1420 Joshua Keller He Went Zero to $1m in ARR in 6 Months, Bootstrapped

Joshua Keller is the Founder and CEO of Maximus (https://maximus.live/)

🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show

01:30 – Why their customers pay them $1k per month

02:55 – How they launched the company in 2017

04:00 – Why they have grown to scale by bootstrapping thus far

04:20 – How they have landed 25 total customers

04:50 – Why Maximus is doing $75k in MRR right now

07:00 – How their gross churn is between 2-3% monthly

08:05 – Why their team of 20 full-time employees is based in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Austin, Ukraine, and India

09:20 – The Famous Five

1419 Bill Kahlert "I Don't Know What Logo Churn Means", I Predict They'll Be Dead in <12 Months

Bill Kahlert is the Co-founder of INBOX25 (https://www.inbox25.com/)

🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show

00:15 – Why INBOX25 provides marketing automation and customization

00:35 – How they charge their average customer $300-$400 per month

00:55 – Why he launched the business in 2007

01:40 – How they have grown to serve 4k user and 2k paid customers

03:30 – Why their pricing scales based on the size of your database

04:45 – How they are retaining more than 95% of their customers annually  

06:10 – Why their customers typically stay with them for years on end

06:45 – How INBOX25 thinks about lifetime value and CAC

07:40 – Why they are aiming for payback within 6 months

08:10 – How their team has less than 50 employees

1418 $1m on $10m pre would raise. Would sell for $10m today. Sean Leonard $2.4M ARR Marketing Automation Company CEO Would Sell for $10M Today

Sean Leonard is the CEO and co-founder of ActiveDEMAND (https://www.activedemand.com/)

🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show

0:35 – How ActiveDEMAND functions as a marketing automation platform

1:15 – Why they've decided to feature professional services

1:50 – How the average customer pays them $400 monthly

3:20 – Why he launched the company in 2014 out of an agency

4:40 – How they've scaled to serve 500 agencies

5:00 – Why they are doing between $200k and $300k in MRR

6:00 – How ActiveDEMAND is growing 30% year over year

6:50 – Why they are growing through a land and expand model

7:30 – How they are landing agencies through partner webinars and content marketing

9:40 – Why they spend $800 to land a new customer

11:10 – How they've grown to less than 50 full-time employees in Alberta

11:40 – Why they are planning on raising capital

13:00 – How he would be happy with a $10M pre-money valuation

14:00 – "Would you sell for $10M today?"

15:00 – The Famous Five

1417 Tom Axbey CloudHealth CEO On $500M VMWare Exit, 70% yoy Growth, $50m+ in ARR

Tom Axbey is the President and CEO of CloudHealth Technologies (https://www.cloudhealthtech.com/)

🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show

0:25 – How CloudHealth helps businesses manage visibility, cost management, security, and governance of their cloud infrastructure

1:40 – Why the average customer pays them between $50k and $1M annually

2:10 – How they launched the company in 2012

3:20 – Why they've raised $86M in total capital thus far

4:15 – How CloudHealth has grown to serve 3,500 total customers

4:50 – Why they are doing between $50M and $100M in ARR today

6:30 – How they are growing 70% year over year

6:50 – Why they are at 104% net revenue retention at this point in time

7:45 – How they are targetting a payback period of 6 months

9:40 – The Famous Five

Addicted to mobile products and services after more than 15yrs in different executive roles in media&entertainment, product development for leading publishers and brands with his agency clapp, started tchop as MVP project 3 years ago.

Kermit Kuehn is a Professor of Management at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith, where he teaches strategy, international business and entrepreneurship. He operates Silvrback.com, a subscription blogging platform for writers seeking a less mainstream alternative in their blogging experience, as well as blogplatformsreview.com.

Anda Gansca is the CEO and Co-Founder of Knotch, the leading, independent provider of real-time intelligence for marketers. Founded in 2013, Knotch has been recognized as one of the most innovative marketing technologies in the world, as it seeks to change the way global brands engage and understand their audiences. Amongst Knotch's clients are GE, JP Morgan Chase, Unilever, Prudential and HPE. A regular thought leadership contributor to the trade media and industry at-large, Anda has been named to both Forbes’ and Inc.’s annual 30-Under-30 lists, AdWeek's Young Influential List and AdWeek's Top 100 Creatives, to name a few.

Kyle Sherman is the Founder and CEO of Flowhub and serves on the board of directors as Chairman. A legalization advocate and entrepreneur, Kyle is finding ways to use technology to help drive cannabis legalization forward responsibly in the United States.

In 2014, Kyle began lobbying the Colorado Department of Revenue to build an API to Metrc, the State's cannabis tracking system, so that third parties like Flowhub could send data directly to the database instead of manual entry. This Metrc API is now the standard in more than 7 states.

Kyle continually defines Flowhub's vision, strategy, and growth as Flowhub innovates the way cannabis businesses manage complex compliance mandates, supply chain data, sales transactions, and reporting.

His goal is to simplify business operations, keep companies and government transparent, keep cannabis products off of the black market, and build a robust scalable industry that is approachable for all adults and medical patients. This inherent motivation keeps Kyle and the Flowhub team passionate about providing fanatical customer service, and building delightful products and user experiences.

Darren M. Jer
CEO and Co-Founder

Darren co-founded MarketFactory in 2008 with a vision of providing clean, fast code to the FX market, and is currently CEO.

Prior to founding MarketFactory, Darren led sales and operations in the financial services markets for over a decade. Darren was head of new business sales Americas for EBS / ICAP. Prior to that, he was sales executive for IBM wall street accounts.

Darren earned a BA in English and political science from Duke University.

Outside of MarketFactory, Darren is an active member of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York and All Souls Langham Place in London. When necessary, Darren can hurt a lot of people’s ears at karaoke.

Former consultant to MIcrosoft, GE, GM, American Express and others. Founder of Spokal.

Pierce started his career at Cognos, which went on to be acquired by IBM. Pierce then joined two start-ups that both went on to have successful exits where he led and implemented Marketo. He then founded Revenue Pulse, a Marketo consultancy and Knak, a SaaS application for enterprise email creation.

Girish Mathrubootham is the founder and CEO of Freshworks, one of the world’s fastest-growing SaaS product company, winning the Economic Times Startup of the Year in 2016, and the Business Standard Startup of the Year in 2017. Freshworks now has a suite of products for businesses worldwide - Freshdesk, Freshservice, Freshsales, Freshcaller, Freshteam, Freshchat and Freshmarketer.

Girish is part of the Product Council for NASSCOM, the trade association of Indian software companies, and actively works to promote and nurture software product companies. He has invested in several early-stage startups and is passionate about building a global product company. Having set the vision and direction for the company since inception, his focus on Freshworks’ values and its culture have been instrumental in taking the organization to where it is today.

Michael founded Sniply, a link sharing tool, in 2014 and grew the userbase to over 200K within 3 years. Responding to the decline of links and growth of video, Michael's team launched Lumen5, a video automation platform, in 2017 and passed $1 million in ARR within 10 months of launch.

Nate Bolt is the Founder of Ethnio, a 5-person SaaS. Former research manager at Facebook and Instagram, CEO of Bolt | Peters, and faculty at the SVA iXD program. Co-author of Remote Research and once droned the NYPL. Based in LA with wife, son, and two dogs.

David Hassell is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of 15Five. David’s foray into entrepreneurship begun nearly 20 years ago, co-founding three companies in ad tech, kite surfing adventure travel, and leadership coaching before starting 15Five, where he sees the opportunity to help organizations and everyone in them reach their highest potential. David formerly served as the President of the San Francisco chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization and was later named by Forbes “The Most Connected Man You Don’t Know in Silicon Valley.” He’s been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, and Inc.

Chief Executive Officer of ClickDimensions, the leading marketing automation solution for Microsoft Dynamics 365. Mike joined ClickDimensions from PGi, a global provider of web conferencing software and collaboration technology, where he served as Executive Vice President of Strategy and Business Development. In that role, he developed partnerships with some of the biggest players in the technology industry, including Microsoft. Prior to that, he started PGi’s Global Collaboration Services division, growing it from $86 million to $240 million in revenue and serving as a trusted advisor to some of the most recognized brands around the globe.

John is the founder of GetCredo.com. They take a high touch approach to matching businesses with the right SEO and marketing agencies. John has a decade in SEO, primarily on the largest sites on the internet. He lives in Denver with his wife and their black labrador Butterbean.

Dennis Kelly is CEO of Postalytics, the leading direct mail marketing automation tool. is a 6 time entrepreneur, primarily focused on software & technology. He's been involved in founding, investing and senior management roles in startups such as Genesis Business System, AnyDay.com, Palm Inc., Adjoin Solutions, Computer Associates and others.

Kim is the founder and President of Genoo. Genoo’s products and services over deliver what entrepreneurs, Small, and midsize businesses need to attract leads and grow new customers. Through a comprehensive software-as-a-service offering and “right-sized” professional service offerings, our customers compete and win.

Andy MacMillan is CEO of UserTesting, the leading Human Insights company. Prior to UserTesting he was CEO of Act-On Software and COO, Products at Salesforce. Andy is from the Detroit area and has a B.A. from Michigan State University and an MBA from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland).

Tim's background in software has spanned technical, sales, marketing, and general management in the US, UK, and Japan. Tim started at IBM and went on to a number of successful startups including Illustra ($400M acq), Interwoven ($1B IPO) and BoardVantage ($250M acq). Other experience includes Sybase, Sakkam and Genesys Telecommunications.

I am an Israeli entrepreneur with a specialty in data science; after building several e-commerce sites, I recognized the tremendous need for personalization and the opportunity to fill a niche in the market, and so eventually I arrived at a venture that serves one of my chief passions, utilizing AI and digital automation to create an internet that is more personal and efficient. Since 2008, we at Personyze have been honing and perfecting the tools we use to accomplish that goal, and today I am happy to say we have created one of the most versatile and powerful personalization solutions on the market.

Recognizing the early trend for insurtech innovation in 2013, Jason co-founded Limelight Health to deliver better data integration and sales efficiency for insurance carriers, PEO’s, brokers and others in the employee benefits ecosystem.

Limelight's award-winning technology, QuotePad™, aims to transform the way health insurance and employee benefits are quoted, sold and renewed.

Jason is a serial entrepreneur advising numerous Silicon Valley startups, also volunteering in the industry/community.

Neil Napier is a charismatic leader of people. He empowers people to spread their wings and develop their super-powers. Neil cares about his customers like nobody else and is available for them more than his wife would prefer. He loves to teach and goes the extra mile to enable success.

Randy Wootton is the CEO of Percolate. Randy has been a leader and strategic innovator in the marketing technology industry for over 20 years.

Prior to Percolate, he served as CEO of leading predictive marketing platform Rocket Fuel, where he re-positioned the company and led its sale to Sizmek. During his career, Randy has held senior positions at Microsoft and Salesforce. He serves on the Board of Directors at Guidant Financial and Rally Point Networks and is a graduate of Harvard Business School, St. John’s College and the U.S. Naval Academy.