SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders 846: SaaS: $50m Raised, $12m+ ARR To Incentivize Reviews and Influencers
Nov 17, 2017
19:10
Mark Organ. He's the founder and CEO of Influitive, helping companies mobilize their advocates to produce massive increases in referral leads, reference calls, social media participation and more. He revolutionized B2B marketing and the founding CEO of Eloqua, the world leader in marketing automation software, which was acquired by Oracle for $871M. In between, he was the go-to marketing consultant for SaaS companies in North America and Asia.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – Getting to Yes
- What CEO do you follow? – Dara Khosrowshahi
- Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn
- How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "How important it was to build new relationships with people"
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:40 – Nathan introduces Mark to the show
- 02:17 – Mark left Eloqua even before the acquisition
- 03:25 – It was the VCs that pushed Mark to leave
- 03:54 – Mark still had a great exit from the company
- 04:10 – Influitive helps companies grow by getting more value out of their happy customers
- 04:46 – Mark saw the importance of mobilized customers when he was still in Eloqua
- 05:13 – Influitive created communities where companies invite their customer advocates
- 05:51 – ACV is $50K annually
- 06:10 – Influitive currently has 270 customers
- 06:33 – ARR is close to $10M
- 06:51 – it would take 4-5 years for Influitive to reach their $100M ARR mark
- 07:02 – Influitive was founded in 2010
- 07:21 – Influitive has raised $50M
- 08:09 – Mark shares why he had to raise
- 09:13 – Influitive's growth is faster than Eloqua's
- 09:40 – 2016 revenue
- 10:05 – Influitive is averaging more than 50%, year-over-year growth
- 10:50 – Influitive is cash flow positive on some months
- 11:08 – Team size is 125 with 8 people in sales
- 11:22 – "I want all the sales guys to make money"
- 12:03 – Increased quotas make it impossible for salespeople to hit their numbers
- 12:55 – CAC is around $40K
- 14:10 – Payback period is a year to 15 months
- 17:01 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- VCs are there for a reason, trust them.
- Reaching one's quotas takes a much longer time than it did a decade ago.
- Networking and relationships are crucial to your personal and business life.
Resources Mentioned:
- Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
- The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
- GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
- Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
- Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
- Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
- Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
- Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives