EP 602: Findo Raises $7M, Passes 80k Users, 700 Pay $10 to Use AI to Find Their Files Quickly with CEO Gary Fowler

Gary Fowler. He's the co-founder and CEO of Findo, a smart search across multiple platforms for email, files, and folders. Gary has over 23 years of startup experience and is an award-winning CEO, a senior executive, a speaker with over 7 technologies startup and a successful IPO for the company CKSW. Gary is known as the go-to startup CEO that gets stuff done.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Think and Grow Rich
• What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
• Favorite online tool? — Intercom
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Never
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Gary wished he could look back and spend more time getting deeply involved with his first startup

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:34 – Nathan introduces Gary to the show
• 02:08 – Gary shares what Findo is
• • 02:15 – The challenge that we have nowadays is the large, vast amount of information that we have
  • 02:25 – An average person has around 3000 items
  • 02:58 – "We're an AI tool, so it's learning all the time"
• 03:15 – Findo has a monthly subscription model
• • 03:23 – Advance is $499/month and ultimate is $999/month
• 03:48 – Average customer pay per month
• 04:01 – Findo was founded by David Yang who built 9 startups including ABBYY
• • 04:21 – Gary was the co-founder and CEO for the US corporation
• 04:36 – Gary shares why they had to spin out ABBYY
• 05:05 – Gary bought the IP from ABBYY
• 05:33 – Gary shares how they found the person who did their independent evaluation
• 06:08 – Average cost of buying the IP
• 06:19 – Gary shares where they got their capital
• 06:36 – Gary has raised $7M
• 06:45 – Gary is currently on seed 2
• • 06:51 – Gary's major seed contributors
• 07:40 – Gary shares why they call their current round, seed 2
• 08:38 – Gary had an equity priced round
• 08:56 – Findo was launched in April 2016
• 09:06 – Gary started the most successful accelerator, GVA LaunchGurus, in Russia, prior to Findo
• • 09:31 – 60% of the companies have raised money
• 10:04 – Gary raised capital to fund the accelerator
• 10:58 – None of the companies have exited yet
• 11:25 – Gary shares why he left GVA LaunchGurus for Findo
• 12:00 – Team size is 26
• • 12:22 – Why Gary chose the people from Europe
• 13:10 – Findo just came out of beta
• 13:15 – Findo has over 80K customers
• • 13:19 – Percentage of paying customers
• 14:15 – Average MRR
• 14:25 – Findo is currently moving into the model of reason strategy
• 14:50 – Gross customer churn
• • 15:10 – Between 5-10%, but most come back
• 16:15 – The problem that 12% of the population have
• 17:13 – CAC
• 18:58 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Find a solution to the most common problem.
• Follow your intuition when it it's time to make a move.
• Your contributors play a big role to your company's growth—make sure they are suited to you and your 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