SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders 824: Brilliant Ad Tech Hedge: $8m Managed Services Firm RockerBox Adds $1k/mo SaaS Product
Oct 26, 2017
15:40
Ron Jacobson. He's the co-founder and CEO of Rockerbox and Hindsight. Ron was a project manager at AppNexus and a proud McGill alumni. Follow him on Twitter.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – Made in America
- What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk and Mark Cuban
- Favorite online tool? — Spectacle
- How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "There are going to be a lot of highs and there are going to be a lot of lows, but you just got too keep moving"
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:36 – Nathan introduces Ron to the show
- 02:01 – Rockerbox is an online marketing technology company
- 02:09 – Hindsight is a secondary offering which is an off-site analytics platform, complementary to Rockerbox
- 02:28 – Rockerbox is a management service and Hindsight is the SaaS part
- 03:00 – Rockerbox was launched in early 2014
- 03:03 – Team size is 18
- 03:13 – Target customers are marketers
- 03:25 – Rockerbox has partnerships with publishers and data providers
- 04:40 – Through different partnerships, they're able to know the source of potential customers
- 05:25 – First year revenue was $640K gross
- 05:30 – 2015: under $2M , 2016 was around $4M and it will probably be $8M this year
- 05:48 – 10% of the customers are on Hindsight
- 06:50 – In 2016, Rockerbox has served 50 customers
- 07:19 – Hindsight currently has around 13 customers with a MRR of $16K
- 07:43 – Some of Rockerbox's customers are Vimeo and Vanguard
- 08:16 – CAC and LTV
- 08:26 – No logo and revenue churn yet
- 08:50 – Some small companies can't scale and their pricing is "take it or leave it"
- 09:32 – 5 team members are focused on Hindsight
- 09:59 – Hindsight is self-funded and is based on Rockerbox
- 10:14 – Ron shares why they raised funding despite doubling Rockerbox's ARR
- 11:05 – Ron has reached out to people whom he hasn't talked to for decades just to acquire new customers
- 11:16 – Ron shares the content of his email
- 13:10 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- Having fewer customers with a larger paywall works well, it allows you to focus more on your customers' needs.
- Stick to your pricing and your target market.
- Through the highs and lows, just KEEP MOVING.
Resources Mentioned:
- Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
- 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
- GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
- Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
- Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
- 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
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives