SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Ben Kartzman. He's the CEO and founder of Spongecell, one of the fastest growing companies in the United States. Earlier, Ben worked at venture-backed Guidester (now Searchandise.net) in product and business development. He graduated with honors from Carnegie Mellon with a dual BS in Human Computer Interaction and Information & Decision Systems. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Five Dysfunctions of a Team What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — Mint 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? – Don't stress about your first job—just find things that are interesting for you, follow your passion and do those things Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:55 – Nathan introduces Ben to the show 02:25 – Spongecell is one of the fastest growing companies because they are revenue driven 02:36 – It was in 2009 when Spongecell first measured their revenue 03:15 – 2017 revenue goal 03:30 – $26M has been invested in the company and their largest investors is Safeguard 04:27 – Nathan shares about his first investor report 04:50 – Spongecell is a dynamic and creative company in the adtech space 04:55 – Spongecell works directly with marketers 05:21 – Spongecell's technology manages different creative variations 05:49 – The variations can grow very quickly 06:04 – Spongecell sells licenses to a platform and beyond that, it is based on usage 06:25 – The licenses are billed monthly and their biggest client is spending $3M a year 06:47 – Spongecell is working with hundreds of customers 07:20 – Spongecell is moving to target more enterprise customers 07:39 – To fire clients, Spongecell raises the minimum 08:47 – People are leaving because of the changes in the service 09:30 – Usage-based charges per impression 10:00 – For every 50 cents CPM, a company would spend $50K with Spongecell 10:15 – Spongecell doesn't get involved with the media side 10:49 – Most clients have an allocated budget to be spent on Spongecell 11:50 – Spongecell has a base amount and the average usage is based on how people are using it 12:06 – Spongecell was launched in 2006 and they raised their first round in the same year 12:41 – In 2009, they saw the need for programmatic media, which is the buying and selling of ads through technology 13:22 – Spongecell has 95 people on the team 13:53 – Average ARR 14:35 – Spongecell's intuition with their platform is one of the reason why companies choose them 15:40 – Spongecell has promised to set up an Amazon database so clients can look up the data 16:50 – Fully weighted CAC is changing as they're slowly transitioning, but it is more than $5K 17:43 – Ideal cohort of customers for Spongecell 19:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: It's not easy to let go of customers—however, there are times where it's the best decision to make for your company. The transition to focus on enterprise clients isn't as quick or as easy as it seems. Find your passion and GO with it. 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

Chris Golec. He's built three, successful, technology businesses in the last 18 years. Today, he's the founder and CEO of Demandbase and his mission is to transform B2B advertising, marketing and sales through innovations and digital technology. Today, hundreds of blue chip enterprises across financial services, hi-tech, manufacturing, healthcare and telecom industries have adopted a demand based on the B2B marketing platform and account-based marketing technology to dramatically improve the way they acquire and grow customers. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Straight from the Gut What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff, Steve Jobs, Jack Welch and Sundar Pichai Favorite online tool? — Slack How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Don't start a company just to NOT work for someone else Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:50 – Nathan introduces Chris to the show 02:28 – In the last two years, Chris has seen that there's a dramatic increase in demand 03:13 – Chris is seeing 50% growth in revenue this year 03:22 – Demandbase just closed funding of $65M in May 2017, which is on top of the $90M they've raised 03:50 – Chris shares the reason that they've raised another round 03:53 – The ABM category 04:10 – Demandbase has developed new innovations 05:27 – ABM is more of a business process and Demandbase is much more of a platform 05:41 – Demandbase has multiple products integrated into their solution 06:10 – Demandbase was launched in 2007 06:22 – Demandbase currently has a lot of options 06:33 – Salesforce and Marketo are getting into the ABM category as well 08:25 – By the end of 2017, they'll pass the $100M revenue mark 09:00 – Demandbase's customer expansion 09:44 – Current customer count is around 400-600 09:57 – Team size is 300 10:17 – Demandbase will probably break even or be cashflow positive in Q1 or Q2 of 2018 10:55 – Demandbase is increasing investments ahead of plan and that allows them to generate new products 11:13 – It makes new customers come to the platform 11:44 – Demandbase has offices in San Francisco, Seattle, New York and London 12:25 – Demandbase has 50-60 quota-carrying reps, 20-25 in marketing, 10-15 HR and the rest are in data, R&D and engineering 13:20 – Account-based marketing allows you to save a lot of money 13:58 – Customers pay annually 14:09 – Payback period is around 12 months 14:33 – Chris is lenient with their payback period 15:13 – LTV 15:30 – Chris won't barter just to acquire new customers 17:44 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Raising a large amount of capital will help develop the business quickly. Account-based marketing can save you more money. When you start a company, you're working for EVERYONE. 