Olivier Magnan-Saurin. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Fidzup which provides innovation retargeting solutions for brick-and-mortar businesses such as retail chains and shopping centers. Olivier founded Fidzup right after school, in between school, and a little bit of freelancing works.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – On M'Avait Dit Que C'Etait Impossible: Le Manifeste Du Fondateur de Criteo
• What CEO do you follow? –  Jean-Baptiste Rudelle
• Favorite online tool? — Pipedrive
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Create your own company”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:10 – Nathan introduces Olivier to the show
• 01:42 – Fidzup provides marketing platforms for physical retailers
• • 02:04 – For physical retailers, clicks don’t have any value 
• 02:25 – Fidzup sells advertising campaigns to retailers
• 02:38 – Fidzup is a CPC model and gets paid for every in-store visit
• 03:20 – Fidzup is currently working with 2500 retailers in Europe
• 03:43 – Fidzup was created in 2011
• 03:58 – In 2014, Olivier decided to start an advertising platform
• 04:11 – Fidzup tracks the retailer using Wi-Fi or sensor
• 04:57 – Fidzup is able to track 80% of the customers entering the store
• 05:16 – Olivier shares how they get the customer’s phone information
• • 05:56 – When a customer opens an online ad, they can track that customer
• 06:43 – Average online campaign cost per brand
• 07:20 – Fidzup buys CPM and sells CPE
• 08:00 – Fidzup has recently raised $3.7M
• 08:39 – Team size
• 08:50 – Olivier hopes to double their team size
• 09:00 – First year revenue
• 09:50 – 2016 total revenue
• • 10:04 – Average annual pay per customer
• 11:00 – Ad volume per year
• 11:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Online advertisement is not always valuable to brick-and-mortar businesses, these businesses still rely on physical advertisement.
• Be patient with yourself and your company—growth takes time.
• If you’re in stuck between joining a company or creating your own, choose the latter.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Will Dinkel. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Nova. Prior to founding Nova, Will developed his passion for enterprise sales while working in various technology and sales roles at CloudFlare and HP. Will studied engineering in Harvard Business School.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Presenting to Win
• What CEO do you follow? –  Travis Kimmel
• Favorite online tool? –  Apple Notes
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— “I try”
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I wish my 20-year old self was more ambitious”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:42 – Nathan introduces Will to the show
• 02:08 – Nova AI is a sales product that uses AI to help set appointments more effectively
• 02:25 – Nova helps sales reps, they don’t necessarily get leads
• 02:52 – Nova creates personalized emails and merged templates
• 03:08 – Nova charges per seat
• 03:30 – “What we do is very unique”
• 03:39 – Nova is a smart, workflow product
• 04:08 – Average pay per seat is $150
• 04:28 – Nova started in 2015
• 05:01 – Nova’s co-founder is from MIT
• 05:15 – Team size
• 05:40 – Will shares how it’s like in San Francisco
• 06:00 – Nova has raised $2.2M
• 06:20 – Salesforce Ventures is one of Nova’s investors
• 06:54 – The space is getting bigger and bigger
• 07:15 – Will shares why he raised and went to YC
• 07:50 – Nova just crossed 100 customers
• 08:10 – Average seat number per customer
• 08:40 – Nova is now looking into a bigger number of seats per customer
• 08:55 – Nova has around a thousand sales reps using them
• 09:15 – Will’s focus is to make sure the team is functioning well
• 10:20 – Average MRR
• 10:45 – Growth rate target in 2017
• 10:51 – Will is looking into adding additional people to the team, 3 per class
• 11:51 – Nova uses their own wrinkle for SDR
• 12:10 – Gross customer churn
• • 12:35 – People are mostly happy with Nova
• 12:55 – Nova’s paid marketing
• 13:47 – How do you beat a company like Yesware? 
• • 14:05 – Focus on what you do best and don’t get dragged into trying to do everything that everyone else does
• 16:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Focus on what YOU do best—you will lose when you focus on what others are doing.
• Offer something unique and it will make you stand out amongst the crowd.
• Be ambitious, act sooner than later.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Tatyana Mitkova. She’s the CEO and founder of ClaimCompass, a company that helps airline passengers submit a claim online for cancelled, delayed or overbooked flights.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – How to Win Friends and Influence People
• What CEO do you follow? –  Kathryn Minshew
• Favorite online tool? — Slack
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Her life is to become more and more interesting with every decision she makes that takes her out of her comfort zone”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:26 – Nathan introduces Tatyana to the show
• 01:42 – ClaimCompass get airlines to pay up to $680 for cancelled flights
• 01:51 – Flights could be delayed, cancelled or overbooked
• 02:05 – ClaimCompass can help you get paid for your lost baggage
• 02:13 – ClaimCompass is based on the regulations in Europe
• 02:29 – More than 90% of airline passengers are unaware of their rights
• 02:46 – ClaimCompass tries to speed up the claiming process for passengers
• 02:49 – ClaimCompass has a web app and passengers can submit a claim online
• 03:03 – ClaimCompass makes money by keeping a 25% success-based commission
• 03:25 – ClaimCompass is growing 75% month over month, in the last 3 months
• • 03:39 – In January, ClaimCompass will reach a thousand claims
• 03:43 – Average claim refund is $420
• 03:58 – Average MRR
• 04:11 – ClaimCompass has their own internal software for their claims management system
• 04:36 – ClaimCompass has established relationships with more than 50 airlines
• 04:55 – Team size
• 05:24 – ClaimCompass was launched, in 2016, as a side project
• 05:48 – Tatyana and the co-founders have their own stories about getting frustrated with an airline
• 06:04 – Tatyana has a legal background
• 06:24 – ClaimCompass was bootstrapped and got into the 500 Startups program, in Europe, 2 months ago
• 06:40 – ClaimCompass has raised $150K
• 07:02 – Plans for 2017
• 07:10 – “Our goal is to reach as many passengers as possible”
• 07:50 – CAC
• 08:20 – ClaimCompass’ paid ads expenses are increasing
• 08:53 – ClaimCompass had their demo day on the 15^th of February at the 500 Startups program
• 09:00 – Tatyana believes they will have their seed round in 6 months
• 09:51 – Tatyana is looking to raise a million in their next round
• 10:12 – One of ClaimCompass’ biggest competitors is AirHelp
• 11:00 – Tatyana believes that if they partnered with online travel agencies, they can reach more people
• 11:18 – Flight Right and Refund.me are some of ClaimCompass’ competitors, too
• • 11:31 – Some of ClaimCompass competitors’ business models can make you lose money
• 13:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• More than 90% of airline passengers are unaware of their rights – we should know our rights to make an appropriate claim.
• Not all business models are the same – study the company first, to be aware of the charges.
• Every step out of your comfort zone, leads to something far more interesting for you.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Nathan interviews Patrick O'Luanaigh. He started as a programmer and designer at Codemasters 20 years ago, working on micro machines V3. Prior to founding nDreams, in 2006, he was a creative director at Eidos where he was responsible for the design and gameplay of all the titles there including the well-known Tomb Raider Legend and Hitman Blood Money. nDreams is now 50 people strong and pivoted to solely focusing on virtual reality 3 years ago. nDreams has launched 6 VR titles to date.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Chimp Paradox
• What CEO do you follow? –  Elon Musk and Brendan Iribe
• Favorite online tool? — Box
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Life is too short to play it safe, you gotta take your risk. It’s so much more exciting even though it is scary, you just gotta do it. Be brave!”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:18 – Nathan introduces Patrick to the show
• 02:07 – The greatest challenge of VR (virtual reality) at the moment is the limited number of hardware available
• 02:16 – “We are still figuring out how to make the very best games in the experience of VR”
• 02:36 – nDreams’ game that has generated the most income is Perfect Beach
• 03:02 – nDreams’ key metric is the number of units sold
• 03:18 – nDreams has sold 250K units
• 03:49 – nDreams has 50 people in the team
• • 03:56 – Ideas come from anyone in the studio
  • 04:05 – They work with the best idea and do an estimate
  • 04:25 – There’s a lot of things to learn in VR
  • 04:30 – nDreams focuses on gameplay
• 04:49 – Perfect can be purchased on Google Play Store or your VR digital store
• • 05:16 – Mobile version currently costs $2.99
  • 05:20 – The high-end version costs around $7.99
• 05:40 – nDreams has earned 75K from Perfect
• 05:50 – The challenge of PlayStation VR is the price
• 06:06 – Patrick has not heard of other competitors who have sold as much VR as they have
• 06:44 – It’s hard to tell the total potential basis for the VR space
• 07:00 – Patrick started the company 10 years ago
• 07:36 – nDreams was bootstrapped but they raised capital for VR
• 08:06 – nDreams has raised around $6M
• 08:14 – Patrick started the business even before the start of the VR market
• 08:41 – 2016 top line revenue
• 09:30 – Patrick can predict which games will do well even when they’re still early in the market
• 09:43 – nDreams is trying out different games and genres
• 09:53 – “We’re in the stage of learning what works well”
• 10:08 – In nDreams’ released games, SkyDIEving is the only one that’s for free
• 10:48 – Perfect Beach was from an experiment
• 11:08 – Gunner’s expenses
• 11:45 – nDreams is launching more games this year
• 12:30 – Patrick shares where most people are buying their games
• 13:15 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Being in a space that is new can be challenging because of the limited data and resources.
• You learn in every process you take .
• Life is too short to play it safe—be brave and take those risks!

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Allan Wille. He was on The Top on December 12, 2016, Episode 506. His company, Klipfolio, raised $7.9M in the past and has grown to 7000 paying customers. They create dashboard software for companies who want to monitor their business processes. Klipfolio is into something incredible, tune in as Allan shares about it on today’s episode.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? –
• What CEO do you follow? – 
• Favorite online tool? —
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?—
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? –

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 02:22 – Nathan introduces Allan to the show
• 02:52 – Klipfolio is an online and cloud based, and they create real-time dashboard software for SMBs
• 03:03 – There are over 7000 companies globally who uses Klipfolio
• 03:15 – Klipfolio just had a $12M Series B raise
• 03:33 – Klipfolio has a total of $19.9M total raised
• 03:41 – Klipfolio already has good investors in their cap table
• 03:56 – Allan shares how he came up with the Series B
• • 04:19 – The initial intent was to bring in new investors
  • 04:30 – Things turned out differently from the initial intent
• 04:47 – RPU
• 04:55 – MRR
• 05:02 – 2017 MRR goal
• 05:52 – Klipfolio licenses per number of dashboards
• 06:25 – Allan wants customers to see Klipfolio’s value first
• 06:35 – CAC
• 07:20 – LTV
• 07:33 – Team size
• 08:00 – Klipfolio believes in product first policy
• 08:21 – Most of the investment will go into Klipfolio’s product
• 08:35 – Allan shares where they spend most of their CAC
• • 09:00 – Klipfolio will add more people in sales and support
  • 09:13 – “We’re actually gonna put a lot of effort in content strategy”
• 09:37 – Allan is friends with Craig Fitzpatrick from Pagecloud, who talks about content marketing, too
• 10:26 – Allan wants the system to be more efficient to maximize user experience
• 10:44 – Allan was able to get a great valuation
• 11:06 – Allan shares how things happened during the valuation
• • 12:23 – Allan shares the offer he received
  • 12:55 – The questions Allan had before accepting the offer
  • 13:30 – The first offer was a low-ball
  • 15:03 – “In many cases, terms are probably more important than valuation—multiple or the actual preimposed”
• 15:54 – “We got to basically where we wanted to be”
• 16:35 – Allan was happy with the terms
• • 16:45 – One of the terms is 1x multiple
  • 17:14 – The other term includes an anti-dilution clause
• 18:20 – Nathan closing the episode

3 Key Points:

• There are cases where terms are more important than valuation.
• Content strategy plays a big role in marketing – invest in it.
• Go in the direction you want to be.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Mike Cook. He founded XOR Data Exchange to bring privacy and accountability back to data management. Today, his organization works with the nation’s largest financial institutions to fight fraud and manage risk. You might have never seen Mike presenting the newest consumer tech, but rest assured every digital entity in America is safer under his watchful eye.   

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – How to Win Friends and Influence People
• What CEO do you follow? –  Sam Yagan
• Favorite online tool? — Periscope
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “That you should go to anger management”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:40 – Nathan introduces Mike to the show
• 02:10 – Mike mentions how XOR Data Exchange works
• 02:54 – Mike wanted to create a company where financial institutions can share their data with one another
• 03:16 – XOR Data Exchange is a B2B model
• 03:21 – XOR Data Exchange will eventually help consumers
• 04:04 – Mike shares how XOR Data Exchange will work in between companies
• 04:31 – Companies like AIG and JP Chase Morgan store data
• 05:32 – XOR Data Exchange changes the mentality of the pipe
• 06:25 – XOR Data Exchange generates revenue by building pre-exchanges
• • 07:17 – XOR Data Exchange charges transaction fees based on return data
  • 07:38 – XOR Data Exchange is a pay-as-you-go model
• 07:43 – XOR Data Exchange is building a new exchange focusing on financial services companies where companies can exchange fraud information
• 08:10 – XOR Data Exchange was launched in January 2014
• 08:20 – First year revenue is nothing
• 08:27 – Mike put in his own money in XOR Data Exchange
• 08:34 – Mike sold his company ID Analytics to fund XOR Data Exchange
• • 08:40 – Mike sold ID Analytics in 2012, which he started in 2000
  • 08:56 – Mike was 17 when he started ID Analytics
  • 09:15 – Mike had 2 other co-founders
• 09:26 – Mike tried to work in a big company after his exit
• 09:56 – Mike has raised $6M and will close $2M, today
• 10:53 – The last round was in August 2015
• 11:22 – Most of the money from the current round is from the previous investors
• 11:36 – Mike shares about his Angel investors
• 12:40 – “Raising a Series B in this environment is not the easiest thing to do”
• • 12:51 – Mike explains what he means by this
• 13:20 – XOR Data Exchange is working with big customers
• 13:45 – “If you work with the top 6, 7, 8 financial services companies, you’re really covering 90% of America”
• 14:05 – XOR Data Exchange has dozens of companies
• 14:23 – Team size
• 14:26 – XOR Data Exchange is not yet cashflow positive
• 15:05 – 2017 goal
• 15:25 – Most of the XOR Data Exchange employees are tech and based in Austin
• 17:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Reinvest your money in something that you believe in.
• The financial service space isn’t the easiest environment to raise a Series B.
• If you work with the top 6, 7, or 8 financial services companies, you’re really covering 90% of America.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Alex Fishman, the founder and CEO of Bugsee, a bug reporting tool for iOs and Android.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
• What CEO do you follow? –  Henry Worth
• Favorite online tool? – Gmail
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?—I wish
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "You want start playing in the startup ecosystem as early as possible when you have less commitments and less things to worry about"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:18 – Nathan introduces Alex to the show
• 01:31 – Bugsee is bug reporting tool for iOs and Android
• • 01:51 – Bugsee provides video network and blog, leading out to the event
  • 02:15 – You will not only know that the app crashed, but what led it to crash
• 02:50 – Bugsee is a SaaS model and they price based on the app size
• 03:19 – For an app that has 500K users, it will cost $500
• 03:40 – Bugsee provides different levels of value
• 04:33 – Average customer pay per month
• 04:45 – Bugsee started in January 2016
• • 05:01 – Bugsee started charging in December 2016
• 05:20 – Bugsee has 1100 sign ups and 30% have used Bugsee
• 06:22 – Alex mentions why he calls users as customers, too
• 06:40 – Most customers are given free tier to continue using Bugsee
• • 07:11 – New customers use the plan available
  • 07:30 – The limitations of Bugsy's free plan
• 08:52 – Number of paying customers
• 09:20 – Bugsee is funded by K9 Ventures
• • 09:33 – Bugsee has raised $1.2M
• 09:40 – Bugsee had a previous failed attempt
• • 09:53 – The cap table had been reset by Bugsee
  • 10:43 – The previous attempt was in July 2015
• 10:57 – Team size
• • 11:05 – The team is remote
• 11:24 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Users are also customers, regardless of whether you sell them on something or not.
• Having a failed attempt does NOT mean you should give up.
• Start playing in startup field as early as possible and while you're still free of obligations.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Magnus Åström. He's the CEO and founder of Now Interact, a machine-learning, SaaS platform for omni channel optimization. He's also the founder of InLead, a business consultant and operations company which was sold in 2010 and prior to that, he was founder of Primelog, a transportation management SaaS platform which was sold in 2006.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Blue Ocean Strategy
• What CEO do you follow? –  N/A
• Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "It's all about focus"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:35 – Nathan introduces  to the show
• 02:17 – Primelog started in 2000
• • 02:29 - Primelog connects transportation providers with transportation buyers
  • 02:57 - Annual revenue
  • 03:10 – Primelog was sold to Swedish group
• 04:44 – They raised 4.5M
• 04:57 – Inlead's idea is to help customers sell in C-level
• • 05:39 – Inlead turned out to be too heavy on the consultancy side, so Magnus sold it
  • 05:48 – It didn't turn out as a software play
  • 06:10 – Inlead's annual revenue was $1.5 M
• 06:27 – Now Interact offers machine-based algorithm software to large businesses
• 06:40 – The software personalizes how each customer is offered a customer service channel
• 07:00 – Businesses get less calls from customer service
• 07:30 – Now Interact tracks the data of how customers behave on a website and how they interact with a customer service
• 08:06 – Magnus goal is to get telco giants like AT&T and Verizon as customers
• 09:04 – Now Interact  has a group that chooses their customization
• 09:22 – Now Interact is a SaaS model
• 09:31 – Average customer pay per month is $10K
• 09:39 – Now Interact was founded in 2010
• 09:45 – Now Interact raised $100K in 2012
• • 10:46 – Now Interact has raised a total of $7M
• 11:20 – Customer churn
• 11:31 – Team size
• 11:47 – Headquartered in Stockholm
• 12:04 – CAC is $30K
• 12:22 – Now Interact has salespeople and are doing paid content marketing
• • 12:58 – "Sales play a lot"
• 13:30 – Magnus discusses what they’ll do with the capital they've raised
• • 13:45 – Some would go to the expansion in the USA
• 14:05 – 2015 total revenue
• 14:30 – 2016 total revenue
• 15:00 – Magnus shared how he negotiated for the valuation
• 15:45 – The top 3 most important terms when negotiating
• • 15:48 – The preference structure, the lock-in and the investors you want to have
• 18:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• You can choose to close your company if it is not going in the direction you intended it to go.
• Valuation is not always everything—there are more things to consider when negotiating.
• Stay focused, don't take on more than you can handle.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Zach Supalla. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Particle, a venture backed startup that’s making it easier to build internet connected hardware and other things. Particle is the most, widely used IoT platform with a developed community of a hundred thousand users and is listed as one of Fast Company's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in 2015, of the Internet of Things. Zach has been featured on CNN, The Wall street Journal, TechCrunch, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, Mashable and more.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
• What CEO do you follow? –  Jeff Lawson
• Favorite online tool? — Slack and Asana
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “You don’t have to be an engineer to be an engineer”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:35 – Nathan introduces Zach to the show
• 02:16 – Zach used to be a management consultant
• 02:45 – While Zach was doing his MBA, he interned in Groupon’s sales operation
• 03:07 – Zach did engineering
• 03:21 – Particle is an IoT platform
• 03:44 – Particle helps manufacturers connect their physical product to the internet
• • 04:11 – Particle does the whole communication stack between the physical device and web
• 04:40 – Particle has raised $10M
• 04:50 – Particle generates revenue in 4 ways
• • 04:55 – Particle works with large companies and sells them subscriptions, data plans, hardware, and professional services
  • 05:24 – Main revenue stream is from the hardware
  • 05:54 – Hardware pricing ranges from $5-50
• 06:09 – For Keurig, they added hardware to plug into the back of the coffee maker
• 06:45 – The hardware volume for Keurig is in the thousands
• 07:00 – Particle has customers who will be deploying millions of hardware products by 2018
• 07:28 – Security is part of Particle’s story
• 07:37 – Zach shares about the webcam botnet incident
• • 08:09 – The Mirai botnet in Liberia explained
• 08:32 – Zach shares how Particle works to secure everything from the device to the in between communication
• 08:50 – Typical, cheap webcams that are in the market and manufactured in China are not secure
• 09:23 – There are products that people aren’t unplugging and are considered unsecure
• 09:45 – Particle started in 2012
• 09:59 – Zach first launched a product in Kickstarter named Spark Socket
• • 10:07 – The product was unsuccessful
  • 10:21 – It was frustrating, but it turned to be a huge benefit
• 10:51 – Zach relaunched a new product in Kickstarter, in 2013, called Spark Core
• 11:20 – Zach was inspired by his dad who is deaf to create the first product
• 12:20 – Zach shares what is important in launching a Kickstarter campaign
• • 12:28 – Zach looks at any Kickstarter campaign as an experiment
  • 12:33 – Zach made sure that they nailed the marketing on their first launch
  • 13:43 – “We’re definitely advocates of the lean startup mentality”
• 14:13 – 2013 revenue
• 14:41 – 2014 revenue
• 15:43 – Zach shares where the scale is coming from
• • 15:58 – When Zach launched the product, they weren’t targeting enterprise stores
  • 16:28 – Zach was originally creating development tools then shifted to management tools
  • 16:43 – The growth started in selling deaf kits
  • 17:00 – They started making modules, then the software platform
  • 17:26 – One of the challenges a hardware startup faces is going from being a product to a company
• 17:56 – 2017 revenue goal
• 18:08 – Team size is 35
• 18:21 – Half of the team is from San Francisco and the other half are all over
• 18:50 – Particle is not facing a problem yet with their people who work in China
• 19:03 – Zach created a program while he was in China, where he lived for 4 months
• 19:22 – Zach has a deep trusting relationship with their people in China
• 21:14 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Solve your own problems and make the people around you, your inspiration.
• See the beauty in a failure – it can be a way for you to create something better.
• One of the most difficult challenges a hardware startup faces is going from being a product to a company.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Craig McLuckie. He’s the founder and CEO of Heptio, a startup focused on making Kubernetes accessible enterprises. Prior to starting Heptio, Craig was a product manager at Google where he founded the Kubernetes project, launched Google compute engine and created The Cloud Native Computing Foundation that he also shared.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Influence
• What CEO do you follow? –  Andrew Grove
• Favorite online tool? — Lever
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I wished my 20-year old self understood the importance of kindness”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:25 – Nathan introduces Craig to the show
• 01:55 – Kubernetes is a technology that is used to run applications in a production setting
• • 02:16 – The idea is to take the collective learning that Google instilled over the last decade of building and running applications
• 02:35 – Kubernetes is an open-source technology
• 02:53 – Kubernetes is being widely adopted by enterprises but there are still some gaps
• 03:16 – Heptio‘s job is to make Kubernetes more accessible to a broad array of developers
• 03:47 – Heptio generates revenue through support, training and professional service and consultancy
• 04:25 – Heptio is currently on pre-product revenue
• 04:50 – By providing Heptio’s professional service, they connect with customers and understand where the key gaps are
• 05:12 – Heptio has raised $8.5M
• 05:20 – The people backing Heptio
• 06:17 – Nathan simplifies Kubernetes’ description
• 07:50 – Craig explains how Kubernetes actually works in applications
• 09:07 – Heptio wants to present the perfect idea of how machines should be operating
• 09:23 – Kubernetes provided the steps from thinking about virtual infrastructure to logical infrastructure
• 09:49 – At Heptio, they bring the idea of logical infrastructure to companies everywhere so they can experience a better way to decode without worrying about the difficult task of configuring
• 10:22 – Heptio also helps companies organize themselves around the technology
• • 10:53 – It is like helping people stack the bricks of technology
• 11:58 – John and Craig started Kubernetes in Google and they had successes in the past
• 12:20 – Craig demonstrated clearly the product market fit for Kubernetes so they were able to raise $8.5M
• 12:40 – Craig has spent time with the community
• 13:10 – Craig quantifies the adoption of Kubernetes
• 13:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Kubernetes is an open source technology that is used to run applications in a production setting.
• Demonstrating your product’s market CLEARLY can lead to investors believing and trusting your product.
• Remember the importance of being kind.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Aner Ravon. He’s the co-founder and chief product officer of his new company called Zirra. Zirra’s mission is to solve the education and entry pain of the retail investors when it comes to equity investments. Before this company, Aner spent his time at Celltick as a VP of media and head of business unit.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Tipping Point
• What CEO do you follow? –  Steve Jobs
• Favorite online tool? — Ask  Wonder
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Not to worry so much”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 02:42 – Nathan introduces Aner to the show
• 02:58 – Zirra steps into the void between data and excel analysis of the companies
• 03:10 – There’s a big void in the data collection and actual decision making of a company for the people who want to invest
• 03:48 – Zirra is a service
• • 03:52 – Zirra has an a la carte system which is pay-as-you-go
  • 03:55 – Zirra has 2 main products
  • • 03:58 – Spotlight reports which costs $49
    • 04:11 – Value packages for corporate investors which is a monthly subscription
• 04:29 – Average customer pay is $99 monthly
• 05:05 – Zirra started in August 2014
• 05:30 – Zirra first offered their services for free
• 05:45 – Aner shares how they decided to stop the free service
• • 06:01 – Zirra had 150 free users
  • 06:13 – Some of the free users are large equity firms
• 06:23 – Zirra started in Israel
• 06:35 – Microsoft was using ZIrra heavily, for free
• 07:00 – 80% of the free users converted to paid users
• 07:20 – Zirra managed the free service with free coupons
• 07:41 – Zirra didn’t take away the credits, but started renewing them
• • 07:48 – When users use up their credits, they’ll be greeted with a pay wall
• 08:05 – Zirra’s paywall: pay $49 to get the report or buy 10 reports for $299
• 08:40 – Zirra’s revenue comes from pay-as-you-go and monthly subscriptions
• 09:10 – 15 customers are on monthly subscriptions
• 09:20 – 40-50 of the customers are habitual users
• 10:35 – Another product Zirra offers is deep report which sells from $1K-3K
• 11:45 – Team size is 15
• 12:39 – Zirra is based in Telavi, Israel
• 12:49 – Zirra has raised capital and closed almost $3M
• 13:19 – Zirra is founding new investors without going through another round because of their current Angel investors
• 13:51 – 2016 revenue
• 13:55 – 2017 goal revenue
• 14:28 – There are currently a hundred thousand companies in Zirra
• 14:55 – Zirra can deliver the report in just a few hours
• 15:30 – Zirra has 85 different data sources
• • 16:09 – The resources are running through ZIrra’s search engine
• 17:12 – Zirra’s vision
• 18:19 – Aner thinks PitchBook and CB Insights are great services
• 18:28 – Zirra’s ability to storify the data makes them different from their competitors
• 20:15 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Having access to and understand the data of the company will help inform that decision to invest.
• Shifting from a free service to paid is risky move, but needs to be done.
• Don’t worry too much—it won’t do very much for you in the end.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Martijn de Kuijper, founder of Revue. He’s a product guy and his company’s focus is to get your thoughts to people’s inboxes via newsletters. He previously founded Fosbury and Yunoo. Martijn is also a Techstars alum.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Zero to One
• What CEO do you follow? –  N/A
• Favorite online tool? — Intercom
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Just keep doing what you’re doing and don’t get distracted by what other people are saying”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:30 – Nathan introduces Martijn to the show
• 02:10 – Revue focuses on personal newsletters like editorial newsletters
• • 02:45 – Revue helps people share their content through newsletters
• 02:50 – Revue currently has a free and premium model
• 03:20 – Average customer pay per month is $7
• 03:45 – Martijn is a listener of The Top
• 04:10 – Revue was launched in January 2015
• 04:27 – Martijn started Revue on his own as a side project
• • 04:30 – Martijn was working on the acquisition of Fosbury
  • 04:59 – Martijn shares what Fosbury is about
  • 05:24 – Martijn was in Techstars Texas
• 05:44 – Team size is 5
• 06:18 – Fosbury wasn’t earning
• 07:08 – The money that Martijn received from the assets
• 07:42 – Martijn used the money from selling Fosbury to start Revue
• 08:12 – Martijn also sold Yunoo when he was 26
• • 08:30 – The buyer is the software company AFAS from the Netherlands
• 09:20 – Martijn has raised $350K for Revue in convertible note
• 09:50 – Terms on the convertible note
• 10:05 – Revue currently has a thousand paying customers
• 10:23 – Martijn is currently focusing on growth rather than revenue
• 10:48 – Revue has 20K registered users at the moment with 10% active users
• • 10:57 – Active users are the ones who send at least 1 email a month
• 11:27 – Monthly churn
• 11:35 – No paid CAC
• 11:49 – Revue has a content marketer
• 12:24 – Revue is currently sending 2M emails, monthly
• 12:40 – First year revenue
• 13:00 – Total 2016 revenue
• 13:26 – Martijn’s current side project
• 14:30 – Where Martijn got his marketing ploy idea
• 16:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Don’t be afraid to sell your company if it comes down to it.
• Study and strategize a marketing plan that works and at no cost.
• Just keep doing what you’re doing and don’t let what others say distract you.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Charles Thiede. He’s the co-founder and CEO of the knowledge network platform called Zapnito. Zapnito helps organizations create privately, branded, expert communications and networks. He calls this “experts as a service”.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Lean Startup
• What CEO do you follow? –  Elon Musk
• Favorite online tool? — Product Hunt
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— I try to
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Do everything with courage”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:11 – Nathan introduces Charles to the show
• 01:41 – Zapnito is a SaaS platform
• • 02:16 – The idea of Zapnito is to helps brands bring their audience back to the trusted sources of knowledge
• 02:40 – Zapnito’s Slack channel
• • 02:51 – The platform behind the scene that pulls the audience and brands together
• 03:40 – Each brand has their own slack domain
• 04:40 – Average customer pay per year is £60K
• 05:38 – Zapnito started in trading in March 2013
• • 05:48 – Started as a marketplace for experts in 2014
• 06:38 – First year revenue
• 07:12 – Zapnito currently has 12 customers
• 07:57 – Average MRR
• 08:50 – Team size is 12
• 09:36 – Charles doesn’t batch their sales calls
• • 10:00 – Charles usually takes the calls
• 10:32 – Zapnito is based in London
• 10:50 – No customer churn and negative net churn
• 11:12 – The leverage Zapnito pulls to drive the RPU up
• • 11:30 – “We focus on niche networks’
  • 11:50 – Zapnito has scaled their number of networks
• 12:10 – CAC
• 13:21 – Zapnito was bootstrapped and raised angel money
• • 13:40 – Zapnito has raised £650K in priced equity round
  • 14:02 – Zapnito had 3 rounds
• 14:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Continually pivoting is not a disadvantage to your company, as long as you just keep learning from the experience.
• Do not hesitate to hire the people that you need.
• Do everything with courage.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Raviv Turner. He’s the co-founder and CEO of CaliberMind – the first marketing, technology platform to apply machine learning in human language analysis to build detailed psychographic profiles. He has more than 10 years of experience leading products and development for high growth B2B SaaS companies. His previous roles include Director of UX at FullContact and VP of product at TapInfluence. Raviv is a mentor at Techstars Accelerator and holds a Masters in Interactive Media at NYU.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Hacking Marketing
• What CEO do you follow? –  Bart Lorang
• Favorite online tool? — Asana, 7Geese and Slack
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Doing my best
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Your network is your net worth”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:40 – Nathan introduces Raviv to the show
• 02:25 – CaliberMind analyzes and boosts structured and unstructured data
• 03:18 – CaliberMind is a SaaS model
• • 03:36 – Monthly billing starts at $2K
• 03:46 – Average customer pay per month
• 04:15 – CaliberMind was launched in 2015
• 04:48 – Raviv adapted the idea from the military
• 05:05 – Raviv was in product design for the past 15 years
• • 05:23 – The analytics structure data
• 06:30 – CaliberMind currently has their first 12 customers
• 06:54 – CaliberMind has bundled packages of services
• 07:40 – CaliberMind was bootstrapped on their first year
• 07:55 – CaliberMind had raised their $1.1M seed round after seeing traction from the customers
• 08:20 – No customer churn yet
• 08:42 – CAC and LTV
• • 08:56 – The account-based marketing
• 09:20 – Team size of 8 and based in Colorado
• • 09:39 – Most of the team are developers and data scientists
  • 09:46 – They have Nic Zangre who was a Director of Marketing at AdRoll
  • 10:00 – Raviv shares how he convinced Nic to work with CaliberMind
  • 10:26 – Nic has equity in CaliberMind
• 10:45 – Some companies that are in the space are Usermind and Pegasystems
• 12:25 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Work with people who share the same passion and vision as you do.
• Taking that leap out of your comfort zone is often risky and also, often, worth it.
• Find ways to help the people in your network without expecting something in return.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Lauren Sullivan. She’s the co-founder of Flightfox, a site which Nathan recently used to book multi-country travel. Flightfox helped him understand the best way to leverage his points from his Chase Credit Card for travel purposes. Flightfox helps you search flights, manage your trip, and leverage your loyalty points, to help ease your trip planning experience and it is growing fast.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Good to Great
• What CEO do you follow? –  John Mackey
• Favorite online tool? — PocketSmith
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes, currently
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Lauren wished she had stopped working for someone else and started building her own company earlier

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:25 – Nathan introduces Lauren to the show
• 02:02 – Flightfox is an online and real-time platform that manages travel for individuals, companies and organizations
• 02:15 – Flightfox’s revenue model is to charge per trip and they make money from commission
• 02:32 – Flightfox’s expert will help match and plan a trip and they will authorize the credit card you use
• 03:33 – Flightfox books for companies, too
• 03:50 – The more complex the trip, the more expensive it is
• 05:10 – If Flightfox can’t find you a trip, they won’t charge you
• 05:34 – Flightfox was launched in 2012
• • 05:45 – Flightfox was originally launched as a contest based, cloud source system
  • 06:10 – There were a small number of the majority winning the contest
  • 06:21 – The model was switched to a one-on-one
• 07:04 – The experts are contactors
• • 07:15 – The experts get a fee per trip
  • 07:40 – Most of them are full-time
• 07:50 – Flights metrics
• • 08:03 – Flightfox is focused on companies and organizations
• 08:14 – CAC is a bit high
• 09:20 – There are at least 50 companies who have booked with Flightfox
• • 09:35 – 5-10 companies are booking at least 30 trips per month
  • 09:50 – Companies usually have 80 people
• 10:20 – In 2012, Flightfox has raised $850K
• 10:50 – Four Team members
• 11:50 – Flightfox has pivoted a couple of times already
• 13:19 – Lauren has been through alot with her company thus far, and has chosen to carry on
• 14:14 – 2016 total revenue
• 14:40 – Flightfox is close to breaking even
• 14:53 – Average MRR
• 15:11 – Raising another round will depend on the things that will happen in the future
• 17:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Changing your business model isn’t easy – but, it’s very normal to have to do so.
• Going through the most difficult times will test not just your patience, but your ability to make the best decisions.
• If it’s what you really want, just keep going.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Aseem Badshah. He’s the founder and CEO of the company called Socedo. Before that, he built his own full-service marketing agency called Uptown Treehouse that leveraged social media and digital channels to reach current and potential customers. He’s upgraded and improved that initial business model with his current company, Socedo.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Crushing the Cashman
• What CEO do you follow? – 
• Favorite online tool? —
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?—
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Aseem wished that he would have prioritized building relationships

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:15 – Nathan introduces Aseem to the show
• 01:50 – Aseem noticed that there was so much data on prospects for B2B marketers in an agency
• • 02:07 – Socedo’s goal
  • 02:13 – Lead generation is what Socedo uses to get more customers
  • 02:45 – Socedo provides behavioral data
  • 02:56 – Socedo makes money from their software license
  • 03:03 – Clients sign-up from 6 months to 1 year of license usage
• 03:11 – Average pay the company gives to Socedo monthly
• 03:25 – Socedo started in 2013
• 03:37 – In social media marketing, everything was setup for B2C marketers
• 04:25 – Social media is like a big CRM so Aseem leveraged it in a way to help B2B marketers
• 04:45 – There are 200 paying customers
• 04:50 – Socedo has raised $1.5M
• 05:00 – Socedo’s revenue has tripled in 2016
• 05:10 – Average contract price
• 05:25 – Socedo started with SMB
• 05:50 – 2016 total revenue
• 06:05 – Socedo has 25 people
• 06:20 – 2017 goal
• 06:30 – Aseem is targeting 2x for 2017
• 06:41 – Aseem wants to focus on their current customers
• 07:17 – “It’s not necessarily about growth at all costs; we want to focus on the fundamentals, focus on the relationship with customers”
• 07:35 – All 25 members are in Seattle
• 07:53 – The round was an equity round
• 08:32 – Socedo is currently cash flow positive
• 08:50 – Socedo is willing to take in new capital if they are ready
• 09:11 – Socedo has almost broken even
• 09:23 – How Socedo drives new customers
• • 09:37 – Socedo doesn’t spend much money on marketing
• 10:30 – The data source which Aseem thinks is the most accurate
• • 10:39 – “Everyone is accurate in their own way”
  • 10:52 – How Socedo matches data
  • 11:10 – Socedo’s goal is to get metrics as high as possible
• 11:31 – “We don’t guarantee an accuracy rate, but our accuracy rate is pretty high”
• 12:00 – The data sources that are connected to Socedo’s API are Full Contact, ClearBit and SellHack
• 12:34 – Socedo’s unique data advantage
• • 13:30 – As a B2B marketer, there’s a bigger chance of a higher conversion rate
• 13:50 – Data sources that have the most accurate revenue numbers are Marketo and Salesforce
• 14:22 – Socedo doesn’t have the marketing budget for each lead
• • 14:45 – Socedo has the company size which can be used as a revenue basis for each lead
• 15:15 – Gross customer churn
• 15:36 – CAC
• 15:45 – LTV
• 16:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Social media is a big CRM that can be leveraged to build a better marketing space for B2B businesses.
