Darren Pierce. He’s the founder and CEO of eTailInsights. Prior to launching the business, he has spent many years working with B2B companies specializing in leadership, strategic development, client relationships, and maximizing revenue growth. Darren was the Director of Sales for First Research which was acquired by Hoover. Darren helped Bronto Software accelerate their revenue market share to become the leading email service provider in the ecommerce industry. He’s a graduate of The Walker College of Business at Appalachian State University with 2 BSBAs in Management and Marketing.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Hockey Stick Principles
• What CEO do you follow? –  N/A
• Favorite online tool? — Buffer
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Darren wished that his 20-year old self could have been more patient

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:50 – Nathan introduces Darren to the show
• 02:35 – Darren didn’t want to leave Bronto Software, but he came up with the eTailInsights’ idea and couldn’t let it pass
• 02:53 – Darren joined Bronto, in 2008, to help sell their email marketing and make offers to online retailers
• • 03:25 – One of the early problems in Bronto was how to find the companies/retailers
• 03:47 – eTailInsights is a database that indexed the e commerce companies
• 04:03 – eTailInsights is a SaaS business
• 04:10 – Average MRR/ARR
• • 04:43 – The pay is manual upfront
• 04:48 – eTailInsights was launched in 2011
• 04:51 – Total 2015 revenue
• 05:15 – 2016 goal
• 05:50 – Average MRR
• 06:18 – Average churn is adjusted
• 06:50 – CAC
• • 07:29 -  eTailInsights’ average pay per click
• 07:48 – LTV
• 08:25 – eTailInsights has been tracking hundreds of thousands of retailer globally
• 08:36 – eTailInsights will start indexing next year
• 08:58 – Number of current companies is 3000
• 09:09 – The three biggest competitors of eTailInsights
• 10:08 – Exit is not Darren’s priority at the moment
• • 10:16 – Darren’s dream number is $100M
  • 11:18 – Darren wants to know how far his business can go
• 11:30 – eTailInsights is completely bootstrapped and they have $100K in it
• 12:06 – Current head count
• 12:20 – Average compensation
• 12:36 – eTailInsights’ location
• 12:52 – eTailInsights sourced their own data and they built their own tech
• 14:38 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• When you become predictable, you lose SO much leverage.
• If the idea of a business strikes you, go with that passion and just do it.
• Be patient—it takes patience to be a successful entrepreneur.

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
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

James and Larry of Nexd.io. James is the founder and the Chief Stratgey Officer of Next.io and has previously worked with IBM, Socialware, SailPoint Techologies. He has studied at Berkeley and now builds softwares that help people everyday. Larry is the President and CEO of Nexd and is highly experienced in leadership and operations. 

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Peopleware (James)
• What CEO do you follow? –  Jeff Miller (Larry)
• Favorite online tool? — Clearbit (James)
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes (Larry)
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – James wished he built a network. Larry would tell himself that the most important thing is execution.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:42 – Nathan introduces James and Larry to the show
• 02:10 – Larry just joined Nexd and he’s the new CEO
• • 02:26 – Larry helps James build a business around the idea
  • 02:34 – Larry’s background is multiple CEO
• 03:35 – James shares why he brought Larry in
• 03:59 – Nexd was founded 14 months ago
• 05:23 – Nexd’s space is analytics
• • 05:45 – Nexd analyzes which emails are effective
• 05:55 – Nexd is currently on pre-revenue
• 06:00 – Nexd raised a million dollars on a seed round
• • 06:10 – It is a convertible note
  • 06:12 – Nexd did 2 convertible notes
• 07:10 – Larry discusses what he thinks about CEOs and founders not being on good terms in a company
• • 07:20 – Larry has been an advisor to VCs
  • 07:30 – Larry shares his advice to entrepreneurs
  • • 07:56 – Founders and CEOs should agree on who is going to drive the steering wheel
• 08:43 – Larry shares how he and James would represent the company in a sample article with TechCrunch
• 09:15 – Larry shares how they would resolve a possible disagreement in a seed round
• 10:17 – It was James’ own decision to get a CEO
• 10:48 – On the technical side, there is another co-founder
• 11:10 – “What Nexd is doing is going to be a game changer”
• 11:32 – Nexd targets sales manager and sales reps
• 12:58 – James and his co founder’s background is enterprise integration problems
• • 13:20 – “We’re trying to be a system of engagement for multiples systems of work”
• 13:43 – Target for Series A is $6-7M
• 14:08 – A minimal viable product is needed to step forward—a pilot that has been tested
• 15:50 – Nexd is not interested on a quick exit and they are going to be the next great company
• 17:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Choose someone who can do something you’re not good at and who you respect.
• Founders and CEOs should agree on who’s going to drive the steering wheel – if issues come up, own your mistakes and deal with it.
• You need a minimal viable product with validation from potential customers to move forward with 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
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Justin McGill. He’s an entrepreneur and owned a startup in 2008 when he started a digital agency. After he scaled that out, he launched LeadFuze – a B2B lead generation platform. He’s also the co-host of Zero to Scale Podcast which gives us a behind the scenes look at growing a startup with 200K per month in MRR.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Ultimate Sales Machine
• What CEO do you follow? –  Elon Musk
• Favorite online tool? — ZenPayroll which is now Gusto and bench.co
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Justin would’ve told himself that entrepreneurship was a path in life he could take

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:50 – Nathan introduces Justin to the show
• 02:15 – LeadFuze is a software platform
• • 02:21 – LeadFuze allows to you to search for contact information and automate the outreach to ideal and prospective customers—turning them into possible sales opportunities
• 02:35 – LeadFuze is a subscription-based company
• 02:55 – Average MRR is $175
• • 03:08 – Early stage companies are using LeadFuze
• 03:25 – Average number of customers
• 03:45 – LeadFuze started off completely  bootstrapped and had a small raise of $150K
• • 03:56 – Two of three investors are Rob Walling of Drip and David Hauser of Grasshopper
• 04:26 – Justin shares why he decided to take capital
• 04:43 – Justin did a small equity round
• 06:10 – If you’re trying to grow your sales, LeadFuze can help you
• 06:43 – LeadFuze is web-based
• 07:00 – LeadFuze wants to focus exclusively on lead generation
• 07:24 – LeadFuze is a software with a service
• 08:14 – Gross customer churn and revenue churn
• • 08:35 – “Customers stay for 6 months or so”
• 09:15 – Why not just charge $175 upfront?
• • 09:31 – LeadFuze is currently a product company without engineering help
  • 09:47 – Justin is trying to look for a CTO
• 10:58 – Justin shares why his CTO left
• 11:57 – Current team size on remote
• • 12:18 – About to open an office in Phoenix, AZ
• 12:30 – LeadFuze has 3 co-founders, one who was Justin’s sales coach
• 13:55 – CAC
• • 14:05 – Around $300
• 14:28 – Justin invested in content and that is what driving the signups at the moment
• 14:50 – LeadFuze offers 20 leads for free
• • 15:02 – 8.5% of the signups convert from free trial to paid
  • 15:10 – Free trial doesn’t require a credit card
• 15:40 – Total 2015 revenue
• • 15:50 - LeadFuze started totally free
  • 16:11 – Average total cash flow by the end of 2015 is around $250K
• 16:45 – Some of the sources where LeadFuze pulls data are from ClearBit, Full Contact, and Tower Data
• 17:23 – Hit Justin up on Twitter
• 18:55 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• As a startup, the pay-as-you-go model may be more beneficial than subscription plans.
• Entrepreneurs need to be more open about their people leaving.
• Don’t waste time and TAKE the leap as early as you can.

