SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Chris Savage. He's the CEO and cofounder of Wistia, a leading video platform that enables business teams to harness the connective power of video. They help over 400K businesses connect better with their customers using video as the medium. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Masters of Doom What CEO do you follow? – Ben Chestnut Favorite online tool? — Quip How many hours of sleep do you get?— 8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Persistence is the difference between success and failure" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:51 – Nathan introduces Chris to the show 02:17 – Wistia is a SaaS business 02:20 – Wistia is a platform where you can upload your videos and customize them for your site 02:49 – Wistia charges based on the number of videos 02:55 – ACV is $100 a month and it's 25 cents per video 03:38 – Wistia is already 11 years old 04:09 – Wistia didn't make money their first year 05:08 – Chris and his cofounder needed at least 15K a month to live 05:55 – Wistia made a mistake when they weren't charging based on the storage 06:35 – Chris explains their decision to change their pricing 07:04 – Gross margin is in the 70s 07:43 – Total number of customers 08:00 – Wistia still has a free trial for 3 videos 08:05 – There are a few hundred thousand free users 09:21 – One the best things Wistia offers is inspirational and useful content for free accounts 10:05 – Wistia gets 15% of direct, attributable conversion from free accounts 10:30 – Wistia has raised two rounds with a total of $1M 11:09 – "We are very focused on long-term" 11:29 – Chris wants Wistia to be less complex for users 12:27 – Customer churn is 1.6% a month 12:47 – On a unit economic basis, Wistia is consistently expanding 13:11 – LTV is approaching $5K 13:20 – CAC 16:00 – Stretch goal in December of 2017 16:09 – Wistia is focused on profitability 17:06 – Wistia is doing a more than million dollars a month in revenue 17:22 – Wistia has raised less than what they're making monthly 18:50 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Changing the price of your product won't necessarily equate to profitability—balance is the key. Converting customers from free to paid takes a lot of testing and patience. Persistency is the difference between success and failure. 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

Roy Mann. He's a career entrepreneur, artist and 3D printing enthusiast. His experience is in the field of product development and marketing and before co-founding dapulse, Roy was part of Wix's senior management team, which is a big, runway success. Prior to joining Wix, he founded the online social game, Save an Alien. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Avishai Abrahami Favorite online tool? — FullStory How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7-8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Whatever you learn, you learn—and in the end, we all die" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:50 – Nathan introduces Roy to the show 02:27 – dapulse is a tool for managing operations for teams 02:38 – dapulse is a SaaS product 02:40 – dapulse has a free trial of 14 days 02:52 – ACV 04:00 – Roy was in Episode 404 of The Top 04:06 – Team size is 70 04:14 – 1/3 is in engineering and they're expecting to grow to 100 this year 04:40 – Most of the team are in Israel and some are in the USA 05:00 – dapulse currently has 15K customers 05:15 – dapulse raised $25M at the start of 2017 05:34 – They've raised a total of $34M 06:13 – MRR is over $1M and $13M ARR 06:33 – dapulse is a B2B company, but their approach is like a B2C 07:06 – dapulse aims at individuals who will potentially purchase the product for their team 07:16 – dapulse has spent $1.5M just last month on online ads 07:45 – CAC 08:24 – Payback period 09:37 – dapulse's campaign can attract a high number of customers 10:27 – Roy wants to build a product that fits everyone 10:42 – dapulse has a negative net revenue churn 11:18 – Monthly logo churn is between 1.5% to 2% 12:13 – Churn is calculated on the top line 13:48 – dapulse has -.05 net revenue churn 14:20 – dapulse sells to large companies through their Instagram ads 15:40 – dapulse doesn't give an incentive for those who post about their user experience 16:47 – 2017 ARR goal is $17M 17:21 – December 2016 ARR is $6.5M 18:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: A B2C approach can still get you customers, even if you're B2B company. If people gain value from your product and enjoy it, they will share about it. We all make mistakes, just make sure you learn and move on. 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

