631: Saleswise Raises $3m, Launches Product, Helping 12 Customers Deveop Better Relationships with Their Data with CEO Gregg Freishtat

Gregg Freishtat. He's a technology executive with over 20 years of experience leading innovative and transformative companies. He founded 4 venture-backed startups, all of which had successful exits and is now building a company called SalesWise. He's deeply rooted in venture capital and the management of internet technology companies having led several through acquisitions. He's also handled developing and disruptive technologies, convergence of telecom plus internet, personal finance and online banking, web-based analytics and digital media, such as online marketing and currently relationship intelligence.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Good to Great
• What CEO do you follow? – Mark Benioff
• Favorite online tool? – FullStory
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Don't sell your first company for $20M, when you can sell it for $50M"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:18 – Nathan introduces Gregg to the show
• 01:59 – SalesWise is a business relationship intelligence platform
• • 02:03 – SalesWise helps sales leaders gain visibility of the most important relationships they have
• 02:17 – SalesWise is a SaaS company, but doesn't charge per seat
• • 02:21 – SalesWise believes in democratizing data
  • 02:31 – SalesWise prices based on the company size
• 02:52 – Average customer pay per month
• • 02:53 – $500/month for entry level companies with less than 100 employees
  • 03:00 – A company with 2K employees pays $2500 a month
• 03:11 – SalesWise was founded in 2015 and their current product was launched 4 months ago
• 03:33 – Gregg sold his last company to Outbrain
• 04:23 – SalesWise was bootstrapped for 6-8 months
• 04:50 – Gregg has raised a total of just over $3M
• • 04:58 – All priced rounds
  • 05:02 – Gregg's initial capital was a convertible note
• 05:12 – SalesWise has 12 team members and is currently hiring sales and marketing people
• 05:46 – SalesWise's current number of customers
• 06:00 – Average MRR
• 06:10 – The whole team is based in the Atlanta Tech Village
• 06:30 – Anticipated customer churn
• 07:16 – Some of SalesWise's competitors are Salesforce and Xero
• • 08:17 – The guys in the BI space, like Domo and Tableau
• 08:43 – SalesWise isn't into web scraping
• 08:38 – SalesWise uses Clearbit
• 08:55 – SalesWise is breaking the linear relationship you have with email
• 09:29 – SalesWise walked directly into the APIs of Salesforce and Gmail
• 10:45 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Use your frustration as motivation to make things better.
• Keep building companies – you're constantly learning and contributing to the industry while doing so.
• Don't settle for less or devalue yourself and your company – reach beyond your expectations.

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