 02:56 – Jeremiah shares how they found out about the acquisition
  • 03:29 – Call tracking is what drives the calls
  • 04:00 – Convirza also listens to the calls with machine learning to check the quality of the call
    • 04:46 – If a phrase that the sales agent used didn’t drive conversion, it should be changed
  • 05:00 – Convirza tracks the attribution rate
  • 06:20 – Convirza finds out which billboard led a prospect to call, the cost of the billboard and the actual sales made from those calls
  • 06:54 – Convirza only focuses on where the lead came from and the conversation itself
    • 07:01 – “Our objective is strictly the audio, strictly the call”
  • 07:54 – Convirza is a SaaS business and charges a platform fee plus minutes
  • 08:13 – ACV is around $600K
    • 08:40 – ACV is per business
  • 09:27 – Prior to Convirza, Jeremiah was a national trainer for a company in Ohio and was teaching people how to sell on the phone
    • 10:35 – In 2000, salespeople were looking into live call recordings
    • 11:20 – Jeremiah set-up the stick and the device that could plug into a computer and record calls
    • 12:00 – Jeremiah started with 100 units which cost him $70K
  • 12:20 – Convirza was launched in 2001
  • 13:30 – Convirza had their first client within six months that paid $20K
  • 13:47 – 2010 revenue is $3M
  • 14:05 – Convirza listened to their clients in order to improve their product
  • 14:17 – Convirza has raised $24M in total
    • 14:46 – The investors are private investors
  • 15:55 – Convirza has over a thousand customers
  • 16:09 – Convirza has 50K unique businesses using them
  • 16:42 – 2017 ARR goal is $10M
  • 17:33 – Gross logo churn is 3%
  • 17:44 – Convirza has been focused on having their net negative churn negative for the last 2 years
  • 18:56 – Team size is 66 with 7 in sales and 25 as engineers
    • 19:21 – They have a team of 40 in India who are augmented in their engineering
  • 19:47 – Convirza has an office in Utah and California
  • 20:08 – Pre-acquisition CAC is $1200
  • 21:00 – From the acquisition, they gained around 500 customers (more than double of what they had)
  • 21:23 – LTV is 4 years
  • 21:41 – Convirza’s best source for customers is their webinars
    • 21:52 – They partnered with similar associations and publications in the space to promote their webinars
  • 22:54 – Payback period is 9 months
  • 22:18 – Paid spend was around $6500 in July 2017
  • 24:01 – Gross margin is 60%
  • 24:24 – Convirza built their own platform
  • 26:05 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Acquire a part of your competitor’s assets to grow your own business and customer base.
  2. Having another team in another country can be your secret key to success.
  3. Focus on one specific goal at a 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
Nov 13, 2017

Artem Borodatyuk. He’s the founder of NetPeak Group and cofounder of Seed Fund WannaBiz. He’s focused on the development of B2B SaaS product companies. His first SaaS company was an all-in-one SEO platform for professionals called Serpstat.com, with 2000 customers and 100K users.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – From Third World to First
  • What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
  • Favorite online tool? — Google Spreadsheet
  • 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? – “Find some experienced entrepreneur and mentor”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:44 – Nathan introduces Artem to the show
  • 02:23 – Serpstat was born as a cure to a search tool that was built by Netpeak
  • 03:00 – Netpeak is the biggest SEO agency in Eastern Europe
  • 03:20 – Netpeak currently has 300 projects in 4 markets
  • 03:38 – Netpeak was founded in 2007 and was initially bootstrapped
  • 03:43 – They haven’t raised funds for the agency side of Netpeak
  • 04:27 – 2016 revenue of the agency side of Netpeak was $5-$15M
  • 04:50 – Serpstat was initially created to be used by Netpeak itself
  • 05:35 – In April 2015, Serpstat became independent
  • 07:00 – In 2016, Serpstat received $250K of funding for 15% equity from Digital Future, a local VC fund
  • 07:41 – Serpstat will almost hit their $1M ARR mark
  • 07:58 – July 2017 MRR
  • 08:26 – Igor Gor is Serpstat’s evangelist; he markets their product
  • 08:45 – Team size is 52 in Serpstat with 20 in marketing
  • 09:25 – ACG is $69
  • 09:39 – Total number of customers is between 1000 to 2000 paid customers
  • 10:36 – Serpstat can be paid in monthly payments or a one-time payment
  • 12:03 – Serpstat loses 1-3% of their users monthly
  • 12:40 – CAC
  • 13:50 – LTV
  • 14:20 – Serpstat spends $2K monthly on AdWords and $1K on Facebook Ads
  • 15:04 – Serpstat is based in Ukraine
  • 15:38 – Serstat plans to expand globally soon
  • 16:02 – Gross margin is around 89%
  • 17:23 – In July of 2016, monthly revenue was $20K
  • 17:54 – 2016 revenue is almost $190K
  • 19:30 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Create a product that can be used by your own company; that way you can attest to its usability and value.
  2. Europe offers different recurring payment plans than what is offered in the US.
  3. Take an offered fund as an opportunity to grow your company.

 

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
Nov 12, 2017

Shaul Olmert. He’s the cofounder and CEO of Playbuzz, an award-winning, storytelling platform that empowers publishers, brands, and agencies worldwide to create interactive content for editorial and commercial purposes. The world’s top publishers and brands worldwide use Playbuzz's desktop and mobile-friendly storytelling tools to improve audience engagement, optimize social sharing, increase site traffic and lengthen page-viewing time.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – N/A
  • What CEO do you follow? – N/A
  • Favorite online tool? — Evernote
  • 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? – Shaul would have told himself that everybody else in the world is as clueless as he is

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:40 – Nathan introduces Shaul to the show
  • 02:25 – Playbuzz is a platform that helps make one’s storytelling more compelling and engaging
  • 03:10 – Playbuzz's tools are completely free for publishers
  • 03:20 – Playbuzz currently has tens of thousands of publishers
  • 03:24 – Playbuzz has market leaders using their toolset
  • 03:46 – Playbuzz makes money when publishers opt-in to their monetization program
  • 04:11 – Advertisers want to present their brands to the audience that is listening
  • 04:54 – Playbuzz's revenue is in the dozens of millions on ad spent on the platform
  • 05:18 – Playbuzz's volume is high and consistently growing
  • 06:10 – Playbuzz manages the distribution of the content items which will benefit the publishers as well
  • 07:00 – Nathan summarizes how he understands Playbuzz to work
  • 07:50 – The brands create their content and Playbuzz shares them on their partnered website
    • 08:16 – Playbuzz charges per view
    • 08:35 – The charge depends on how long their content is being viewed or listened to
  • 10:00 – Playbuzz is creating new ways to grow their engagement
  • 10:37 – Playbuzz has two revenue streams
  • 11:53 – Playbuzz has been around for 5 years and has been in the market for 3 years
  • 12:36 – Playbuzz has 2 founders and 170 employees globally
  • 12:54 – Playbuzz has raised a total of $31M
  • 13:40 – Shaul shares what he thinks of Disney’s efforts in advertising
  • 14:43 – “The more value we create, the more our value increases”
  • 14:54 – Playbuzz is still burning capital and scaling up
  • 15:10 – Playbuzz is constantly creating to optimize data
  • 15:36 – The majority of the funds go to engineering, product and data
  • 15:49 – Shaul believes that eventually they will win the war by having superior technology
  • 16:50 – Shaul shares his take on using voice searches for collecting data
    • 17:30 – Shaul is looking to take podcasts to a wider audience
  • 19:15 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Content is KING.
  2. No matter how good your content is, if you can’t share it with an audience, it’s useless.
  3. Voice searches will change how we do advertising, and this change will happen soon.

 

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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