Tobyn Sowden. He’s the CEO of Redbrick, the second fastest growing software company in Canada and the birthplace of a product called Shift.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – How to Win Friends and Influence People
- What CEO do you follow? – N/A
- Favorite online tool? — InVision
- Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I would tell myself technical, all the way”
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:39 – Nathan introduces Tobyn to the show
- 02:00 – Profit Guide named Redbrick as the second fastest software company in Canada, by measuring revenue growth
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- 02:25 – Profit Guide measured a whole 5 year period
- 02:30 – Redbrick had $200K revenue in 2010 and $10-20M in 2015
- 03:00 – Redbrick was launched in 2010
- 03:15 – Redbrick started from an app distribution perspective
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- 03:38 – Redbrick has developed their own tools to track
- 04:20 – Redbrick’s main software is Deskmetrics, which is integrated into Shift
- 04:31 – Deskmetrics currently has 500K active users
- 05:00 – Not all who downloads are active users
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- 05:08 – The number of downloads are tracked
- 05:34 – SDK is a software development kit
- 05:59 – Deskmetrics provides consulting services
- 06:06 – Facebook is one of Deskmetrics’ sources for customer acquisition
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- 06:40 – Redbrick is currently spending around $30K for Facebook paid acquisition
- 06:54 – Redbrick is working with a team on Facebook and is committed to growing their spending into millions of dollars for growth
- 07:33 – Tobyn shares the idea of Shift
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- 08:07 – Shift had a preview in September and people liked it
- 08:12 – Shift allows you to switch around your Gmail and google accounts
- 08:51 – Tobyn increased their team size and hired more developers
- 09:08 – Shift is a SaaS business with $20/year subscription fee
- 09:31 – Shift primarily uses Facebook for advertising
- 09:49 – Shift has around 30K installs and 10K active users
- 10:00 – Shift’s free-to-paid conversion rate is around 4-5%
- 10:23 – Shift is 3-months old
- 10:48 – Tobyn needed to decide if they will launch Shift on December 20th or wait until 2nd week of January
- 11:16 – Shift is doing great at the moment and there’s definitely a market for it
- 11:40 – Tobyn shares why they decided that Shift be a desktop download
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- 12:53 – Tobyn wants to avoid integrations that will make Shift look like a browser
- 13:15 – Redbrick has 3 parts: the app distribution side, Deskmetrics and Shift
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- 13:35 – The app distribution side is the major revenue stream
- 13:45 – Tobyn believes that their path is the app distribution side
- 14:16 – Team size is 37 and they’re based in Victoria BC in Vancouver, Canada
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- 14:31 – There are small teams in Poland and Brazil
- 15:12 – Deskmetrics is primarily a desktop software analytics platform
- 16:15 – An average customer pays $500 monthly
- 16:36 – Tobyn was charging per number of users, but they changed it
- 17:14 – Deskmetrics was launched in 2016
- 17:45 – Redbrick has a lot of predictive models that they used in terms of CAC
- 19:20 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- Facebook is one of the best places, at the moment, for paid advertising.
- You can always go and develop more products, but recognize when it’s wise to stick to the path you’re already on.
- Charging per head can at times restrict your customers from using your product to its fullest potential.
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
- Organifi – The juice was Nathan’s life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
- Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
- 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
- Freshbooks – Nathan doesn’t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives