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

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

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

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

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

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

John Nardone. He’s the CEO of Flashtalking, a first generation adtech pioneer. He served as the founding board member of the Internet Advertising Bureau. He’s known for his groundbreaking work at Pepsi, Modern Media and Marketing Management Analytics and received the Adtech Industry Achievement Award in 2012. As CEO at [x+1], he helped transform that business into a top-rated data management platform or DMP. Rocket Fuel acquired the company for $230M in 2014.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Getting Naked
• What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs
• Favorite online tool? — Amazon and eBay
• 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 might have started having kids a little bit sooner”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:52 – Nathan introduces John to the show
• 02:40 – Flashtalking was a partner of [x+1], currently known as Rocket Fuel
• 02:45 – Days after the acquisition, John got an offer to work with Flashtalking
• 03:23 – John decided to give-in to the offer and saw Flashtalking as an opportunity to stay in adtech
• 03:39 – John joined Flashtalking in 2015
• 03:53 – Flashtalking had been around since 2000 and it was bootstrapped by the founders
• 04:25 – Flashtalking came to the US in 2010
• 05:36 – John joined the company, mainly because of his vision and excitement for innovation and marketing
• 06:43 – John has bought a part of the company
• 07:03 – Flashtalking uses real-time data to personalize the communication with each consumer
  • 07:10 – A simple example is retargeting
  • 08:04 – Retargeting can happen on multiple devices
• 08:27 – One of Flashtalking’s clients is Walmart
• 08:56 – Flashtalking analyzes the customer’s behavior on a website
  • 09:54 – Smartphone and current devices have changed the way we consume digital marketing
  • 10:50 – Location data is included with the data that Flashtalking gathers
  • 11:13 – Flashtalking makes the decision for what kinds of ads to show to the customers
• 11:30 – Flashtalking charges per CPM
  • 12:05 – There are discounts for those with bigger volumes
• 13:01 – Flashtalking is not currently using AI technology
• 14:10 – Flashtalking currently has 40 clients that account for 80% of the revenue
  • 14:26 – Flashtalking focuses on their big, global clients
• 15:20 – Average volume of impressions is 15B to 40B a month depending on the season
• 17:00 – Flashtalking focuses on helping their clients improve and get the experience that will drive their success metrics
• 17:50 – Team size is 280 globally
• 17:56 – Flashtalking hasn’t raised any capital aside from the buyout and it has been profitable since Day 1
• 19:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Your vision will lead you to the companies that will help you grow, and eventually change the world.
2. Technology has significantly affected how we consume advertising.
3. There are specific markets where AI technology can be used well.

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

Shan-Lyn Ma. She’s the CEO and co-founder of Zola. Launched in October 2013, Zola is an online wedding registry for millennials. In just three years, it has become the fastest growing wedding registry in the country, seeing 10x revenue growth year-over-year and 3x growth in 2017. Over seven million guests have attended a Zola wedding and 350 million in gifts have been added by Zola couples.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – How to Create Products Customers Love
• What CEO do you follow? – Sheryl Sandberg
• Favorite online tool? — Headspace
• 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? – “That stressing out about things do not make them better”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:47 – Nathan introduces Shan-Lyn to the show
• 02:32 – In Q4 of 2016, Zola reached $120M in GMV runway
  • 03:30 – GMV is reflective of the number of wedding gifts that are given to couples when using Zola as a wedding registry
• 03:56 – Zola is an ecommerce business, it’s a typical retailer
• 04:40 – Most of the items offered in Zola are what the couples want as wedding gifts
  • 04:50 – Zola has added Airbnb as this was requested by couples
  • 05:20 – Zola takes a percentage from an Airbnb gift card purchased on Zola
• 06:14 – Zola goes after the brands that are usually requested by couples and some brands have reached out to Zola for their products to be on Zola’s website
• 06:54 – Since 2013, 300K couples have registered with Zola
• 07:25 – The number of new couples signed-up in 2016
• 08:10 – Over time, more and more couples are using Zola as their ONLY wedding registry
• 09:40 – More guests will buy from Zola if the couples are using Zola exclusively as their wedding registry
• 10:02 – Zola incentivizes couples by adding the gifts that they want
  • 10:24 – There’s an additional feature where couples can bring any product to Zola
• 11:12 – First year revenue
• 11:38 – Zola had a seed round of funding of $500K in a convertible note
• 12:17 – Zola has raised additional capital with a total of $40M in VC funding
• 12:36 – Zola has passed through the typical startup life-cycle
• 14:14 – Paid ads spend is more than $100K
• 14:41 – The hot KPI that investors are looking for is the LTV:CAC ratio
• 15:51 – CAC depends on the channel and historical data of the channel’s performance
• 17:42 – “We are not trying to create more lifetime value”
• 18:30 – The challenge for Zola is getting newly engaged couples to find out about their services and sign-up for them
• 19:49 – Zola currently has over 50K products
• 20:22 – Zola just launched their new product, Zola Weddings, a free website for couples to manage their whole wedding
• 23:25 – The Famous Five

• Key Points:

1. Listen to your customers desires and needs and respond accordingly.
2. LTV:CAC ratio is what investors are usually looking for in a company.
3. Create more products that could be an extension of your existing products—this will encourage your clients to use your products more.

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

Matthew Schiltz. He’s an experienced, senior executive with a proven track record in building successful, high growth technology and cloud companies ranging from the private startup stage to public companies. He’s responsible for his current company, Conga, and its growth strategy which includes financing, driving global sales and expanding product offerings. His extensive executive management and leadership experience is driving strong company growth which has resulted in several Inc 500, Fast 50 and Top 100 Places to Work awards. Past CEO successes include Insightful Corporation, CourtLink, DocuSign, Tier 3 and Blue Box Group. He has received several industry accolades in recognition of his past successes and is considered an expert on software, technology, and cloud business practices.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• What CEO do you follow? – Dan Springer
• Favorite online tool? — Email
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-7
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Matt would let others know that SaaS technology is about the people

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:58 – Nathan introduces Matt to the show
• 03:07 – Matt is the first professional CEO hired for DocuSign
• 03:38 – Matt was also recruited by the board of Conga as their CEO
• 04:41 – Matt has worked with founders who are great in product and technology, but were not able to grow their company as a CEO
• 05:25 – The partnership with DocuSign’s founder was a successful experience
• 06:18 – Conga is one of the top 5 global ISV (Independent Software Vendors) in the Salesforce ecosystem
• 06:44 – Conga specializes in data and electronic contracts
  • 06:57 – They take live, Salesforce data and turns it into dynamic documents that are automated
• 07:21 – Conga is pure SaaS play
• 07:45 – Renewal rate is astronomically high
• 08:08 – Conga has a negative revenue churn
• 08:44 – Conga has a mix of mid-market and enterprise customers
• 10:30 – The customers pay directly on the number of seats
• 11:05 – Customers can start with one product, then expand to five products
• 11:55 – Conga’s customer base is two thirds midmarket and one third enterprise
• 12:33 – Conga’s document generation product pricing starts at $200 monthly for 10 seats
  • 12:59 – “It’s a pretty low risk threshold”
• 13:30 – The Salesforce AppExchange is the number one customer vehicle for Conga
• 16:06 – 80% of Conga’s customers regard them as offering a critical tool that they need to use
• 17:00 – Conga has over 9000 customers globally
• 17:30 – Conga is growing quickly
• 18:03 – Conga grew 200% last year and another 100% this year
• 19:59 – Conga is in a typical gross margin rate
• 20:10 – The majority of Conga is owned by Insight Venture Partners of New York
• 20:46 – Conga has announced Salesforce Ventures as a strategic investor in May 2017
• 21:15 – Matt shares how they decide which companies to acquire
  • 21:50 – Is it a good strategic fit for Conga?
  • 22:02 – Is it a great people fit?
  • 22:30 – Conga has 250-500 employees
• 23:53 – Matt shares his thoughts on Conga taking the IPO route as a funding event
• 25:05 – DocuSign just announced their intention to go public
• 27:35 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Not all founders can grow their business; the right CEO can be the answer.
2. The growth of a company isn’t based solely on the product, but the people who are behind it.
3. The IPO route for funding is a fantastic place to start.

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

Aseem Badshah. He’s the founder and CEO of Socedo which is a twenty person, B2B, social media demand generation company backed by Techstars Ventures, Vulcan Capital and Divergent Ventures. Before this company, he was the founder of Uptown Treehouse, a social media marketing agency working with brands like Uniqlo, Nike, Western Union and Lenovo.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Good to Great
• What CEO do you follow? – Satya Nadella
• Favorite online tool? — Outreach
• 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? – “Be patient and focus, above all, on people”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:34 – Nathan introduces Aseem to the show
• 02:06 – Socedo helps B2B marketers find the relevant prospect on social media
• 02:37 – “The last 9 months have been all about efficiency”
• 02:47 – Socedo now has $4K in MRR per month per AE
• 03:42 – Socedo is now moving away from the outbound and ABM model
• 03:47 – Socedo targets SMB companies now
• 04:03 – Socedo has free trials on their website
  • 04:18 – The point is to become a pipeline for their AEs
• 04:58 – Socedo is helping Pendo’s growth
• 05:08 – Socedo is looking at moving up their ACV
• 05:57 – Socedo helps B2B companies cut through the noise
• 06:24 – On the sales side, Socedo is more focused on selling to B2B as opposed to B2C companies
• 07:00 – Average MRR
• 07:23 – Aseem ties employee count to growth
  • 07:45 – The idea of scaling too quickly isn’t really healthy
• 08:40 – Aseem wants to make sure that their focus is on the right segment of the market
• 10:00 – Everywhere in SaaS is crowded these days
• 10:21 – The outbound path is where Sodeco will bump into their competition
• 10:54 – Sodeco is specifically serving the B2B social media marketers who are underserved individuals
  • 11:20 – Sodeco helps them grow their presence
• 12:34 – Hootsuite is great for marketers who are managing their content for their audience
• 13:00 – Sodeco finds and grows the audience by targeting the right prospects on social media
• 14:44 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Scaling up does NOT necessarily mean growing your team.
2. Even though your market may be crowded, you can find a way to stand out.
3. Managing your audience is a very different process from growing your audience.

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

Stefan Thomas. He’s the CTO of Ripple. He’s also the producer of the popular “What is Bitcoin?” video and the founder of the largest website for novice bitcoin users, WeUseCoins.com. He created a set of open-source bitcoin libraries called BitcoinJS, which today are maintained and used by Bitcoin businesses of all sizes including BitPay, Blockchain.info, BitAddress, Coinpunk and others.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Draw to Win
• What CEO do you follow? – Thomas Mcleod
• Favorite online tool? — StumbleUpon
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 3 or 8
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Schedule your blocks of time. Clean up and separate your spaces. Tell yourself to stick to what you should be doing.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:38 – Nathan introduces Stefan to the show
• 02:15 – Stefan got into crypto 7 years ago
• 02:22 – “What is Bitcoin?” video now has 10 million views and two versions
• 02:52 – Bitcoin is different from how current financial institutions work
• 03:27 – Blockchain has a lot of definitions and for Stefan, blockchain is a shared ledger
• 04:03 – With any technology, it is about how it can make a change that is beneficial to everyone
• 05:43 – Stefan currently focuses on their project, Inter Ledger, which is essentially a protocol that can tie different ledgers together
  • 05:54 – It is an open project and Ripple is a contributor
• 06:44 – Some of the crypto users have gotten a little too mainstream
• 07:18 – People are now looking at the possibility of getting what they want without having to rely on clunky, shared ledgers
• 07:41 – Stefan sold WeUseCoins to a company who has invested in bitcoin
  • 08:20 – Stefan didn’t make much from the exit
• 08:36 – Stefan is responsible for the technical vision of Ripple
• 09:00 – Ripple’s customers are mostly banks
  • 09:05 – Banks license Ripple’s technology and software
• 09:33 – You can get the most from bitcoin technology without changing how financial institutions work
  • 09:53 – Small banks can interoperate with other banks without going through huge hubs
  • 10:04 – “Creating that efficiency by creating competition”
• 10:20 – Siam Commercial Bank in Thailand is one of Ripple’s customers
• 10:30 – Siam Commercial Bank and SBI Remit in Japan have partnered to license Ripple’s technology
  • 10:40 – Thailand expats staying in Japan can now send money to Thailand through their partnership
• 12:18 – Shared ledgers are growing smaller and smaller with these new coins coming out and by private blockchains
• 12:27 – Stefan believes that the next interesting technology will be the interoperability of the blockchains and central ledgers
• 13:02 – Ripple has only been focused on payments, but there are hundreds of use cases for blockchain
  • 13:28 – Payments is the underlying thing for any kind of asset movement
  • 13:55 – Ripple is also focused on the crossing borders advantage to it
• 15:21 – Licensing fee of Ripple depends on their customers
• 16:21 – Team size is 170
• 16:36 – Ripple has raised $94M and has sold some digital assets
• 16:55 – Stefan joined Ripple before it was incorporated and he has equity
• 18:31 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Changes in technology are intended to make life better for the collective.
2. With bitcoin technology, payments have become more efficient and convenient.
3. The vision that you had years ago will definitely change overtime.

