Renee Zau, co-founder and CEO of DonationMatch, a product donation network for school and charity events that works similarly to match.com. She’s obsessed with increasing a win-win partnership between brands and non-profit that don’t cost money but can generate more for everyone involved.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – E-myth Revisited
- What CEO do you follow? – Craig Newmark
- Favorite online tool? — Streak and Asana
- Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Almost
- If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “Believe in yourself and talent even if it is different from someone else’s’ idea on what you should do”
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:40 – Nathan introduces Renee to the show
- 02:08 – It takes 300 hours to secure in-kind and other donations from a benefit event
- 02:31 – DonationMatch streamlines the product for companies and reduces the work for school and charities
- 02:50 – Sahara Sam’s receives 100s to 1000s requests of tickets a year to raffle off at charity events
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- 03:26 – Doing a research and checking legitimacy takes time for companies
- 03:55 – DonationMatch has matched $ 16,000,000 worth of donation goods
- 04:14 – DonationMatch offers premium model
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- 04:22 – DonationMatch can be used for free
- 04:35 – Companies can upgrade to premium which is $ 49 a month
- 04:48 – DonationMatch is a SaaS business
- 04:54 – DonationMatch has around 100 active companies at the moment
- 05:02 – DonationMatch has a low customer churn
- 05:40 – DonationMatch still get a value from their non-paying customers
- 06:09 – DonationMatch started in 2010 but officially launched in 2013
- 06:37 – DonationMatch is bootstrapped
- 06:49 – DonationMatch had $ 100,000 credit card debt
- 07:10 – Renee and her co-founder are also doing stuff outside of the company
- 07:33 – 2015 revenue is $ 19,000
- 07:37 – Goal for 2016
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- 07:49 – As of October 2016, they have around $ 40,000 revenue
- 08:00 – DonationMatch is usually getting an annual payment from non-profit organizations
- 08:25 – Holiday season is when companies usually hire DonationMatch
- 08:40 – September 2016 revenue
- 09:10 –Total number of paying customer
- 09:44 – DonationMatch has 100 customers
- 10:12 – DonationMatch is currently raising $ 500,000
- 10:40 – Renee feels their valuation is $ 1.5 to 2 million
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- 10:47 – Based on their traction
- 11:05 – Customer acquisition cost is about $ 1
- 11:55 – DonationMatch has 13,000 non-profit users
- 12:30 – DonationMatch has about 10% of non-profits in San Diego
- 13:25 – They also have national brands in their system
- 14:05 – DonationMatch is open to offers and already talking to people and investors
- 14:30 – Connect with Renee through her email, website and Twitter
- 16:10 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- You can create a win-win partnership if you know the right ingredients.
- Believe in yourself and your talent even if it is different from someone else’s idea on what you should do.
- Take the risk – even if it means having a $ 100k debt.
Resources Mentioned:
- Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal developers.
- Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
- Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
- Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
- Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
- Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
- Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
- Drip – Nathan uses Drip’s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel.
- Renee@DonationMatch.com – Renee’s email address
- DonationMatch.com – Renee’s website
- @ReneeZau – Renee’s Twitter handle
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives