Susan Hunt Stevens is the Founder/CEO of WeSpire. She is a recognized expert in the use of social and game mechanics to drive positive behavior change and was named an EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2015. Previously she was GM/SVP at the New York Times Company, leading a large regional digital media division.
Dorin Rosenshine is the founder & CEO of Outleads, a Microsoft Accelerator company. Outleads enables brands to engage customers with online advertising and relevant content based on offsite and offline data.
Dorin has over a decade of experience in optimizing the digital presence for firms in a variety of industries, from consumer electronics to home improvement. Her work ranged from business identity to web application development, online ad budget management, and landing page optimization. A self-taught developer, designer, and copywriter, she has served as head of marketing as well as IT.
Dorin lives in New York City and loves everything about it, particularly Central Park.
I'm the CEO and Co-founder of Sleeknote.
I live in Denmark with my wife and three kids.
Besides running Sleeknote I'm also an international keynote speaker.
Casey Zeman is the founder of EasyWebinar. Casey has consulted such companies as Harper Collins, Estee Lauder and Dell on video/webinar strategies and has built his own multi-million dollar software business. His mission is to help a million experts spread their message, sell their program and leverage their time through automation and engagement using his tools.
Nazzareno Gorni is the CEO of MailUp Group (https://mailupgroup.com/en/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
0:45 – How MailUp has been built as a business messaging company
1:45 – Why they are doing more than €35M in ARR right now
2:05 – How they are growing 35% year over year
2:30 – Why their ideal customers are marketers and developers
3:40 – How MailUp has grown to serve 20k customers
4:20 – Why they have started to move upmarket
5:10 – How he launched the company in 2002
5:30 – Why they launched with just €15k in self-funding
5:48 – How they raised €3M when they IPO'd
6:40 – Why they went public to fund acquisitions
8:30 – How their team has grown to 170 employees in Italy, Spain, Denmark, and the U.S.
9:15 – How they optimize for payback within 6 to 7 months
9:50 – Why they created BEEfree.io out of an accident
10:40 – How 3k companies are using BEEfree for over $1M in ARR
12:00 – The Famous Five
Yoa Pridor is the CEO of Buzzilla (https://www.buzzilla.com/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
0:40 – How Buzzilla has been built as a social listening tool
1:20 – Why they offer both SaaS and professional services
1:40 – How 60% of their revenue comes from SaaS today
2:45 – Why people are paying $500 per seat, each month on average
3:15 – How they''ve grown to serve small enterprises
4:15 – Why the average customer is between three and ten seats
4:25 – How they launched the business in 2010 with $1.6M in total funding
4:55 – Why they've grown 40% in the last 12 months
5:30 – How Buzzilla landed almost 300 total companies
6:00 – Why they are doing around $400k in MRR right now
6:25 – How growth has come mostly from new customers thus far
8:45 – Why they've expanded to help governments monitor senitment
9:20 – How they are at 110% net revenue retention annually
10:15 – Why they are landing new customers through word of mouth and online marketing
10:45 – How their team has grown to 25 full-time employees in Israel
11:10 – Why they assume a lifetime value of around $65k over 42 months
12:00 – How their SaaS margins are around 80% with 40% margins on their professional services
12:25 – Why they aren't interested in raising additional capital at this point in time
13:10 – "Would you sell for $20M right now?"
13:35 – The Famous Five
Zee Aganovic is CEO of HiConversion (https://www.hiconversion.com/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
0:25 – How HiConversion helps improve the buying experience on eCommerce sites
1:30 – Why the average customer pays them $5k per month
2:30 – How they launched the current version of the company in 2014
3:15 – Why they self-funded before raising $10M from institutional investors
4:15 – How their last round of $3.5M came last year
5:15 – Why several hundred customers are using their platform right now
5:45 – How HiConversion has built numerous strategic partnerships
6:45 – Why 100 companies are paying to use their platform today
7:40 – How they've grown 10x in the last twelve months
9:05 – Why they've scaled to 27 full-time employees
11:10 – Why they are aiming for payback within one month
13:00 – How they've hit 10% gross revenue churn per year
13:45 – The Famous Five
Tim Valishev is the CEO of JivoChat (https://www.jivochat.com/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
0:30 – How they help customers better convert using chatbots
1:00 – Why they are north of $5M in ARR right now
2:55 – How their growth has accelerated in emerging markets
2:00 – Why they have grown to serve 230k websites worldwide
2:30 – How the average customer pays JivoChat around $13 per month
3:00 – Why they are different from Drift and Intercom
4:00 – How they have incorporated the calling-in feature
5:20 – Why they launched the company in January 2012
6:50 – How he landed his first 10 customers through existing relationships
8:10 – Why they are exhibiting 45% logo churn annually
9:45 – How they've scaled to 32k paying customers
10:15 – Why they are landing 20k new sign-ups per month
11:15 – How JivoChat is growing via word of mouth
14:00 – Why they spent $300k to break into the Brazilian market
16:00 – How their team of 120 is remotely distributed
16:45 – Why he wants to remain bootstrapped
17:40 – The Famous Five
Deidre Paknad is the CEO and co-founder of Workboard (https://www.workboard.com/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
0:25 – How Workboard has been built to help companies acheive their stragtegic priorities faster
1:20 – Why the average customer is around $125k annually
1:45 – How they launched the company in 2014
2:45 – Why they've raised $12M in total capital thus far
4:45 – How they've landed 50 enterprise customers
5:15 – How they are doing around $520k in MRR today
6:30 – Why they decided to upsell based on number of seats
7:30 – How they are aiming for a 6 month payback period going forward
8:45 – Why they are hitting 140% net revenue retention
11:0 – How they are professional services and coaching to drive stickiness
12:20 – Why they are landing deals for around $17k with payback right away
13:35 – How their team of 55 is based in the Bay Area
14:15 – Why they aren't looking to raised until April 2019
15:00 – How she would view a $100M acquisition right now
15:50 – Why they are looking for a four month ramp period on their sales team
16:50 – The Famous Five
Michael Kamleitner is the CEO of Walls.io (https://walls.io/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
0:40 – How he runs two companies of roughly the same size
1:00 – Why they've built Walls.io as a social media marketing tool
1:45 – How the average customer pays around $225 today
2:20 – Why they launched the company in 2014 and bootstrapped thus far
2:40 – How 500 customers are using their product today
3:50 – Why they are doing around $110k in MRR
4:05 – How they've grown 70% from around $70k in MRR twelve months ago
4:45 – Why churn is naturally high
6:55 – How he made the decision to run two companies in parallel
8:55 – Why their other product is an enterprise social media scheduling tool
9:15 – "Would you sell for $3M today?"
9:45 – How he is interested in spliting the company and raising capital
10:25 – Why they are having success in content marketing and paid advertising
11:45 – How they are paying around 100 euros to land a new customer
12:20 – Why they aren't spending more money on paid acquisition
12:55 – How their team is headquartered in Vienna
13:30 – The Famous Five
Scott Shatford is the CEO of AirDNA (https://www.airdna.co/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
0:30 – How Scott built AirDNA to fill his own need
1:10 – Why they are pulling in data from property managers and individual users
2:05 – How Scott used corporate leases to his advantage
3:15 – Why he launched AirDNA in 2014
3:50 – How he makes the decision to purchase or lease
5:20 – Why he factors in regulation risk and seasonality demand when making decisions
7:00 – How AirBnB is maximizing experiences for customers
8:00 – Why the average customer pays $50 per month
8:10 – How he founded the company with his dad
8:20 – Why their team of 34 is spread between Denver and Barcelona
9:00 – How they've bootstrapped the company to 5k active paid subscribers
9:30 – Why they are doing around $375k in MRR right now
10:00 – How they've more than doubled year over year
10:40 – Why they've struggled with retention to date
11:20 – How they are churning 20% of logos each month
12:45 – Why they don't spend anything on customer acquisition
14:10 – How to get smarter around pricing your property
15:10 – Why they are scraping 10M properties every single day
16:10 – How AirBnB is approaching $100M in transcation volume per day
16:30 – The Famous Five
JP Narowski is the CEO of KarmaCRM (https://www.karmacrm.com/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
0:25 – How KarmaCRM has been built as a niche CRM for professional speakers
0:45 – Why the average customer pays around $50 per month
1:20 – How he launched the company in 2011
1:30 – Why they are doing around $30k in MRR right now
1:45 – How they've grown 50% year over year
1:55 – Why they've grown with just $100k in outside funding
3:20 – How they've scaled to a team of 4 full-time employees
4:00 – Why they landed their first customers through organic channels
4:40 – How they target a CAC of $300 with payback in 6 months
5:30 – Why speakers love their pre-populated email templates and language within the product
6:15 – How they've gotten to 5% gross logo churn per month
7:10 – Why they assume an LTV of $1k over 20 months
7:35 – How they are looking to scale their business with partnerships
9:15 – Why they are looking to publish more content around the speaking niche
9:55 – How he views the future of the company
10:40 – Why he is using his free time to run a family eCommerce business
11:20 – How he would view a $500k acquisition offer
11:55 – The Famous 5
Greg Soper is the CEO of SalesAgility (https://www.salesagility.com/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
0:30 – Why IT is heavily constrained with delivering value
2:00 – How competitive businesses leverage open source software
3:15 – Why some companies don't have enough capital to optimize out of the box software
3:55 – How they have built their business on top of an open source CRM
4:30 – Why they've had 1M downloads in the last 5 years
5:00 – How they make money doing consulting for their open source platform
5:45 – Why SalesAgility charges for hosting and usage
7:00 – How they are enabling businesses to own their data
7:30 – Why they are providing an alternative to cloud solutions
8:25 – How consulting is a large part of their business
9:50 – Why the average customer is paying them $10-15 per seat monthly
11:50 – How they are planning to launch a new SaaS product soon
12:30 – Why their SaaS product is subsidizing development
13:00 – How they've grown to serve 100 companies today
13:20 – Why they don't make their SaaS offering free
14:30 – How they are doing $5M in annual revenue overall
14:45 – Why their team of 40 full-time employees are based in Scotland
15:30 – How they've grown to scale by bootstrapping
16:00 – Why they are focusing on both SaaS and consulting
19:00 – The Famous 5
Richard Jones is the CEO of The Wayin Platform (https://www.wayin.com/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
0:25 – How Wayin helps 150+ enterprise customers create interactice experiences
1:20 – Why they collect explicitly shared data
2:40 – How they provide many different mechanisms for engagement
5:25 – Why they don't own or share the data they collect
5:45 – How the average customer pays them $65k annually
7:10 – Why they are doing $10M+ in ARR right now
7:30 – How he launched the company in 2011
8:20 – Why he still has meaningful equity after merging and becoming CEO
8:55 – How they've grown to 72 full-time employees internationally and in the U.S.
9:25 – Why they are growing 62% year over year
9:50 – How their growth is coming from both new customers and expansion
10:30 – Why they are driving 125% net revenue retention annually
12:45 – How they are spending 2% of their revenue on marketing
Max Israel is Founder & CEO of Customerville (https://www.customerville.com/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
0:30 – Why Max founded the company 15 years ago to scratch his own itch
1:30 – How he grew the business without venture capital
2:20 – Why they made the decision to pivot eight years ago
3:05 – How the average customer pays them $250k annually
4:05 – Why they decided to maintain bootstrapped
4:30 – How they funded the business with a small retail chain
5:30 – Why they serve more than 50 customers globally
6:00 – How they are doing around $1M in MRR right now
7:30 – Why they are growing 50%+ year over year
8:50 – How they've kept gross logo churn below 10% annually
10:00 – Why they are focusing on driving expansion revenue with new features going forward
10:15 – How their team has grown to around 40 full-time employees
10:45 – Why they spent up to $400k on Google AdWords in the past
12:10 – How they are evaluating new plans for growing their sales team
13:00 – Why they aren't in acquisition talks right now
14:00 – The Famous Five
Alex Raymond is the co-founder and CEO of Kapta (https://kapta.com/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
0:25 – How Kapta helps account management teams get increase visibility
1:20 – Why companies pay them between $25k and $100k annually
2:05 – How they launched the company in 2016 as an employee engagement platform
3:35 – Why 30 customers are using Kapta right now
4:45 – How they are connecting directly into CRMs and financial systems
5:20 – Why they are doing north of $60k in MRR
6:10 – How they've more than doubled revenue year over year
7:20 – Why they've raised $1.5M in total capital
8:00 – How they've gotten to 110% net revenue retention annually
9:30 – Why they are starting to get annual payment upfront
10:00 – How they are spending less than $10k to land a new deal
10:50 – Why Kapta has scaled to three full-time employees in Boulder
11:45 – How they would look to raise $3-5M in a Series A in 2019
13:15 – The Famous Five
Michael Beebe is CEO of Dstillery (https://dstillery.com/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
00:20 – Why they help unlock brand's growth potential through data science and insights
01:20 – How they are fueling their offering with top advertising performers
02:10 – Why they are creating unique audiences based on limited information
03:20 – How they have created a competitive advantage with behavioral data
04:30 – Why they are still selling a data product on a CPM basis
05:20 – How they spend on revenue share or CPM model
06:00 – Why they are charging 20% regardless of the advertising platform
08:45 – How they have raised $60M with the most round coming in 2018
10:00 – Why they are building a pure-play SaaS product right now
10:45 – How starting out on a consulting basis can have a massive impact on launching a SaaS business
11:50 – Why they are taking up to 50% for every dollar spent on their platform
12:30 – How they have process $50M+ in transaction volume this year
12:50 – The Famous Five
Mickey Patton is President and CEO of Clear C2 (https://www.clearc2.com/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
0:30 – How they launched the company as an electronic rolodex
0:55 – Why they are built as a CRM for manufacturers
1:35 – How they average customer pays them $60 per seat monthly
2:20 – Why Mickey joined the company to launch the software division
3:00 – How they've scaled to 50 full-time employees
3:40 – Why they are working with 450 total customers today
4:30 – How they are serving around 100,00 total seats
5:20 – Why they put their sales teams on annual quotas
6:15 – How they exhibiting less than 10% gross logo churn annually
7:25 – Why they are transitioning to a more user-friendly model
8:55 – How they are paying around $10k to land a new customer right now
11:25 – How they are doing more than $3M in ARR
12:30 – Why they are growing 60% year over year
13:00 – Why they are past $5M in ARR
13:20 – The Famous Five
Craig is the founder and CEO of SalesNexus (https://salesnexus.com/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
0:40 – Why he transitioned to SaaS
1:00 – How SalesNexus has grown to scale by bootstrapping
1:15 – Why the average customer pays them $150-$200 each month
1:30 – How he launched the company back in 2003 as a side-hustle
2:30 – Why they have grown to serve 5,000 total customers today
3:00 – How they manage implementation in-house to drive customer success
3:50 – Why SalesNexus is doing $3.5M in ARR
5:20 – How they added marketing automation features to increase pricing
5:55 – Why they have scaled from $3.25M in ARR 12 months ago
6:20 – How the average customer stays with them for 5 years
7:35 – Why driving customization leads to stickiness for SalesNexus
8:20 – How they are landing new customers via online advertising
9:15 – Why they are spending $300 in CAC right now
10:20 – How their team has grown to 20 full-time employees in Houston
11:10 – Why they are cash flow positive today
11:30 – How Craig still seems room for growth today
13:50 – The Famous Five
Alexander Hoogewijs is the CEO of SiteManager (https://www.sitemanager.io/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
0:40 – Why SiteManager has found a niche serving freelance web designers and small agencies
1:40 – How the typical customer pays them $105 each month
2:35 – How they serve 138 customers with 350 total users
3:10 – Why SiteManager is doing $14k in MRR right now
3:30 – How they are landing customers via outbound sales
4:20 – Why most of their team is based in Belgium and remote
4:45 – How their gross monthly revenue churn is around 1% today
5:30 – Why they raised more than $850k in outside funding
7:20 – How they are shooting for $60k in MRR within the next year
8:00 – Why they are paying $1,400 in CAC today
8:55 – Why they are spending most of their cash on their sales teams and onboarding
9:30 – The Famous Five
1422 Nicolas Vandenberghe How He Drove $300k Expansion on $1m ARR Cohort in 12 Months
Nicolas Vandenberghe is the CEO of Chili Piper (https://www.chilipiper.com/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
0:35 – Why they help businesses close more sales
2:10 – How the average customer pays them around $10k annually
3:55 – Why customers are pairing this technology with SDR's
5:05 – How they launched the company in January of 2016
5:20 – Why more than 200 customers are using their software today
6:10 – How they are at $2M in ARR right now
6:30 – Why they have hit net negative revenue churn annually
8:10 – How a majority of their growth has come from driving expansion revenue
8:35 – Why they have decided to bootstrap up to this point
9:35 – How they recieve payback
10:20 – Why the Chili Piper team has grown to 14 full-time employees
11:00 – How they are receiving payback within one month
14:40 – Why he would look to raise $5M at a pre-money valuation of $40M
15:35 – The Famous Five
1421 Michal Sadowski How He IPO'd $2m ARR Company on Polish Exchange
Michal Sadowski is the Founder & CEO of Brand24 (https://brand24.com/)
🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show
00:24 – Why Brand24 now serve 2k customers each month
03:35 – How their average customer pays them $100 monthly
04:35 – Why they are doing $2.4M in ARR
05:05 – How they launched the company back in 2011
05:15 – Why their team of 65 full-time employees is based in Poland
05:45 – How they've grown to scale with just $300k in venture capital
08:40 – Why they are up from $1.8M in ARR twelve months ago
12:20 – How Brand24 is exhibiting 5% to 7% gross logo churn per month
13:21 – Why they are landing new customers for $280 in CAC
13:45 – How they assume an LTV of $1,500 over 15 months
14:00 – The Famous Five