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

Scott East. He founded his company MSIGHTS in 2004 to help marketers make better decisions with better data and reporting. His experience includes global ads and digital agencies of Fortune 20 telecom and AOL prior to founding MSIGHTS. He understands how to engage marketers as he has 20+ years in this area. His new book, The Cuttlefish Marketer: The Five Essential Traits of a Modern Marketer, focuses on helping marketers transform themselves into modern marketing leaders.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – E-Myth
• What CEO do you follow? – Jason Fried
• Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn Sales Navigator
• 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? – Scott wished he had focus more on “pull goals”, not “push goals”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:54 – Nathan introduces Scott to the show
• 02:38 – Scott wrote a book because it was on his bucket list
  • 03:00 – Scott’s publisher is Advantage Media
  • 03:46 – The book is now available on Amazon and Apple
  • 04:06 – It has sold around a couple of hundreds of copies
  • 04:20 – Scott worked on his book for 10 solid months
• 05:05 – MSIGHTS provides data management and performance reporting services for large marketing departments
• 05:21 – MSIGHTS’ primary model is a SaaS model and they charge based on the data they integrate
• 05:38 – “We giveaway licenses for free in our platform”
• 05:58 – Scott wants as many enterprise companies as possible to use their reporting for decision making
• 06:18 – MSIGHTS charges based on the volume that they’re integrating onto the system (in bulk)
• 07:00 – MSIGHTS’ professional service is a recurring service
• 07:40 – Scott shares why the SaaS model is different from a professional service, even if both services are recurring
• 08:24 – ACV is $250K per client
• 08:47 – MSIGHTS has 35 people
• 09:20 – Scott shares how the data they receive needs to be analyzed
  • 10:15 – MSIGHTS integrated the data and added the translation key, but it took the founders more than an hour to decide if they would take it
• 11:03 – Scott self-funded the company
• 11:33 – MSIGHTS was officially launched in 2003
• 12:00 – First year revenue is around $150K
• 12:10 – 2013 revenue
• 12:31 – 2016 revenue was $3.21M
• 13:04 – Churn is less than 5% annually
• 13:30 – Some of their clients have been with MSIGHTS for five years plus
• 13:50 – MSIGHTS is still bootstrapped
• 14:15 – Blended gross margins is a low 85%, platform side is 80% plus and 70% on professional service
• 15:05 – Last month total revenue is around $264K
• 15:30 – CAC
• 15:54 – Payback period is around a month
• 17:53 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. If you want something and it’s within your reach, GO for it!
2. Having a great product could mean you’re bootstrapped for years, even a decade.
3. Professional services can be a recurring service.

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

Oscar Nelson. He’s the CEO of Musqot, the marketing technology and SaaS company he co-founded after spending 12 years in various marketing roles in small and large companies. Industry-wise, he’s had a mixed background from consulting, media, telecommunications and enterprise software. He considers himself a business generalist more than a specialist.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
• What CEO do you follow? – Jason Lemkin
• Favorite online tool? — DocuSign
• 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 more important to focus on your cofounder than your business idea

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:52 – Nathan introduces Oscar to the show
• 02:18 – Musqot is a marketing performance management app
• 02:24 – Musqot helps their customers increase their marketing effectiveness and efficiency, enabling their marketing ROI
• 02:44 – ACV is around $25K annually
• 02:55 – Some customers pay 6 figures
• 03:04 – Musqot was founded in 2014
• 03:16 – On their second year, Musqot launched their beta product and just a year ago, they launched their real product
• 03:40 – Musqot was bootstrapped. They were able to sustain their first year without revenue through personal financial support and savings
• 04:05 – Oscar and his co-founder have initially put in around $100K for the company
• 04:47 – First year revenue
• 05:37 – 2017 target is $3M in ARR runway
• 06:12 – Musqot just recently passed their $100K MRR mark
• 07:06 – Musqot currently has 60 customers
• 08:14 – Musqot’s expansion is due to their support and onboarding efforts
• 09:13 – Team size is 25 with 20 full-time employees and 5 consultants
  • 09:30 – 5 are in sales, 2 are in presales and onboarding, 1 in marketing and the rest are in development
• 10:45 – Musqot gets customers from different sources
  • 11:00 – Musqot is on the Salesforce AppExchange
• 12:14 – Full weighted CAC
• 13:31 – Payback period is roughly a year or more
• 14:10 – Paid ads spend is around $20K monthly
• 14:50 – The bigger customers are happy and tend to stay longer than the smaller customers
• 15:32 – Logo churn is around 2% and revenue churn is negative
• 16:27 – Musqot has raised $1.2M
• 16:44 – Musqot’s HQ is in Stockholm, Sweden and Bangalore, India
• 17:40 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. A startup can thrive through personal savings and financial support if need be.
2. Share your business ideas with your business partner and make sure that your thoughts and visions for the company are aligned.
3. Plan carefully where you will place your paid ads.

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

Tim Sae Koo. He’s a 26-year old, LA-based native residing currently in San Francisco, California. He’s dreamed to become the first Asian American president of the United States to solve impactful problems with a purpose. He found his legacy rules to be inefficient. He studied entrepreneurship at University of Southern California and graduated early to naively start a company and fulfill his original life mission. His company is TINT.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Delivering Happiness
• What CEO do you follow? – Mark Cuban
• Favorite online tool? — Wunderlist
• 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’s okay to make mistakes because that’s how you’re going to learn”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:53 – Nathan introduces Tim to the show
• 02:26 – TINT is a marketing software platform that works with B2C brands
  • 02:37 – They help source the best customer content on social media
• 03:11 – TINT is SaaS based
• 03:19 – ACV is from $1K to 5K a month or $12K to $60K a year
• 03:31 – The variations in price depend on different options including the number of hashtags to track
  • 03:58 – They have a high base price
• 04:14 – The moderation feature can also be included using manual moderation or machine-learning
• 04:41 – TINT was launched in 2013
• 04:48 – TINT is completely bootstrapped
• 05:00 – Tim raised $370K for the previous company before pivoting to TINT
• 05:18 – The initial product was a consumer application and the market was quite saturated—this led to the pivot to TINT
• 05:55 – The initial company was getting zero revenue with 5K users and 3 team members
  • 06:35 – Tim and the founders were paying themselves $36K a year
  • 06:54 – Tim worked while he was still in college
  • 07:35 – Keep your expenses low
• 07:44 – TINT’s team size is around 30
• 07:52 – TINT currently has 700 customers
• 08:23 – Average MRR is around $700K
• 08:50 – 2017 goal is to get around $7.5M in revenue
• 09:15 – 2016 ARR is around $5M and cash basis is around $6M
• 10:08 – Current ARR is around $5.5M
• 10:30 – Tim hasn’t raised capital yet because he thinks he won’t be a good CEO if he does that
• 10:36 – Tim identifies himself more as a founder than a CEO
• 11:32 – TINT has always been profitable
• 12:16 – CAC is around $2K
  • 13:00 – TINT is still figuring out the best channel for them to invest more
  • 13:38 – Paid ads is $10-15K a month
• 14:10 – In the beginning, Tim used to acquire more customers by offering to draw any animal
  • 15:20 – The main idea is to make something that can bring a smile to someone’s face and that will help them remember Tim
• 15:35 – Team members are based in different states and other countries like Dubai, Brazil and London
  • 15:50 – There’s now a big push for a technology investment in Dubai
• 16:23 – Tim is now paying himself something modest, but nothing too grand
• 16:39 – Tim has two co-founders and half of the company is owned by the team; the other half for investors
• 17:35 – Tim shared how he started entrepreneurship and his plans for the future
• 18:20 – Tim might consider a $30M acquisition at the moment
• 20:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. The most successful in the entrepreneurial world are not the ones who know how to expand their revenue; they are the ones who know how to reduce their expenses.
2. Think about how you can make people happy—this will make you memorable.
3. Be the leader, not the boss.

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

Victor Szczerba. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Yeti Data, solving big data problems for customers. Prior experience includes running product strategy at the data division at SAP. He was a McKinsey consultant and sales VP for Tadpole Computer and Utopy.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Zero to One and How to Win Friends and Influence People
• What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
• Favorite online tool? — Slack
• 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? – “How to be patient”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:44 – Nathan introduces Victor to the show
• 02:14 – Yeti Data makes virtual data warehouses
• 02:30 – Yeti Data’s model is an enterprise SaaS model
• 02:45 – An average customer pays Yeti Data $250-500K a year
• 03:02 – “We love universal usage of our data with inside of the customer”
• 03:19 – Clients get data from their customers’ behavior
• 04:24 – AI is a blanket term and machine learning is something very specific
• 05:08 – Victor shares how machine learning works and they put in details manually
• 05:52 – In digital marketing, there are ways to understand the customer and their purchasing behavior, but it still can be tricky
• 06:47 – Yeti Data currently has around 5 customers
• 07:07 – Yeti Data is close to reaching an $800K, ARR mark
• 07:31 – Yeti Data was launched 3-4 years ago and was in development mode for the first few years
• 07:50 – Yeti Data raised capital for RND and they’ve been really lean
  • 08:07 – It was a convertible note
  • 08:31 – 4% interest and 10% discount with a teaser for the second round
• 09:18 – On pre-revenue, Yeti Data has 3 core people and some consultants
• 10:03 – Amazon and Walmart have a software that is similar to Yeti Data
• 10:39 – Some companies that are in competition with Yeti Data are IBM and HP
• 11:08 – Yeti Data created a way to virtualize their data connections
• 12:00 – It is still too early for Yeti Data to have their metrics
• 13:00 – A good ARR of a million bucks can get Yeti Data to a good series A
• 14:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Regardless of how congested your market is, you can still find a way to stand out.
2. Use your competition as motivation to push harder.
3. Focus in on what you’re good at.

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

Garrett Gunderson. He’s the chief wealth architect at Wealth Factory and author of the New York Times’ bestseller, Killing Sacred Cows. Wealth Factory helps entrepreneurs optimize cash flow, streamline their finances and keep more of their hard-earned money so they can make more powerful investments in their best wealth sector—their business.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Scaling Up and The War of Art
• What CEO do you follow? – Rich Christiansen
• Favorite online tool? — OmniFocus
• 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? – “It will be okay and I don’t mean to stress as much as I did”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:40 – Nathan introduces Garrett to the show
• 02:10 – It took Garrett two years of contemplating before writing Killing Sacred Cows
  • 03:26 – Garrett worked with a publisher and the promotion firm Green Leaf
  • 04:30 – Garrett is earning higher royalties for his book deal than the usual
  • 05:00 – The possibility for bigger redistribution impacted the book deal
  • 05:35 – Garrett was able to sell copies of the book even before it came out
  • 06:10 – Garrett decided to have a publisher because it was more relevant than to self-publish
  • 07:10 – Garrett self-published The Rockefellers last year
  • 08:22 – Garrett co-published New Rules to Get Rich with Nightingale
  • 08:45 – Garrett has self-published a few books which are more profitable than the one he made with the publisher
• 09:30 – Just because you’re starting a business doesn’t mean you know about investing
• 10:00 – For investing, investor DNA needs to be considered
  • 10:04 – The core values, drivers and diversification
• 10:43 – There’s no magic product or magic investment
• 11:40 – Nathan shares how he deals with his real estate investments
• 12:10 – People think they need to invest because the money is there
• 12:40 – It is more important to invest in the RIGHT opportunity and something that we KNOW
• 13:50 – There are good, bad and lucky investors—but don’t rely on luck
• 14:37 – In terms of taxes:
  • 14:42 – Never confuse deferral with deductions
  • 16:00 – Garrett shares his stance on deferrals
  • 16:54 – Tax should be a secondary consideration
• 18:00 – Garrett shares how he makes money
  • 18:14 – Garrett works with entrepreneurs with $1-10M in ARR
• 19:10 – Garrett doesn’t offer asset management, they’re more on financial and cash flow management side
• 19:40 – Garrett’s co-founder passed away in 2006 from a plane crash
• 20:20 – Wealth Factory’s income is steady and they’ve raised their fees substantially
  • 21:20 – “We’re the very best people”
• 21:31 – 2017 revenue goal
• 22:27 – Wealth Factory has 10 new customers monthly
• 22:37 – Team size is 20
• 24:04 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Investing and starting a business are two very different things.
2. Deferrals are different than deductions.
3. Billionaires don’t have the best financial advice.

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

Josh March. He’s the founder and CEO of Conversocial, a customer engagement solution that helps businesses increase their customer loyalty by enabling effortless, in-the-moment, customer service to social and mobile channels. The largest global firms including Google, Sprint, Hertz and Hyatt Hotels turn to his platform to deliver an amazing, social, first, customer service experience at a large scale. He previously founded the leading social application platform, iPlatform, one of the world’s first Facebook preferred developer which was acquired in 2012.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Four Steps to the Epiphany
• What CEO do you follow? – Ben Horowitz
• Favorite online tool? — Twitter
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6.5
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Be more self-aware and your own thinking can become your bias

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:40 – Nathan introduces Josh to the show
• 02:51 – iPlatform was sold to Betapond in 2012
  • 03:28 – The acquisition was a mix of cash and equity
• 03:53 – Conversocial is an enterprise SaaS product
• 04:20 – Conversocial follows up on customers through social media sites
• 04:38 – Conversocial collects messages from different social media channels and analyzes them
• 05:04 – Conversocial has raised $20M of venture capital
• 05:33 – Conversocial started from iPlatform
• 06:00 – Josh saw that they needed to move quickly with Conversocial, so they raised funds
• 06:29 – The first round was $2.5M and was a priced equity round
• 07:24 – Some of Conversocial’s customers were an upsell from iPlatform
• 07:34 – Team size is around 100
• 08:00 – Josh was initially involved with the product development of Conversocial and as they grew and hired great people, he began shifting more of his time to customer acquisition
• 09:33 – Their biggest customer pays around a million dollars annually
• 09:50 – Conversocial also has customers who pay from $25K to $200K
• 11:00 – Conversocial focuses on customer care
• 12:00 – The need for a customer contact center is greatly increasing
• 12:28 – Conversocial currently has 200 clients
• 13:30 – Conversocial has passed their $10M ARR mark
• 14:12 – Conversocial has a higher logo churn with small companies
• 14:47 – Conversocial’s net churn is around 120%
• 16:21 – Josh flies a lot just to meet customers
• 17:48 – Fully weighted CAC varies dramatically depending on the deals
• 18:24 – Payback period is around 18 months
• 18:43 – Josh won’t sell to Sprinklr
  • 19:10 – Josh thinks Sprinklr’s vision is far off of Conversocial’s vision
• 20:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Focus on the needs of the customers and figure out how you can solve their problems.
2. Social media is being used not only for marketing, but for customer service as well.
3. An entrepreneur should go the “extra mile” just to get a client.

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

Christopher Day. He’s been a successful entrepreneur, having sold two companies to a Fortune 100 company before turning 40. He’s had businesses from residential painting to investment banking doing cross-border M&A transactions. Along the way, he has found time to mentor other entrepreneurs and participates in helping solve legislative issues to foster entrepreneurial growth in the State of Indiana. He’s now building a platform with DemandJump that is looking to solve prescriptive analytics and qualified traffic. The DemandJump team has discovered marketers only have 20% visibility of their actual ecosystem.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Good to Great
• What CEO do you follow? – Jack Welch
• Favorite online tool? — One Pager
• 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? – “The power of relationships”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:48 – Nathan introduces Christopher to the show
• 02:36 – DemandJump sells their platform on a subscription basis
  • 02:41 – They have annual subscriptions and professional services
• 03:10 – 82% of the revenue is from SaaS, 1% is from a one-time payment and the rest is for the other model
• 03:48 – DemandJump allows marketers to have 100% visibility of their competitive ecosystem, which is the first time this has been made possible in history
  • 04:57 – They show marketers where to focus to capture traffic from their competitors
• 05:15 – Average annual contract value is $45K with beta customers
  • 05:30 – Average annual contract value now is $100K -$250K
  • 05:43 – DemandJump has started to work with mid-market companies
  • 06:00 – Self-service for mid-market will be from $200 to hundred million
• 06:27 – DemandJump currently has 22 customers
• 06:50 – DemandJump is getting close to their million dollar revenue mark
• 07:11 – DemandJump was launched in 2015
  • 07:36 – The traffic cloud was built in October 2016
• 08:05 – 2016 revenue was $165K
• 08:20 – MRR by December 2016 was $10K
• 08:30 – 2017 goal is to hit $1.5 in ARR
• 08:54 – DemandJump raised $4M with 18 Angel investors on their board
• 10:08 – DemandJump is looking to raise another $5M with a 15% pre-money valuation
• 11;12 – Christopher sold software companies before
• 12:00 – Annual logo churn is 8-9%
• 12:24 – Annual revenue churn is almost the same with logo churn
• 13:00 – CAC is around $10K
• 13:31 – Most of DemandJump’s customers pay annually upfront
• 13:55 – Paid marketing spend was around $5K
  • 14:19 – 40% of DemandJump’s budget goes to sales and marketing
  • 15:49 – They will double or triple their paid marketing spend because of their target
• 17:20 – Assumed LTV is 36 months
• 18:54 – Team headcount is 17
  • 19:29 – They’re all based in Indiana
  • 19:40 – 7 are in engineering, 3 focus on customer success, 3 on sales, 2 on marketing and a newly hired CFO
• 21:17 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Marketers will have a HUGE advantage if they have 100% visibility of their ecosystem.
2. Paid marketing should be aligned to your target market, otherwise you’re just wasting your money.
3. Relationships and networking is of the UTMOST importance.

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

Gil Klein from MobFox where he’s the managing director and a C-level executive at Matomy Media Group. Having joined the company in 2006, he’s been the member of the executive management team since 2014. He previously served as senior VP of media and senior VP of clients for this particular group. He holds an MBA in International Management from the College of Management in Israel.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Good to Great
• What CEO do you follow? – Brian O’Kelley
• Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5.5
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Travel even more than you already have, experiment, take a lot of risks and spend as much time as you can with your family

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:57 – Nathan introduces Gil to the show
• 02:30 – Matomy is a global performance company that holds a few entities
• 02:44 – Gil personally runs and oversees MobFox, which is an mobile in-app audience SSP acquired by Matomy in 2014
  • 03:15 – The acquisition was for $12M in cash
• 03:30 – Gil was with Matomy since 2006 and he helped the company grow
• 04:00 – MobFox makes money when their clients make money
• 04:17 – The tools of MobFox are usually for the developers and publishers focused on the in-app space
• 04:48 – MobFox tries to contact the best demand partners in the space like YuMe, AppNexus and PocketMath
• 05:50 – In 2015, MobFox generated $18M of the transaction volume
  • 06:10 – MobFox’s charges depend on the deals they have
• 06:32 – MobFox usually keeps 17-20% of the transaction
• 06:56 – MobFox has grown to 36%
• 07:09 – Gil believes that MobFox is currently in a great space
• 07:51 – In 2017, Gil’s goal is to stretch as much as he can
• 08:21 – MobFox is currently working with 20-30K publishers, 4K are SDK-based
• 09:13 – MobFox currently has 180 DSP (Demand Side Platforms)
  • 09:35 – A single DSP can have a thousand advertisers
  • 09:42 – “We connect to a programmatic player”
• 10:00 – Current headcount of MobFox is 73-74
  • 10:11 – 50 are engineers and the rest in sales, retention, HR and finance
  • 10:26 – MobFox team is global
• 11:29 – Gil can and will do anything to get new customers, like suddenly showing up with presents and asking for a meeting
  • 12:23 – “I try to listen to the customer”
• 13:15 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Set numbers for your goals, but aim to SURPASS those numbers.
2. Find the best partnerships that you can where you can mutually benefit each other.
3. Don’t hesitate to TAKE risks!

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

Andrew Pitz. He’s an investment manager at Transamerica Ventures, the global venture capital fund of Transamerica that specializes in investing in insurtech, fintech and enterprise software companies. There, he has led the firm's investments in PolicyGenius, Digital Currency Group, Everplans, SmartAsset and Hixme.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Venture Deals
• What CEO do you follow? – Jonah Goodhart and Vinny Lingham
• Favorite online tool? — Fortunes Term Sheet, Mattermark Daily, Crunchbase Daily
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5.5
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Andrew wished he had understood domain names and technology

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:42 – Nathan introduces Andrew to the show
• 02:16 – Transamerica and AEGON are global investment and insurance firms
• 02:56 – $140K is the fund size they’re currently working with
  • 03:04 – The fund was already set-up from the beginning
• 03:25 – Their first fund was in 2014, in the European market
• 03:47 – They had 17 unique companies with 23 investments
• 04:25 – They don’t share company information with their parent company
  • 04:39 – They don’t want the corporate parent to be involved in the business
• 05:25 – They haven’t had any exits yet
• 05:39 – Andrews shares fund-to-fund deals with FinTech Collective
  • 06:38 – They put in a $2M check and the total funds raised were $75K to $100K
• 06:55 – They put in $1M to another fund to fund the deal they had
• 07:00 – Their first fund was around $10M
• 07:28 – FinTech Collective is based in New York
• 07:38 – Some of the fintech companies they’ve invested in are Art Invest, MoneyLion, 401k and Elephant Tech
• 08:24 – Andrew gets his salary and bonuses from the deals
• 08:50 – Andrew shares how their boss missed deals that are worth billions now
• 09:30 – There are instances where they need to let some deals pass
• 10:00 – In a week, they’re receiving hundreds of newsletters from different companies (around 5000 in a year)
• 10:13 – Andrew studies 500 deals and meets with around 250
• 11:10 – Initial check size was $1-5M as a follow on investor
• 11:34 – Andrew chooses PolicyGenius and Hixme
  • 12:40 – Andrew thinks PolicyGenius will have a good exit
• 13:07 – H2O as an open source
  • 13:33 – Red Hat pioneered the open source
• 14:36 – The goal is to invest in direct technology and create partnerships
• 14:54 – Andrew shares the kind of partnerships they’re looking for
• 15:14 – Andrew wanted to do work in Asia because of the many opportunities
• 17:05 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. There are thousands of companies created daily—you have to research and choose which one to invest into wisely.
2. Forming partnerships is MORE important than monetary gain.
3. Technology can take you anywhere.

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

Christian Geissendoerfer. He’s the CEO of Yoose, the leading expert in location-based advertising in Asia and Europe. He’s an entrepreneur passionate about building businesses and leading teams. He recently started something parallel to Yoose which is a German Accelerator in Southeast Asia that helps German startups expand into that region. He loves living in Singapore and Vietnam, traveling the world and learning languages. He’s fluent in German, English, French and Spanish.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – A Monk and the Riddle
• What CEO do you follow? – CEO Collaborative Group
• Favorite online tool? — Xero and Zapier
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5.5
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Do it over again”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:50 – Nathan introduces Christian to the show
• 02:28 – Yoose is a location-based mobile advertising company
  • 02:36 – Yoose helps brands to target people in specific geographic locations
• 03:28 – Yoose is aggregating inventory from different mobile networks
• 04:05 – Yoose is buying the inventory for the company and running campaigns on specific locations
• 04:25 – Yoose is selling a premium product
• 04:42 – Yoose charges per CPM
  • 04:59 – There’s current request for CPC charges
• 05:23 – Yoose was launched in 2008, in Berlin, and moved to Singapore in 2010
• 06:00 – 2016 revenue is in the million dollar figure range
• 06:08 – Team size is 15 and the majority are based in Vietnam
• 06:16 – Yoose is a bootstrapped business
• 07:12 – Yoose is working on a different platform based on audience profiles and attribution
• 08:10 – Customers use Yoose over their competitors because of the full service they offer
  • 08:49 – Yoose is also geographically focused
• 09:12 – Yoose is currently working with the major media agencies and secondary agencies
  • 09:35 – There are 25-30 agencies in total
• 09:47 – Yoose has partnerships in different countries that they serve too
  • 10:32 – Yoose and the partners both take a cut from the charges
  • 10:45 – “We are transparent on costs on both sides”
• 11:00 – The EBIT (Earnings Before Interests and Taxes) margin in the space vary
  • 11:14 – Yoose is in the middle of the margin, depending on the country
• 11:43 – At this stage, Christian is putting the capital back into the company
• 12:46 – Christian has put all his personal money into starting Yoose
• 13:08 – Christian has worked in France prior to Yoose
• 13:43 – Christian initially wanted to build something similar to Tinder
• 15:33 – German Accelerator works with the German government and has been in the US market for 5 years, they’re now expanding to Southeast Asia
  • 16:05 – Christian gets his salary from the government
• 17:32 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Be transparent with your partners, so you’ll gain their trust. This will also lead to more partnerships.
2. The corporate world can help shape and grow your skills but don’t regret taking another route to succeed.
3. Create something that you want, yourself.

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

Bonnie Crater. She’s the CEO of Full Circle Insights. She’s a 5-time VP of marketing and executive at many software companies in Silicon Valley. She’s been named one of the 100 Most Influential Women by the Silicon Valley Business Journal and one of the Top 20 Women to Watch by Sales Lead Management Association.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – N/A
• What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff
• Favorite online tool? — Docusign
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7.5
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “My path has been just fine”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:53 – Nathan introduces Bonnie to the show
• 02:24 – Full Circle Insights helps marketing people accurately measure and track the impact of their marketing campaigns on pipeline and revenue
• 02:50 – Full Circle Insights has an annual contract and usual contract which pays $30K a year
• 03:00 – Full Circle Insights launched their product in 2012, but it was started in 2010
• 03:10 – “Never start a company on December 31st”
  • 03:18 – The IRS would want a tax return for 1 day of business
• 03:51 – Bonnie quit her VP of marketing job prior to Full Circle Insights
• 03:58 – Bonnie was invited by her friends to start Full Circle Insights and there are 4 founders
• 04:20 – Two of the founders were from Salesforce, including Bonnie
• 04:49 – Full Circle Insights is built on Salesforce
• 05:01 – Full Circle Insights was on Salesforce’s AppExchange
• 05:54 – Bonnie was a CEO in 2001, but it was a failure and she had to hire and fire a hundreds of people
• 07:35 – Bonnie was a VP of marketing a couple of times with different companies after the failure
• 08:04 – Full Circle Insights was initially bootstrapped, they raised $11M
  • 08:14 – They raised money because they were going broke
  • 08:21 – They were paying themselves
• 08:50 – First capital was raised in 2012
• 09:12 – Her first product was built from the money the founders had put in
• 09:32 – Dan, the CTO, is the developer
• 09:53 – Full Circle Insights has around 150 customers
• 10:12 – Team size is 35
  • 10:38 – 8 in engineering and product, 12 in sales, 4-5 in marketing, 7-8 in customer success and some in accounting
• 11:17 – Full Circle Insights have broken around $4M in ARR
• 11:33 – Full Circle Insights’ model is to double, then triple
• 12:33 – Full Circle Insights has 90% renewal rate
• 12:40 – Churn is usually from acquisition and CMO changes
• 13:26 – Bonnie was hoping to have a 100% renewal rate in the coming years
• 14:37 – Full Circle Insights has a sales rep who has a puppy that he brought to the tradeshow
  • 14:53 – The puppy became a booth magnet and they were able to acquire new customers
• 15:25 – Fully weighted CAC is $18-20K
• 15:30 – Payback period is less than 6 months
• 16:30 – Lowest marketing expenses is digital marketing and the biggest is from tradeshows and events
• 17:31 – LTV
• 18:30 – Full Circle Insights’ new VP of sales
• 19:01 – ARR target is $7M
• 20:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Never start your business on the last day of the year.
2. We all make mistakes and we just have to learn from it—just don’t make the same mistake twice.
3. Be creative and do what you need to do to draw new customers in.

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

Ron Jacobson. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Rockerbox and Hindsight. Ron was a project manager at AppNexus and a proud McGill alumni. Follow him on Twitter.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Made in America
• What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk and Mark Cuban
• Favorite online tool? — Spectacle
• 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? – “There are going to be a lot of highs and there are going to be a lot of lows, but you just got too keep moving”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:36 – Nathan introduces Ron to the show
• 02:01 – Rockerbox is an online marketing technology company
• 02:09 – Hindsight is a secondary offering which is an off-site analytics platform, complementary to Rockerbox
• 02:28 – Rockerbox is a management service and Hindsight is the SaaS part
• 03:00 – Rockerbox was launched in early 2014
• 03:03 – Team size is 18
• 03:13 – Target customers are marketers
• 03:25 – Rockerbox has partnerships with publishers and data providers
  • 04:40 – Through different partnerships, they’re able to know the source of potential customers
• 05:25 – First year revenue was $640K gross
  • 05:30 – 2015: under $2M , 2016 was around $4M and it will probably be $8M this year
• 05:48 – 10% of the customers are on Hindsight
• 06:50 – In 2016, Rockerbox has served 50 customers
• 07:19 – Hindsight currently has around 13 customers with a MRR of $16K
• 07:43 – Some of Rockerbox’s customers are Vimeo and Vanguard
  • 08:16 – CAC and LTV
  • 08:26 – No logo and revenue churn yet
  • 08:50 – Some small companies can’t scale and their pricing is “take it or leave it”
• 09:32 – 5 team members are focused on Hindsight
• 09:59 – Hindsight is self-funded and is based on Rockerbox
• 10:14 – Ron shares why they raised funding despite doubling Rockerbox’s ARR
• 11:05 – Ron has reached out to people whom he hasn’t talked to for decades just to acquire new customers
  • 11:16 – Ron shares the content of his email
• 13:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Having fewer customers with a larger paywall works well, it allows you to focus more on your customers’ needs.
2. Stick to your pricing and your target market.
3. Through the highs and lows, just KEEP MOVING.

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

Arun Saigal. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Thunkable, a Ycombinator-backed startup in San Francisco. Thunkable is a platform that allows anyone to build their own mobile app without needing to know how to code. Prior to Thunkable, Arun was the lead android developer at Quizlet. He also worked at Khan Academy, Aspiring Minds and Google. He holds a BS in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – High Output Management
• What CEO do you follow? – Shantanu Narayen
• Favorite online tool? — Google Calendar
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7-7.5
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Investing in others is one of the best ways to invest in yourself”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:26 – Nathan introduces Arun to the show
• 02:13 – Thunkable is a drag-and-drop tool to make a mobile app
• 02:23 – The space is quite crowded
• 03:08 – Thunkable is simple but powerful enough for non-coders to have a powerful app
• 03:20 – Thunkable is currently free
• 03:34 – Thunkable has raised $3.3M to date
• 03:59 – Arun shares why they’ve raised first before implementing a paywall
  • 04:07 – They wanted to hire the team and have the platform that they needed with the money raised
  • 04:30 – They’ll start charging in a few months
• 04:48 – Thunkable was launched in 2016
• 04:53 – Team size is 10
• 05:16 – Thunkable has turned on their revenue for a small stream
  • 05:35 – The charge is a high 5-figures and is an annual contract
• 06:16 – Long-term model: charge for a premium product
• 06:36 – When they turn-on their features, that’s when Thunkable will charge
• 07:25 – Arun saw problems they didn’t know existed from those who were building an app for Thunkable
• 08:30 – Arun wants to help people who really need an app for free to solve their problems
• 09:00 – The conversations they’ll have with people who will use Thunkable for profit
• 09:24 – Target price is $20 a month
• 09:40 – Arun believes they can maintain profitability
  • 10:14 – Arun believes that SMBs need Thunkable more than the enterprise businesses
• 11:03 – Thunkable’s goal is to capture most of the apps from the app store
• 12:38 – December 2017 MRR goal is $10K
• 14:16 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Assist those who need help in any way that you can.
2. Choose your timing wisely when it comes to putting up your paywall.
3. You learn and grow by investing in other people.

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

Ian Blair. He founded BuildFire while he was in college and has grown up to become one of the most successful app builders with 30 employees and close to 10K apps in the app store. His expertise is online marketing and growth hacking.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Good to Great
• What CEO do you follow? – David Skok and Jason Lemkin
• Favorite online tool? — Ahrefs
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7.5
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Ian wished he would have taken a crash course on how the world actually works

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:55 – Nathan introduces Ian to the show
• 02:37 – BuildFire is a mobile app building platform that allows non-technical people to build their own app with no coding required
• 02:50 – BuildFire is like the WordPress for mobile app
  • 03:18 – BuildFire allows customization
• 03:36 – Ian started BuildFire in college
  • 03:40 – BuildFire has a reseller program
  • 04:18 – In 2013, they were making $300K a year
  • 04:32 – It was just for white labelling
  • 04:42 – BuildFire was officially built with the technology in 2014
• 05:02 – BuildFire has raised $2.5M so far in a convertible note
• 05:46 – It was in 2015 when BuildFire broke their $1M a year mark
• 06:20 – In January of 2016, BuildFire 2.0 was launched where they added customization
• 06:48 – Since then, things took off
• 07:05 – In December 2016, BuildFire was doing a little less than $300K a month
• 07:33 – This year, BuildFire is developing
• 07:59 – BuildFire has an ongoing subscription fee and upfront payment
  • 08:20 – BuildFire is getting close to $200K a month for their SaaS side
• 08:33 – BuildFire is now leaning more into their professional services
• 09:15 – Total number of customers
• 09:25 – Customers pay starts at $59, $149 or $499 a month
  • 09:50 – Average a month is around $400 per customer
• 10:40 – Team size is 40
• 10:57 – Ian self-funded BuildFire initially
  • 11:11 – Their current CTO started the initial development for BuildFire
• 12:00 – BuildFire gets customers mainly through online marketing
  • 12:20 – Paid ads spend is around $10K a month
• 12:30 – BuildFire also has a lot of organic traffic and they’re going to tradeshows as well
• 13:48 – Monthly logo churn
• 14:25 – Revenue churn
• 14:50 – BuildFire is on its way to a more predictable revenue model by the end of 2017
• 15:31 – CAC
• 17:00 – SaaS businesses are capital intensive
• 20:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Listen to your customers and make adjustments to your products depending on their needs.
2. Online marketing is a necessity for every businesses.
3. College won’t teach you how the real world works.

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