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

Ryan Taylor. He's currently the CEO of the Dash Core Team. Dash is an innovative digital currency that offers a number of improvements over bitcoin. Ryan is an expert in the payments industry with over 15 years of experience in financial services and technology. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Mastering Bitcoin What CEO do you follow? – Jack Welch Favorite online tool? — BitInfoCharts How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Don't worry about what everyone else has to say, follow what you really want to do" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:41 – Nathan introduces Ryan to the show 02:21 – Dash is based on the bitcoin code base and operates with the same level of security 02:28 – Dash has improved in 3 areas: 02:31 – First is governance that allows people to vote on changes 02:49 – Second area is that it's self-funded 03:14 – Dash has incentives for people to contribute to the network 03:25 – Dash received its own funding from the network itself to operate 03:44 – There are masternode owners in Dash 05:48 – Team size is 50 05:55 – Dash currently has 15 open positions 06:44 – Dash has a more sophisticated economic system than the early coins 07:00 – Getting donations for funds is what is primarily happening in the bitcoin world 07:46 – Alot of them are ICOs that don't have an ongoing source of revenue to sustain themselves 08:15 – Ryan's opinion on Civic's model 09:00 – Dash currently has 4500-4600 masternodes, which is a marketplace 09:39 – An owner can own more than 1 masternode 09:52 – There's no way to know the number of masternode owners 11:22 – The outcome of a vote 11:30 – There are people who don't vote, but there's a minimum threshold 12:30 – Utility-wise, Dash is aiming to create a world-class payment system 12:39 – Some tokens are focused on smart contracts while Dash focuses on the payment 13:05 – Dash is launching their landmark product next year called Evolution 13:42 – Dash is aiming to make payments as convenient and secure as possible 14:31 – The treasury is where they allocate transaction fees and block rewards that all cryptocurrency collect 14:55 – With Dash, 45% goes to miners, 45% to infrastructure or masternode owners and 10% is set aside to the treasury 15:33 – The treasury pot currently has $1.2M and the network is extremely well-funded 16:20 – Dash incentivises each component of the network for it to remain functional 16:44 – Dash has integrations that they've funded 17:00 – Charlie Shrem just gave them a proposal to create a US debit card 17:14 – Dash has worked with Alt36 17:36 – Dash has funded cards 18:00 – Dash's miner plus masternode combo allows things to be done instantly 19:42 – Ryan left his job at a multi-million dollar hedge fund to start Dash 19:50 – Ryan believes that there's monetary and non-monetary rewards at stake with Dash 20:10 – Dash has the potential to bring cryptocurrency to a whole new audience 20:30 – Most of those involved have put their own stake into the network 21:29 – "My incentives are perfectly aligned with the network, the way it should be" 22:18 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: A blockchain company that uses its own network to fund itself remains self-sustaining and self-functioning. Most ICOs rely on donations for funds, which can be unstable. Ignore the noise—do what YOU want to do. 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

Johnny Warström. He's the CEO and founder of Mentimeter. He's an engineer from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. He's worked in 10 countries and visited over 60. He loves adventures and growing his company and he's getting married soon. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Sebastian Siemiątkowski Favorite online tool? — Intercom 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? – "Do more crazy stuff" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:44 – Nathan introduces Johnny to the show 02:21 – Johnny founded Mentimeter with his three friends right out of university 02:38 – Mentimeter is an interactive presentation 03:00 – You can connect the audience's' phones with the presentation and they can vote or participate 03:53 – Mentimeter has a free and premium model 04:04 – Mentimeter has over 10M users and 400K presenters who lead meetings 04:31 – The presenters are the ones who pay 04:50 – Mentimeter currently has 6K enterprise customers 05:03 – Mentimeter is purely a B2B SaaS 05:36 – Average customer pay per month is $150 a year 05:56 – Mentimeter also offers packages 06:13 – ARR is around $1.5M 06:47 – Mentimeter was launched in 2003 and was initially bootstrapped as a side project 07:00 – Johnny was part of Telecom and his co-founders were managing consultants 07:18 – It took them 2-3 months to build Mentimeter and they showed it to their bosses 07:40 – Mentimeter had their $350K angel round in 2004 and they have a total of $500K funds raised 07:52 – Team size is 16 and everyone is based in Stockholm 08:25 – Mentimeter has no paid activities and relies fully on organic growth 08:53 – The goal of Mentimeter is to be a mass market product 09:38 – Mentimeter has 1 in sales, 9 in product and 6 in marketing 10:27 – Mentimeter was part of 500 Startups last spring 11:17 – Fully weighted CAC 11:42 – Payback period is almost instant 12:20 – The team has been doing different experiments to increase customer engagement 13:48 – Mentimeter is on -5 net churn 14:22 – Mentimeter has a licensed model 14:51 – 1% monthly churn 15:18 – Some do not continue with their annual plan 15:44 – Mentimeter won't give money back, but there's a 40-day refund 17:00 – Johnny shares about a big, annual event in Europe that he's a big fan of 17:00 – Mentimeter has a built-in, voting module which functions as a simulation for a contest 17:37 – Mentimeter received a lot of attention from that event 2 years ago 18:12 – 2017 revenue goal is $2.3M 18:17 – 2016 revenue was $800K 18:52 – Johnny targets $10M in ARR for 2019 19:22 – "We're not looking for funding at the moment" 19:38 – Johnny isn't interested in selling the company at the moment 21:33 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Keep an open mind—your side project can be your next successful business. Business ideas can come from the most unexpected of places—don't discount your ideas. Success gained from organic traffic IS possible. 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

Neha Sampat. She's the CEO of Built.io, a 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant Vendor and 2016 Gartner Cool Vendor that provides a digital business platform that helps organizations excel their digital transformation. She's a recognized industry leader and has led product marketing, cloud computing and online experiences for Sun Microsystems and VMware. She's a proponent of diversity and outspoken advocate for nurturing women leaders in her industry. She was named the San Francisco Business Times' 40 Under 40 honoree and one of 50 Women in Tech Dominating Silicon Valley in 2015. She is part of SF Business Times 2017 List of Most Influential Women in Business. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Moneyball What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Alfred How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Do not start questioning yourself, you're confident now. Keep that confidence, anything else will just slow you down" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:42 – Nathan introduces Neha to the show 02:42 – Built is a digital transformation platform 02:37 – Neha started Built 10 years ago when digital transformation wasn't a thing yet 03:21 – Built sells products to enterprise companies 03:24 – Built is mainly a SaaS model, but they also offer services and license deals that may not be SaaS 03:37 – Built started as a professional services company 03:44 – Built is still bootstrapped 03:59 – "We're not a typical Silicon Valley company at all" 04:08 – Built was made based on the real needs of customers 04:27 – Team size is around 200, spread across India and San Francisco 04:50 – The team in India is mainly the R&D team and the professional services team 05:20 – Built has a real economic advantage having the majority of their team in India 05:49 – Built is in the remote part of Mumbai 06:16 – The office in India is where Neha's co-founder's family is from 06:48 – Neha shared how they started building their office with a not-so-good internet speed in India 08:12 – Built is slowly transitioning mainly to SaaS model 08:45 – First million dollar year was in 2013 09:13 – Neha started Built with her co-founder in 2007, and Neha took an advisory role at first 09:42 – Neha used her own money to fund Built 10:03 – Neha was very careful in handling her money 10:16 – When Neha and her co-founder started Built, they wanted it to be a product company 10:30 – Neha's co-founder was from the integration space and gave her the idea of transitioning to Built in 2013 11:30 – Average customer pay per month is $50K 12:00 – Built currently has thousands of trial signups and hundreds of paying customers 12:30 – Neha is a certified sommelier and when they go to conferences, they'll have wine tasting events to get new customers 13:40 – Gross logo churn 13:48 – Built has a 90% retention rate and has maintained it 14:12 – Fully weighted CAC and payback period is less than 10 months 14:43 – Built tries to always get paid cash upfront 15:10 – Gross margin 15:24 – Some of the services are used to fund their SaaS 16:06 – Most of the marketing is for conferences 16:54 – End of 2017 revenue goal 17:28 – They're focusing on doubling their SaaS revenue 19:11 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: If you build a product that begins by addressing people's needs, you will always have customers. Don't raise funds if you don't need to, staying bootstrapped is an advantage. Cash is king, always try to get paid upfront. 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

James Booth. He's the founder of Scoota and he founded it in 2008. Prior to that, he was the co-founder and CEO of a company that led Europe's rich media, providing infrastructure. He sold that to DoubleClick and Google back in 2007. He's won numerous awards for his service to online advertising, an active Angel investor and a non-executive to a number of startups. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm What CEO do you follow? – Joe Zawadzki, Jeff Green and Robert Grazioli Favorite online tool? — Gmail How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – James hoped he knew the internet was coming Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:50 – Nathan introduces James to the show 02:21 – The company that James exited was Tangozebra 02:26 – They found the name by accident and in 1999, they couldn't find a .com address 03:17 – It was initially bootstrapped and they eventually raised capital 03:49 – They had trouble articulating what they were doing 04:24 – They raised $1.6M and part of the business went to a media group for 5 years before it was sold 04:49 – Tangozebra was sold to Google for $30M 05:15 – After the exit, James spent 6 months creating a business plan 06:19 – James launched Rockabox (now Scoota) in 2007 with his co-founder, Torie 06:51 – James had put in his own money at the start of the business 07:08 – To date, they've raised £12M 07:15 – Scoota is a technology company specializing in programmatic technology 07:40 – Scoota charges a low cost per thousand fee with a benchmark of £1.50 per thousand 08:05 – There's also a managing service where Scoota takes a percentage 08:37 – Self-service is high-margin and media is low 09:17 – Two-thirds of the revenue comes from the self-service side 09:30 – Team size is 30—based in London and looking to open a New York office 09:53 – Scoota has global campaigns as well 10:41 – In the early days, James would make up all sorts of things just to get new customers 10:59 – In 1999, James had a conversation with a journalist where he spilled out mockups that gave them the exposure they needed 12:17 – Suddenly, there was a story about them 13:00 – Average number of customers 13:33 – 40 agencies and hundreds of brands 14:04 – It was in 2013 when Scoota broke their million dollar ARR mark 14:26 – In 2016, Scoota hit $10M from their managing service side 15:50 – Average ARR in 2016 was a little under $5M 17:33 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Digital advertising has improved tremendously profitable and continues to grow. Continue to create something even after your first, big exit. At the start of every business, you have to do what you can to get the first customer. 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

Zooko Wilcox. He's the creator of Zcash and has more than 20 years of experience in open decentralized systems, cryptography and information security along with startups in general. He's recognized for his work in Digicash, Mojonation and many other things that he has worked on. He's also the founder of Least Authority. If you're following him on Twitter, you'll know that he sometimes blog about health science and is very active in Twitter and the crypto space. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Constellation Games What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Signal 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 he would start learning by doing than learning from going to school" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:44 – Nathan introduces Zooko to the show 02:28 – Zcash is a cryptocurrency similar to bitcoin 02:55 – Zcash is like the SSL version of bitcoin 03:20 – Zooko explains why additional security is needed in the crypto space 04:33 – Bitcoin is mainly used for payment transactions 04:40 – Other uses of blockchain is widely proliferating and apply the same technology 05:18 – In any transaction, you need to protect not only the identity of the person, but the transaction in the system as well 05:38 – In bitcoin, there's no identity needed for the bitcoin address but the flow of funds—where the bitcoin is going may be visible to anyone who's in the blockchain 06:55 – Zooko shares his partnership with JP Morgan for their blockchain security solution 07:00 – They had an open, public blockchain which is as global as bitcoin 07:26 – The Zcash blockchain has had huge success going around the world 07:50 – It was successful because it made it to the top tier of the blockchain system 08:50 – Zooko really wanted Zcash currency to be more available globally and they received more users from China 10:00 – Yunbi is one of the exchangers in China 10:45 – The strategy was to attract users from different places 11:13 – Some crypto projects have pre-money and some have ICOs or pre-sale 11:44 – The Zcash blockchain started mining, where people can get their own Zcash tokens 12:44 – Zooko changed the algorithm for mining coins 14:30 – Zooko has raised $3M and promised investors that they will get a cut from the mining 15:28 – There are transaction fees, but it's different from what the investors get from the mining 15:45 – It's the miners who give the share of the reward over to the founder and they choose to do so 16:17 – Zcash is still early in the space 17:06 – The fundraising happened early 2015 17:50 – Zcash has a unique structure to their system 19:35 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: While blockchain system is known to be secure, it doesn't hurt to have additional security features in place with cryptocurrency. ICOs and pre-sales are quite the trend for blockchain companies. You can't learn everything from going to school—learn by DOING. 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

Maksim Balashevich. He's a former IBM software engineer and co-founder of a successful, hosting business in Belarus. He now manages the overall product and leads the Santiment team. He's a veteran leader, having spent more than a decade trading successfully using Santiment and Elliot Wave as analysis. He's also a guru in yoga and meditation. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – N/A What CEO do you follow? – Nick Szabo Favorite online tool? — Blockchain and Reddit 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? – Move faster to the same goal Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:53 – Nathan introduces Maksim to the show 02:30 – Santiment builds information for the emerging cryptocurrency token economy 03:30 – When Santiment had their ICO, they've established a token for their platform 03:36 – To get access to Santiment, you can buy the monthly subscription by paying in dollars or by depositing your tokens into the platform 04:12 – There's no revenue on the SaaS side yet 04:33 – Santiment has raised $500K in July 2017 05:03 – Santiment has sold 45K tokens 05:17 – Santiment's token name is San 05:44 – Santiment got 720 participants on their token sale 06:14 – Santiment has 8 full-time people and a few contractors 06:29 – Santiment hasn't liquidated their funds yet 06:43 – Santiment got 12K ethereum from their presell, which they used to fund the development of the business 07:44 – Maksim is hoping to start charging in 3 months, but it seems like it will take 6 months 08:10 – From the community's response, Maksim can't charge for Santiment yet and people are asking for specific kinds of data 09:34 – It's not that they will not charge, but they can't charge just yet 10:00 – Maksim shares how Santiment works in the crypto economy 11:15 – Prior to ICO, Santiment didn't take additional capital and just used the presell 11:46 – Maksim shares how they came up with the number of tokens to issue 11:49 – For crowdsale participants, it is 54% of their outstanding 12:04 – For presell participants, for every 12K ether contributed, Santiment will issue them 50M tokens 12:21 – The rest will be part of the team's tokens, which is currently locked 13:55 – Maksim hasn't seen any active competitors yet 14:34 – Iconomi is one of Santiment's partners and is also in the same space 16:16 – Maksim's prediction for the next blockchain that will do well 16:48 – Maksim personally likes Polkadot which connects blockchains 17:10 – There are also projects that introduce the token economy 17:24 – There's a growing number of blockchain companies providing decentralized storage solutions 18:17 – Maksim shares the latest issue on hacking in cryptocurrency where $7M was stolen 21:00 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: When to charge for your service isn't an easy to decision to make—you have to consider the community and the value that they want to get from the company. In recent hacking events with ICO, security issues are being called into question. If possible, start working towards your goals as EARLY as possible. 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

Michael Litt. He's the co-founder and CEO of a leading video marketing platform called Vidyard. While he's not bringing leading video-based technologies to market, he serves as general partner at Garage Capital, a seed stage fund focused on supercluster companies looking to expand their networks in the Silicon Valley. He also sits as Communitech's board of directors, a KW-based organization designed to help companies start, grow and succeed. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – N/A What CEO do you follow? – Shannon Stubo Favorite online tool? — Coinbase How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – You need a big support network and focus your energy into building a business Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:41 – Nathan introduces Michael to the show 02:16 – Michael was in Episode 414 of The Top and back then, they only had 132 people on their team 02:30 – Vidyard now has around 250 employees 02:38 – Vidyard has 3 offices 02:44 – Vidyard has launch multiple products including a self-serve product called Viewedit 03:13 – Vidyard just had 100K users sign up after launching Viewedit, which is free 03:33 – It's currently a chrome extension 04:22 – Michael shares how they spent their last amount that was raised 04:51 – Vidyard had their series C in January of 2017 05:30 – Michael believes that the CFO should be the "house of no" 06:00 – Everybody should be accountable for their finances and Vidyard uses Adaptive Insights for budgeting 06:43 – Vidyard has to be very careful with their lifeline and maintain their cash flow 07:23 – Michael's goal as the CEO 08:39 – Vidyard's RPU has grown over time 08:53 – Target for upsell is 30% of net new revenue 10:03 – Annual logo churn 10:13 – Net retention 10:42 – Over thousands customers are using Vidyard's platform 10:57 – Viewedit is being used in tons of organizations 11:46 – Michael believes Vidyard will double, year over year 13:00 – Streaming cost for Vidyard 13:11 – Vidyard streams over 50M videos a day 13:15 – Vidyard subscribed on the Netflix model 14:41 – Weirdest strategy Michael employed to get new customers 15:08 – The strategy was inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk 17:17 – Michael shares how they were able to get customers from companies in other countries 19:10 – New CMOs in a company are one of the best target customers, so Michael looks out for new CMOs announcements 19:54 – Payback period is usually 18 months 21:02 – Payback period reflects your company's status 21:20 – CAC 21:35 – Michael is also looking into zero-cost marketing 22:09 – Michael won't sell Vidyard to Salesforce, even with a $300M offer 22:55 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Use your funds conservatively and make everyone accountable for budgeting. How your company is doing reflects on your payback period. Make sure you have a big support network in place. 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

Barry Clapp. He brings over 30 years of experience in sales and management to Centage. Beginning with IBM, he held successional positions with increasing responsibility on software and internet businesses. At DigitalGlobe, a satellite imagery company, he served as VP of international sales opening distribution in over 20 different countries. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Biography of Richard Branson What CEO do you follow? – Marcus Lemonis Favorite online tool? — Salesforce 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? – Be bolder, take more risks and get more equity from businesses with potential Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:43 – Nathan introduces Barry to the show 02:12 – Centage makes a budgeting and planning tool simple 02:20 – Every company budgets and most use Excel, which can be very difficult 02:49 – Centage automates budgeting to replace Excel 03:10 – Centage is a SaaS business 03:18 – Centage was launched in 2002 03:37 – Centage's current business model is a changing from their previous licensing model 04:27 – Centage is in the SMB space and they have less competitors 04:55 – One of their competitors, Adaptive Insights, has just raised $175M 05:13 – Centage has raised a total of $13.5 M 05:50 – Barry shares what he did prior to Centage 06:24 – The top three PE firms for Barry, in Boston 07:16 – Centage's customer pays an average of $35K to $40K a year 07:26 – Centage has also sold services in their first years 07:48 – Pricing is per seat 08:18 – Centage currently has a thousand customers or 10K users 08:46 – Most customers have 3 or more subsidiaries 09:06 – Barry is hoping to break the $30M ARR number 09:20 – Centage just launched their new product that is currently on beta 09:57 – 30% of Centage's customers are on subscription and the 70% are installed on premises 11:07 – 2016 ARR was $12M 12:43 – Team size is around a hundred with some remote 13:13 – Average CAC 13:36 – Centage has an inside sales model 14:29 – Annual logo is quite higher than the previous model 14:41 – Centage has 80% retention rate 15:43 – Centage's product has been continuously improving over the years 16:32 – Centage has always made 10-12% of their revenue from upselling 16:52 – Centage sells additional training 17:11 – Barry shares the weirdest thing they did to acquire new customers 18:50 – Gross margin 19:10 – Centage runs webinars, goes to tradeshows, spends at least $10K a month on Google AdWords and total marketing spend is around $100K a month 21:06 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Be BOLD and take risks now! Shifting from a previous model does NOT mean that you should force your current customers to shift as well. If people see value and how you can make life easier for them, they'll stay loyal to your product. 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