• Focusing on fundamentals and customer relationships can be more advantageous than focusing on just growth.
• Each data source out there is accurate in their own way.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Calvin Correli. He’s the CEO of a holistically focused, multi-million dollar, online, all-in-one solution driven software company called Simplero. This company exists to reduce the stress associated with figuring out software systems and how to join them together. He’s passionate about helping online business owners do exactly what brings them the most life.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – There Is Nothing Wrong With You
• What CEO do you follow? –  N/A
• Favorite online tool? — FastMail
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Not every night
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Invest in getting to know yourself, and who you are, and how you’re different”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 02:20 – Nathan introduces Calvin to the show
• 02:49 – Simplero is a tool that helps people sell online
• 03:20 – Simplero is a SaaS business model
• 03:30 – Simplero was launched in 2009
• • 03:39 – Calvin started to charge people in 2010
• 03:50 – Number of current paying customers is 700
• 04:02 – One of Simplero’s customers is Robin Green, who is an acupuncturist in California
• • 04:25 – Robin decided to teach acupuncture online
  • 04:42 – Robin made around $60K on her first program
• 05:10 – Simplero automates everything that can be automated
• 05:27 – Average customer pay per month
• • 05:31 – Simplero charges monthly and takes a percentage of the revenue
• 05:51 – Simplero’s main revenue stream
• • 06:25 – 10% is from the revenue fee and 90% from the SaaS model
• 07:15 – Average MRR
• • 07:21 – Average ARR per customer
• 07:50 – Average customer retention
• 08:25 – Calvin shares how he got their customer LTV
• 08:58 – Calvin is based in New York, but he has team members in Denmark and on the West Coast
• • 09:56 – Most of the people in the business started 6 months ago
• 10:20 – Simplero is self-funded
• 11:25 – Calvin is happy with how his company is doing at the moment
• 11:40 – Calvin wants to show the world a different way to live
• 12:01 – Calvin’s big dream is to be a presidential adviser for USA
• 13:00 – How do we measure happiness?
• • 13:07 – Calvin is not a metrics guy
  • 13:19 – There’s a sweet spot for every person where they are happy and work doesn’t feel like work
• 14:00 – How do we know if people are really happy?
• 15:10 – Productivity gains do not directly correlate to happiness gains
• 15:55 -  The source of happiness vs. the thing you do for others or with others
• 17:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• There’s a feeling of contentment you can find in helping others.
• Invest in yourself, first.
• There’s a sweet spot for every person where they are happy and work doesn’t feel like work.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Russ Heddleston. He’s the CEO and co-founder of DocSend. Previously, he was a product manager for Facebook. He arrived at the B2B acquisition of the product Pursuit.com. Russ also had roles in Dropbox, Greystripe and Trulia. He received a BS in Computer Engineering and MS Computer Science at Stanford along with an MBA from Harvard.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Good to Great
• What CEO do you follow? –  Keith Krach
• Favorite online tool? — Gmail and Slack
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Do things well and be patient with them—and then, they will turn out well later”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:33 – Nathan introduces Russ to the show
• 02:03 – Pursuit was a human resources to management referral program for employees
• 02:22 – Russ shopped their company to Facebook
• • 02:38 – Russ explains why they made this decision
• 03:38 – Russ was the product manager for Facebook’s pages team
• 03:55 – Russ worked both for the brands and personalities
• 04:15 – DocSend was launched in 2013
• • 04:24 – DocSend’s first version was made in 2010
• 05:18 – First year revenue was zero
• • 05:27 – “We were focused on growth”
• 05:50 – DocSend was doing something of very high value; not necessarily for a broad user base
• 06:40 – DocSend has been approached by a hedge fund
• 06:59 – Most salespeople are using DocSend long term
• 07:37 – Average customer pay per month
• 08:42 – Most deals of DocSend are outbound deals
• 09:00 – Average enterprise prices:
• • 09:24 – The price varies from $50-90 per month
  • 09:40 – Outbound target for a team of 30 and above
  • 10:10 – Average contract value depends on the size of the company
• 10:30 – Team size is 25 with 6 sales people
• 10:42 – Team location is San Francisco with 1 in New York
• 11:08 – Pricing plan was introduced a year after DocSend launched
• 11:35 – The current number of DocSend’s paying companies
• • 11:48 – There’s a mix of logo and seat count
  • 12:04 – Average seats per company
• 12:45 – Total number of users under paid plan
• 13:03 – DocSend has raised capital for $10M in VC and $1M in venture debt
• 14:03 – Venture debt was done post-series seed
• 15:00 – Average MRR
• • 16:16 – Possible minimum average MRR
• 17:00 – Russ shares the difference of inbound self-serve and outbound
• • 17:25 – Russ gets excited with outbound
• 18:25 – Gross monthly customer churn
• • 19:01 – The churn for self-serve is quite high, but not for outbound
  • 19:45 – Net negative churn
• 20:12 – The expansion would benefit the team
• 20:38 – As the company gets bigger, the more they need DocSend
• 20:48 – DocSend closed their last financing last year
• 21:00 – DocSend doesn’t need to raise capital at the moment
• • 21:25 – “We don’t need to get acquired”
• 23:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Focusing on growth rather than revenue is never bad thing.
• Improve your product until you are no longer expendable to your customers.
• Do things well and be patient with them—in time, they will turn out for the better.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Pietari Suvanto, cofounder of the company, Vainu. Vainu was founded recently and is a tool that defines piles of data from the web and turns into fact check and actionable company information. His vision is to understand more organizations around the world more than anybody else and his company currently has about a thousand customers in Europe, including FedEx and Santander Innoventures.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – How to Win Friends and Influence People
• What CEO do you follow? –  Mike Bloomberg
• Favorite online tool? — Zoom 
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Be a bit more braver”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:12 – Nathan introduces Pietari to the show
• 01:50 – Vainu is a SaaS business model
• 02:40 – Pietari shares a company that is searchable in Vainu
• • 03:06 – Salesforce has a lot of organizations around the globe
• 03:50 – The uses of companies’ data in Vainu
• • 04:12 – Vainu gives the company’s in-depth data
  • 04:30 – Salespeople are the ones who uses Vainu
• 04:49 – Vainu’s revenue stream is from the subscription per seat
• 05:05 – Average customer pay per month is €400
• 05:21 – Vainu was launched in 2014
• 05:33 – Vainu hasn’t raised capital
• 05:37 – Vainu is based in Hilsinki, Finland, Amsterdam, and New York
• 06:00 – Number of paying customers is 1000
• 06:30 – ARR in 2016 €4.5M
• 06:55 – MRR goal in 2017
• 07:20 – Vainu is finding their customers through their software
• 08:07 – Pietari shares how they find the companies
• 08:50 – Vainu can check the company's’ data in preview
• 09:30 – The number of salespeople in Vainu’s team
• 09:55 – Gross customer churn is 1%
• 10:05 – CAC
• 10:24 – Assumed LTV per customer
• • 10:40 – €20K-30K
• 11:04 – Pietari is hoping to raise capital
• • 11:36 – Pietari would likely to raise €5-10M
• 12:30 – Pietari shares how they are different from their competitors
• 13:20 – Vainu hasn’t bought any API access to any data providers
• • 13:30 – Everything in their system is owned by them
  • 13:50 – The best asset of Vainu
• 14:50 – Pietari shares how they access the revenue data
• 15:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Be the BEST in your market, having an asset that will set you apart from your competitors.
• Raising capital is always an option, but not always a necessity.
• Be brave—step out and believe you can do it.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Drew Canole. He’s a nutrition specialist, transformation specialist, and national spokesperson for the benefits of juicing vegetables for health and vitality. He is the founder of Fitlife.TV where he shares educational, inspirational, and entertaining videos and articles about health, fitness, healing, and longevity. More recently, his company, Organifi, is getting directly into the green juicing space with a physical product.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Think and Grow Rich
• What CEO do you follow? –  Elon Musk
• Favorite online tool? — Google Calendar
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “To stay fricking focused on one thing”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:30 – Nathan introduces Drew to the show
• 02:25 – Organifi is sourced from the best farms for their organic ingredients
• • 02:34 – The ingredients are high quality, organic, non-GMO, soy free, and vegan
  • 02:43 – Drew did clinical studies on their product and has sold over a quarter million bottles
• 03:20 – Drew started getting his audience from Youtube and Facebook, 6 years ago
• • 03:33 – “Influence marketing has been our focus for the past 3 years”
  • 03:48 – Drew has one of the largest, green juice followings online
  • 03:56 – Drew started working on a their own concoction by looking at the gap in the green juice market
  • 04:35 – The green juice that is available in the market is not good for the brain and body
  • 04:56 – Drew recreated the world’s most great tasting juice that helps mental cognition, weight loss, and boosts moods
• 05:14 – Organifi was launched in early 2015
• 05:44 – Organifi sold around 350K bottles
• • 05:55 – Around 150K people bought the product
• 06:00 – Average reorder rate is 2.8
• 06:17 – Organifi’s main product is a 30-day canister
• 06:55 – Organifi costs $79.95 on Amazon
• • 07:08 – 20% of the sales is from Amazon and 80% is from other traffic
  • 07:15 – 65% is from Organifi’s website
• 08:00 – The cost of making Organifi
• 09:07 – “We’re all about congruency”
• 09:25 – The most important ingredient of Organifi is the Ashwagandha
• • 09:40 – Drew is importing Ashwagandha from an organic farm in India
  • 10:18 – KSM Ashwagandha is the farm Drew chose
  • 10:35 – Organifi’s formulator is the one who visits India to check the farm and the farmers
• 11:25 – Gross margin is around 75%
• 11:45 – Marketing cost
• 12:25 – Software that Organifi is using
• • 12:37 – Unbounce, Infusionsoft, Exit Intel, and Shopify
• 13:02 – Organifi has a subscription model
• • 13:20 – The subscription has a 15-75% discount
  • 13:40 – The subscription cost
• 14:43 – Organifi’s 2015 revenue
• 15:15 – Net margin is around 15-20%
• • 15:40 – Drew’s influence benefits their net margin
• 17:04 – What Drew is doing with his wealth 
• 17:07 – Organifi has no investors
• 17:34 – Total list size is around 1.4M
• • 17:45 – Actively opening is 500K
• 18:15 – Team size is 70
• 18:45 – 2017 revenue goal
• 20:04 – Cost of affiliates
• 22:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Influence marketing is one way not just to increase your online presence, but also sales.
• A thorough study and being well researched is crucial in order to fill a gap in a field that is quite saturated.
• Stay congruent with your plans and actions.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Andrew Myers. He grew up in Denver, Colorado and recently left Yale before the start of his senior year to pursue Ripple Recruiting, full-time. He now serves as a CEO in a fast growing, 12-person startup.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Anna Karenina
• What CEO do you follow? –  Kevin Ryan and Reid Hoffman
• Favorite online tool? —PersistIQ and Slack
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Go for it”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:34 – Nathan introduces Andrew to the show
• 01:56 – Ripple Recruiting allows employers to create their dream applicant
• 02:32 – The whole revenue model is based on the employers and Ripple Recruiting is subscription based
• 02:43 – Ripple Recruiting is both a marketplace and a SaaS business model
• 03:04 – Ripple Recruiting has three subscription packages
• • 03:15 – Average contract size is about $300 a month
• 03:25 – Andrew shares the differences between the packages
• 04:25 – Andrew won’t sell Ripple Recruiting at this time
• 04:50 – Andrew and his partner are first time founders
• 05:05 – Andrew and his partner both have strong opinions regarding their business
• 05:40 – Ripple Recruiting was launched in 2015
• 05:54 – First year revenue
• 06:03 – Andrew’s focus is on user engagement, rather than revenue
• 06:36 – Total debt Andrew has for Ripple Recruiting
• 07:00 – Ripple Recruiting has raised in a seed round
• • 07:12 – Ripple Recruiting will be in a series A, soon
• 07:24 – Ripple Recruiting has a syndicate
• 08:11 – No revenue in 2015
• 08:20 – Ripple Recruiting has 15 paying clients at the moment
• 08:30 – Average MRR
• 09:00 – Andrew shares the pitch to investors
• • 09:10 – Ripple Recruiting currently has over 10K Ivy League students signed up, on the platform
  • 10:36 – Ripple Recruiting’s valuation
• 11:18 – Andrew wants to raise $2-3M is series A
• 11:30 – Andrew wants the highest valuation possible
• 12:11 – Andrew already has the strategies to build the syndicate
• 13:05 – Andrew wouldn’t take a $13M deal
• 13:58 – Andrew has just started focusing on revenue in terms of sales stream
• 14:42 – The customers are paying for their access in Ripple Recruiting’s database
• 15:52 – Andrew believes that they’re doing it better than other competitors in the space
• 17:07 – Ripple Recruiting doesn’t have an official hire number yet
• • 17:23 – Andrew is seeing 20K students being hired on Ripple Recruiting
• 17:30 – No churn yet
• 18:58 – The whole Ripple Recruiting team ages between 22-25
• 20:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Being new to business allows you to be more optimistic, but listening to those who have done it can definitely help.
• A good pitch can drive good investors.
• Start early – if you truly feel that you should do it, then NOW is the right time.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Aditya Tulsian. He launched and led multiple small business focused software service and mobile offerings at Intuit India. He’s also a management consultant at Diamond Consultant which is now PWC. He’s a product manager. He’s got an MBA and he’s doing very big things especially in the SMB SaaS space.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Good to Great
• What CEO do you follow? –  Brad Smith
• Favorite online tool? — Slack
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Adi just wished that he could have taken the chance earlier

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:07 – Nathan introduces Adi to the show
• 01:45 – Adi’s company is Numberz
• 02:14 – Half of Numberz’ revenue comes from their SaaS model and half is from commission
• 02:35 – One of Numberz’ customers is NH1 Design
• • 03:05 – How NH1 Design uses Numberz
• 03:50 – Numberz has receivable financing
• 04:15 – Numberz has 2 pricing plans
• 05:00 – Average customer pay annually is $185-195
• • 05:26 – Transaction fee is 2% of every transaction that is done in Numberz’ platform
• 07:00 – Adi was a business head in Intuit India
• 07:18 – Adi shares why he made the jump
• • 07:35 – Adi has a design agency and they’re stable financially
• 08:13 – First year revenue
• 09:20 – 2016 total revenue
• 09:33 – Numberz has more than 5,500 customers
• 10:02 – Average MRR
• 10:45 – Numberz’ paying customers is 1,200
• 12:15 – Adi shares Numberz’ growth
• 12:50 – MRR starting 2017
• 13:27 – Numberz has 3 channels of acquisition to get customers
• 14:20 – Numberz is spending $150 CAC
• 16:32 – Team size
• 16:38 – Numberz’ location is in India
• 16:51 – Numberz has raised capital
• • 17:23 – Total is $750K
• 17:35 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Taking the leap from corporate is more possible with financial stability.
• Having 2 streams of revenue for your business can increase your growth faster.
• Take the chance earlier – opportunities pass you by way too easily.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Rode Luhaäär. He’s an enthusiast and entrepreneur who has years of experience as an e-marketer and digital strategist. During his career in the digital field, he’s been overseeing execution and delivery of activities such as digital concept, e-business concepts, creative solutions design, software development, SEO, social media marketing, and global solutions. Over the last few years, he’s been an active member of a startup community and currently manages a large software company called, Paytailor.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? — Lean Startup
• What CEO do you follow? — n/a
• Favorite online tool? — n/a
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Think faster”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 02:30 – Nathan introduces Rode to the show
• 03:10 – Paytailor is a smart payment solution allowing merchants to get paid the way they want
• • 03:26 – Paytailor gives merchants an app and the users a card wallet
  • 03:45 – Paytailor is a SaaS company
• 03:50 – Paytailor charges €10 monthly
• 04:05 – Paytailor’s revenue comes from the monthly fee
• 04:10 – Average number of customers is 40
• 04:20 – MRR
• 04:28 – Paytailor has raised €70K in a convertible note
• 04:45 – Paytailor was launched in 2015
• • 04:55 – Paytailor started as a side project
• 05:15 – Team size
• 05:24 – Paytailor’s development is based in Estonia
• 05:38 – Why did you give up good pay in the digital field to start Paytailor?
• • 05:52 – “We see a problem”
  • 06:31 – Paytailor also has a 1.8% per transaction fee
  • 06:58 – Paytailor’s payment gateway
• 07:14 – Rode is 32
• 07:32 – What Rode is being paid as a founder
• 08:09 – Rode’s plan for 2017 is to expand in Europe
• • 08:30 – “We don’t want to be a financial institution”
• 08:50 – Rode sees that they have to expand as they make adjustments
• 09:31 – Last month sales is €450 
• • 10:50 – Paytailor has 20 taxis as merchants
  • 11:22 – Some of the merchants’ usage is once a month
• 13:14 – Paytailor’s focus is to test out different kinds of users
• 13:24 – Paytailor currently has 4 bars as merchants
• 14:44 – Paytailor’s merchants are not using their service exclusively
• 16:40 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• If you can see a problem then try to create a solution.
• Expanding helps your company to improve and grow.
• You have to start somewhere – regardless of how small it is.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Laurence Girard. He’s the CEO and founder of Fruit Street. He was a pre-med student at Harvard University Extension School for three years before he decided to pursue Fruit Street full-time and move to San Francisco. In high school, he played soccer for the New York Red Bulls Academy as a goalkeeper, which sparked his initial interest in health. Later, he decided to pursue a career focused on social impact and spent a year volunteering in an emergency room unit in Huntington Hospital, Long Island. He’s now exclusively focused in Fruit Street.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Science of Growth
• What CEO do you follow? –  Milton Chen
• Favorite online tool? — eShares
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 5 out of 7 days
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Laurence would tell himself to put significant emphasis on the team when you are starting a company

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:25 – Nathan introduces Laurence to the show
• 02:10 – Fruit Street is a telemedicine software product that is licensed to healthcare professionals
• • 02:19 – Fruit Street allows professionals to do HIPAA compliant video consultations with their client
  • 02:32 – Each patient has their personal info integrated with gadgets like Fitbit
  • 02:48 – Fruit Street uses a SaaS model and the professionals will pay a monthly licensing fee
• 03:09 – MRR is $15K
• 03:15 – Fruit Street was launched in May 2014
• 03:33 – Average customer pay per month is $200 for the software
• 03:43 – Fruit Street is starting to expand to get enterprise customers
• 03:57 – Current customer number is around a hundred
• 04:10 – 2016 total revenue
• 04:37 – Gross customer churn
• 05:30 – Current LTV
• 06:00 – Team size is 9 full time and Fruit Street has a joint venture agreement with Vsee
• 06:33 – Fruit Street is located in New York, and San Francisco
• 06:51 – Laurence wanted Fruit Street to be funded by physicians and not VC firms
• • 07:00 – Getting the feedback from the physicians would help Fruit Street to improve
  • 07:17 – Physicians can get Fruit Street more customers
  • 07:29 – “Fruit Street is actually a public-benefit corporation”
• 08:08 – There is no tax benefit in being a public-benefit corporation
• 08:26 – Laurence wanted to attract investors that are primarily motivated by social impact and not by the financial outcome
• 08:54 – Fruit Street reached out to physicians through LinkedIn advertising
• • 09:00 – Fruit Street gave the physicians a one-on-one call using Fruit Street’s telemedicine software
• 09:18 – Fruit Street’s lawyer is using eShares to manage their cap table
• 09:47 – Fruit Street has a structure that allows them to make quick decisions
• 10:00 – Fruit Street has 180 shareholders that are not in a syndicate
• 11:45 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• With new technology comes the advancement in telehealth, making it easier for patients to reach out to their physicians.
• Choose an investor that shares the same vision as you.
• Put a significant emphasis on the team you build when you are starting your business.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• 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

Luke Stronach. He’s spent the last few years raising money for his farmland fund. He’s got one single family office as an investor. He’s currently 44, he’s taught finance, and most of his background is in low-income housing. He’s really looking forward to coming to the show and he’s a listener.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Fish That Ate the Whale
• What CEO do you follow? –  Stewart and Lynda Resnick
• Favorite online tool? — Duolingo
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – If you want to have a meaningful life, you should be doing meaningful things

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:20 – Nathan introduces Luke to the show
• 01:46 – Luke shares what he likes about The Top
• 02:04 – Luke has raised less than $10M for his farmland fund
• 02:15 – Luke is currently in the process of moving to Atlanta
• 02:20 – Luke is about to close his first farm
• 02:28 – Luke’s second orchard is under contract
• 02:34 – Luke wants to develop a 100 acre orchard in Georgia
• 03:06 – Luke mentions what farmland investors are looking for in a farmland
• 03:24 – Luke’s first orchard had good irrigation
• • 03:43 – It has 600 acres and was almost $2M
• 04:41 – 40% of North America’s farmland is leased to farmers
• • 04:50 – Investors buy the farmland, lease to farmers who rent per acre or have a revenue share agreement
  • 05:35 – Many farmers are cash flow farmers
• 06:00 – There are differences across different crops
• 06:45 – Luke shares the farmer’s perspective on crops
• 07:01 – Average rent per acre
• • 07:40 – The farmers growing rice and corn are renting at $250 per acre
• 08:00 – Luke’s return on his $2M investment
• • 08:50 – The return will always depend on the yield which varies
• 09:06 – People look at farmland investing as a way to lock value into the land
• 09:12 – There are people who are after the yield and there are those who are not
• 10:05 – Luke shares what happened in 2007-2009
• • 10:10 – S&P 500 lost 50% of its value
  • 10:46 – Historically, farmland has done well with inflation
• 11:00 – Luke’s opinion regarding inflation
• • 11:14 – The returns in farmland can be attractive
• 11:57 – Farmland is not as big as commercial property
• • 12:03 – Farmland investment is a hard space
  • 13:10 – It is a persistence game
• 13:40 – Luke is currently in Alabama
• 14:00 – Nathan wants to study Luke’s field and work with Luke
• 17:17 – There are so many things to do in Georgia and Luke will keep Nathan busy
• 18:08 – Luke makes software for farmers
• 18:59 – In Episode 450 of The Top, Nathan had Robert Leclerc, the founder of AgFunder
• 19:23 – The Famous Five