SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders 651: Pipl Indexes 3.5B People, How Contact Data Really Works with Advisor Garth Moulton
May 6, 2017
20:43
Garth Moulton. He's invested and has advised a number of technology startups and was responsible for revenue growth for the channel for Pipl Inc. After 11 years of sales experience in the Bay area, Mr. Moulton had the perfect startup journey with Jigsaw, which was drawn up from 2 guys with a whiteboard to a $175M exit, in 2010, to Salesforce.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – The Speed of Trust
- What CEO do you follow? – Tim Ferris
- 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? – "That time is not boundless"
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:18 – Nathan introduces Garth to the show
- 01:58 – Garth didn't get depressed after Jigsaw's exit
- 02:23 – Garth and Jim stayed at Salesforce for a year and a half, after the acquisition
- 02:43 – Pipl was running together with Jigsaw
- 02:48 – Garth met Pipl's CEO during the early days of Jigsaw and they partnered together
- 03:03 – Pipl would drive traffic to Jigsaw
- 03:51 – Pipl was a typical search engine, driving traffic to partners
- 04:31 – In the last 3 years, Pipl was more of a data company that sold API access and basic search tools to access data and profiles to 3 channels
- 04:46 – First channel is a search app like Spokeo and Instant Checkmate where Pipl supplies them the data
- 05:19 – Second channel is fraud alert and ID validation
- 05:44 – Pipl checks if the email is real
- 05:56 – Garth overlooked the companies that were going to use the data for sales and marketing
- 06:18 – Pipl is partners with Full Contact
- 06:39 – Nathan has been trying to find the mother of data sources
- 06:52 – "Jigsaw was the source of the data"
- 07:12 – LinkedIn is still the biggest source of data for B2B
- 07:50 – There's a LinkedIn private channel
- 08:26 – LinkedIn has gotten more and more aggressive in making the data available
- 08:58 – There have been CEOs who received a cease and desist order from LinkedIn
- 09:24 – Some of the companies are wholly dependent on LinkedIn
- 09:56 – Garth shares the same sentiment as Nathan that there's no mother data source
- 10:31 – The Data Dinosaurs' data accuracy is horrendous
- 12:30 – An average of a hundred corporations have bought the API access of Pipl
- 13:14 – Pipl's business solution average price point
- 13:21 – $1200 a year for unlimited searches, per person
- 13:37 – Team size is 40
- 13:47 – Team location
- 14:15 – Pipl is bootstrapped
- 14:27 – Garth became interested in Pipl, because it was completely bootstrapped
- 15:15 – Garth had an agreement that he would come on for a couple of years and expand the channel for Pipl
- 15:37 – Garth is on the cap table
- 17:00 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- Data sources are sharing each other's data to grow and verify their own data—there is no mother of data sources.
- A company that is bootstrapped definitely has more freedom and control of their company.
- If you can start your business as early as you can, do it.
Resources Mentioned:
- 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
- Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
- Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
- 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
- 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