EP 491: $13M in Funding, Grow.com Hits $300k MRR, Helping 600 Customers w/ Better Dashboards with Rob Nelson CEO

Rob Nelson, founder and CEO of Grow – a business intelligence platform. Nathan came across Rob when he was doing research in the intelligence space and Grow provided a lot of good feedback. Rob is a listener of The Top and happily accepted Nathan's invitation to be a guest on The Top.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The ONE Thing
• What CEO do you follow? – Aaron Skonnard

• Favorite online tool? — Calendly
• 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 ever quit"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:25 – Nathan introduces Rob to the show
• 02:00 – Grow is a powerful business intelligence platform and made specifically for SMBs
• 02:13 – Rob founded Grow in 2014
• 02:25 – Rob had a software company which was bootstrapped
• • 02:34 – Rob struggled pulling up data from different platforms
  • 03:29 – Rob sold the company and had a great exit
• 04:10 – Grow is a SaaS model and has subscription based pricing
• 04:20 – Grow doesn't charge based on the number of users
• 05:10 – Grow charges based on the number of metrics used
• 05:20 – Grow's RPU is $600 a month
• 05:30 – Users pay monthly but there's a 12-month commitment
• • 06:06 – "If we can't get them hooked with the product in the first 3 days, they can walk away"
  • 06:18 – 75% of the people continue after the 30-day trial period
• 07:05 – Rob doesn't know their exact churn
• 07:29 – Grow's usage stats
• • 07:44 – Half of their customers log-in everyday
  • 07:50 – 92% of the customers are logging in at least twice a month
• 08:00 – Grow is currently serving 600 customers
• 08:08 – Rob started with the concept in January 2014
• 08:30 – Rob hired a technical co-founder and gave him 20% of the business
• 09:00 – Rob and his team are based in Utah
• 09:45 – Team size is 70
• 09:58 – Grow raised a series A round and seed round
• • 10:12 – Total amount raised was $13 million
  • 10:14 – Total of $9 million was raised in series A
  • 10:25 – Both are priced equity round
• 10:44 – Rob is a huge fan of bootstrapping during his first venture
• 11:28 – Rob decided to raise for Grow because bootstrapping just wouldn't work
• 11:50 – Total 2014 revenue is about $80
• 12:20 – 2015 revenue is $150,000
• 13:00 – Goal for 2016 revenue
• 13:33 – Rob closed the series A in July
• 14:03 – Fully-weighted CAC is about $3,500
• 15:00 – Why do you think Dasher didn't work out?
• • 15:20 – "It's hard to build a company on $20 or $30 a month"
• 16:35 – Connect with Rob through his website
• 18:05 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• USE your experience to IMPROVE your business.
• Explore other options—if bootstrapped worked first, that doesn't mean it will work again.
• Don't EVER quit.

Resources Mentioned:

• 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 developers.
• Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
• Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
• Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
• Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
• Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
• 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.
• Grow.com – Rob's business website
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives