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SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

What if you knew data behind the fastest growing SaaS companies today? Each morning join Nathan Latka as he spends 15 minutes interviewing SaaS founders. You'll learn how SaaS CEO's launched their startup and grew it into a business. SaaS Founders range from bootstrapped to funded, MVP to 10,000 customers, pre revenue to pre IPO.
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Now displaying: Category: Business
Sep 14, 2017

Bruce Pon. He’s the CEO and founder of BigchainDB and he’s been playing in the crypto world.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Mungerisms by Charlie Munger
  • What CEO do you follow? – Vitalik Buterin
  • Favorite online tool? — Streak CRM
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— At least 8
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Buy bitcoin earlier”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 02:03 – Nathan introduces Bruce to the show
  • 02:44 – Bruce built BigchainDB to manage data
  • 02:55 – Bitcoin is a payments cryptocurrency in a global network while Ethereum is a business logic in a global network
  • 03:11 – People pass trusted data over the blockchain network for enterprise use cases and consumer applications
    • 03:32 – From the business logic, you can exchange bitcoin and other types of value
  • 03:42 – The problem with the use case on top of the bitcoin blockchain 3 years ago was it didn’t scale
  • 04:04 – Bruce was building io which is putting intellectual property into the blockchain
    • 04:25 – You can sell your intellectual property over the network
    • 04:48 – It was built over the bitcoin blockchain and got difficult to develop over time
    • 04:54 – Ascribe.io needed meta data about the creative work, author and licensing model
    • 05:04 - Ascribe.io isn’t just built for bitcoin—it’s like trying to using a Lamborghini to move your house
    • 05:49 - Ascribe.io had AI, scientists and other PhDs who told them that building Ascribe.io wasn’t worth it
  • 06:09 – Team size is around 20 and is based in Berlin
  • 06:24 – BigchainDB has raised $6M in price round series A
  • 06:41 – Open source software is traditionally a dual license model
  • 06:53 – BigchainDB is looking at an enterprise model
    • 07:00 – They’re looking into the ICO craze too
  • 07:21 – BigchainDB is like a SaaS model
    • 07:27 – They’re looking at per transaction charges but it may not work for the long-run
  • 07:54 – BigchainDB just released their 1.0
    • 08:08 – They give premium support
  • 08:27 – Bruce is looking into 5-6 figures per month for their starting price point
  • 08:58 – One-third of the work in businesses happen in the back office
  • 09:13 – Blockchain allows you to have a single source of truth
  • 09:29 – BigchainDB unlocks the opportunity for different organizations to have a single source of truth
  • 09:48 – When you can make IoT, AI and blockchain tools, you can track the product from the inception until it gets to the customer’s hand
    • 10:01 – The customer will now understand how the product is made
    • 10:03 – The regulators will know that the product followed the guideline
    • 10:07 – The company will know if there’s a recall or quality issue and they will know where exactly the product is
  • 10:40 – BigchainDB can work with different kinds of products
  • 11:20 – Blockchain is definitely auditable
    • 11:30 – Before the product comes to you, it will be signed by entities with a cryptographic key in every process
    • 12:00 – With AI, you can also see who is in the very process of making your product
  • 12:34 – The key metric Bruce is measuring is the number of people that are building upon them
  • 12:56 – Target MRR is $100K by end of 2017
  • 13:03 – BigchainDB is currently at $50-60K MRR
  • 13:19 – Number of customers
  • 13:44 – There are 300 developers in BigchainDB’s channels and there are 5K clones of their software
  • 13:54 – BigchainDB has 1K monthly downloads of their whitepaper
  • 14:45 – The ratio of developer to clone is the 300 developers to 5K clone requests
  • 16:05 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Data that is passed over the blockchain network can be used for enterprise use case and consumer applications.
  2. The beauty of blockchain is that it is auditable and has accountability capabilities.
  3. Some tools that are built over the bitcoin network won’t always work; even if you have the best people in the industry.

 

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

Sep 13, 2017

Christoph Jentzsch. His background is in Theoretical Physics and he’s been part of the Ethereum project since 2014 as a lead tester. At the end of 2015, he co-founded Slock.it, working on decentralized sharing economy through the connection of blockchain and IoT (Internet of Things). One of the more famous projects that he was part of was the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization).

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Zero to One
  • What CEO do you follow? – God
  • Favorite online tool? — GIthub
  • 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? – “Avoid the bug in the DAO”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:50 – Nathan introduces Christoph to the show
  • 02:20 – DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization
    • 02:26 – It is a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain which aims at connecting people to pull their funds together and run small contracts
    • 02:45 – It failed and all the people got refunded
  • 03:10 – Christoph believes that Anthony Di Iorio is one of the founders of Ethereum
  • 03:24 – As a lead tester for Ethereum in 2014, Christoph was responsible for driving tests
    • 03:39 – Consensus tests are for client implementation
  • 04:10 – Nathan’s analogy of cryptocurrency using railroad tracks
  • 04:55 – Augur has launched their own token on top of Ethereum
    • 05:18 – They created their own token of value in exchange of the virtual currency of ether
  • 05:47 – There has been a lot of ICOs (Initial Coin Offering) lately and there has been opinions around them
  • 06:03 – Bitcoin was always meant for virtual currency
    • 06:09 – While Etherium has a virtual currency too called ether, its actual purpose is to be an open source platform to build decentralized applications or Dapps
    • 06:22 – People now create simple Dapps issuing a token on the Ethereum blockchain to fund Dapps projects
    • 06:32 – People thought DAO was an ICO but it wasn’t
    • 06:35 – DAO has collected a hundred million dollars in ether
    • 06:44 – After that, many ICOs have gone out
  • 07:40 – There are only a few hundred people who send ether into their contract
  • 08:11 – There was an article Nathan had read regarding Bitcoin’s current problem
    • 08:28 – The main problem is public blockchains are not scaling
    • 08:38 – In the protocol, one blockchain can only have 1 megabyte
    • 09:04 – There is now a high demand that leads to a higher price
  • 10:33 – Everybody can take part in the cryptocurrency game
    • 11:45 – People can create their own blockchain but they’re missing the network effect
    • 12:18 – There are some minors who control the network
    • 12:48 – As long as there are users in the system, they don’t mind the minors
    • 12:54 – Minors serve the blockchain, but Christoph believes the users are the ones in-charge
    • 13:21 – After the DAO failed, there was a discussion of how things should be done
    • 13:27 – Some are saying to split the blockchain into 2 versions: the new version is where people get refunded and the old version is the hackers who have the money
    • 14:58 – There are now 2 Ethereum classes: ethereum classic and ethereum
  • 15:19 – Christoph’s focus is now on Slock.it where they’ve built a decentralized sharing economy
    • 16:02 – It is built over the public ethereum and they don’t have tokens
    • 16:17 – They’re using ether as a payment
    • 16:33 – Most startups are called ICOs and make their own tokens to fund themselves
  • 16:40 – Slock.it is VC funded with a seed funding of $2M
  • 18:06 – Slock.it isn’t currently getting any payment but they will in the future
  • 18:38 – Slock.it collaborates with Innogy
    • 18:51 – Innogy allows electric charging stations to connect with smart contracts in the blockchain
    • 19:00 – A user can charge his car, making him enter the smart contract
    • 19:10 – If you’re the owner of a charging station and you have an electric car, you can set the price for the station and offer it to public
  • 20:05 – Noke padlocks can now be open and closed through Bluetooth and Slock.it has added a payment option where it can be opened by paying
  • 20:34 – Slock.it can be integrated into the device and it is different from Airbnb
    • 21:28 – As long as the ethereum blockchain is alive, the Noke padlock can be used through Slock.it
  • 22:10 – Christoph currently resides in Germany
  • 22:45 – “As of now, crypto is not a very good currency”
  • 23:23 – Ether is as volatile as bitcoin
  • 23:45 – You can definitely exchange your tokens for real dollars, but it’s not an efficient system
  • 24:03 – Paying people with ether isn’t that easy at the moment
  • 24:12 – Currency is the least interesting aspect
    • 24:19 – There’s a limitation in scalability and in privacy
  • 24:40 – Christoph thinks ethereum, smart contracts and blockchains own up as programmable money
  • 25:55 – Slock.it is currently integrated into an existing hardware
    • 26:20 – There are currently thousands of charging stations under Slock.it
  • 26:36 – Team member is currently 14
  • 26:48 – The seed round was in February 2017
  • 28:02 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Some startups are coming out as an ICO to fund themselves, but not all of them are legal.
  2. Cryptocurrency still isn’t very stable so as a business owner, paying your people with this currency isn’t efficient.
  3. Public blockchains are not scaling and there’s a protocol that needs to be followed.

 

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

Sep 12, 2017

Brandon Bruce. He’s the COO and co-founder of Cirrus Insights, the sales plugin for Gmail and Outlook. The company is number 41 on the Inc. 5000 and the fastest growing company in Tennessee. Brandon once raced his bicycle 508 miles across Death Valley in 35 hours and 7 minutes.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – The Energy Bus
  • What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos
  • Favorite online tool? — Google Drive and Slack
  • 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 would’ve tried to start a full-fledged company earlier”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:50 – Nathan introduces Brandon to the show
  • 02:25 – Brandon was in Episode 226 of The Top
    • 02:38 – They had $550K in funding
  • 02:48 – The team back then was 55-60 and now it’s 70
  • 02:59 – No additional funding has been raised
  • 03:16 – Cirrus Insights is a fast-growing company that didn’t rely too much on VC
  • 03:35 – 5 years ago, Cirrus Insights wanted to solve the problem of going back and forth between Gmail and Salesforce
  • 03:53 – Cirrus Insights brings Salesforce into the inbox
    • 04:05 – They also help sales reps to seamlessly update Salesforce from the back end
    • 04:13 – Salesforce isn’t actually a CRM
  • 04:38 – Cirrus Insights just launched Flight Plans, which is an extension of their philosophy
    • 04:42 – It is fully built-in to Outlook and Gmail
    • 04:44 – It allows people to setup a sequence of sales touches
    • 04:58 – It’s personalized and low scale
  • 05:51 – Cirrus Insights’ growth is mostly from the Salesforce app exchange
    • 06:00 – Continued growth is still from word-of-mouth
  • 06:31 – Cirrus Insights has passed 100K seats with an average seat price of $6
    • 06:53 – The average seat price has gone up now
  • 07:19 – Flight Plans is a new tier
    • 07:24 – Cirrus Insights is the product name and Flight Plans is going to be an addition
    • 07:27 – There are now 3 additions to the product
  • 08:18 – Cirrus Insights has just passed $1M in MRR
  • 09:00 – Customers are choosing Cirrus Insights over others because some are overpaying and underutilizing marketing operations
  • 09:29 – Marketing and sales are now working as a team with Cirrus Insights
  • 09:58 – Cirrus Insights now charges $8 per seat
  • 10:32 – Marketing operation has 4 big, unicorn companies
  • 10:49 – There are now hundreds of tools in marketing operation and it will be interesting to see a consolidation
  • 11:04 – Brandon is thinking customers will just utilize the best tools for the job
  • 11:33 – Cirrus Insights is trying to position themselves to be the best at what they do
    • 11:43 – They’re also continuing to offer more in the future
  • 13:00 – Gross customer churn: 15-20% annually, but they’re targeting to lower it down to 10%
    • 13:30 – There’s a lot less churn in the enterprise
  • 14:17 – Net annual revenue churn is still negative and net seat churn is below 10%
  • 15:16 – Most of the new leads are from word-of-mouth, with some small scale paid acquisition
    • 15:22 – They’re more focused on the content that can drive more people
    • 15:25 – Brandon has read The Slow Sale which is about how slowing down can win more deals
  • 16:30 – Budget for paid marketing is $25-50K
  • 18:22 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. As saturated as the market is, there’s still a way for your business to stand out.
  2. Marketing and sales teams are looking for tools that will not just help them with their workload, but encourage them to work together.
  3. If your company constantly adds value, word-of-mouth will be your driver of sales.

 

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

Sep 11, 2017

Jeff Glueck. He became the CEO of Foursquare in January of 2016 after 18 months as the COO of the company. Prior to that, he was the CEO of Skyfire Labs, co-founder of Site59.com and CMO of Travelocity. Previously, he was a strategy consultant at Monitor Company and served as a White House Fellow in the Clinton Administration. He holds a master’s degree from Oxford as a Marshall Scholar and a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College.

 

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Good to Great
  • What CEO do you follow? – Adam Neumann
  • Favorite online tool? — Stitcher
  • 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? – “It’s going to be okay when you take a risk”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:46 – Nathan introduces Jeff to the show
  • 02:53 – Jeff has been with Foursquare for 3 years
    • 02:55 – Jeff joined the company while it was evolving into a hot social network in 2012
  • 03:10 – Foursquare developed the technology of Pilgrim that turned it into a powerful enterprise business
  • 03:19 – Foursquare’s early valuation was based on the fact that it would be the next big social media network
    • 03:51 – The valuation was only made up because it wasn’t based on revenue
  • 03:57 – When Jeff entered, they raised a round and they’re now growing over 60% in the past 3 years
  • 04:13 – Foursquare is now more rationally valued
  • 04:55 – Foursquare has a powerful community of people mapping the world
  • 06:05 – Pilgrim is based on Foursquare’s nearly 12B check-ins
  • 06:13 – Foursquare is having more check-ins today than it did 2 years ago
    • 06:30 – The check-ins are called explicit ground trips
    • 06:55 – Everytime someone check-in, they’re mapping the business for Foursquare
    • 07:15 – The explicit ground trip makes the program powerful
  • 08:06 – Foursquare launched the Pilgrim SDK which is a white label way for their developers to add in background content and give users a better experience
  • 08:24 – Using the Pilgrim technology, Capital One can ask its user if they want to opt-in for being informed about how to receive rewards points
    • 08:36 – People overwhelmingly opting-in
    • 09:08 – The notification from Capital One encourages people to actually use their mobile wallet
  • 09:18 – TouchTunes uses the Pilgrim technology
    • 09:25 – TouchTunes runs 65K jukeboxes through mobile app
  • 10:37 – Pilgrim technology has learned when to send notifications
    • 10:47 – Pilgrim technology also informs their developers of the best time to send notifications
  • 12:08 – When Jeff joined, he saw how everyone, including Fortune 500 companies, was using them for free
    • 12:15 – Jeff told their CEO that they’re actually losing money and that they needed to start charging customers
  • 12:42 – Foursquare didn’t lose even a single developer after putting up a paywall
  • 12:49 – The model was licensed-based depending on the usage
  • 14:15 – Three of the largest headphones in the world are Foursquare’s customers
  • 14:40 – Jeff understands how the market changes
    • 14:55 – 92% of the consumer spending is far from the 8% they spend on e-commerce like amazon
    • 15:10 – Foursquare has predicted how Chipotle’s sales will go down by 30%
  • 15:20 – “We’re not investors, we’re technologists”
  • 16:16 – Jeff believes that Foursquare’s mission is to be a location intelligence company
  • 16:34 – Jeff is proud of Foursquare’s technology; they can build tools that help companies
  • 17:07 – Foursquare started out as a consumer company but now, more and more apps are using them for their applications
  • 17:51 – Jeff believes that in the future, they can also make real estate better
  • 18:45 – 90% of Foursquare’s revenue is from B2B
  • 19:34 – Foursquare’s paying customers are some of the biggest brands in the world who want a company that is as good as Google Maps
  • 19:58 – People don’t want to be dependent on Google in the future
  • 20:18 – “A lot of smart companies want to build differentiated mobile experiences in the future and we’re helping them do that, that is our business”
  • 21:48 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Even if your company can go IPO, it doesn’t mean that it should.
  2. Offering your services or products for free may work for the short-term, but if your service adds value to your customers, they WILL pay.
  3. Focus on what your company is 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

Sep 10, 2017

Dave Kellogg.  Dave has more than 20 years of experience in high growth companies. Dave has been CEO of MarkLogic, CMO of Business Objects and member of Aster Data board of directors. Dave steered MarkLogic to $80 million in revenues. Business Objects witnessed equally impressive growth as it reached a revenue of billion dollars under his able guidance. Tune in and listen to Dave as he discusses various financial metrics of Hostanalytics. Targeting small businesses and enterprise level businesses, this company has grown 4x over the past 3 years. Read on and find out what makes this SAAS business tick.

Famous Five:

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 02:14 – Nathan introduces Dave to the show
  • 03:19 – Host Analytics is a SAAS company that is disrupting the space for enterprise performance management
  • 03:58 – Not dabbling in premise products at all
  • 04:28 – Corporate finance does not scale up with growing company size; number of users for such a software is dependent on the centralization philosophy
  • 04:42 – A big company might be heavily centralized with only a sprinkling of users, whereas a little company might have hundreds of users
  • 04:52 – Pricing model is a combination of a fixed based fee and a user fee
  • 05:00 – Fixed fee varies from 25k to 50k—both fixed fee and user fee are recurring
  • 05:25 – User fee depends on the user type and to which extent the software features are being used
  • 05:45 – Fixed fee per user per month may vary from a couple of hundred dollars to a thousand dollars
  • 06:10 – Re-entered the startup world once he quit Salesforce and joined Hostanalytics
  • 06:24 – Passed on the reigns at Mark Logic to Gary Bloom—Mark Logic is still doing very well
  • 07:05 – Best strategy to exit a startup is to exercise 83B options
  • 08:00 – Exercising all options results in FMP (Fair Market Value) equaling strike price
  • 08:07 – You lose the optionality—shares might not increase in value at a later date
  • 09:00 – Met VC’s, entrepreneurs and angels while looking for a new opportunity after quitting MarkLogic
  • 09:16 – Dave’s buddies coaxed him to join Salesforce as CMO
  • 09:39 – Learnt a lot about SAAS at Salesforce. However, he found out that he was more comfortable running smaller companies
  • 09:58 – Dave met the founders of Host Analytics through a common friend who was on their board
  • 10:31 – HostAnalytics was clocking revenues of $10 million when Dave joined them in 2014; a great board and a proven SAAS model are the other factors which compelled Dave to join the firm
  • 11:20 – Revenues have grown 4x since 2014
  • 11:42 – Founded in 2001, HostAnalytics grew via bootstrapping for seven years. They finally secured VC funding in 2008
  • 12:01 – Raised $85 million to date
  • 12:32 – Used 75 cent “I love EBITA” stickers and funnily enough, won customers due to that
  • 13:47 – Servicing 700 customers, as of today
  • 13:50 – Pareto’s 80/20 principle is not applicable to them; they are bimodal with a dual focus on smaller businesses as well as enterprise businesses
  • 14:20 – Both of them are run as different cohorts by different salesforces; revenues are split equally between small business and enterprise
  • 14:50 – Each client is aggregating revenues of $70,000 per annum
  • 15:13 – Payment terms are a tricky issue in SAAS
  • 15:18 – While other SAAS players go for monthly and quarterly payments, HostAnalytics opts for annual payment
  • 15:34 – If you are giving a discount smaller than your churn rate, then everybody wins
  • 16:15 – Customer churn and revenue churn are surprisingly equal
  • 16:25 – Spending on an average $1.5 to $ 2 for a dollar of AR to acquire a customer
  • 17:16 – A team of 300 people out of which 100 are located in India, entire sales force of 60 is located in the US
  • 17:23 – Company co-founded in US and India
  • 18:10 – Average lifetime value of a client varies from 6x to 7x or half a million dollars
  • 19:39 – Cloud penetration of this market is just 5%
  • 19:57 – Finance department is 10 to 15 years behind sales in adoption of cloud
  • 20:17 – 9.5 out of 10 people would say “Not now”
  • 20:56 – Blended Gross Margin is lower since they have a slightly bigger services business than most SAAS companies
  • 21:10 – ERP is a heart transplant. EPM is a knee transplant
  • 21:20 – Services business helps reduce churn and create cash flow
  • 22:57 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. A big company might be heavily centralized with few SAAS users, whereas a small company might have hundreds of SAAS users.
  2. Focusing on services reduces churn and creates cash flow; however, gross margins are less compared to other SAAS companies due to this.
  3. Focusing on small businesses as well as enterprise businesses is important—at HostAnalytics, revenue is split equally between these two models.

 

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

Sep 9, 2017

David Rogier. He’s the CEO of MasterClass where he leads the company’s vision of redefining digital learning by leveraging the expertise of world-class experts with the cutting-edge technology platform. David created MasterClass after seeing how the online education space was offering low-quality content and an unfair advantage of students.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – The Science of Shopping
  • What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos
  • Favorite online tool? — Doodle
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— Average 6
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – David would tell himself that entrepreneurship will be the hardest thing he’ll ever do

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 02:05 – Nathan introduces David to the show
  • 03:05 – MasterClass offers classes from the absolute best in the world
    • 03:14 – Online classes are offered both pre-recorded and live, both price at $90
  • 03:31 – Students can study anytime they want and they have access forever
  • 04:04 – Prior to MasterClass, David worked for a VC fund in the Bay area
    • 04:21 – David worked for Michael Dearing of Harrison Metal
    • 04:50 – Michael wrote David a check for $500K to start his idea for his business
    • 05:03 – David tried almost everything to get an idea until he remembered his grandmother’s story
    • 05:49 – His grandmother applied for medical school while working in a factory
    • 05:55 – She was rejected by almost 50 medical schools
    • 06:20 – The reason she was rejected was because she was a woman, foreigner and Jewish
    • 06:27 – One school accepted her and she became a doctor
    • 06:53 – She told David that education is the only thing that people can’t take away from him
  • 07:04 – David thought of getting into the education space and studied it
  • 07:53 – MasterClass was launched in May of 2015
  • 08:00 – Total capital raised was around $50M
  • 08:35 – The fund goes to expanding the team as well as production so they can shoot more classes
  • 08:42 – Team size is currently 68 and will be 100 at the end of 2017
  • 09:04 – Year One: number of students
  • 10:13 – When they started, David was expecting a 10X increase in sales daily
    • 10:38 – David cried after their first day of sales
  • 11:18 – Reid Benson who is part of David’s sales team and was formerly with Netflix, wasn’t even scared after the launch
    • 11:58 – Reid told David that their CAC was amazingly low
  • 12:34 – The first 3 classes were led by Dustin Hoffman, James Patterson and Serena Williams
  • 13:06 – The CAC for different subjects was actually close to each other
  • 13:43 – Paid ads spent on Day 1 were less than $100K
  • 14:14 – Paid advertising on different channels works well for MasterClass
    • 14:22 – Instructors are also promoting their classes
  • 15:00 – David can’t disclose the deal they have with the instructors
    • 15:13 – Most instructors teach because they really want to teach and not just to earn from it
  • 15:51 – David shares how they handle instructors who don’t want to teach, but want to share their knowledge
    • 16:10 – Classes are designed by how instructors want to share their own craft
    • 16:14 – Instructors have complete control over their class
    • 16:28 – David shares what a class looks like for Serena Williams
  • 17:24 – MasterClass partners with the instructors in their classes
  • 18:17 – David shares why he won’t share the deal with the instructors
    • 18:38 – James Patterson teaches with MasterClass because of his own reasons
  • 21:00 – David shares why instructors pick MasterClass over LinkedIn, which is more popular
  • 21:50 – There are now 20 classes in MasterClass
  • 22:07 – The number of classes should double, year over year
  • 22:52 – Half to 80% of their first students haven’t taken any online classes before
  • 23:10 – Not all students are fans of the instructors
  • 23:43 – David won’t sell MasterClass for $300M
  • 25:15 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Never miss an opportunity being offered to you, it was offered to you for a reason; so trust yourself and go for it.
  2. Most successful people in their field want to share their craft through any way possible.
  3. Education is one thing that people can’t take away from you.

 

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
Sep 8, 2017

Eric Beans. He’s the CEO of Texting Base and before that, he was the CEO of Appuix. He was also the former co-founder of Premier Mortgage Capital and the author of Changing the World Through Texting Software. He was in the production as the producer and writer of LA Style Magazine and he’s “Chef Beans” on Daytime.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Steve Jobs
  • What CEO do you follow? – Brett Kingstone
  • Favorite online tool? — Gusto
  • 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? – “Make better choices on who I surround myself with”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 02:00 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show
  • 02:43 – Eric wasn’t really a chef and he made food for the person who was running the show
  • 03:01 – Texting Base is a personalized, mass communication platform for texting which is similar to email
    • 03:17 – It looks like it is personally written
  • 03:23 – Texting Base charges monthly depending on the quantity of the messages
  • 03:33 – Texting Base is a SaaS business
  • 03:38 – Minimum charge which is also the average is $50 and will go up depending on the number of messages
  • 03:55 – Customer number is almost 500
  • 04:09 – Average MRR
  • 04:21 – Texting Base was bootstrapped and raised $262K
  • 05:29 – Gross margin is 566%
  • 06:33 – 14% of the cost structure is Texting Base’s messaging fee
  • 06:52 – Server costs is around $900 a month
  • 07:14 – Processing fee is 2.5%
  • 07:47 – Gross margin is around 79%
  • 08:05 – The higher the volume, the lower the charge Texting Base gets from the provider
    • 08:09 – They had a contract for volume
    • 08:23 – They negotiated with Twilio directly
    • 08:35 – Volume should be at least 100K a month
  • 09:18 – Eric started Texting Base in 2012
    • 09:21 – Eric needed the product—no one had it so he left banking and started the business
    • 09:37 – It took 3.5 years to launch
  • 09:49 – Team size is 5
  • 10:12 – Target customers for Texting Base are real estate and mortgage providers
  • 10:21 – Texting Base uses email blasts to reach their clients
  • 10:56 – Eric has used email providers until they started building their own list
  • 11:24 – CAC was $28 and now it’s around $18
  • 11:47 – Current churn is about 2.87% monthly
  • 12:23 – LTV is still a bit early
  • 12:57 – Texting Base doesn’t have contracts with customers
  • 13:08 – Last month, $850 was spent on PPC
  • 13:32 – Eric gave some equity of the company to the investors
    • 13:53 – The people who are building the product also have equity
  • 15:25 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. It takes time and patience to build a business, be sure that you’re prepared for it.
  2. Create your own solution to the problem and don’t be surprised if you end up solving multiple problems along the way.
  3. Your network can bring you places; nurture your relationships.

 

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

Sep 7, 2017

Andy Swan. He’s the founder of LikeFolio. The company uses social data to determine shifts in consumer behavior on Main Street before it becomes use for Wall Street. This is his third financial technology company. The second, MyTrade, was acquired by TD Ameritrade in 2007.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Think and Grow Rich
  • What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos
  • Favorite online tool? — Gmail
  • 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? – “A little bit more about patience”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 02:07 – Nathan introduces Andy to the show
  • 02:37 – MyTrade was geared directly towards option traders and active stock traders
    • 02:50 – The technology allowed traders to copy someone’s option trade which is very complicated
    • 03:09 – It was sold because it was useless without a brokerage backend
    • 03:48 – MyTrade had raised $500-600K and was sold just 3-4 months after the round
    • 04:19 – Andy thought they had a good partnership with Ameritrade and that there was no plan of acquisition
    • 05:06 – Andy stayed with Ameritrade for 3-4 years after the acquisition
    • 05:30 – After 4 years, Andy and his brother spun off and created their own company
  • 06:09 – Andy developed LikeFolio’s technology after leaving Ameritrade
  • 06:26 – LikeFolio sells insights on consumer behavior to professional investors and companies
  • 06:35 – LikeFolio has a partnership with Twitter where they take every tweet and analyze it
    • 06:54 – LikeFolio can map the trends in tweets and alert their clients about the shifts in behavior
  • 07:40 – LikeFolio has different subscription plans
    • 07:47 – LikeFolio’s on-demand plan is $2K a month
    • 07:56 – For extreme computing power and robust API, the plan costs $100-300K
  • 08:11 – Most of the revenue is from the API plan
  • 08:40 – LikeFolio On-Demand has just been launched
  • 09:20 – Every contract of LikeFolio’s is secure and LikeFolio isn’t allowed to disclose anything
  • 09:59 – Andy can’t disclose the number of customers they have
  • 11:18 – LikeFolio hasn’t raised capital and Andy isn’t planning on raising a round
    • 11:38 – “I want to own it all”
  • 12:02 – Andy doesn’t want other people to have a say in his company and wants to be the decision maker in everything
  • 12:36 – Andy’s first company was Daytrade which was sold to a private equity
    • 12:55 – It helped Andy to understand how to run a business in fintech
    • 13:13 – Andy didn’t raise money for Daytrade
  • 14:03 – Team size is five; one in Louisville and four in Argentina
  • 14:36 – One of toughest things LikeFolio faces is determining a tweet with the word “never”—it negates anything else in that tweet
    • 15:01 – “I could NEVER live without weightwatcher” is missed by LikeFolio because it’s a positive-negative sentiment
  • 15:28 – LikeFolio takes a thousand tweets per month, per company so there will always be missed tweets
  • 17:05 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. With technology today, consumers’ behavior can now be tracked on different online platforms—this can help businesses provide the right product or service for you.
  2. It’s OK to be the only person responsible for your business; however, there’s still a possibility that you may need help in the future.
  3. Be patient!

 

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

Sep 6, 2017

Chase Jarvis. He’s one of the most influential photographers in the last 20 years. He’s also the creator and CEO of CreativeLive. He’s won awards for his images on six different continents, including his contributions to the Pulitzer Prize winning story Snow Fall—the acclaimed New York Times interactive story heralded as the “future of journalistic storytelling” and  Emmy nominated for his work documenting the music scene in Seattle. In 2009, he created the Best Camera app which was the first photo app that shared images directly to social networks. It was #1 on iTunes, App of the Year on Wired and got many other awards. He's currently focused on his work as the founder and CEO of CreativeLive, the world's largest online education platform for creatives and entrepreneurs with over a thousand teachers, 1500 classes and 10K hours of classes.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday
  • What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Weiner
  • Favorite online tool? — Evernote
  • 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? – Chase would tell himself that mental health is the most important thing

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:48 – Nathan introduces Chase to the show
  • 02:48 – Nathan describes his experience with New York Times
  • 03:11 – We are now in a weird and modern era of journalism and media
  • 03:20 – “If you’re really focused on innovating and breaking out of the norm, you can do it”
  • 03:35 – Snow Fall is a story of an avalanche
    • 03:40 – Chase’s friend was a victim in an avalanche so the story was extra special to him
  • 04:01 – Feature storytelling is continuing to grow and evolve
  • 04:10 – Physical newspaper is dying and has becoming uninteresting
  • 04:23 – Chase believes that there will be platforms in the future that are embedded with native bells and whistles that will continue to evolve
  • 04:45 – “Journalism is moving in the same direction as tech”
  • 05:02 – As platforms become more templated, we’ll become more interactive and have exciting experience with our news
  • 05:24 – “Timing is everything”
  • 05:30 – Chase shares his experience with his Best Camera app
    • 05:38 – Being the first was challenging
    • 05:43 – The developer was in a legal snafu which slowed down the creation of the app and paralyzed Chase’s business
    • 05:57 – Companies had already asked Chase if they could buy his app
    • 06:13 – Chase has spent 10 years identifying himself as an artist and entrepreneur
    • 06:30 – Chase was struggling with his overall identity
    • 07:30 – Chase just shut down his app; moved on and learned from it
  • 08:11 – “I got more juice to go help other people break through some of those problems”
  • 08:40 – Specifically, Chase owns all the intellectual property of his app
  • 09:39 – “We need to overcome the psychology of being stuck in paralysis and analysis”
  • 10:05 – Chase was in his late 30s in 2009
  • 10:27 – Chase thinks that humans are generally resilient so he didn’t dwell much on what happened
  • 10:34 – 5 years later, Chase wrote about his failure on his blog
    • 10:59 – It’s more about having an impact on the world rather than just getting money
  • 11:25 – Chase got into Instagram only a year and a half ago
    • 11:35 – Chase was trying to preserve a legal position
  • 11:53 – CreativeLive sells content that are created by the top experts in the world
    • 12:01 – There’s a premium model where customers can see how things are done
    • 12:07 – There are channels that can be watched for free
  • 12:33 – CreativeLive has a total of 10M students, paid and free users
  • 13:12 – CreativeLive has a high conversion rate relative to peers and commerce
    • 13:31 – Average conversion rate is 1-2%
  • 13:39 – CreativeLive is curated to creators by creators
    • 13:51 – It is more community focused and is not a two-sided marketplace
  • 14:00 – Competitors’ classes can be created by anyone which is very different from CreativeLive
  • 15:07 – Chase has no desire to limit the creators in CreativeLive
  • 15:29 – CreativeLive designs their contract and relationship with their creators
  • 15:50 – Chase is confident in CreativeLive and the value it brings to people
  • 16:58 – “We make you look great”
  • 17:05 – CreativeLive only makes the extraordinary
  • 17:24 – The challenge that Masterclass is facing
  • 18:44 – CreativeLive was bootstrapped for the first 2 years
  • 18:56 – CreativeLive has raised $58.8 M in total
  • 19:30 – Chase won’t sell CreativeLive for $200M, even if it’s from LinkedIn
  • 20:06 – CreativeLive’s mission is for people to educate themselves and make a living
  • 20:26 – Chase would only sell if the vision of the buyer aligned with them
  • 22:00 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Don’t dwell on your past mistakes, use them as motivation to move on and create better.
  2. Contracts are made for a reason; study and check thoroughly before agreeing to one.
  3. Stay aligned with your mission and vision.

 

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

Sep 3, 2017

Moshe Vaknin. He’s been dreaming about his company YouAPPi since he bought his first iPhone 3. After a long and successful career working in a variety of positions, Moshe founded 3 successful startups before finally starting YouAPPi. As the CEO of the company, he brings vast experience in the fields of advertising, publishing and affiliate marketing, making him adept at identify opportunities that can be transformed into profitable realities. 

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – My Journey to Justice by Moshe Vankin
  • What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos
  • Favorite online tool? — Whatsapp
  • 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? – “Never give up”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 02:41 – YouAPPi is a platform that enables users, publishers and developers to solve growing challenges related to mobile app development
  • 03:19 – As an example, King, the maker of Candy Crush, is always looking for high-quality users for candy crush
    • 03:30 – High-quality users are the ones who play and purchase virtual items
    • 03:45 – YouAPPi will find these high-quality users
    • 03:53 – The process of finding high-quality users is complicated
    • 04:12 – King will have a better ROI to optimize their investment by partnering with a company like YouAPPi
  • 04:47 – YouAPPi has an agreement with 4500 developers and publishers
  • 05:13 – YouAPPi knows users behavior better than anyone else
    • 05:21 – Moshe explains how YouAPPi learns the shopping behavior of each user
    • 05:44 – By learning what to recommend to certain users, YouAPPI can better drive sales
  • 06:50 – YouAPPi can’t track the users and other private data
  • 07:30 – As long as the user is within YouAPPi’s publishers’ network they can identify your device ID and recommend apps
  • 07:56 – YouAPPi is getting paid per app installation and usage
  • 10:52 – YouAPPi pays 70% of their revenue to their publishers
    • 10:56 – From $20, the publisher gets $14 and YouAPPi gets $6
  • 11:05 – YouAPPi was launched in 2011
  • 11:15 – First year revenue was $250K which is the total cut from $1M
    • 11:44 – 2016 total cut was $80M
  • 12:05 – YouAPPi has raised closed to $20M
    • 12:17 – “We have to invest building the platform”
  • 12:19 – Total number of employees is around 130 with 10 offices globally
  • 13:05 – YouAPPi’s platform is for their own consumption
    • 13:24 – “Our business model is our platform”
  • 13:44 – YouAPPi is currently running hot on momentum and Moshe won’t probably sell YouAPPi before 2019
    • 14:10 – IPO recommendations
  • 15:04 – HQ is in the Bay Area and Moshe is currently in Israel
  • 15:33 – Top 2 competitors are Aerosource and AppLovin
  • 17:07 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. As long as you’re on the right path, you can reach your dream.
  2. A good relationship the people in your network can exponentially expand your business.
  3. Never sell too early—if you’ve got a furnace full of momentum, to cash 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
Sep 2, 2017

Sergey Sholom. As a teenager, he was a championship-level gamer and created the first large gamer group called S-port Tournaments in Russia for Quake. After getting his PhD in mathematical modeling, Sergey founded Datcroft Games LTD in 2004. Over the past 13 years, the company has developed multiple worldwide popular games with millions of users. He continues to oversee a company with over a hundred employees and continues to bring new cutting edge games to the market. Their latest game called Pixel Wars which will be released in the summer of 2017, has already received critical acclaim and will become the game changer in mobile eSport.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Richard Branson’s
  • What CEO do you follow? – N/A
  • Favorite online tool? — N/A
  • 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? – “Push more”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 04:03 – The company was launched in 2004
  • 04:29 – The make free games that sell virtual items—that’s where the company gets it’s revenue
    • 04:43 – Around 5% of players buy virtual items
    • 05:20 – Sergey had no revenue for the first 2 years of his company
    • 05:58 – Sergey supported himself from other businesses
  • 06:01 – His newest game has been in development for more than 2 years
  • 06:13 – The team has 150 people with offices in 4 countries
    • 07:34 – Datcroft Games had an 8-digit revenue in 2016
  • 09:00 – Cryptocurrency helped Gamecredits to monetize their audience
    • 09:20 – Sergey wants to prove game developers that more revenue can come from crypto
  • 10:05 – Gamecredits is preparing to enter the Indian market
  • 10:46 – Sergey believes that Apple promoting your game is just an extra advantage
  • 11:35 – The number of followers that the Gamecredits store has
  • 12:05 – Gamecredits is using its existing coin which has been on the market for 3 years already
    • 12:34 – Gamecredits has been running the most successful crowd sale in the market
    • 13:19 – Gamecredits will put 26.5 M crypto in marketing
  • 14:17 – Sergey will have a way to exchange their coin in dollars
  • 14:43 – Different cryptocurrencies are being put in Gamecredits
  • 15:11 – Sergey is proud that they’re able to run a real crowd sale with almost 10K crypto investors
    • 15:23 – Not all ICOs are able to do that
  • 15:34 – Gamecredits was able to raise capital from 4 tokens including bitcoin, ethereum, waves and gamecredits
  • 16:05 – Gamecredits current tokens are mobilego tokens and their own gamecredits token
  • 16:51 – The market is tremendous and the future community will be much bigger
    • 17:46 – Apple and Google are for profit companies and Gamecredits is a non-profit
  • 20:00 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. It’s possible for a gaming platform to penetrate the cryptocurrency market.
  2. The cryptocurrency market has been growing significantly, increasing opportunities for different investments.
  3. As a non-profit business, your focus needs to be on the change you can create, not the contributions you can earn.

 

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

Sep 1, 2017

Tran Hung. He’s one of the founders of Uquid which is the world’s first service offering debit card solutions for cryptocurrency holders. They currently support 79 of the biggest digi-coins including bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin, ripple, etc. They also offer worldwide mobile recharge support, bills payment services, grocery and pharmacy vouchers, ticketing services, and many other benefits.

Famous Five:

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 03:00 – Uquid is a debit card for 79 cryptocurrencies
    • 03:10 – Customers can get the physical card with a Visa logo that they can use to withdraw money
    • 03:28 – The card can be loaded with cryptocurrencies
  • 03:43 – Before getting the card, you need to have cryptocurrency
    • 03:49 – Signup at Uquid’s website to get a card
    • 04:04 – There’s a fee of $1 for 1 virtual card but you need the physical card to use in ATMs which is $16
    • 04:20 – After getting the card, you can reload it anytime you want with cryptocurrency
  • 05:10 – Uquid is using the market price of cryptocurrency
  • 05:42 – Uquid takes 0.5% of everything spent using the card
    • 05:53 – If Nathan spent $100 on groceries using the card Uquid will take .50₵
  • 07:34 – Last year, customers spent $1.6M in total transaction volume
  • 08:09 – Uquid is growing fast in 2017
    • 08:30 – In July, Uquid processed $900K in total transaction volume
    • 08:50 – Uquid has already passed $3M total transaction volume on the first half of 2017
  • 10:45 – The process of exchanging bitcoin to other currencies was complicated
    • 11:19 – Uquid is doing $5K a month in service charges
    • 11:30 – Uquid also offers other services where they charge 10-15%
    • 12:05 – Uquid charges 3% from the vouchers
  • 12:20 – In May, Tran thinks they’ll make around $50K in total transaction charges
  • 12:58 – Team size is 5 and they’re based in UK
  • 13;15 – Uquid is planning to release their own token
  • 13:29 – Tran is looking to raise $4-5M
    • 13:44 – Tran is thinking of selling 15% of Uquid to be able to raise $4M
  • 14:35 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  1. The market for cryptocurrencies is rapidly expanding.
  2. People are now finding more and more ways to mine coins.
  3. No matter what service you use, the charges can differ drastically depending on the type of transaction you’re engaging 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

Aug 31, 2017

Martin Koppelmann. He is the co-founder and CEO of Gnosis, the decentralized platform for prediction markets. He has been an entrepreneur and thought leader in the blockchain space for more than 4 years. He is closely related to prediction markets and has worked on decentralized, market-driven, governance mechanisms.


Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – Martin does not read books, but considers Reddit a good resource
What CEO do you follow? – some VCs, but no specific CEO
Favorite online tool? — Slack, Trello
How many hours of sleep do you get?— Less than 6
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – He wished he looked earlier into game theory and economics

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:07 – Nathan introduces Martin to the show
01:43 – Bitcoin was the reason Martin got into the crypto and blockchain space
01:58 – This was during the time the Euro was having problems
02:09 – Martin started to evaluate how he looked at money; he learned about bitcoin and the possibility of creating different forms of money
02:35 – Gnosis has evolved
03:04 – They are assuming that Gnosis will be a decentralized platform for prediction markets; for betting, auctions and insurances
04:32 – Martin says companies like eBay, Uber and AirBnB will be replaced by a decentralized platform
04:51 – They may replace companies that go into information aggregation
05:02 – Instead of having different analysts determine the revenue of a company, markets and forecasts will be aggregated to one number
05:15 – Gnosis has zero customers and zero in revenue, but they have a team and have raised capital thru selling GNO tokens; they raised $12.5 million
06:14 – The tokens were sold for 250,000 ether, a blockchain currency, and at the time the tokens were sold, the ether was worth $12.5 million
06:55 – The token has its own value and is currently trading at $240 a piece
07:04 – Gnosis collects ether and pays their employees with it
07:33 – To convert ether into real dollars, Martin uses Kraken, Coinbase and Poloniex
08:40 – The foundation of crypto is its big vision and the vision to create something as big as the internet; however, currently, it is still just speculation
09:31 – The token itself is almost always issued in Ethereum; the consumer creates the rules so the first set of rules they made involved organizing the token sales
10:03 – Martin did the token auction and was completely controlled by the blockchain
10:40 – Compared to Bitcoin, Ethereum was easier to use for developers
11:10 – If crypto becomes the currency of the future, Martin says he hopes that people will become equally rich. He is currently working on a project where each person can issue their own currency and others would agree to accept each other’s currencies
11:37 – They are trying to democratize money
12:27 – Nathan says there is a limited supply of ethereum in the blockchain
12:46 – Personally, Martin does not follow the bitcoin model
13:02 – Martin is thinking of a new world where people are part of a new economy; each one gets to issue their own tokens and the tokens have value
13:50 – Inflation can be used to finance a public good
14:11 – For example, let’s say you want to create a platform like Uber, Uber is made to serve the public
14:35 – The operating cost is not what made Uber expensive to build, it was the spend on marketing and buying everyone on the platform
14:57 – Martin says there can be a new model where people can create value by joining the same platform
15:13 – The value creation happens when people join the platform, this is where tokens are useful and can be used as incentives
15:58 – The early adopters get more and those who join later will have to pay fees
16:12 – Nathan says this sounds like a network marketing scheme
16:25 – Martin says this is how Uber found success – in the beginning someone paid $2 billion and in the end, it’s the users that pay; but, the curve can be much flatter
17:02 – Nathan asks Martin how values go up in crypto
17:42 – Martin says value creation is made when everyone agrees on something
18:15 – The thing about competing token issuances is that people need to find a way to combine their different tokens onto one platform
18:44 – Nathan says he can see the good intentions of the people who are in the crypto space, but he is trying to figure out who will win or lose when the crypto marketplace is more mature and established
19:28 – Martin says assuming there will be a winner and loser, the difference is found in people who have control over a platform
19:49 – For example, in Uber they can change rules and raise fees, but on a decentralized platform, you can structure it in a way that makes restrictions on yourself
20:16 – If you monopolize the platform, you can still get the fee but you have no control in changing it
21:02 – Martin says there is power in making your governance mechanism into something that does not allow you to change anything
23:31 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
Crypto and blockchain can be the currency of the future.
You create value when people agree to join a platform together.
A future where people can have their own currency may be the way to democratize our use of money.

Resources Mentioned:
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

Aug 30, 2017

Nick Candito. He is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of the company called Progressly, championing the company’s mission towards becoming the new standard for how teams find and execute business processes. He previously served as Relate IQ’s head of user success and business operations which was acquired by Salesforce, the first automatic and intelligent CRM solution. Nick founded Progressly to address how large industries operate, innovate and share around core business processes.


Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek
What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Weiner, Satya Nadella, Dick Costolo, Jeff Bezos
Favorite online tool? — Hubspot tools for email, Pocket
How many hours of sleep do you get?— less than 8
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – be patient, ask more questions and optimize by being around the best people

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:07 – Nathan introduces Nick to the show
01:49 – Nick thinks Salesforce will win the CRM space, as well as Microsoft and LinkedIn
02:25 – Nick is impressed by Base CRM and Social Capital
02:57 – Nick stumbled into tech as he was originally a finance major
03:15 – He started by joining a small software team building technology for the pharmaceutical industry and learned about the manual system of the tech industry
04:04 – Nick then joined Crimson Hexagon and he learned how to take a company to the next level using tools like Salesforce
04:38 – With RelateIQ, Nick learned how to create a sales system of engagement
05:18 – Nick thinks the best founding duo he has ever encountered is Adam Evans and Steve Loughlin
06:29 – Progressly is the operational system of records with a focus on the Fortune 1000 CROs or contract research organizations
07:24 – The company has a mobile first strategy (people who are working outside of office)
08:01 – Progressly works with a variety of companies; big companies that include Shell Oil and those in the mid-market segment
08:25 – The highest price is $49 per user, with the IT Group of Chevron they have 60,000 employees within the company
09:31 – The company was founded in 2014 and started to fundraise aggressively in 2015; they were able to raise $10 million in the seed, series A and after
10:22 – They had a very specific profile for their seed round and focused on a large institutional investor, a micro VC, and some high value angels—it played out the way they planned
11:17 – They are looking at getting a positive net churn and at how they can accelerate the growth of their accounts; for example, from site-wide deployment to regional deployment to enterprise deployment
13:28 – They are now in the hundreds in terms of customers; the energy and utilities sector has a high network effect
14:05 – Nathan just interviewed Geoff Moore who said the more specific or weirder the sector, the better
15:24 – The utility metric depends on what the user is running on operationally
16:03 – The active number of seats are in the thousands
16:46 – The first year revenue was pretty low because they did a paid pilot offering
17:10 – They were looking into the pilot to use case expansion
17:55 – They want to have a 100% growth, year over year
18:10 – It is easier to drive a high growth rate rather than have customers who can refer you to others
19:41 – Nick will celebrate when he gets to $5 million in ARR or accounting rate of return
20:40 – Currently, they are doing less than 300 grand per month
21:16 – Having an enterprise cycle in your business is slower upfront, but has the ability to experience significant growth in the long run
21:31 – They have 30 employees with some in product design and engineering
22:31 – The payback period is significantly lower than 12 months
24:38 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
Target a specific group for your customer base to increase the chances of referrals.
An enterprise account may prove to be slow at first, but it will pay off in the long run.
Ask your customers to promote your business to other people.

Resources Mentioned:
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

Aug 29, 2017

Anindya Datta. He is the CEO and Chairman of a company called Mobilewalla, a mobile consumer, audience platform company. Before Mobilewalla, he founded a company called Chutney Technologies where he was backed by Kleiner Perkins which was eventually acquired by Cisco Systems. He has been on the faculties of Georgia Tech, The University of Arizona and The National University of Singapore. He obtained his undergraduate degree many years ago and his MS and PhD degrees from the University of Maryland College Park.


Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – The New New Thing by Michael Lewis
What CEO do you follow? – Jose Mourinho
Favorite online tool? — Outlook and Gmail
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5 ½ hours
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Drink less and study harder

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:26 – Nathan introduces Anindya to the show
02:21 – Mobilewalla collects data for how consumers behave on mobile and processes it for mobile marketers—they have two products: mobile audience and raw mobile data
03:38 – When companies buy the audience, Mobilewalla provides the IDs and it is a one-time deal; the raw data is given on a subscription-basis which is paid monthly
04:28 – Right now the SaaS model is earning more in terms of revenue, but Anindya thinks this will change in December
04:57 – They are currently modifying the audience pricing to become a recurring stream
05:10 – They are planning to offer the data segments needed by a company and get a monthly payment for it
06:07 – Mobilewalla gets their data from different sources including the ad request system in mobile, they barter with the ad company in exchange for data
06:54 – They also put a pixel in an ad and obtain data from you as you browse
07:23 – This includes your location
07:57 – The company started with buying the information they can collect from other companies’ ads and then moved on to trading
08:32 – 2014 is their first revenue year where they got $1 million from the cut of the media buy
09:10 – 2015 was also all media buys where they got $4 million
10:18 – They stopped media buying in June 2016 and played a key role in the US presidential election—the revenue generated was $4 million: $750,000 in data and $3.25 million was from media
11:33 – The projection for this year is $5.1 million (all coming from data), but they have deals with companies that include media work
12:21 – Mobilewalla was one of the key data arms for a major party
12:33 – They created segments for evangelical Christians
13:31 – Anindya cannot share who they worked for but they can say the client was very happy with their work
14:10 – They raised their capital thru venture funding which are convertible notes worth $4 million; they have not yet raised a series B
15:50 – In May 2016, all the revenue was from data and they got $12,000. In June of this year, they hit $250,000—this is a 20x growth in 13 months
16:32 – In May 2017, they made $172,000
17:05 – On SaaS, they have 9 customers with subscription accounts and they pay from $8,500 to $41,000 a month
17:21 – The biggest chunk of audience revenue comes from Oracle, they get paid based on the segments that were sold
18:10 – In June, they were close to $100,000 from their mobile audience; there are over 250 organizations buying from them including Unilever and Procter and Gamble
19:12 – Ever since they started there are only two companies who have not continued working with them
20:01 – The company has two sellers – one in New York and one in Singapore
20:27 – The total team size is 38 with 3 focused on sales acquiring new clients; the average sales cycle for a SaaS client is 45 days
21:21 – There is zero variable marketing spend for the company
21:51 – The company headquarters is in New York and the US team is located in New York and Atlanta where the US engineering team is based
22:12 – The US team size is 10, the Singapore team size is 12, and the rest is based in Calcutta, India
24:21 – The biggest amount of money they generated during the election was the “get out to vote or GOTV” – they monitored every polling booth in a certain number of states and they were able to tell the ground team who voted and who did not
25:04 – During the election their data was acquired in real time
27:15 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
Invest in a business that can bring in profit; this will give you the capital you need for your other businesses.
Data is king.
You CAN barter with other companies to reduce your spend on marketing.

Resources Mentioned:
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

Aug 28, 2017

Cameron Herold. He’s known as the business growth guru. He’s the mastermind behind hundreds of companies’ exponential growth. He’s built a dynamic consultancy whose current clients include the big 4 wireless carriers. His clients like that Cameron only speaks from experience. He’s earned his reputation as the business growth guru by guiding clients to double their profit and revenue in just 3 years or less.


Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – Good to Great
What CEO do you follow? – Travis Kalanick
Favorite online tool? — CommitTo3
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 9
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Everybody’s insecure, everybody’s nervous and just suck it up and run with it, because everybody’s more worried about themselves and never about me”

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:16 – Nathan introduces Cameron to the show
02:04 – Cameron was featured on TED Talks’ Raising Kids as Entrepreneurs and that’s where his career got started
02:13 – Cameron got into College Pro Painters
02:24 – Cameron was the COO at 1-800-GOT-JUNK
02:29 – Cameron grew the company from 14 employees to 3100 employees in 6 years
02:33 – Cameron started coaching CEOs 10 years ago
02:48 – Brian Scudamore who was in Episode 409 and he is Cameron’s friend
03:20 – Cameron shares why he chose the consultancy path
03:43 – “I don’t need to build another company to feel good”
03:50 – Cameron likes doing what he does
04:02 – Cameron shares what happened in cryptocurrency in 2000
04:04 – There were 15K companies using currencies
04:14 – Electronic currency was tied to US dollars in terms of valuation but it was backed by nothing
04:27 – They took a percentage of every transaction
05:06 – One of the companies that Cameron helped was BlueGrace Logistics
05:18 – Cameron coached the CEO, Bobby Harris, and 5 other executives
05:21 – Form $80M top line revenue, they grew to $250M
05:33 – The company is all about culture and that is Bobby’s focus
05:47 – Cameron does two 90-minute video calls with all of his clients
05:56 – It’s mostly mentoring
06:08 – Cameron teaches how to put the right systems and processes in place
06:25 – Most entrepreneurs just wake up one day with the realization that they’re clueless about what they’re doing
06:44 – After experiencing substantial growth, a company has no idea what to do next
07:04 – There are a couple of companies that Cameron has equity in
07:30 – Cameron has a couple of groups on the investment side
07:43 – Cameron’s two books, Double Double and Meetings Suck, speak to the core of what Cameron is doing
07:55 – Cameron wrote a book because he’s a paid speaker and speaker bureaus want to put out more content
08:04 – Cameron is an advisor and investor for Tucker Max’s Book in a Box
08:16 – Book in a Box does an 8-hour interview and strips the content from your head
08:40 – It costs $25K to pull the content out of your head and put it into print
08:44 – Thought leaders and CEOs need to have a book in this day and age
09:10 – Cameron shares how great Book in a Box is at what they do
09:24 – They also pulled some content from Cameron’s previous speaking events and used the copy of his first book
09:29 – They provide a format for our thoughts and they ask the right questions
09:49 – Cameron has sold around 50K copies of Meetings Suck
10:03 – Cameron targets the leaders of the meetings, participants and discusses how the meeting should proceed
10:30 – Cameron wrote Double Double 6 years ago
10:52 – Cameron’s speaking fee was $7500 before he had published his books, now it is $35K
11:11 – Cameron is one of the best speakers that we’ve had in a long time now
11:51 – “I think we’re at the very, very peak of a market right now”
12:34 – Some of Cameron’s clients have been with him for 3-4 years, some just a year and others 3-6 months
12:51 – Cameron’s starting fee is $80K annually and goes up depending on the client’s needs
13:20 – Cameron shares how he talked with Sprint’s Jaime Jones
13:46 – “I don’t understand their business and I don’t need to”
14:35 – Cameron focuses on the people side of the business
15:16 – Cameron shares where he puts his money to increase his revenue stream
15:42 – Everything is a little overpriced now in real estate
16:04 – Cameron shares where his property is and how he is managing them
19:25 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
Some entrepreneurs get overwhelmed by their company’s incredibly, fast-paced growth and they need support in learning how to sustain that growth.
Have the right systems and processes in place to carry the momentum of your business.
Invest your money after you’ve done the research yourself and know exactly what you’re getting into.

Resources Mentioned:
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

Aug 27, 2017

Jack Peterson. He’s the co-founder of Augur which is a decentralized, prediction market platform that runs on the ethereum decentralized network.


Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – Handbook of Applied Cryptography
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
Favorite online tool? — Ethereum
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? – “Don’t spend too much time on impractical things”

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:10 – Nathan introduces Jack to the show
01:28 – Augur is a decentralized prediction market platform
01:34 – The platform exists on a ethereum decentralized network
02:09 – Bitcoin is the first blockchain which was initially intended for payment
02:19 – Ethereum is a blockchain that is flexible, you can upload programs where people can execute their programs
02:38 – Augur is a set of programs that run on the network of ethereum
02:54 – The founder of ethereum was on Episode 758
03:11 – Augur has a set of smart contracts on ethereum that people run
03:57 – Augur is currently finishing their beta test and it is not yet live
04:02 – Their smart contract code is undergoing security audits
04:12 – Jack shares how to use Augur
04:27 – The aim is to make the experience similar to accessing a regular website
04:40 – Augur is a venue to bet on any world event
04:49 – For example, making predictions with politics
05:40 – The market you create is where you can buy and sell shares of the event
06:25 – An example scenario: the Super Bowl
06:40 – A market is where someone can place their bet
07:10 – In a normal sportsbook, people can bet on the winner
07:19 – Who will win the Super Bowl? This is the market on Augur and people can place their bets
07:37 – You can buy and sell shares of any of the outcomes
08:17 – The people in the market set the price of the shares
09:06 – With the Super Bowl, there will be multiple outcomes
09:28 – When you set-up the market, you set-up the order book for each of the outcome
10:05 – You could place a bet by buying shares of the outcome
10:41 – When your bet wins, the value of the shares go up and if you lose, it will be zero
10:59 – “You’re betting on how likely the outcome is to happen”
11:27 – Jack shares how someone who doesn’t have any experience in crypto can participate in Augur
11:35 – First thing you need to do is get the crypto currency (you can use your credit card)
12:01 – Augur isn’t involved with any platform that exchanges dollars to crypto, so you have to get it from third-parties
12:30 – You can buy ether from Coinbase and use the ether to place bets on Augur
13:10 – If you already have ether, you can already participate in a market
13:55 – Augur has an embedded plugin similarly to Paypal which is for Coinbase and ShapeShift
14:25 – If you signed in, you will have the ether to bet
15:05 – You can create a market on the trading page
15:37 – You’re betting with whomever wants to participate in the market
15:48 – The person who creates the market will set-up an order book with actions
16:51 – Jack did a Token share
17:07 – “Our token is called rep”
17:58 – Token has raised $5.3M in August and September of 2015
18:10 – It was a $5.3M equivalent in crypto
20:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
Ethereum is a blockchain that Augur uses to run its programs.
There are multiple platforms available for dollar to crypto currency exchange.
Maintain your focus on what’s important.

Resources Mentioned:
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

Aug 26, 2017

Steve Kirsh. He’s the CEO of Token, a Silicon Valley startup company developing a modern platform for open banking. He’s pioneered several computer core technologies like optical mouse, Internet search, spam filtering, and secure identity and founded 7 high tech companies—two with billion dollar market caps such as Infoseek and Frame Technology. He received his BS and MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 1980.


Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – Like A Virgin
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
Favorite online tool? — SimplyFile
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? – “Just hire good, strong and experienced people”

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:25 – Nathan introduces Steve to the show
02:04 – Token supplies open banking software to banks
02:24 – There’s no real API that works with banks and this is the problem
03:00 – One of Token’s customers is Fidor Bank
03:02 – The problem is most banks don’t have an open API where you can do things like move money
03:19 – Token can get into Fidor’s API to drive its API
04:13 – Token has spent time creating an end-to-end secure architecture that is based on digital cryptography
05:24 – Steve thinks that there’s no real need for blockchain for a lot of financial applications
05:38 – “The technology for blockchain is just not appropriate”
05:48 – The Bank of England did an experiment with etherium
06:24 – Token was launched in 2015
06:50 – Steve shares how Token came to life
07:15 – Token raised $18.5M in a series A
07:26 – There’s legislation in Europe that requires banks to open their APIs and that’s when Token came in
08:07 – Token charges per API calls
08:10 – Token gets the calls for free from the banks
08:50 – The charge depends on the API calls
09:18 – Nathan simplifies how the model works
10:05 – There’s no equivalent to PSD 2 in the USA and it’s only for banks in Europe
10:20 – This can only happen in the USA if people want to be compatible with the banks in Europe
11:33 – Token’s first bank
12:11 – There are currently around 5 banks that are integrated with Token
12:25 – Team size is 25, split between San Francisco and London
14:20 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
Find the perfect timing and opportunity to pitch your business.
It is easier and more secure for banks to adapt a technology that has been tested than it is for them to create their own.
Hire good, strong and experienced people for your business—it just makes like easier.

Resources Mentioned:
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

Aug 25, 2017

James Smith. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Bugsnag, the leading crash monitoring platform for web and mobile applications. The company helps companies like Airbnb, Lyft, Cisco, Pandora and Yelp catch and fix errors on their applications. Originally from London, James moved to the Bay area in 2009, leading the product team as the CTO of Heyzap. In his spare time, he likes hacking open source software, eating junk food and practicing his American accent.


Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – Radical Focus
What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos
Favorite online tool? — eShares
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? – “If you don’t ask, you don’t get, apply it to your life”

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:11 – Nathan introduces James to the show
02:00 – If a company has a software, Bugsnag detects when the software is broken
02:22 – Bugsnag charges monthly
02:28 – The price varies depending on the company’s needs
02:36 – Price starts at $29 a month to tens of thousands a month depending on the scale of the business
03:17 – Customer cohorts
03:57 – Team size is 35 and will be 45 at the end of the year
04:30 – James and his co-founder quit their job in 2012 and started Bugsnag in 2013
04:40 – James was the CTO for Heyzap which was a Y combinator company in the gaming space
04:59 – Heyzap wasn’t able to solve the problem James had with Bloomberg
05:59 – James invested in Heyzap and learned a lot from his time with them
06:40 – Heyzap was acquired by the German company Fyber
07:06 – James’ experience entering the startup world
08:30 – With Heyzap, James had to decide whether or not he’d buy his shares before the acquisition
09:43 – James’ price was low because he was an early employee of Heyzap
10:41 – James was 29 when he left Heyzap
10:50 – Bugsnag was initially bootstrapped, then raised in 2013
11:08 – Bugsnag went with Matrix Partners
11:32 – Bugsnag raised a total of $9.5M
11:49 – Customer number is around 4000 companies
12:04 – Bugsnag has a free and premium model
12:14 – There are 60K software engineers who are using Bugsnag
12:21 – One third are organizations and the rest are using it for free
13:00 – First year revenue was $4.5K in ARR
13:27 – Bugsnag has broken $2M ARR already
13:47 – “The expansion revenue is really, really strong”
13:50 – Bugsnag is constantly in a net negative churn
14:06 – Logo churn is around 1%
14:40 – Bugsnag started with low deal sizes and grew them slowly
15:05 – People try Bugsnag for free and see its value
15:45 – Healthy net negative churn in the industry is around mid-single digit to low double digit negative churn
16:41 – The best driver of growth for Bugsnag is word of mouth
17:01 – Bugsnag also does conferences and had 18 conferences last year
17:10 – Sponsorship price per conference can go up to $10K
17:28 – Large companies go to conferences as well
17:35 – Payback period is the 12-month which is the rule of thumb
18:17 – Bugsnag is in a typical SaaS gross margin
20:25 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
If you don’t ask, you won’t receive; therefore, just get out there and ask for what you want.
Small deal sizes can grow and expand to large ones once people see your value.
Consider owning a part of a company—especially if it’s a company that you truly believe in.

Resources Mentioned:
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

Aug 24, 2017

Jim Larrison. He’s the co-founder and president of Dynamic Signal, the leading, customer-employee, advocacy engagement platform. Jim has been involved in a handful of startups that were successful from within big companies to venture-funded businesses. With a couple of sold businesses and an IPO, he is set to come forward with Dynamic Signal which has already raised over $68M in funding.


Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – Business Adventures and Into Thin Air
What CEO do you follow? – Tony Hsieh
Favorite online tool? — Owler
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “It’s important to fail and not to be scared of failing”

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:12 – Nathan introduces Jim to the show
01:53 – Dynamic Signal was founded 7 years ago with the mission to revolutionize how to communicate with your employee
02:03 – Big companies struggle to communicate with their employees
02:23 – Dynamic Signal focuses on simplifying this communication
02:34 – Some large companies don’t use the internet to communicate—they send snail mail, newsletters or magazines
03:09 – Dynamic Signal works with Slack which is a collaboration tool
03:20 – Dynamic Signal is a top-down communication tool
03:43 – Dynamic Signal is a SaaS business with monthly subscription plans
03:59 – Dynamic Signal goes after global businesses, enterprises and corporate businesses
04:40 – Dynamic Signal charges by number of employees
05:36 – Big companies grow faster than the small companies
05:56 – Dynamic Signal segment customers depending on the number of employees and where the employees are based
06:20 – Nestle is a global business with hundreds of companies under their brand
06:43 – Dynamic Signal has no cap in the number of employees
06:57 – Global 50 companies have 23K to millions of employees
07:11 – Global 1000 companies have 5K to 25K employees and 5K employees below are for corporate businesses
07:26 – Dynamic Signal was launched in 2010
07:30 – Jim and his co-founder sold their previous company Adify to Cox
07:43 – It was for $350M
07:52 – It was a quick exit and they’ve raised $20-30M
08:06 – The original idea for Dynamic Signal was to go after advocates and influencers
08:25 – Jim saw that the biggest advocates for businesses like Oakley and Nike are their employees
09:30 – Jim and his co-founder built Dynamic Signal because they like working together, even after their successful exit
10:06 – When they started the company, they told themselves that they wanted to build the technology the right way
10:32 – Team size is around 200, some are in the field and some are in San Francisco
10:45 – Around 80 people are engineers/technical and 40 are on sales
11:17 – First year revenue
12:10 – 2016 ARR
12:40 – Jim’s vision for the company is to go public
13:00 – Total customers is close to a couple of thousand
13:25 – Dynamic Signal has 20% of the global 200 companies
13:55 – Dynamic Signal’s costs are driven to the technology
14:03 – Gross margin is around 85%
14:23 – Jim and his co-founder had a good relationship with Cox
14:36 – Cox also funded Dynamic Signal
15:52 – Jim hasn’t seen any logo churn since they launched
16:03 – Dynamic Signal has a long sales cycle: from 240 days to years
17:15 – Jim has tried the seat bucket license but it hasn’t worked as well as their previous pricing
18:00 – “The way we drive growth is 100% based on getting more usage and that’s it”
18:35 – After the raise, Dynamic Signal is focused on expanding their business
18:50 – Paid spent is less than $500K
19:03 – Payback period
21:07 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
Larger companies struggle to communicate and connect with their employees and oftentimes, need a solution.
The biggest supporters and advocates of a brand are the employees.
Get used to failing and don’t fear it—it’s part of your path to greater success and understanding.

Resources Mentioned:
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

Aug 23, 2017

Brendan Candon. He’s the co-founder and CEO of SidelineSwap, an online marketplace for athletes to buy and sell their sports gear. The company has over 100K users, participated in 500 startups and has raised $1.5M in venture funding.


Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – Leaders Eat Last
What CEO do you follow? – Jack Ma
Favorite online tool? — Slack and Appear
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? – Brendan wished he could have been more active in entrepreneurship while in school

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:20 – Nathan introduces Brendan to the show
01:43 – Brendan was in Episode 359 of The Top
02:33 – Brendan believes that SidelineSwap will make $5-6M in sales by the end of 2017
02:43 – SidelineSwap just launched their iOs app
03:28 – SidelineSwap is where athletes list their items for free
03:35 – You can list any new or used sports equipment
03:43 – SidelineSwap takes a 12% cut
03:49 – Their top KPI is gross merchandise volume
03:53 – They look at the number of sales they drive to the platform
04:51 – SidelineSwap currently has 15K sellers and around 23K buyers
05:22 – There are 2 sides of a marketplace:
05:30 – SidelineSwap gets supplies from the sellers which drive traffic
05:35 – There should be a balance between supply and demand
05:45 – SidelineSwap started by their search to see how many people had sports gear lying around
05:58 – They went to former college athletes, professionals and others in the industry
06:35 – They got some highly desirable gear from former known athletes
06:39 – SidelineSwap started with social media to drive traffic to the website
06:45 – They now have around 70K Instagram and Facebook followers
07:34 – SidelineSwap has marketing ads highlighting some gear that can be considered collector’s items
08:25 – Total transaction volume since the launch of SidelineSwap is around $3.5M
08:35 – 70% happened in just the first 6 months
08:57 – Brendan thinks that getting the right supplies affects their growth significantly
09:08 – SidelineSwap also educates the buyers on the items that they’re getting
09:30 – SidelineSwap tries to avoid jockstraps
09:43 – There are also different accessories that target the younger buyers
10:28 – eBay started in a similar way as SidelineSwap
11:00 – “We want to be the resource for every sports family”
11:21 – SidelineSwap wants to build the best possible shopping experience
11:45 – Average order value is $80
11:56 – SidelineSwap focuses on the number of gear listed
12:23 – In May, there were 3K buyers and 1500 sellers
12:48 – SidelineSwap has recently $1.5M in summer
12:56 – Total will be around $3.5 including a current negotiation
13:23 – Brendan shares how he pitched SidelineSwap as a marketplace
13:45 – Brendan believes there will be a sporting goods marketplace
14:19 – SidelineSwap is currently growing 30%, month over month
14:43 – Current team size is 10, some are in Boston and some are in New York
17:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
There will be a marketplace for sports equipment in the near future.
For every business, aim to achieve a balance with your supply and demand.
Research where you can find the BEST resources for your supply—this will attract your target market.

Resources Mentioned:
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

Aug 22, 2017

Eric Tang. He’s a computer programmer and co-founder of Live Peer, a decentralized video live streaming platform incentivized with the blockchain. He was introduced to the blockchain in 2014, and it’s pretty much everything that Eric thinks about now.


Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – Jerry Colonna
Favorite online tool? — MetaMask
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? – Eric would tell himself to be more focused and worry less

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:06 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show
02:07 – Wowza does video transcoding in a centralized way
02:30 – One of the big CDN players is Akamai
02:59 – There are two different cases for why people would use Live Peer over the other players in the industry
03:05 – Live Peer is in a decentralized world
03:11 – App developers nowadays are building decentralized applications
03:18 – The applications do not have a server
04:13 – They can duplicate their projects over the blockchain
04:17 – Live peer is the only solution for decentralized apps
05:20 – The government wouldn’t be able to figure out the IP of Live Peer
06:06 – The idea of blockchain is the participants are the stakeholders
06:16 – When you use Facebook live, you’re just a user and not actually benefiting from it
06:27 – In a decentralized world, if you’re a participant of Live Peer, you earn tokens which grow and become more valuable
07:07 – From an ecosystem standpoint, the companies building businesses around bitcoin and ethereum are early coin holders
07:28 – Joseph Lubin, Ethereum’s co-founder, is now hiring 400 people for ConsenSys to build applications around the ethereum ecosystem
07:55 – Ethereum provides a smart contract platform which bitcoin doesn’t provide
08:47 – How Ethereum and bitcoin are competitors and how they are not competing explained
09:17 – Anyone can build their own bitcoin blockchain but they won’t be always successful
10:18 – Eric thinks co-blockchains will also exist
10:50 – Eric thinks bitcoin is a great way to hold value as it has a great network now
11:11 – Ethereum has its own value and for a completely different purpose
11:29 – We use the ethereum platform to hold our tokens
11:50 – In the open blockchain world, anyone can be an investor
12:10 – There’s just more risk in investing earlier
12:44 – Can someone cheat the system by having fake miners grow the value earlier?
13:00 – Some are pumping the tokens and selling them
13:13 – When a company comes, Eric would have them hold their tokens at first
13:48 – If you have a lot miners, you’re already contributing a lot to the network
14:00 – The network will leverage the access capacity
14:12 – if you spun out a bunch of miners, Live Peers will have a large capacity in terms of amount of transcoding and live streaming work we can do
14:23 – This creates a cheaper price for the amount of live streaming
14:43 – Nathan makes a comparison using Live Peer 1 and Live Peer 2 as competitors
14:49 – When investors spend money on the 2 companies and contribute more resources, the prices of the service will go down for the consumers
15:07 – The longer they spend money, the more users they can drive
15:55 – If Nathan launches an email marketing tool, how can he create traction if people don’t understand crypto
16:18 – There’s actually a need for people to simplify the complexity of crypto
16:59 – Eric is thinking of providing incentives for individual stakeholders to get new users on board
17:23 – The big investors can put aside a big percentage of tokens and just incentivize it
17:37 – It’s like an employment equity pool
17:54 – The early participants will benefit more from the ecosystem
18:03 – The first bitcoin transaction was 10K bitcoins for a pizza
18:16 – The bitcoin price to buy a pizza is a little over $2500 (a coin)
20:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
More developers are building decentralized applications because of the security piece.
The participants in the blockchain are the stakeholders as well.
The one who will win is those who can spend more money and contribute resources for a longer span of time—this will attract more users and create cheaper prices for the consumers.

Resources Mentioned:
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

Aug 21, 2017

Anthony Diiorio. He’s a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, community organizer and thought leader in the field of digital currencies, blockchain technology, and decentralized technology. He’s the founder and CEO of Decentral and Jaxx and co-founder of the Ethereum project. He previously served as the chief digital officer of The Toronto Stock Exchange.


Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
What CEO do you follow? – N/A
Favorite online tool? — LastPass
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? – Anthony wished he didn’t waste his time in university

Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:55 – Nathan introduces Anthony to the show
01:38 – Anthony got into the industry in 2012 and thought that crypto was going to be more important than the internet
01:57 – Before, there was disruption in the internet—now, you can send value without third parties getting involved
02:21 – We’re now moving onto the age of the movement of value
02:34 – Some third party disruptions come from banks and credit bank companies
02:53 – You can remove third parties in the value chain and connect more individuals at a lower cost
03:11 – With smart contract, you can now automate on blockchain and see a reduction cost
03:38 – A blockchain is a ledger system or an accounting system that tracks entries using cryptographics
04:20 – Digital currency didn’t work before because there was no technology for it
04:48 – Since you can’t duplicate something digital, you can claim what is yours
05:33 – Decentralized ledgers track what people are sending and receiving
05:57 – The decentralized networks are replacing centralized services
06:14 – Blockchain is the technology, bitcoin is the example of that technology
06:22 – All cryptocurrencies have blockchains below them
06:28 – Bitcoin is the first one to have its blockchain
06:30 – Ethereum has a blockchain behind it
06:39 – Blockchain makes the transactions visible and transparent
06:50 – Blockchain provides trust between two individuals
07:40 – Tokens are coins but are found on other platforms
07:45 – Ethereum is a platform that is made to build other platforms on top of it
07:51 – Ethereum provides the infrastructure layer
08:05 – There are now tons of projects building coins on the ethereum platform
08:38 – Bitcoin has its own coin while ethereum is like a product that incentivizes people to contribute to the network
09:39 – Ethereum is like an SDK depending on the developers
11:03 – Anthony had a talk with someone who's in the cannabis industry
11:06 – Anthony is creating a coin card system where you can buy any coin or currency in convenience stores
11:18 – Banks don’t want to set up accounts for bitcoin companies because they’re scared
11:47 – Anthony sees the same characteristics within the crypto space and cannabis space
12:40 – Ethereum is from Decentral, the hub that Anthony made in 2013
12:55 – Anthony sees people jumping to the crypto space without even researching
13:15 – Look online before investing because scams are everywhere
13:47 – Anything that states there’s a fixed return is fishy so you should seek advice
14:03 – Do your due diligence
14:39 – Decentral is the brand and Jaxx is the product
14:48 – Anthony shares his initial experience with the industry
15:13 – Anthony bootstrapped Etherium
15:23 – Anthony left Etherium in 2015 to focus on the wallet space
15:30 – Anthony realized that the wallet is the browser for the technology
15:51 – The wallet contains the value of movement
15:56 – Anthony developed a multi-chain, multi-platform digital wallet that enables managing and receipt of valuable digital assets
16:23 –When you start your Jaxx, you’re creating a key for your transactions
16:41 – You are in full control of your wallet
16:55 – Jaxx makes money through integration partners like ShapeShift
17:09 – Anthony made $60M from ShapeShift transactions
17:50 – Jax just signed 70 partnerships in the space
18:25 – The fund that Anthony used for Jaxx
18:45 – Jaxx is currently profitable and made $150K last month
19:03 – There are exchanges globally that enable you to buy and sell cryptocurrencies rather than wire transfers to your bank account
19:13 – There’s also a bitcoin ATM and Anthony has it
19:32 – Jaxx’s goal is to become the default interface that the masses can use to understand the power of blockchain
21:46 – The Famous Five


3 Key Points:
With cryptocurrencies, you can send value without the disruption of third parties.
Do your due diligence—while cryptocurrency is a hot space for investors, the chances of getting scammed is also very high.
The power of blockchain isn’t only beneficial for those who are already in the space, but for everyone.

Resources Mentioned:
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

Aug 20, 2017

Emily Paxhia. She’s the founder of Poseidon Asset Management and she shifted her focus entirely to the cannabis industry, in 2013. Since that time, she’s taken her experience of researching markets, companies and strategic opportunities and turned them entirely to the world of cannabis. Her focus on understanding where the market is headed rather than where it has been, has been critical to developing a diverse portfolio of companies that span the sector. With over 15 years working with Fortune 500 companies—developing products, resolving strategic errors and addressing new target audiences—her work has been fundamental to stewarding her companies’ portfolios along the paths to success.


Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – Mark Zuckerberg
Favorite online tool? — Asana
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 3-5
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I wished I had took it easier”

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:04 – Nathan introduces Emily to the show
01:53 – Poseidon is a VC firm for cannabis
02:02 – Emily was from an industry where companies were looking to expand their market share
02:09 – Emily saw the cannabis industry as an opportunity—there was a demand for products
02:30 – Emily’s parents passed away from cancer and she was told by some that cannabis could have helped her parents
02:43 – A dying cancer patient is prescribed medication that has side effects, then is issued more meds to handle the side effects—which is a difficult cycle
02:58 – Using cannabis appropriately could actually help with the side effects
03:05 – More and more cancer patients are experiencing relief while using cannabis
03:38 – Emily and her brother were 16 and 21 when their parents passed
04:07 – Prior to Poseidon, Emily was with Miner % Co. Studio
04:44 – As a financial professional, Emily had to assess her risk tolerances
05:04 – It’s important to be mentally and financially invested
05:09 – Emily also had great support to bring Poseidon to life
05:53 – Current fund size is $20M going $25M
06:11 – Emily’s brother is her business partner
06:36 – Emily shares a story when her brother brought in a company that Emily disagreed with at first
06:38 – In 2015, they’ve invested in a company called Surna
06:43 – The company had gone public and was in a lot of trouble
07:00 – Morgan had the idea to buy out the founders of Surna
07:15 – Morgan joined the board and helped the company get on track again
07:40 – Emily shares a time when the reverse happened; she brought in a company that Morgan was hesitant with at first
07:48 – The company was Wurk
08:00 – Emily was interested with Keegan’s presentation
08:35 – Keegan was in Episode 735 of The Top
09:20 – There is an assumption that Emily and Morgan are always high—this is NOT true
09:44 – Emily takes cannabis for stomach pain, but it doesn’t get her high
10:26 – Emily sees the cannabis industry as a wellness industry
10:50 – Emily is interested with business technology solutions that help businesses run smoothly
11:00 – She’s also interested in agricultural technology solutions as well
12:06 – “Honestly, if I could, I would solve the banking issue in California”
12:21 – Banks are still dropping businesses and credit cards
12:35 – It gets challenging when someone loses their banking relationship
13:00 – Emily is currently in San Francisco
13:23 – Poseidon is modest in stating their expected returns
13:31 – Emily wanted to capture the growth of industry
13:59 – Poseidon has been running 40-44% IR
14:13 – Poseidon has 3 phases of diligence:
14:20 – They receive lots of emails and Emily tries to read and respond as much and as quickly as possible
14:56 – Emily meets the founders and the team as part of their due diligence
15:06 – The last phase is from getting into the details of actual financial projections to sourcing potential co-investments
15:25 – Poseidon currently has 30 active companies in their portfolio
15:28 – Over 40 in the lifetime of the portfolio
15:55 – Typical deal size is $500K to a million dollars
17:02 – Emily and her brother are talking about a company they want to launch
17:38 – Emily’s three babies from their portfolio are:
17:42 – Flow Kana: a processing center working with small farmers
18:17 – Headset is a machine-data analytics company
18:37 – Emily really likes Wurk
18:49 – Baker is also exciting because it creates market opportunity
21:40 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
To become successful, one must research the field in question.
There’s a great demand for new product and technology in the cannabis industry as the supply is low.
Carry your past experience and knowledge into your current and future endeavors—employ the skills that transfer across disciplines.

Resources Mentioned:
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

Aug 19, 2017

Julian Marchese. Julian was introduced to Nathan by a mutual friend and he’s the CEO and portfolio manager at Marchese Investments in New York City. Julian is only 21 and was already featured in Bloomberg, CNBC and Dragon's Den, which is Shark Tank of Canada, where he managed to get 4 out of 5 dragons in the den that showed interest.


Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – Market Wizards
What CEO do you follow? – Peter Jones
Favorite online tool? — Quantocracy.com
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? – “Multi-strategy”

Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:51 – Nathan introduces Julian to the show
01:47 – Going into the hedge fund world has always been Julian’s passion
01:55 – Julian was introduced to the world of investing by his parents when he was 11 years old
02:50 – When Julian turned 18, he decided to start his own firm
02:58 – He waited until he reached the legal age
03:27 – Julian took a course in Toronto and people in press found it fascinating that he was studying trading at a very young age
03:48 – A lady took it upon herself to take Julian’s story and publish it
04:05 – Some of Julian’s first investors saw his story from the media
05:00 – Julian wanted to build a community for young learners like himself
05:10 – A lady emailed Julian because she wanted her daughter to join
05:36 – Julian met the lady and her daughter when they were in Toronto
05:51 – 2 years later, the lady invested $75K for 1% of Julian’s management company
06;11 – The management company has raised $675K with a $4M valuation
06:38 – Hedge funds usually have multiple entities who have different roles
07:28 – Julian also pays himself for personal expenses which is around $25K to $30K
07:53 – The other costs are on the management company side
08:44 – The investors make money from the GP interest accumulated
09:43 – Julian was able to raise the $6M capital through value generation
09:45 – “I’ve been managing money since October 2015”
10:07 – The best months for Julian are the months where the market is down
10:28 – Julian latest deal was an institutional money manager
11:03 – Julian isn’t doing traditional investments
11:42 – Julian explains how he does his investments
11:45 – First, they’re able to trade volatility and how much the market moves up or down
11:59 – Most people invest in the stock market, they want to benefit with the stocks are up, but they also want protection when things go down
12:21 – One of Julian’s strategies is to systematically sell insurance
13:04 – The investment return depends on the investors
13:40 – If you put in a million dollars in October 2015, today you will now have $1.2M
13:50 – You can take it all or leave any amount you want
14:09 – They now cater to different types of clients
14:36 – Julian doesn’t worry too much about what other hedge funds usually worry about
15:10 – Julian worries more about their process and how can they develop more
15:20 – The real risk for Julian is when there’s something wrong with his analysis process
15:45 – Strategies are reciprocal
17:04 – Julian has multiple strategies and none of those strategies are correlated
17:53 – Brexit can affect the volatility strategy but it’s a selective strategy and not always in the market
19:03 – “The main risk to us are not macro events like a stock market crashing”
19:40 – Julian makes money from 53-55% of their trades
19:49 – They try to limit their exposures
20:02 – “The risks are very circumstantial”
21:20 – Julian is unsure of his future positioning, but it’s completely content specific
23:23 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
Having multiple strategies can help you stay on track.
Start as early as possible—you are building your skills and knowledge base for the future.
People desire taking risks in trading and stocks, but they also need the securities in place.

Resources Mentioned:
The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

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