SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders EP 609: Pagecloud Raises $8.5M Helping 8500 SMB's Drag and Drop Websites Together with CEO Craig Fitzpatrick
Mar 25, 2017
20:24
Craig Fitzpatrick. He's a serial entrepreneur, self-professed child nerd, and CEO of PageCloud.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – The Biography of Steve Jobs
- What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs
- Favorite online tool? — N/A
- Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Jump in while there's still nothing to lose"
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:22 – Nathan introduces Craig to the show
- 01:48 – PageCloud is a SaaS business
- 02:10 – PageCloud is different from Weebly and Wix, but they are in the same space
- 03:28 – PageCloud has reinvented the experience for desktop publishing and puts it into your browser
- 03:56 – Average customer pay per month
- 04:08 – RPU
- 04:22 – PageCloud was launched in September 2014
- 04:48 – Craig started PageCloud as a hobby
- 04:48 – Craig has been frustrated with desktop publishing in the past
- 05:20 – Craig shares how he started the planning and creating of PageCloud
- 06:15 – Craig's previous company
- 06:45 – Team size
-
- 06:52 – The team is based in Canada
- 07:05 – PageCloud is well-funded
-
- 07:17 – PageCloud has raised a few rounds
- 07:40 – First three rounds are convertible note and the fourth one is a priced round
- 07:55 – Average number of customers
- 08:15 – MRR
- 08:24 – PageCloud was in Kickstarter
- 09:00 – Below $200K MRR
- 09:23 – Craig shares how they pre-sell:
-
- 10:00 – They built a landing page from TechCrunch's promo video
- 10:30 – Craig did a lot of marketing before the launch
- 11:19 – Starting price point
- 11:30 – Average number of units sold
- 12:21 – Craig learned how to do effective marketing in 6 months
- 12:40 – Craig put in $1M in paid advertising
- 12:56 – The payback was just after a month
- 13:10 – Gross customer churn
- 14:30 – CAC
- 14:50 – LTV
- 15:32 – 2017 goal
- 17:01 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- Don't be afraid to invest in marketing – it shows that you believe in your product.
- Be innovative—make a change in an industry that is quite stationary.
- There is no time better than the present to get started.
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