Mark Organ. He's the founder and CEO of Influitive, helping companies mobilize their advocates to produce massive increases in referral leads, reference calls, social media participation and more. He revolutionized B2B marketing and the founding CEO of Eloqua, the world leader in marketing automation software, which was acquired by Oracle for $871M. In between, he was the go-to marketing consultant for SaaS companies in North America and Asia. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Getting to Yes What CEO do you follow? – Dara Khosrowshahi 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? – "How important it was to build new relationships with people" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Mark to the show 02:17 – Mark left Eloqua even before the acquisition 03:25 – It was the VCs that pushed Mark to leave 03:54 – Mark still had a great exit from the company 04:10 – Influitive helps companies grow by getting more value out of their happy customers 04:46 – Mark saw the importance of mobilized customers when he was still in Eloqua 05:13 – Influitive created communities where companies invite their customer advocates 05:51 – ACV is $50K annually 06:10 – Influitive currently has 270 customers 06:33 – ARR is close to $10M 06:51 – it would take 4-5 years for Influitive to reach their $100M ARR mark 07:02 – Influitive was founded in 2010 07:21 – Influitive has raised $50M 08:09 – Mark shares why he had to raise 09:13 – Influitive's growth is faster than Eloqua's 09:40 – 2016 revenue 10:05 – Influitive is averaging more than 50%, year-over-year growth 10:50 – Influitive is cash flow positive on some months 11:08 – Team size is 125 with 8 people in sales 11:22 – "I want all the sales guys to make money" 12:03 – Increased quotas make it impossible for salespeople to hit their numbers 12:55 – CAC is around $40K 14:10 – Payback period is a year to 15 months 17:01 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: VCs are there for a reason, trust them. Reaching one's quotas takes a much longer time than it did a decade ago. Networking and relationships are crucial to your personal and business life. 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

Naveen Gupta. He's an entrepreneur with experience building startups and growing a hundred million dollar profit and loss statements. Before cofounding BirdEye, which is his current company, he held executive positions at RingCentral, Monster and Yahoo. He's launched industry-leading products across advertising, consumer search, social media and monetization. He lives in Sunnyvale, California with his wife and two kids. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Predictable Revenue What CEO do you follow? – Brian Halligan Favorite online tool? — Outreach and ZoomInfo How many hours of sleep do you get?— 4-5 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Naveen wished he would have taken more risks and pursued his dreams of starting a company Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Naveen to the show 02:19 – BirdEye is the leading SaaS product that helps businesses on their customer journey 02:54 – The two things that drive purchases are customer experience and business ratings 03:20 – BirdEye grows 160%, year-over-year in revenue 03:33 – BirdEye has 25K paying customers 04:40 – Business model is based on location and not per seat 05:20 – On average, a business would have 2-3 locations 05:47 – BirdEye caters from SMBs to enterprise businesses 06:07 – BirdEye has a broad platform which has different functionalities 07:42 – Pricing on SMBs start at $3K and $100K for enterprise per year 08:12 – ACV is around $5K 08:33 – 50% of the revenue is SMB, 30% mid-market enterprise and 20% for channels 09:00 – ACV is per location 09:24 – MRR is close to $2M 10:43 – BirdEye was launched in 2012 10:55 – They came up with the idea after looking for a surgeon with great reviews to take care of their mother 12:07 – BirdEye was initially bootstrapped 12:33 – BirdEye has raised a total of $33M 13:16 – Team size is 170 globally 13:48 – Around 60 are on engineering, 70 on the sales sides and the rest are in different departments 14:30 – BirdEye is investing heavily on hiring the best people 14:45 – CAC is around $1K for a new business 15:05 – Payback period is 3-4 months 15:21 – 60-70% of their contracts are paid up-front, annually 16:00 – Revenue churn 16:11 – Net churn is close to 0.5% 16:28 – BirdEye is still too young to calculate LTV 16:48 – Naveen's estimate is 3-5 years 17:05 – Paid ads spent annually is $200K 17:55 – Gross margin is 85-90% 18:43 – To acquire new customers, they email potential clients and ask them if they want to know their competitors' reputations and how they compare to them 19:24 – 2016 ARR was close to $13M and 2017 will be close to $30M 19:37 – 2015 ARR was $5M and 2014 was $1.5M 21:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Have a business model that will benefit not just your own company but your customers as well. Most people rely on business reviews before trying out a product or service. Hire the best people and you'll have the best product and provide the best customer experience. 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

David Barrett. He started programming at the early age of 6 and has been aspiring to become an expense report magnate ever since. He attended the University of Michigan where he worked in a virtual reality lab before moving to Texas to render 3D graphics engines for the video game industry. Next, he moved to California to join Travis of Uber in building a peer-to-peer file transfer technology called Red Swoosh, which was acquired by Akamai in 2007. In 2008, David left that company to start Expensify and has since been relieving the world's frustration one expense report at a time. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Google Docs How many hours of sleep do you get?— 8 If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – "It is possible for everyone else around you to be wrong and for you to be right" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:46 – Nathan introduces David to the show 02:38 – Expense reports have been overlooked 02:56 – David took the opportunity that will take care of expense reports 03:18 – Expense report is synonymous with any business 03:52 – David shares how his eagerness to help the homeless led him to create an expense report reimbursement app 05:09 – David was in Episode 655 of The Top 05:16 – Expensify isn't looking to raise another round at the moment as they just raised $25M 05:23 – Expensify is currently profitable and not burning capital 05:27 – Team size is 120 05:33 – Expensify was founded in 2008 06:04 – Expensify currently has 42K customers 06:21 – Expensify also has millions of free users 06:49 – Pricing has a free account which offers 10 receipts a month and a paid account starts at $9 per active user 07:15 – Enterprise plans also start at $9 08:21 – ARR is still under $100M 09:44 – The expansion is the bulk of Expensify's revenue growth 10:40 – Expensify has a $5 plan for a group 11:10 – Revenue retention is over 100% annually 11:24 – Every 3 years, a customer pays 500% more 12:55 – The most effective strategy to acquire customers is to hand their product to the individual employees and promote it within their own companies 14:14 – David shares how the payment shifts from the employee's personal card to the company's expenses 16:16 – The target is to share to at least one other person 16:35 – Expensify doesn't have any paid channels 16:40 – They do lots of conferences which is more for establishing brand leadership 17:25 – They spend a single digit million, annually, for their conference 17:32 – Their conference is ExpensiCon 18:00 – Only 100 selected people can join 19:35 – David believes that the cost of sales doesn't equate to the cost of customer acquisition 21:38 – The most important decisions are not quantifiable 22:40 – David won't sell Expensify for $300M 16:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Getting your own clients to refer you is the best way to grow your customer base. The most important decisions for your company are sometimes not quantifiable. Focus on the best possible brand or product you can offer. 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

Jeremiah Wilson. He founded Convirza over 15 years ago. As the patent-holding inventor of The Maculon, the original, passive, remote conversation monitoring device and sales management system, he shaped the call tracking and marketing analytics industry. He's positioned the capital raises and recent acquisition. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – 48 Laws of Power What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Salesforce App 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? – "I wished I believed in myself more" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:51 – Nathan introduces Jeremiah to the show 02:22 – Convirza acquired a portion of their competitor's assets to expand their customer base 02:56 – Jeremiah shares how they found out about the acquisition 03:29 – Call tracking is what drives the calls 04:00 – Convirza also listens to the calls with machine learning to check the quality of the call 04:46 – If a phrase that the sales agent used didn't drive conversion, it should be changed 05:00 – Convirza tracks the attribution rate 06:20 – Convirza finds out which billboard led a prospect to call, the cost of the billboard and the actual sales made from those calls 06:54 – Convirza only focuses on where the lead came from and the conversation itself 07:01 – "Our objective is strictly the audio, strictly the call" 07:54 – Convirza is a SaaS business and charges a platform fee plus minutes 08:13 – ACV is around $600K 08:40 – ACV is per business 09:27 – Prior to Convirza, Jeremiah was a national trainer for a company in Ohio and was teaching people how to sell on the phone 10:35 – In 2000, salespeople were looking into live call recordings 11:20 – Jeremiah set-up the stick and the device that could plug into a computer and record calls 12:00 – Jeremiah started with 100 units which cost him $70K 12:20 – Convirza was launched in 2001 13:30 – Convirza had their first client within six months that paid $20K 13:47 – 2010 revenue is $3M 14:05 – Convirza listened to their clients in order to improve their product 14:17 – Convirza has raised $24M in total 14:46 – The investors are private investors 15:55 – Convirza has over a thousand customers 16:09 – Convirza has 50K unique businesses using them 16:42 – 2017 ARR goal is $10M 17:33 – Gross logo churn is 3% 17:44 – Convirza has been focused on having their net negative churn negative for the last 2 years 18:56 – Team size is 66 with 7 in sales and 25 as engineers 19:21 – They have a team of 40 in India who are augmented in their engineering 19:47 – Convirza has an office in Utah and California 20:08 – Pre-acquisition CAC is $1200 21:00 – From the acquisition, they gained around 500 customers (more than double of what they had) 21:23 – LTV is 4 years 21:41 – Convirza's best source for customers is their webinars 21:52 – They partnered with similar associations and publications in the space to promote their webinars 22:54 – Payback period is 9 months 22:18 – Paid spend was around $6500 in July 2017 24:01 – Gross margin is 60% 24:24 – Convirza built their own platform 26:05 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Acquire a part of your competitor's assets to grow your own business and customer base. Having another team in another country can be your secret key to success. Focus on one specific goal at a time. 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

Artem Borodatyuk. He's the founder of NetPeak Group and cofounder of Seed Fund WannaBiz. He's focused on the development of B2B SaaS product companies. His first SaaS company was an all-in-one SEO platform for professionals called Serpstat.com, with 2000 customers and 100K users. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – From Third World to First What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Google Spreadsheet 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? – "Find some experienced entrepreneur and mentor" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:44 – Nathan introduces Artem to the show 02:23 – Serpstat was born as a cure to a search tool that was built by Netpeak 03:00 – Netpeak is the biggest SEO agency in Eastern Europe 03:20 – Netpeak currently has 300 projects in 4 markets 03:38 – Netpeak was founded in 2007 and was initially bootstrapped 03:43 – They haven't raised funds for the agency side of Netpeak 04:27 – 2016 revenue of the agency side of Netpeak was $5-$15M 04:50 – Serpstat was initially created to be used by Netpeak itself 05:35 – In April 2015, Serpstat became independent 07:00 – In 2016, Serpstat received $250K of funding for 15% equity from Digital Future, a local VC fund 07:41 – Serpstat will almost hit their $1M ARR mark 07:58 – July 2017 MRR 08:26 – Igor Gor is Serpstat's evangelist; he markets their product 08:45 – Team size is 52 in Serpstat with 20 in marketing 09:25 – ACG is $69 09:39 – Total number of customers is between 1000 to 2000 paid customers 10:36 – Serpstat can be paid in monthly payments or a one-time payment 12:03 – Serpstat loses 1-3% of their users monthly 12:40 – CAC 13:50 – LTV 14:20 – Serpstat spends $2K monthly on AdWords and $1K on Facebook Ads 15:04 – Serpstat is based in Ukraine 15:38 – Serstat plans to expand globally soon 16:02 – Gross margin is around 89% 17:23 – In July of 2016, monthly revenue was $20K 17:54 – 2016 revenue is almost $190K 19:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Create a product that can be used by your own company; that way you can attest to its usability and value. Europe offers different recurring payment plans than what is offered in the US. Take an offered fund as an opportunity to grow your company. 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

Shaul Olmert. He's the cofounder and CEO of Playbuzz, an award-winning, storytelling platform that empowers publishers, brands, and agencies worldwide to create interactive content for editorial and commercial purposes. The world's top publishers and brands worldwide use Playbuzz's desktop and mobile-friendly storytelling tools to improve audience engagement, optimize social sharing, increase site traffic and lengthen page-viewing time. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – N/A What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Evernote How many hours of sleep do you get?— 4 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Shaul would have told himself that everybody else in the world is as clueless as he is Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Shaul to the show 02:25 – Playbuzz is a platform that helps make one's storytelling more compelling and engaging 03:10 – Playbuzz's tools are completely free for publishers 03:20 – Playbuzz currently has tens of thousands of publishers 03:24 – Playbuzz has market leaders using their toolset 03:46 – Playbuzz makes money when publishers opt-in to their monetization program 04:11 – Advertisers want to present their brands to the audience that is listening 04:54 – Playbuzz's revenue is in the dozens of millions on ad spent on the platform 05:18 – Playbuzz's volume is high and consistently growing 06:10 – Playbuzz manages the distribution of the content items which will benefit the publishers as well 07:00 – Nathan summarizes how he understands Playbuzz to work 07:50 – The brands create their content and Playbuzz shares them on their partnered website 08:16 – Playbuzz charges per view 08:35 – The charge depends on how long their content is being viewed or listened to 10:00 – Playbuzz is creating new ways to grow their engagement 10:37 – Playbuzz has two revenue streams 11:53 – Playbuzz has been around for 5 years and has been in the market for 3 years 12:36 – Playbuzz has 2 founders and 170 employees globally 12:54 – Playbuzz has raised a total of $31M 13:40 – Shaul shares what he thinks of Disney's efforts in advertising 14:43 – "The more value we create, the more our value increases" 14:54 – Playbuzz is still burning capital and scaling up 15:10 – Playbuzz is constantly creating to optimize data 15:36 – The majority of the funds go to engineering, product and data 15:49 – Shaul believes that eventually they will win the war by having superior technology 16:50 – Shaul shares his take on using voice searches for collecting data 17:30 – Shaul is looking to take podcasts to a wider audience 19:15 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Content is KING. No matter how good your content is, if you can't share it with an audience, it's useless. Voice searches will change how we do advertising, and this change will happen soon. 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

John Nardone. He's the CEO of Flashtalking, a first generation adtech pioneer. He served as the founding board member of the Internet Advertising Bureau. He's known for his groundbreaking work at Pepsi, Modern Media and Marketing Management Analytics and received the Adtech Industry Achievement Award in 2012. As CEO at [x+1], he helped transform that business into a top-rated data management platform or DMP. Rocket Fuel acquired the company for $230M in 2014. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Getting Naked What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs Favorite online tool? — Amazon and eBay 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? – "I might have started having kids a little bit sooner" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:52 – Nathan introduces John to the show 02:40 – Flashtalking was a partner of [x+1], currently known as Rocket Fuel 02:45 – Days after the acquisition, John got an offer to work with Flashtalking 03:23 – John decided to give-in to the offer and saw Flashtalking as an opportunity to stay in adtech 03:39 – John joined Flashtalking in 2015 03:53 – Flashtalking had been around since 2000 and it was bootstrapped by the founders 04:25 – Flashtalking came to the US in 2010 05:36 – John joined the company, mainly because of his vision and excitement for innovation and marketing 06:43 – John has bought a part of the company 07:03 – Flashtalking uses real-time data to personalize the communication with each consumer 07:10 – A simple example is retargeting 08:04 – Retargeting can happen on multiple devices 08:27 – One of Flashtalking's clients is Walmart 08:56 – Flashtalking analyzes the customer's behavior on a website 09:54 – Smartphone and current devices have changed the way we consume digital marketing 10:50 – Location data is included with the data that Flashtalking gathers 11:13 – Flashtalking makes the decision for what kinds of ads to show to the customers 11:30 – Flashtalking charges per CPM 12:05 – There are discounts for those with bigger volumes 13:01 – Flashtalking is not currently using AI technology 14:10 – Flashtalking currently has 40 clients that account for 80% of the revenue 14:26 – Flashtalking focuses on their big, global clients 15:20 – Average volume of impressions is 15B to 40B a month depending on the season 17:00 – Flashtalking focuses on helping their clients improve and get the experience that will drive their success metrics 17:50 – Team size is 280 globally 17:56 – Flashtalking hasn't raised any capital aside from the buyout and it has been profitable since Day 1 19:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Your vision will lead you to the companies that will help you grow, and eventually change the world. Technology has significantly affected how we consume advertising. There are specific markets where AI technology can be used well. 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

Shan-Lyn Ma. She's the CEO and co-founder of Zola. Launched in October 2013, Zola is an online wedding registry for millennials. In just three years, it has become the fastest growing wedding registry in the country, seeing 10x revenue growth year-over-year and 3x growth in 2017. Over seven million guests have attended a Zola wedding and 350 million in gifts have been added by Zola couples. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – How to Create Products Customers Love What CEO do you follow? – Sheryl Sandberg Favorite online tool? — Headspace How many hours of sleep do you get?— 8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "That stressing out about things do not make them better" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:47 – Nathan introduces Shan-Lyn to the show 02:32 – In Q4 of 2016, Zola reached $120M in GMV runway 03:30 – GMV is reflective of the number of wedding gifts that are given to couples when using Zola as a wedding registry 03:56 – Zola is an ecommerce business, it's a typical retailer 04:40 – Most of the items offered in Zola are what the couples want as wedding gifts 04:50 – Zola has added Airbnb as this was requested by couples 05:20 – Zola takes a percentage from an Airbnb gift card purchased on Zola 06:14 – Zola goes after the brands that are usually requested by couples and some brands have reached out to Zola for their products to be on Zola's website 06:54 – Since 2013, 300K couples have registered with Zola 07:25 – The number of new couples signed-up in 2016 08:10 – Over time, more and more couples are using Zola as their ONLY wedding registry 09:40 – More guests will buy from Zola if the couples are using Zola exclusively as their wedding registry 10:02 – Zola incentivizes couples by adding the gifts that they want 10:24 – There's an additional feature where couples can bring any product to Zola 11:12 – First year revenue 11:38 – Zola had a seed round of funding of $500K in a convertible note 12:17 – Zola has raised additional capital with a total of $40M in VC funding 12:36 – Zola has passed through the typical startup life-cycle 14:14 – Paid ads spend is more than $100K 14:41 – The hot KPI that investors are looking for is the LTV:CAC ratio 15:51 – CAC depends on the channel and historical data of the channel's performance 17:42 – "We are not trying to create more lifetime value" 18:30 – The challenge for Zola is getting newly engaged couples to find out about their services and sign-up for them 19:49 – Zola currently has over 50K products 20:22 – Zola just launched their new product, Zola Weddings, a free website for couples to manage their whole wedding 23:25 – The Famous Five Key Points: Listen to your customers desires and needs and respond accordingly. LTV:CAC ratio is what investors are usually looking for in a company. Create more products that could be an extension of your existing products—this will encourage your clients to use your products more. 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