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
• ClearBit, Full Contact, and Tower Data Where LeadFuze pulls its data
• @Jus10McGill – Justin’s Twitter handle
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Mark Godley. He has held leadership positions at technology companies of all different sizes from pre-revenue to publicly traded. He’s best known for driving revenue and outpacing industry growth while rejecting herd mentality. Outside of work, Mark finds time daily to read, work-out, and cook—all the while, being an engaged father, spouse, and citizen.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Devil in the White City
• What CEO do you follow? –  Henry Schuck and Yonatan Stern
• Favorite online tool? — Flipboard, Stitcher, GaggleAMP and Lead Forensics
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Living below your means gives you tons of options. Think about the life you want at age 50 and work backwards. We’re running a marathon not a sprint, and it takes planning, sacrifice and resilience and then, don’t define success and happiness by your paycheck”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:42 – Nathan introduces Mark to the show
• 02:25 – HG Data is in a competitive and intelligent space
• • 02:35 – HG Data build data sets, used by sales and marketing teams, to do precision targeting at scale
• 03:05 – The founder founded HG Data in 2012 after an exit
• 03:43 – Mark is the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at HG Data
• • 04:02 – Mark handles all the market phasing for the company
• 04:31 – When HG Data was founded it served the enterprise space
• • 04:49 – Last year is when they started to go down market
  • 04:58 – Number of enterprise clients is 15-20 with 6-figure ARR
  • 05:15 – HG Data had traditional customers, as well, that totaled 50
  • 05:58 – HG Data transitioned from a data company to a product company
  • 06:12 – Total ASP
• 06:50 – HG Data wants to increase the customer base, but lower the RPU
• • 07:56 – HG Data created a use-space specific databases
• 08:19 – HG Data tries to keep the balance of enterprise and down market pricing
• • 08:34 – 50% of the revenue is from direct clients and 50% is from the partners
• 09:22 – Mark shares what he is worried about in regards to their target
• 10:09 – Mark shares how their partners use their data
• 10:55 – Average pay per user annually
• 12:05 – There are 10-50 OEMs in the customer base
• 12:37 – Average number of customers
• 13:00 – Mark only follows ARR and not MRR
• 13:27 – Mark shares that they are focused on building the new space—they are currently spending and losing money by design, but hoping for a positive cash flow
• 14:00 – Gross annual customer churn is less than 10%
• • 14:30 – “We’ve had one 6-figure churn in the last 4 years”
• 14:40 – CAC
• 15:23 – “We’re looking for a more high-velocity sales model”
• 16:13 – The company is based in Santa Barbara, where they have 80 employees
• 16:42 – Connect with Mark through Twitter and LinkedIn
• 18:40 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• “We’re running a marathon, not a sprint, and it takes planning, sacrifice, and resilience.”
• Be mindful of your partners BEFORE making decisions.
• Live without regrets.

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
• @Mgodley21 – Mark’s Twitter handle
• LinkedIn – Mark’s LinkedIn account
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dominik Vacikar. He is currently an Associate at Hummingbird VC, but was previously the co-founder of Spaceship and some other startups, including Growth at Nestpick. Listen as Dominik gives us an inside look at the workings of Spaceship and why he was chosen by Hummingbird for a very specific task. 

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Zero to One
• What CEO do you follow? –  N/A
• Favorite online tool? — Stripe
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Dominik wishes he wasn’t so hard on himself, so long as he was progressing

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:35 – Nathan introduces Dominik to the show
• 02:00 – Spaceship started as a side project when Dominik had their lead generation tool in social media
• 03:02 – Dominik shares how Spaceship works
• • 03:18 – Spaceship searches your entire target audience and provides you with prospect data
• 03:35 – Spaceship is pay-as-you go
• 03:51 – 10% of Spaceship’s customers are on a monthly plan
• 04:10 – Spaceship was launched in October 2015
• 04:30 – 2015 revenue
• 04:55 – Current total revenue
• 05:12 – Dominik shares why he turned to Hummingbird
• 06:33 – Spaceship was bootstrapped
• 06:52 – Spaceship’s current team size
• 07:20 – Dominik has been with Hummingbird for 2 months
• 07:30 – Hummingbird wants Dominik to build a radar for startups
• • 07:54 – The radar will track interesting companies and identify them
• 08:29 – Dominik shares how their product is different from Crunchbase
• 09:31 – Dominik shares the variables they use to identify the startups
• 10:30 – The current biggest problem is updating the data as frequently as possible
• 11:45 – Hummingbird is good at identifying the funders’ DNA
• 12:08 – Hummingbird’s main area of expertise
• 13:00 – Hummingbird might be interested in a Series A
• 13:21 – Hummingbird’s ARR target
• 14:05 – Nathan asks Dominik about Spaceship’s founder
• 14:37 – Dominik is active on Twitter and LinkedIn
• 16:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Growth comes in many forms—sometimes from within your own company or from the help of others.
• Develop your expertise by drawing knowledge from other fields and markets.
• Your progress determines your future and YOU set the pace.

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
• @chichikid – Dominik’s Twitter handle
• LinkedIn – Dominik’s LinkedIn account
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Darian Shirazi. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Radius. He was an early employee at Facebook and worked on the” Sell Your Item” Team at eBay. He’s founded, invested, and advised many successful technology companies. Prior to starting Radius, Darian studied Computer Science and Philosophy at UC Berkeley. He’s also a prominent keen speaker at Top of Technology Innovation.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Essays of Warren Buffet
• What CEO do you follow? –  Marc Benioff
• Favorite online tool? — Yesware
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “How much harder building the business is  than you originally thought and how once you get to scale how amazing it feels.”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:42 – Nathan introduces Darian to the show
• 02:15 – Darian shares about his time with Facebook
• • 02:30 – Darian’s favorite project on Facebook was Facelift
• 02:45 – Darian shares what he thinks of Mark Zuckerberg
• 03:30 – Darian can’t think of a time when Mark was at odds with another team member
• 03:58 – Radius is about growing pipelines for B2B marketers
• • 04:08 – The customers are typically enterprise and mid-market businesses
  • 04:15 – Radius fixes data 
  • 04:30 – Radius’ services
• 04:48 – The whole foundation of the product starts with the Radius business graph
• 05:17 – Darian shares how they help the client
• 05:40 – Darian shares how Radius is different with CB Insights
• • 05:50 – Radius’ data is powered by their customers which allows them to access their CRMs
  • 06:20 – The activity data allows Radius to improve their data
  • 06:50 – Radius doesn’t rely on publicly available data
• 07:30 – Radius was founded in 2011 and launched in 2013
• 08:00 – Average number of customers
• • 08:30 – It is not really a seat model
  • 09:10 – Radius has a used cased expansion
• 09:41 – Team size is currently 150 people
• 10:00 – Radius has currently raised $100M
• • 10:25 – Radius still has a lot of net capital left
  • 10:42 – Radius’ retention for enterprise customers is around 93%
• 10:50 – Gross monthly customer churn
• 11:24 – Darian shares what drives their revenue
• • 11:48 – Radius’s implementation day is only 18 days so customers see the value quickly
• 12:11 – Radius’ pricing
• 12:23 – ACV
• 13:00 – First year revenue
• 13:25 – Darian has 2 co-founders
• 14:07 – Radius requires a team
• • 14:28 – Darian hired people from enterprise companies
• 15:00 – Darian shares Radius’s CAC to LTV ratio
• • 15:36 – Radius’s sales cycle
  • 15:52 – “Customer trust is our number one value”
  • 16:50 – It is difficult to measure CAC to LTV when enterprise companies rely on big  events for marketing

• 17:53 – Radius’s growth rate
• 19:14 – Radius’ marketing budget
• 19:29 – The amount Radius spends on Dreamforce
• • 20:27 – Dreamforce is an incredible way to grow a pipe

• 20:40 – Is Radius going to be the next Benioff’s acquisition?
• 21:48 – Darian shares how Microsoft has been an incredible partner for Radius
• 22:36 – The last funding
• 23:05 – Darian discusses Radius’ future
• 23:40 – Follow Darian at Twitter and email him
• 25:35 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• It takes a great team to create a great product.
• Take what you’ve learned from your last employer, be grateful for it, and leave graciously.
• Acquisition requires planning, an exchange of ideas, and thorough researching.

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
• Ceo@Radius.com – Darian’s email address
• @Darian314 – Darian’s Twitter handle
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Tim Saumet. He is the CTO of the company called Tilkee – a SaaS solution software for business proposals, follow ups, and sales process tracking. It is a super hot space. Before that, he was involved with OXFOC Technologies as the CEO. He is also a Manager of General Services in another company and a Project Manager at Travel Due.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? –100 Conseils Pratiques Pour Couler sa Boite
• What CEO do you follow? –  Bruno Bonnell and Elon Musk

• Favorite online tool? — Zapier
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— “Yes” for Kate and “No” for Tim
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Tim would have focused more on personal development

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:37 – Nathan introduces Tim to the show
• 02:13 – Kate is developing the European market
• 02:30 – Tim used to be a salesman and it was difficult for him
• 03:03 – Tilkee is a simple SaaS software to analyze a prospect’s behavior
• 03:30 – Tilkee works with any kind of document
• 03:50 – Tilkee started as a side project 3 and a half years ago
• 05:00 – First year revenue was $20K
• 05:15 – Tilkee is currently serving 800 customers
• 05:41 – Average customer pay per month
• 06:20 – December 2015 MRR
• 07:30 – Tim started with small companies, then progressed to enterprise companies
• 08:05 – Tim pivoted the product and customer base
• 08:12 – Tim raised, 2 years ago, a million and a half dollars
• 08:34 – Tim is thinking of raising more next year
• • 09:08 – Tim won’t go to a typical Series A round
  • 09:35 – Employees have a part of the equity
• 10:15 – Tim wants a raise, but would still want more than 50% of the company
• 10:37 – Typical valuation in Europe
• 11:15 – Gross monthly customer churn
• 12:00 – Kate shares how they find their enterprise deals
• 13:22 – Tilkee is not doing an e-signature but a u-sign from the European market
• 14:14 – A customer lifetime value
• 14:45 – Average CAC
• 15:45 – Tilkee has an advertisement in one of the biggest French radio stations
• 16:20 – Current team size is 20 and 15 from them are salespeople
• 16:42 – Tim shares the stack they have built Tilkee on
• 17:15 – Kate is currently using Pipedrive to drive Sales
• 18:35 – Find Tilkee on Twitter and Facebook
• 20:19 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• You CAN solve your own problems—you just need to do the work of finding solutions.
• Raising capital is always an option to take that next step forward for your business.
• Meditation is a great avenue for personal development.

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 kept his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it at the airplane’s back seat pocket
• @TilkeeUs – Tilkee’s Twitter handle
• Facebook – Tilkee’s Facebook account
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Steve Richard whose mission in life is to help as many sales professionals as possible to become wildly successful. He has been featured in numerous publications including The Harvard Business Review, The Washington Business Journal, and The Washington Post. Outside of work, Steve enjoys scuba diving, skiing, running, and people-watching. He’s from Arlington, VA, with his wife Ellen and their 4 kids all under the age of 7.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – RSVP Selling
• What CEO do you follow? –  Tony Bates

• Favorite online tool? — Owler
• 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 got to start with the technology company in the beginning because you’re going to create much more impact on people’s lives”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:58 – Nathan introduces Steve to the show
• 02:45 – Steve shares the idea of ExecVision
• 03:17 – ExecVision is a SaaS business
• • 03:20 – There are 50 organizations who are currently using ExecVision
• 03:34 – ExecVision allows you to access, analyze, and share call records
• 04:20 – Average pay per user per year and how it ranges per sales person
• 04:54 – Average MRR
• 05:24 – Sales professionals love ExecVision
• 06:04 – ExecVision has coaching requests for their customers
• 06:37 – Every month there’s a high volume of requests for coaching
• 07:13 – ExecVision has voice recognition
• 07:52 – Richard shares how their customers find valuable keywords in ExecVision
• 09:15 – Richard was running Vorsight before ExecVision
• • 09:50 – People pay per meeting
  • 10:02 – Richard used the profitability of Vorsight to fund ExecVision
• 10:15 – Richard has raised capital for ExecVision
• 10:58 – Richard shares what drives them
• 11:38 – They have raised around $1M
• 11:50 – Richard acquired ExecVision in April, 2015
• 12:07 – None of the original people from ExecVision are still working with the company, but they have equity
• 12:26 – Retention is 90% annually 
• 13:38 – CAC
• 14:42 – Total head count is 15
• 14:55 – ExecVision is based in Arlington, Virginia
• 15:27 – First year revenue
• 16:08 – Connect with Richard through Call Camp
• 18:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Use your stress to CREATE an idea to relieve that stress.
• Sales professionals who analyze and assess feedback well WILL improve in their field.
• Make something that adds value to people’s lives.

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
• Call Camp – Steve’s Call Camp Movement website
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Alex Babin. He’s a serial entrepreneur who has more than 10 years of expertise in innovation, product development and artificial intelligence. He started his first hybrid vehicle company at the age of 24 funded by DFJ. He also founded an interactive video software company. Now, he’s running an artificial intelligence, communication startup which is building a device-centric, secured, corporate email client called Zero.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Steve Jobs
• What CEO do you follow? – Mark Daniels

• Favorite online tool? — HubSpot
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Trust your intuition”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:45 – Nathan introduces Alex to the show
• 02:23 – Alex loves listening to podcasts
• 02:53 – Zero is currently on pre-revenue, but they have a list of pre-sales
• 03:12 – Zero is focused on the corporate market
• • 03:28 – Zero helps people be more productive with the help of AI
• 03:38 – Zero charges per user per month on the corporate market
• 03:48 – Zero was launched 2 years ago, was in self-mode for 1 year, and launched the first version a year ago
• 04:00 – Zero had a seed round, in May, from angel investors
• 04:41 – Zero has 3 founders and a total of 6 on the team
• 05:19 – The one who will win the space in the market is the one who will penetrate the market with the most convenient product for the customer
• 05:33 – Customers don’t want to change anything – they have strict security policies
• 07:15 – Zero has 30,000 downloads
• • 07:30 – 2,000 active daily customers
  • 07:37 – Alex shares the difference between daily and monthly active customers
• 08:55 – Zero has recently introduced exchange support
• 09:28 – Zero currently targets CIOs
• 09:48 – Zero’s pricing
• 10:10 – Alex shares that they are open to another seed round
• • 10:19 – Target to raise is $1M
  • 10:22 – Convertible note CAP of $5M
  • 11:00 – Some of the customers are converting into investors
• 11:38 – Find Alex on Twitter
• 13:05 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• The one who wins the market is the one who penetrates the market with the best and most convenient product for the consumer.
• Be patient and respectful with your customers when explaining your product.
• TRUST your intuition—it’s often the right direction to follow.

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 kept his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it at the airplane’s back seat pocket
• @AlexBabin – Alex’s Twitter handle
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Shawn Livermore. He’s an author and technology consultant and more recently, the founder and CEO of tech startup Ziptask which has generated nearly $2M in revenue. He has raised 4 rounds of funding and closed it down to take on new opportunities.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Tipping Point
• What CEO do you follow? –  Mark Fields

• Favorite online tool? — Acuity Scheduling
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Calculate risk carefully”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 02:00 – Nathan introduces Shawn to the show
• 02:30 – Ziptask is a fully-managed outsourcing with a progressive effort to fix the problem of outsourcing technology projects
• 03:23 – “We succeeded in the goal, but we failed as a company”
• 03:31 – Shawn raised 4 seed rounds
• 04:18 – Shawn also had his day-time clients as a technology consultant
• 04:50 – Ziptask dissolved in September 2016, and was launched in 2010
• 05:05 – Ziptask’s MRR was $107K
• 05:30 – Shawn shares why they shut down Ziptask
• • 06:59 – Shawn launched Ziptask prematurely
  • 08:35 – Shawn also did NOT try to sell the business
• 09:30 – Shawn is now working with Carvana
• 10:00 – Connect with Shawn through Twitter. Medium and email
• 10:15 – Shawn is currently working on a book called Obscurity
• 12:45 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• The time will come when you have to pull the plug – and when it happens, just do it.
• Reaching your goal is NOT the peak of success.
• Calculate risk carefully.

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 kept his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it at the airplane’s back seat pocket
• Carvana – Shawn’s current employer
• @shawnypants – Shawn’s Medium handle
• @shawnypants – Shawn’s Twitter handle
• ShawnLivermore@gmail.com – Shawn’s email address
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Guy Suter and he runs Notion.ai. His mission is to improve communication using artificial intelligence. Previously, he co-founded BitLeap and led the product to the world’s top selling appliance after 2008 acquisition by Barracuda. He started venture data backup, cloud storage, group chat, file sharing with Copy.com and CRM with Nutshell.com

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Brand New World
• What CEO do you follow? – Jay Simons

• Favorite online tool? — Picasso
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “How early stage capital works...and influence management has been the biggest learning experience”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:35 – Nathan introduces Guy to the show
• 02:10 – Guy and his co-founder started with a data backup company
• 02:46 – Notion.ai is currently on prerevenue
• 03:00 – Notion.ai started 3 years ago
• 03:47 – Notion.ai was launched in November 2016
• 04:18 – Digital communication was problematic
• 04:55 – Notion.ai has raised a total of around $10M
• 05:13 – Guy started with a lot of SaaS businesses
• 06:13 – Guy shares the revenue opportunities for Notion.ai
• 08:00 – There’s a huge barrier in entry to Notion.ai’s space
• 09:00 – Guy discusses the companies that are trying to make another category
• 09:40 – Notion.ai is beneficial to everyone who uses email to interact
• 10:40 – “Our goal is not to make the best email app In the world”
• • 11:00 – Notion.ai has features that differentiate them from others and offer value
  • 11:10 – Notion.ai is more “people-centric”; the focus is on relationships and what’s important based on the message
• 11:43 – Average number of downloads
• • 12:09 – Notion.ai helps clean-up inboxes quickly
  • 13:00 – Less than a million but more than tens of thousands of downloads
  • 13:39 – The number of downloads consistently grows daily
• 13:55 – Team size and location
• • 14:20 – Guy shares why they chose Michigan
  • 15:50 – Notion.ai has someone that was from LinkedIn
• 16:00 – Connect with Guy through Twitter
• 17:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• The digital communication space has been problematic and we need a solution.
• Raising big capital on pre-revenue IS possible, if you have a great product that helps people become more efficient in communicating.
• Have patience, take time, focus on building the right culture, and get your team on board.

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
• @GuySuter – Guy’s Twitter handle
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nathan Barry, CEO of ConvertKit – an email marketing company for professional bloggers. Listen as Nathan shares how he manages to stay self-funded while, at the same time, increasing the growth and bloggers’ interest in using ConvertKit.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Predictable Success
• What CEO do you follow? –  N/A

• Favorite online tool? — Workable
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Pick just one thing you love to do and do it really well

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:50 – Nathan introduces Barry to the show
• 02:15 – ConvertKit is a SaaS company and has around 10,000 bloggers
• 02:47 – ConvertKit’s pricing depends on the blogger’s subscribers count
• 03:04 – Average revenue per user per month
• • 03:24 – 65% of the users are on $48/month plan
• 03:48 – ConvertKit’s cash flow is doing well
• 04:15 – Annual plan has a big impact on churn
• 04:50 – Barry pushes the annual plan on Cyber Monday
• • 05:00 – Average annual plan total
• 05:30 – ConvertKit had a free 1 month promotion for new users
• 05:56 – ConvertKit has a 40K email list – half of it is from content marketing, the other half is from webinars
• • 06:30 – ConvertKit has added 25K new people in their list this year from joint webinars alone
  • 06:55 – Barry is using Google Hangout and Chatroll for the webinars
  • 07:20 – ConvertKit is doing 10-20 webinars a month
• 07:53 – There are 2 people in Barry’s team who are involved in the webinar process
• • 08:28 – The team is trying to get people who use MailChimp or Aweber to switch to ConvertKit
  • 08:38 – It is a 2-step direct sales process
• 09:54 – Barry shares how he mitigates the show up rate in their webinars
• 10:54 – Some of the bloggers reach out to ConvertKit and some find them through other bloggers
• 11:16 – Average expenses a month in affiliate payouts
• • 11:33 – A quarter of ConvertKit’s revenue comes from affiliate programs
• 12:10 – 2015 total revenue is around $300K
• 12:20 – 2016 average revenue
• 12:34 – ConvertKit is self-funded
• • 12:44 – It was an intentional choice
  • 13:03 – Barry shares what he did when they were almost running out of funds
• 14:15 – ConvertKit’s gross profit and total money in the bank
• 14:38 – ConvertKit just had a big expense from the annual plan switch
• 15:15 – Gross monthly customer churn
• 16:15 – Expansion is ConvertKit’s next focus
• 17:08 – Current CAC
• 18:28 – Team size and location
• 18:50 – Average headcount expenses
• 19:14 – ConvertKit was launched in 2013
• 20:18 – There are two advisers who have a share in the company
• 20:45 – Connect with Nathan through ConvertKit and his website
• 23:20 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• You can stay self-funded with a fast growing business and by managing your funds properly.
• Joint webinars and 2-point direct sales are excellent options to increase mailing list.
• Pick one thing you love to do, focus in, and do it really well.

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
• ConvertKit.com – Barry’s business website
• NathanBarry.com – Barry’s personal website
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Kyle Racki, co-founder and CEO of Proposify. He’s passionate about design, SaaS, and marketing. He loves jamming out to 90s covers/tunes at open mic nights, and also has the unique ability to work in perfectly, cromulent Simpsons’ references to any conversation.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Lean Analytics
• What CEO do you follow? –  Alex Turnbull

• Favorite online tool? — Heap Analytics
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Sometimes
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “That it’s all going to be okay and…I’m going to give myself a hug”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:40 – Nathan introduces Kyle to the show
• 02:24 – Proposify is a SaaS business and it helps people streamline their sales and close more deals
• 02:40 – Average customer pay per month is $40-$50
• 02:53 – Current number of customers
• 03:10 – Average MRR
• 03:25 – Proposify was launched in 2013
• • 03:35 – Proposify had less than $1000 MRR for 17 months
  • 04:03 – Kyle and his co-founder had an agency
  • 04:22 – Kyle raised $250K in seed capital from a local investor
  • 04:39 – Kyle and his team’s pay is around $60K a month during that time
• 05:40 – Team size is 15 and are located in Halifax, Canada
• • 06:20 – Kyle shares how the startup market is in Halifax
  • 06:50 – Known startup companies from Halifax
• 07:24 – Kyle does weekly phone calls with customers to check in on them
• 07:50 – Kyle shares how one of their customers beat VaynerMedia in a proposal
• 09:15 – How Proposify creates proposals in a flash
• 09:40 – Proposify’s competition
• 10:04 – Proposify is more focused on the digital agency space
• 11:25 – Average number of new customers per month
• 11:50 – Proposify has a free and no-credit card sign-up
• 12:00 – Proposify does inbound sales, but organic search is the biggest source of traffic
• 12:43 – Best podcast that drives Proposify’s traffic
• 13:05 – Proposify has a general marketing budget
• • 13:28 - $10K for paid marketing
• 13:45 – CAC is quite low
• 14:18 – LTV
• 14:40 – Gross monthly customer churn
• 15:00 – Proposify currently has 2 sales people
• 15:35 – Other system Kyle uses for business intelligence is Heap Analytics
• 16:16 – Total 2015 revenue is $551K
• 17:11 – Proposify is profitable and continually growing
• 18:30 – “We’ll always entertain acquisition offers if it makes sense”
• 19:00 – The process Kyle will go through if there’s a possible acquisition
• 19:47 – Number of Proposify’s developers
• 20:00 – Connect with Kyle through their website and help Kyle look for Proposify.com’s owner and he’ll pay you
• 22:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• There’s a temptation to spend VC money; be decisive when you want to raise capital and stick to your goals.
• Organic traffic is good, but getting paid marketing can still drive more traffic and customers.
• There are a lot of things to consider in an acquisition – it should match your personal goals, be a cultural fit, and the numbers need to make sense.

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
• Proposify.biz – Kyle’s business website
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Ivan Mojsilovic, CEO and founder of Yanado.com – a teamwork collaboration tool that will truly change the way you work. He’s also the CEO of E-75 IT Services, a project manager, and a media man who did a small stint at STARTeurope. He’s very active in the startup space.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – n/a
• What CEO do you follow? –  Jason Lemkin

• 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? – “Move out my current city and go travel, travel the world”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:40 – Nathan introduces Ivan to the show
• 02:17 – Yanado is a project management tool integrated into Gmail
• 02:40 – Yanado is SaaS business
• 02:54 – Average customer pay per year is around $3000
• 03:30 – Ivan has been in SaaS industry
• 04:09 – Ivan shares how they started Yanado
• 04:28 – Yanado started in 2014
• 04:40 – Total capital raised is $200K and currently fundraising
• • 05:09 – Goal for the current fundraising is $500K in equity round
  • 05:20 – Willing to give up 15% to 20% equity
• 05:30 – Yanado is based in Eastern Europe
• 05:40 – Ivan shares about the market in Eastern Europe
• 06:10 – Ivan shares what happened to their first business
• • 06:30 – The business was doing €200K a year
• 07:05 – Yanado’s average number of paying customers is a little under 100
• 07:15 – Average MRR
• 07:45 – Team size
• 08:10 – Number of total users
• 08:23 – Ivan shares how their customers find them
• 09:00 – Gross monthly churn is 7%
• 09:21 – Average customer stay is 14 months
• 10:05 – Ivan does the inside sales for Yanado and they just hired a person are planning to do outbound sales
• 10:40 – Ivan’s plans for the company
• 10:59 – Ivan hopes Google will acquire them
• 11:45 – As of the moment, Ivan will only sell Yanado for $10M and no less than that
• • 12:00 – Ivan shares how he will sell Yanado to Google
• 13:00 – Ivan shares how Google can’t create something similar to Yanado
• 13:54 – Follow Ivan on their blog, sales and discussion groups
• 16:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Find a way to help people focus their tasks and make life easier.
• Create a software that is unique and cannot easily be imitated.
• When you’re young and if you can, leave your city and travel the world.

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
• Blog – Ivan’s blog
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Chad Brown, CEO and head of product along with his co-founder at Orangedox.com. He has a strong background in business intelligence and technology startups and has a passion for business documents and the color orange.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Good to Great
• What CEO do you follow? –  Drew Houston

• Favorite online tool? –  Stack Exchange
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep? –  Yes
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Be more confident”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:32 – Nathan introduces Chad to the show
• 02:07 – Orangedox started as document tracking and was originally on Dropbox
• 02:17 – Orangedox has premium services on top premium products
• 02:48 – Why would people choose Orangedox over PandaDoc
• • 02:55 – Orangedox is integrated into your account
• 03:22 – Orangedox is a SaaS business
• 03:55 – Orangedox has over 20K product signups
• 04:05 – Orangedox was in beta in 2014 and pre-launch in early 2015
• 04:25 – Average weekly active customers: 2000
• 05:05 – Average number of paying customers: about 300
• 05:30 – Average pay per customer is $25-30 a month
• 06:00 – MRR
• 06:17 – Chad was looking at raising capital but still undecided about their focus
• 06:55 – Chad is looking at their current customer base
• 07:30 – Chad shares how the customers are using Orangedox and the commonality in paying customers
• 09:15 – Team size: 2 full-time and few part-time workers
• 09:30 – Gross customer churn around 5%
• 09:57 – Chad shares how they acquire their new customers
• 11:52 – Orangedox is based in Vancouver
• 12:25 – Chad and his co-founders’ plan on the company
• 12:45 – Chad hasn’t focused on a lot revenue at the moment, but is working on closing key enterprise clients
• 13:21 – Connect with Chad through his email and Twitter
• 14:55 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• At first, focus on the betterment of your product as opposed to revenue.
• Analyze your product’s effectivity through your customers’ activities.
• Have the confidence and motivation to do what you want.

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
• @Orange_dox – Chad’s business’ Twitter handle
• Chad@Orangedox.com – Chad’s email address
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Eric Rea, co-founder and CEO of Podium.com which is based in Utah. He’s a software engineer at the International Atomic Agency and before that, the founder of FineGrain. He worked at Walmart as a software engineer and he has also interned at Orange Soda.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Multipliers
• What CEO do you follow? –  Phil Knight

• Favorite online tool? –  Domo and Apple Notes
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep? –  “I get 7”
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “You can always tell them to go to hell tomorrow” –  Warren Buffet

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:46 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show
• 02:20 – Podium helps businesses generate reviews which drives purchase decisions
• 02:30 – Podium charges $299 a month per location
• 02:48 – Podium is a SaaS business
• 02:58 – Average customer pays $499
• 03:20 – Podium was launched in 2013
• • 03:25 – Eric started Podium because of his dad’s business
• 04:01 – Team size
• • 04:44 – All employees are working full-time
  • 04:50 – Team is based in Utah
• 05:35 – Podium raised $4M in total
• • 05:50 – First seed round was in 2014 and $500K was raised
  • 05:57 – Raised $3.5M in December of 2015
• 06:36 – Eric has given up 20% of the business for the seed round
• 07:38 – Podium has 25000 customers per location
• 08:13 – Podium has $1M in MRR
• 08:45 – Podium’s gross monthly customer churn is around 1%
• • 09:10 – Net churn is negative 2% monthly
• 09:50 – Average CAC
• 10:12 – Average LTV is $12K
• 11:00 – 2015 ARR is $1.8M
• 11:30 – 2016 ARR is around $11M
• 11:41 – Goal for 2017 ARR is $25M
• 12:55 – Connect with Eric through his website and Twitter
• 15:05 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• It’s important to have some capital in case you make mistakes – with no capital, just 1 mistake will sink you.
• Find a solution to the simplest problems to streamline your business processes.
• The SMB market will continually grow, creating more opportunities for startups.

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
• @EricWilliamRea – Eric’s Twitter handle
• Podium.com – Eric’s business website
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Usman Sheikh, CEO and founder of xIQ – an award-winning platform for personalized sales, marketing intelligence, and content marketing. He’s the former vice president of SAP AG and he’s pushing digital frontiers by delivering consumer grade experiences in B2B sales and the marketing space. xIQ is the winner of the prestigious 2016 Content Marketing Institute Award for best integration of mobile and content marketing.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Zero to One
• What CEO do you follow? –  Bill McDermott

• Favorite online tool? — Twitter and LinkedIn
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Take risks as early as you can.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:49 – Nathan introduces Usman to the show
• 02:30 – xIQ is a next generation sales intelligence tool designed for B2B sales and marketing professionals
• 03:04 – Usman worked with the top leaders of the world in SAP
• 03:30 – xIQ extracts the most relevant content from the most reliable sources
• 04:00 – xIQ is a SaaS product
• 04:16 – xIQ was founded in 2014, and released in early 2016
• 04:44 – xIQ raised 2 rounds of seed round
• 05:08 – Total amount raised
• 05:37 – Team size is under 15 and is based in Silicon Valley
• 06:05 – xIQ has 10 corporate customers and thousands of individual customers
• 06:35 – Average pay of corporate customers
• 06:57 – Average MRR
• 07:24 – Usman discusses one of their clients, GenPact, and how they use xIQ
• • 07:42 – First, xIQ is used as a marketing intelligence tool to track competitors
  • 08:47 – All data is real-time
• 09:20 – xIQ uses Apache Solr technology to index and for natural language processing
• 09:50 – xIQ gets their corporate customers from organic traffic
• 10:32 – xIQ’s process is the reason why corporate customers end up buying from them
• 11:12 – List size
• 11:24 – xIQ has 1 inside sales person
• 12:29 – No cancellations/churn yet for xIQ
• 12:53 – CAC
• 14:10 – LTV to CAC ratio
• 15:10 – Connect with Usman through LinkedIn, email and website
• 16:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Experience is a great teacher—continue to learn and hone your skill set.
• Building a business takes time and there is always room for improvement.
• Take risks as early on in life as you can.

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
• LinkedIn – Usman’s LinkedIn account
• Usman@xIQ.io – Usman’s email address
• xIQ.ai – Usman’s business website
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nathan interviews Neil Berman. This guy knows SaaS and launched his company called Delivra, in 1999, in the email marketing space. Listen as Neil shares how Delivra has grown exponentially in 17 years, without the need to raise funds and get into debt.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Great CEOs are Lazy
• What CEO do you follow? –  Mark Zuckerberg

• Favorite online tool? — Twitter and LinkedIn
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— “At least”
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Patience and determination will win the game”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:37 – Nathan introduces Neil to the show
• 01:59 – Delivra is an email marketing software tool that helps clients “sell more stuff”
• 02:10 – They are a high break-even business with a low variable cost, so the more customers the better
• 02:15 – Delivra is a SaaS business
• 02:25 – Delivra currently has 500 direct  paying clients, and a couple thousand resellers
• 02:33 – Average customer pays $800-900 per month
• 03:21 – Total revenue in 2016 about $4.8M
• 03:33 – Total revenue in 2015 is $4.2M
• 03:45 – Delivra has 3 marketing buckets
• 04:00 – Total team size is over 40+
• • 04:12 – Main team location in Indianapolis
• 04:23 – Gross customer churn per month is 1.5%
• 04:45 – A customer stays with Delivra for 42 months
• 05:00 – LTV
• 05:10 – CAC is $1.08
• 06:33 – Delivra hasn’t raised yet and they have no debt, but are looking at options
• • 06:45 – Neil’s target for their first round
• 07:43 – Delivra has grown organically over the years
• 08:17 – Neil is meeting with a capital markets team to learn about how to take Delivra to the next level
• 08:50 – Neil would think seriously about an offer
• 09:40 – Neil shares how their customers are using Delivra
• 10:25 – Connect with Neil through his website Delivra
• 12:20 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Before you do your first round of raising, get advice from an expert.
• It’s incredible growing through organic traffic, but always aim to know what is the next level for your company.
• Patience and determination will win the game.

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
• Delivra.com – Neil’s business website
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Chuck Sillari: He was born and raised in Boston and is a graduate of Boston College and Law school. He’s a lawyer and a real estate developer who is currently focusing full-time on the expansion of his nationally known Boston Burger Company – a new e-commerce business called BurgaBox.com. Burgabox is in the process of disrupting both the meal kit industry and full service casual dining experience.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Quench Your Own Thirst
• What CEO do you follow? –  Samuel Adams

• Favorite online tool? — Hotjar
• 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 wish I knew that I should have travelled more and...spend a lot time meeting interesting people because that’s where you get inspiration from”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:40 – Nathan introduces Chuck to the show
• 02:21 – Boston Burger Company’s 2015 revenue is around $5.5M for three locations
• 02:50 – Chuck has always loved the restaurant industry
• 03:39 – Chuck jumped into the burger business after 13 years in a law firm
• 03:45 – BurgaBox opened up in 2009, and Chuck went full-time in 2013
• 04:07 – “People really loved what we’re doing”
• 04:17 – BurgaBox was in different TV shows
• 04:30 – BurgaBox became a must-try destination in Boston
• 04:50 – Chuck brought on 1 investor
• • 05:13 – The investor approached Chuck for the second location
  • 05:31 – The investor knew about the Boston Burger Company because of its popularity in Boston
• 05:56 – Chuck shares how much they’ve spent to open up a new location
• • 06:20 – There was no full burger joint in Boston before
• 06:43 – Chuck shares why the second location costs 10x more than the first location
• 07:55 – The first location’s growth was $700K in their first year
• • 08:24 – It was 450 sq. ft.
  • 08:30 – It is now doing a $1.85M
• 09:15 – The amount the investor gets in return
• 10:00 – Chuck has a good partnership with the investor
• 10:20 – A restaurant’s gross margin
• • 11:49 – For every dollar you bring in, 20% should go to your pocket
• 12:09 – The second location will do around $2.5M in 2016
• 12:27 – Average profit of each restaurant
• 12:45 – Chuck’s plan for the business
• 13:03 – Chuck saw how the meal kit delivery industry was booming and wanted a piece of that market
• 13:20 – The biggest percentage of the diners are tourists and students
• 13:53 – Chuck started to get into the meal kit delivery in February
• 14:00 – The meal kit delivery sold around 100 kits in the first month, 2nd month: 150 kits, 3rd month: 400 kits
• 14:35 – Burger kit’s pricing
• 15:36 – There’s a subscription: a monthly box or as a gift
• 16:05 – Shipping process of the burger kits
• 16:33 – Follow Chuck by checking out Boston Burger and BurgaBox
• 18:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Do what you love and people will, in turn, love what you have to offer.
• Trust and believe in your business partners.
• Get your inspiration from people – learn and improve from their feedback.

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
• Boston Burger & BurgaBox – Chuck’s business website
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Nathan interviews Nick Bjorn. He is an entrepreneur by trade and digital marketer by evolution with over 8 years of professional agency experience. He has gained a national and global perspective on the evolving and digital world with an emphasis in search engine optimization or SEO. Nick is the co-founder of Power Digital Marketing which is based in San Diego, CA.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Good to Great
• What CEO do you follow? –  Eric Schmidt

• Favorite online tool? — Mixmax
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Commit to a skillset early on in life”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:45 – Nathan introduces Nick to the show
• 02:12 – Power Digital Marketing is a full-service digital agency
• 02:15 – Power Digital Marketing was created 4 years ago
• 02:18 – Nick has 2 other business partners who handle finances and team management
• 02:35 – Power Digital Marketing has 3 employees
• 02:40 – Power Digital Marketing’s types of services described
• 03:15 – First year revenue was around $500K
• 03:33 – Power Digital Marketing has humble beginnings
• 03:50 – 2015 total revenue is $3.2M
• 03:57 – Estimate 2016 revenue is around $6M
• 04:10 – Power Digital Marketing typically has 6-month contracts
• • 04:35 – Minimum amount per contract is $5K
  • 04:43 – Retainers are at $50K a month
• 05:14 – Power Digital Marketing currently has 60 clients
• 05:25 – Average MRR
• 06:10 – 2017 revenue goal
• 06:35 – Power Digital Marketing and what they do for their clients
• • 06:56 – Soccer Loco is one of Power Digital Marketing’s clients
  • 07:35 – SEO, organic rankings, paid ad initiatives are important for Soccer Loco
  • 08:17 – Power Digital Marketing uses the keywords “cheap soccer cleats” for Soccer Loco intentionally
• 08:50 – Power Digital Marketing benefits well from link building
• 10:30 – Power Digital Marketing has PR professionals that build relationships with the clients
• 10:50 – Google now tracks backlinking and is reaching out to editors
• 11:43 – Power Digital Marketing relationship with SoccerNation.com
• 12:42 – “How do you find terms to target?”
• • 12:47 – Do your due diligence
• 13:37 – Power Digital Marketing is currently in the process of developing their own page analytics software
• 14:20 – Connect with Nick on Twitter and email
• 16:35 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Creating content for SEO requires an understanding of the technicalities associated with backlinking.
• Track every campaign’s effectivity as you step forward.
• Do your due diligence when it comes to finding the right terms and keywords that sell.

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
• Nick@PowerDigitalMarketing.com – Nick’s email address
• @Nick_Bjorn – Nick’s Twitter handle
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Samir Smajic, one of the founders of GetAccept. GetAccept recently moved to San Francisco from Sweden because they are part of YC—a solution where you design, send, track, and market your proposals to get more deals digitally signed. Samir has a bunch of experience in project management, consulting, CRM, IT, computer software, business and more.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Never Split the Difference
• What CEO do you follow? –  N/A

• Favorite online tool? —Trello
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Doing whatever I felt good to do”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:55 – Nathan introduces Samir to the show
• 02:25 – Samir chooses skiing over snowboarding
• 02:35 – GetAccept helps sales reps close more deals by focusing on their sales document workflow
• 02:58 – GetAccept is a subscription-based SaaS business
• 03:07 – Average pay per user is $40/month or $200 per business/month
• 03:42 – GetAccept currently has 1,100 paying customers and 4,400 free customers
• 04:15 – Average MRR is $44K
• 04:20 – GetAccept was launched in December of 2015
• • 04:47 – GetAccept already had revenue their first month
• 05:31 – Samir shares why GetAccept has a high conversation rate from free to paying customers
• 06:00 – GetAccept calls their customers to give them product information and ask them questions
• 06:50 – GetAccept helps their customers send their first contract
• 07:17 – Fully weighted CAC
• 07:35 – Total headcount expenses
• 08:28 – GetAccept has 200 new customers monthly
• 08:47 – GetAccept has paid marketing
• • 09:09 – Spending is around $4000 for paid ads
• 09:20 – GetAccept’s biggest competitors explained
• 11:00 -  Gross customer churn
• 12:00 – LTV
• 12:25 – GetAccept is currently based in San Francisco
• 12:49 – GetAccept had raised capital and is still open
• 14:20 – Samir’s focus is the growth of the company
• 14:34 – GetAccept has 4 co-founders
• 14:42 – If DocuSign offered to buy your business, would you accept?
• 15:30 – Connect with Samir on LinkedIn
• 17:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Focus on what YOU can do for your customers – assist them in ANY way possible.
• Doing the work you love and enjoy is more important than the bottom dollar.
• Let your competitors motivate you to improve what YOU are doing.

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
• LinkedIn – Samir’s LinkedIn account
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Dinesh Kandanchatha. He’s a founder, mentor, speaker, and above all, an entrepreneur. He encourages founders to ask all questions, navigate challenging decisions, and find the right answer that is sometimes difficult to face. He has bought, built, sold, lent, and/or invested in over 13 companies.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Essentialism
• What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs

• Favorite online tool? — 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? – “Don’t be the smartest guy”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:48 – Nathan introduces Dinesh to the show
• 02:32 – Dinesh makes money by investing and capital gains against those investments
• 02:52 – Dinesh does consulting work too
• 03:45 – A board member’s average retainers
• 04:33 – Dinesh total revenue as a credit investor in 2015
• • 04:48 – A credit investor is someone who has net assets greater than $5M and earnings in the last 2 years that are greater than $200K
• 05:35 – Dinesh has built startups; some failed and some are successful
• 06:04 – Dinesh invests $75K to $150K in a company
• • 06:14 – Dinesh often invests during Pre-Series A or Pre-seed
  • 06:20 – Dinesh takes his capital and amplify it with his network and experience
• 07:08 – Dinesh’s biggest failure happened right after he sold Precise Software Technologies in the late 90s
• • 07:46 – The person that acquired Precise sued Dinesh
  • 08:09 – Dinesh spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal battles
• 09:04 – Dinesh’s most spectacular success is yet to come
• 09:20 – The business Dinesh is currently proud of
• • 10:50 – Dinesh’s equity rate in Protus IP Solution
• 11:10 – Dinesh has helped Macadamian technology scale up
• 12:03 – Dinesh has invested in real estate
• 12:30 – “If you get a few over the fence, you can make up all the difference”
• 12:45 – Dinesh usually sticks to B2B and SaaS
• 13:22 – Dinesh is currently working on Patriot One Technologies
• 14:49 – Dinesh is very passionate about the potential of technology
• 15:04 – Connect with Dinesh through Twitter and at Clarity.fm
• 17:27 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• “If you get a few over the fence, you can make up all the difference”—so, don’t get discouraged if you lose some.
• Do what you know and stick to your strengths.
• When you get an idea that could meaningfully impact the society as a whole—it will not just be an investment, but your baby.

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
• @DineshAtWork – Dinesh’s Twitter handle
• Clarity.fm/DineshkAtWork – Dinesh’s Clarity account
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Joseph Walla, CEO and co-founder of a San Francisco based startup, HelloSign. The company launched in 2012 and it provides the easiest way for businesses to sign and collect legally binding documents online. The idea behind HelloSign was sparked by Joseph’s first successful product alongside his co-founder, Neil O’Mara, of HelloFax. HelloFax launched in 2010 after attending the prestigious startup accelerator Y Combinator.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – High Output Management
• What CEO do you follow? –  Bill Walsh

• Favorite online tool? — Google Apps
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Joseph wished he had moved to the valley earlier

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:40 – Nathan introduces Joseph to the show
• 02:30 – Joseph first worked in HelloFax which is an on-the-go fax machine
• 02:43 – HelloSign has premium products and free products
• 03:00 – Pricing plans starts at $15
• • 03:12 – API pricing plans differs by bucket
• 03:40 – HelloSign is cash flow positive in 2014 and 2015
• 03:50 – Total of $3.5M raised
• 04:24 – Joseph has been very disciplined with how they spend their money
• 05:15 – 2016 MRR
• 05:36 – HelloSign has 47,000 paying customers
• 05:46 – HelloSign has a 5-6M user base
• 06:05 – People convert from free to paid because of the volume of their transactions
• 06:54 – HelloSign team’s operation
• 07:30 – Average salaries in the valley
• 08:45 – Total headcount expenses with 16 employees
• 09:35 – Average MRR from Nathan
• 10:00 – Average customer churn
• 10:55 – HelloSign is mainly in the SMB space but they also have some big clients
• 12:20 – Standard gross churn
• 12:40 – The amount HelloSign is willing to spend for a new user
• 12:49 – HelloSign doesn’t spend much for a new user, but spends for a new paid user
• 12:55 – Joseph read an article on ForEntrepreneurs.com about SaaS metrics and acquiring customers that was beneficial for him
• 13:35 – HelloSign’s CAC ratio
• 14:53 – Connect with Joseph through LinkedIn and Twitter
• 16:23 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Don’t wait for a job or overcomplicate the process of getting started—get out there and figure it out as you go.
• Make that investment to turn a new user into a paid new user. 
• Don’t just sit and wait for something to happen, take action!

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
• @JosephWalla – Joseph’s Twitter handle
• LinkedIn – Joseph’s LinkedIn account
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Max Altschuler, CEO of Sales Hacker – a rapidly growing media company focused on the future of B2B sales. Max wrote the book Hacking Sales: The Playbook for Building a High Velocity Sales Machine which was recently published by Wiley. Aside from sales hack and angel investors, Max advises startups all around the globe.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The 48 Laws of Power
• What CEO do you follow? – N/A

• Favorite online tool? — Boomerang
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Max wished he could have studied Psychology a bit more

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:40 – Nathan introduces Max to the show
• 02:07 – Sales Hacker is a media company ushering the future of sales
• • 02:35 – Sales Hacker does crowdsourcing of content on their blog and holds conferences throughout the year
  • 03:12 – The conferences are Sales Hacker’s main revenue stream
• 03:20 – Sales Hacker’s last conference was in June 2016
• • 04:09 – The sponsored revenue for the last conference was $1.2 M
  • 04:14 – Ticket sales was $300-400K
  • 04:22 – Average ticket price was $400-500
  • 04:28 – Total attendees
• 04:41 – The cost per conference is less than $1M
• 04:53 – Max shares how they manage the cost of the conference
• 05:51 – You need to find venue sponsorship
• 05:57 – Max helps clients with bigger conferences like Pulse
• 07:00 – Sales Hacker finds out which businesses are interested in the conference
• 07:33 – Have prospective sponsors sign up and pay early
• 09:15 – Sales Hacker’s average revenue per event depends on the event
• 10:54 – Sales Hacker takes a percentage from the total profit of SaaSters
• 11:30 – 2015 total revenue is $2.5M
• 11:45 – Team size
• 12:04 – Max shares why he didn’t build a SaaS business
• 12:59 – Sales Hacker’s list size
• 13:55 – Max’s goal for a VC round
• 14:07 – Max is from Udemy
• 14:35 – Max had 2 companies before Udemy
• 15:20 – Max’s second business was Last Call
• 15:45 – Max’s 3 favorite investments at the moment
• 16:50 – The average amount Max is investing in a business
• 18:00 – Max sets expectations of what he will and will not do for a company
• 18:36 – Max is trying to invest in B2B companies
• 19:21 – Connect with Max through LinkedIn, Twitter and his website
• 21:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Closing a business does NOT mean it was a failure – you gain experience and learn valuable lessons from that process.
• Take the time to research and know where to invest.
• Even if you’re working with SaaS businesses, that doesn’t mean you should or can build one as well.

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
• @MaxAlts – Max’s Twitter handle
• LinkedIn – Max’s LinkedIn account
• Sales Hacker – Max’s business website
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Chad Rubin. He builds e-commerce businesses. He owns a direct consumer e-commerce business called Crucial Vacuum and grew it from zero to a $20 million valuation in 7 years. He happens to be a Top 250 Amazon Seller. He co-founded Skubana with DJ Kunovac and built one of e-commerce’s hottest operational software. Skubana is the only software that you’ll ever need to manage and accelerate the growth of your ecommerce business. It’s beautiful, intelligent, and highly intuitive and it also incorporates every feature imaginable to drive your future success, especially in ecommerce.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Virtual Freedom
• What CEO do you follow? –  Gary Vaynerchuk

• Favorite online tool? — Trello or Asana
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Go after passion and change a major in college

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:28 – Nathan introduces Chad to the show
• 02:17 – Chad shares how he made the zero to $20M valuation for Crucial Vacuum
• 03:48 – Chad shares what he thinks is Walmart’s biggest mistake
• 04:27 – Skubana is making 50,000 orders a month
• 04:47 – Chad shares a mistake he made and how he lost money
• • 05:08 – Chad had to minimize his headcount from 20 employees to 2
• 05:40 – Skubana is a SaaS business
• 06:00 – Number of customers that Skubana is currently serving
• 06:46 – Skubana’s pricing:
• • 07:07 – Minimum of $999 a month
  • 07:10 – Pricing is customized and is based on users
• 07:34 – Average RPU
• 08:00 – MRR
• 08:05 – Skubana did a seed round
• • 08:41 – Raised 880,000 on the first seed round
  • 08:45 – Chad put in $1M
• 08:59 – James Thompson is one of Skubana’s investors
• 09:43 – Chad messaged 10 people that he looked up himself to try and get them involved
• 10:10 – Chad starting building Skubana for 3 years and it just went live last year
• 10:29 – Chad raised the $880K when they had the prototype
• 11:15 – First year revenue
• 12:30 – Chad wanted Skubana to be available for everybody
• 12:40 – When Chad raised their pricing, a lot of their customers churned off
• 12:53 – Skubana is not an entry level software
• 13:27 – Chad individually called customers to inform them about the increase in pricing and they got emails too
• 14:12 – Most of Skubana’s RPU growth is coming from new customers
• 14:27 – Chad shares how people find Skubana
• • 14:48 – Chad wrote a book and hit #7 bestseller
  • 15:22 – Chad has a subscription list from their blog because they’re adding value
  • 15:45 – Number of people on their list

• 16:22 – Skubana is pairing with other companies for a win-win sale
• 17:30 – Chad cares more about the quality of the customers as opposed to the quantity
• 18:05 – Chad shares about the successful webinars he held for certain companies
• 19:00 – Chad spends a lot of time guest blogging
• 19:25 – CAC is currently zero
• 21:20 – Team size
• • 21:40 – Total overhead cost
• 22:00 – Team location is in NYC and New Jersey
• 22:10 – Chad is still thinking of raising another round
• • 22:29 – Chad wants to raise $1M
• 23:30 – Connect with Chad through Youtube, Twitter and his email

• 25:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Mistakes happen for us to LEARN from it.
• Make your product KNOWN to the public at low costs by INCREASING your online presence.
• Need direction? Go hard after your passion!

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
• Youtube – Chad’s business Youtube channel
• Chad@Skubana.com – Chad’s email address
• @Ecommrenegade – Chad’s Twitter handle
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives