SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Patrik Fagerlund. He's been working with mobile internet since the 90s. He's an engineer by training and now, he's the CEO and founder of Widespace, a mobile adtech company. Outside of work, he loves spending time with his family with his four kids and his wife along with many activities and sports. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Business Insider What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Slack and Flatly 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 what you want to be" Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:00 – Nathan introduces Patrik to the show 02:36 – Widespace is a mobile advertising campaign 02:40 – It was spun out in 2007 from what Patrik thought was a great media channel 03:04 – Patrik sold media fueled by their technology 03:10 – Selling media per CPM which is $10 per impression 03:31 – This was the business model in 2009 04:00 – $2M was the total ad spend for the previous model and 40% went to the company 04:26 – Team size was 9 04:38 – Widespace's current business model spent $30M for ads 04:40 – Team size is 130 04:41 – "We're moving into selling technology at a rapid space" 04:49 – Widespace extends their tools and technology for both the supply and demand 05:09 – Widespace focuses more on selling their technology 05:28 – The model is close to SaaS, but the pricing depends on the volume and usage 06:11 – Of the top 50 global advertisers, Widespace serves 70% of them 06:24 – Widespace works with most of the umbrella agency companies in the world 06:51 – The tech of Widespace is a full-stack offering 07:01 – The algorithm is based on interests 07:18 – If Widespace goes against other legacy technologies in adtech, Widespace will outperform them 07:46 – A customer pays 50% of their ad spend to make use of Widespace's technology 07:54 – It's a volume game, the more a customer pays, the less Widespace charges 08:04 – If a customer puts $20M into Widespace's system, it will go down to below $10M 08:53 – Average ARR is around $4M 09:06 – Since Widespace is a full-stack, they service both demand and supply 09:11 – There's a cap on the demand side and a supply cap to serve the supply 09:26 – The suppliers are the top publishers in the world 09:45 – Widespace takes a cut from the demand and supply side 09:56 – Widespace charges on the extended version of the algorithm as well 10:11 – Last year's processed ad spend is shy of $40M 10:49 – 2016 total revenue is around $17M 11:04 – Widespace was initially bootstrapped 11:16 – Widespace has raised close to $30M 11:33 – Over the years, Widespace had propositions from strategics but they turned them down 12:08 –Widespace is currently working with 500 suppliers/publications 12:17 – Widespace keeps control of their supply and has deeper integration 13:07 – A few years ago, Widespace was the only one who was servicing the publishers 13:40 – Widespace doesn't have any exclusivity 15:02 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Adjust your technology depending on the needs of your target market. Find the right partners with whom you can grow your business. Be what you want to be! 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

Eyal Hertzog. He's been a venture-backed technology entrepreneur for over 20 years. He's the founder of Metacafe, Israel's fastest growing video sharing site which has reached over 15M uniques at its peak. Previously, he founded Contact Networks which was one of the first social networks in 1999. He's now at Bancor Network and has been an outspoken thought leader on cryptocurrency in Israel and is a talented piano and bass musician. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Spider and the Starfish What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Google Keep 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? – "You never stop evolving" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:49 – Nathan introduces Eyal to the show 02:40 – Bancor is a non-profit organization which is in a new model that has been rising recently 03:36 – Similarly to Etherium, Bancor is also a token that is solving the problem of liquidity 04:00 – Eyal talks about any kind of liquidity that works today with crypto tokens 04:14 – There is a token that represents gold and a token that represents a dollar which you can convert back to gold and dollars 04:24 – "Real assets from the real world are already represented in the blockchain" 04:47 – Bancor provides a different way that doesn't require traders to bid for an asset; it automatically finds a market trait according to a certain formula 05:09 – Nathan shares about his interview with Joe Zhou who is the founder of Firstblood 05:56 – The pricing of ether and other cryptocurrencies is always changing 06:25 – Bancor provides a much better solution than cryptocurrencies exchanges, like what Coinbase is doing, for liquidity 06:46 – Bancor is an alternative way to convert cryptocurrencies 06:52 – The exchanges that are based on smart contracts are automated so they won't require central services 07:14 – Bancor did their own ICO for their token which is BNT or banking network token that will be used in Bancor's network of token conversion 07:26 – Within three hours, Bancor raised $153M 07:44 – It was in June 12, 2017 08:03 – Bancor was very open during their ICO and told people that everyone who will invest in 2 hours will have an opportunity and they will get exactly the same rate 09:11 – There are currently 20 people involved in Bancor's operation 09:31 – Bancor liquidates as little as possible which is less than 10% 10:11 – Bancor currently has 12445 token holders 10:22 – Eyal has worked with VCs for a long time prior to Bancor 12:05 – People who hold a lot of cryptocurrencies are called "whales" 12:29 – The goal of people in the crypto world is to build a new financial ecosystem 13:14 – The foundation where the proceeds from the crowdsale go is called V Protocol 13:27 – The foundation sold 50% of the tokens and the other 50% went to different buckets 14:07 – Bancor runs on the ethereum blockchain so they already have miners and won't need miners for their own tokens 15:18 – Nathan summarizes Bancor's figures 16:40 – Eyal had a dream to build something that will have a cultural effect or something that will change how we do things 17:07 – When Eyal learned about bitcoin, he thought that it would be a huge, cultural evolution one day 17:55 – In terms of completed ICOs, Bancor ranks number one 18:28 – Eyal shares where the demand for Bancor came from 20:34 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: There are better ways to do cryptocurrency exchanges that benefit the token holder more. Be open to your investors, so you can earn their trust. You are always learning and evolving. 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

Mitchell Reichgut. He's the CEO and co-founder of Jun Group. Prior to founding Jun Group in 2005, he led Bates Interactive, the online unit of Bates Worldwide Advertising which is now owned by WPP. As general manager and creative director, he helped grow Bates Interactive into a 70-person integrated unit with clients such as EDS, Warner-Lambert and many others. Before joining Bates, he was the creative director at Think New Ideas. He began his career as Art Director at Grey Advertising where he created print and TV ads for clients. Throughout his career, he's worked with major brands in the industry including Procter and Gamble, Parker Brothers, Reebok and others. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Anything written by Seth Godin What CEO do you follow? – Jack Welch Favorite online tool? — Google Calendar 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? – Mitchell wished he knew the kind of discipline it took to make things work Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:05 – Nathan introduces Mitchell to the show 03:08 – The "Jun" in Jun Group means truth 03:11 – Mitchell founded his company believing that advertising can be transparent, honest and deliver tangible results 03:19 – Jun Group's job is to get millions of people to engage with videos and visit websites of the Fortune 500 brands 03:38 – Nathan reads Jun Group's website line 03:52 – Mitchell gives an example of a spaghetti sauce brand that targets Hispanic mothers who are 35 and up, in the USA 04:01 – Jun Group will use the video of the brand to connect with their target market on their phone, tablets and computers 04:16 – Customers can opt-in in exchange for something like rewards points 04:38 – Jun Group is an in-app solution 05:37 – Jun Group only charges when someone chooses to engage and the client gets the value of what they're paying for 06:06 – When you don't interrupt people, they tend to watch to the end 06:08 – Jun Group gets 90% of people to watch a 30-second ad until the very end 06:13 – 3-5% of the viewers are visiting the brand's website 06:50 – From the publisher, the brand will appear in a mobile app 07:29 – Each app integration creates an interaction depending on the app user's behavior 07:46 – In web environment, app developers pay CPI 07:52 – Jun Group never had a pop-up and they never interrupt 08:14 – Jun Group has a sophisticated tech platform that works well with app developers 08:21 – "Apps are complex business" 08:41 – Jun Group was bootstrapped until 2015 08:47 – Then they had a private equity deal with Howard Capital 08:58 – They've raised $28M 09:09 – They've decided to raise because they found the right partner 09:55 – Growing an adtech business is quite unusual and requires hard work 10:02 – Jun Group has brands, app publishers and consumers that they need to take care of 10:27 – Jun Group is an adtech platform and not really an agency 10:30 – Most adtech platforms lose money and want to grow fast 10:49 – Jun Group has been growing slowly, but steadily and profitably 11:13 – The revenue comes from commitments from brands and media buying platforms, some are per project and some are per annual commitment 12:00 – Jun Group's pricing model varies depending on what the ad is 12:34 – A CPM (cost per thousand) in the industry usually costs $8 up 12:40 – Jun Group charges cost per engagement which is more than the average CPM 13:22 – Mitchell left Bates and started Jun Group at home 13:31 – Mitchell didn't really plan to be an entrepreneur 13:53 – Mitchell get into the adtech industry with his partner when it was just starting 14:12 – By 2008 and 2009, Jun Group was earning $1-2M in revenue 15:08 – Jun Group usually take a percentage from the sales they make 15:39 – Most of the money goes back to the campaign 16:05 – Jun Group had debt with WTI or Western Technology Investment that helped the company grow 16:34 – The debt was in millions 17:05 – The media spent through Jun Group's system 17:18 – Jun Group is still cash flow positive 17:53 – Jun Group really had a strategic partnership with their seed round 18:44 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Have the right partners who will not just provide the funds but help the company grow. Adtech isn't an easy industry with fast growth; it takes time and the right model to thrive in it. It takes firm, hard discipline to make things work. 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

Evan Leong. He's the VP of Product at Devslopes, a learn-to-code platform focused on taking beginners to paid professionals to curated project-based videos. He's always been involved with startups since 2015, when he took the leap from a corporate job to join the startup world full-time. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — Trello 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? – Follow your instincts, follow your gut, and don't let age stop you from what you want to do Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:05 – Nathan introduces Evan to the show 02:31 – Devslopes is a learn-to-code platform for iOs, MacOS and TvOs 02:39 – A version for Windows will be available soon too 02:48 – Devslopes is similar to Treehouse 03:00 – Devslopes has been around for a year and a half 03:10 – Devslopes has just converted to SaaS 03:22 – They garnered 130 subscriptions just after the launch 03:33 – Average pay per customer is a little over $20 a month 04:05 – Devslopes was funded through Kickstarter and an investor 04:15 – They raised $190K in Kickstarter 04:35 – Devslopes' CEO is a good salesperson and they had a strong community even before Kickstarter 05:04 – The Kickstarter campaign was blasted around 05:11 – The community size is around 10K 05:22 – Devslopes has raised an additional of $300K from Redfoo of LMFAO 05:42 – Devslopes was launched in March 2016 05:53 – First year revenue was $600K 06:04 – 2017 goal is to reach a million 06:39 – Devslopes has large courses that will take people more time to stick with them 06:48 – Devslopes is pumping out target topics which are 2-3 hour courses 07:13 – Team size is 8 07:48 – The CEO started in e-learning marketplaces 08:05 – By the time Devslopes started, the CEO already had 40K students on Udemy 08:33 – Devslopes gets students from affiliates too 09:12 – Devslopes want to fully dive into the learning experience 09:32 – They liked the idea of having everything in one program so they created the SaaS model 10:17 – Devslopes publishes to affiliates the content that the affiliates want to promote 10:26 – Udemy likes to promote 30-60 hour courses 10:43 – Devslopes is also on Skillshare, Learnability and Inkydeals 10:58 – 90% of the content goes to Udemy and the rest are spread out to the rest 11:08 – 90% of the revenue is from Udemy, too 11:30 – Devslopes is just starting to use Facebook ads which is their only paid marketing 12:05 – CAC 12:11 – Most of what Devslopes gets from Facebook ads is social presence but no paid leads yet 12:44 – The charge of Udemy fluctuates depending on how they promote their content 13:21 – Evan focuses on the product and handles the team 13:37 – Devslopes currently have 5K iOs downloads and a couple of thousand from Mac 15:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: With the advancement in technology, more people are opting to learn from the comfort of their own home. Target your market so it will be easier for the company to adapt a new business model. Customers will stick with your product if it is of value to them. 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

Joe Zhou. He's the founder and CEO of FirstBlood, an eSports startup that recently broke the speed record for crowdfunding, specifically in the crypto world. Prior to founding FirstBlood, Joe co-founded Alt-Options, a Boston based fintech or financial technology startup that built the first American style option trading platform for digital currencies. Joe holds a BSBA from Boston University Questrom School of Business and an entrepreneur residence at Babson College. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Lean Startup What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Slack 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? – Joe wished he was less concerned about how he was perceived in school Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:11 – Nathan introduces Joe to the show 03:00 – FirstBlood is a platform that allows players to play games, not just for fun but for money 03:23 – FirstBlood charges money for each game or tournament played 03:49 – FirstBlood was launched in April 2016 03:55 – Joe's co-founder, Anik, is also a big gamer 04:08 – They were both fans of League of Legends 04:14 – They attended a Hackathon where they were challenged to build an application that has never existed before 05:00 – Joe co-founded Alt-Options while he was still in college 05:15 – The technology was built from scratch 05:18 – There were about 2K users during the testing phase 05:50 – It was bootstrapped and $50K was raised from families and friends 06:02 – There were a group people who wanted to get into the space and Joe worked with them as a consultant for half a year 06:44 – Joe decided to do the token issuance because of the support they were getting 06:55 – DAO was successful until hackers were able to get into it due to a bug 07:19 – FirstBlood was one of the most promising projects that was going to DAO 07:26 – DAO or Decentralized Autonomous Organization is like a decentralized venture capital firm; it was managed by every person who has a token in it 07:52 – FirstBlood was operating under Project Tron in the DAO community 08:15 – After the bug, FirstBlood started building what was needed to run a successful crowdfunding campaign 08:52 – Joe and Anik gave talks and presented multiple ethereum meetups regarding their project 09:37 – Joe came home with a budget of 3-5 years runway for the entire team 09:46 – They've raised $5M in funding 09:52 – Team had 6 people and now they have 15 people 11:14 – They've calculated the ethereum's pricing and deployed the contract to the network 11:51 – FirstBlood raised the money in just the first four blocks and processed in just 7 minutes 12:41 – FirstBlood has sold 465,313 ether tokens 13:10 – Joe shares why they released their own FirstBlood tokens 13:16 – Ethereum has some limitations 13:34 – The FirstBlood tokens are given unique utilities that are crucial to making the network work 13:42 – First layer is the transactional level utility where both ether and FirstBlood tokens work 14:20 – Witness program utility can only be run by FirstBlood tokens 14:52 – DotA is the first mobile strategy game and now is a stand alone 15:53 – When a game is settled, a set of information is sent to a network of witness nodes 16:02 – Witness nodes will then run tests using computational power to fetch the data and cross reference the data to make sure that it is valid 16:14 – The data then gets published into the blockchain and smart contract 16:32 – The winner of the games will pay a small percentage fee to the network 17:40 – The token price isn't that important for the team 18:14 – The ratio of the token is arbitrary 19:24 – A lot of Dapps don't have a real money function yet 19:39 – FirstBlood is closed to launching the beta 19:59 – Currently, there are 1592 people who have FirstBlood tokens 20:51 – Joe doesn't think that it's risky for them to have a lot of people handling the network 21:06 – The selection process has a cap rate on how one will get selected 21:19 – "We did cap at 1% for a maximum impact" 22:20 – Joe can't disclose the amount he owns from FirstBlood tokens 22:50 – The allocation for founders is around 10% of the tokens 23:24 – Nathan asks Joe if it's possible to cash out a million tokens into real dollars if he ever needs it 24:35 – FirstBlood made the headlines because they raised a $5M equivalent to ether 26:38 – The fund is owned by the project 27:08 – The ether can be used to keep buying the project 27:30 – Some of the money from the funds are used to pay the team 28:03 – FirstBlood liquidates 80% of the ether post cross-sales and 20% remains in the smart contract 28:39 – FirstBlood has around $4M in the bank that pays salaries and other company expenses 29:55 – The technology of FirstBlood has made people more interested in the project 31:00 – The decision to raise $5M was from the advice they've received regarding what it takes to increase network profitability 31:51 – Ether was valued when Joe liquidated the 372K shares at $11 per share 32:38 – Joe didn't wait for the share value to increase because they needed the money to get the project running 34:25 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: In crypto, startups create their own currency if they think their network will be better of with it. Listen to your advisory board—if it's time to raise for specific purpose, your business might be better of because of that decision. People will become interested in your project if it's first in the space and they believe in your technology. 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

Alex Yakubovich. He's the co-founder and CEO of Scout RFP. Prior to Scout, he was a co-founder of another startup which was acquired by LivingSocial in 2012. At that company, he led the operations team and helped the company become the largest online ordering providers in the country. He attended Case Western Reserve University where he studied mechanical engineering. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Shoe Dog What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff Favorite online tool? — Salesforce 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? – Take big risks Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:25 – Nathan introduces Alex to the show 02:58 – Scout RFP helps companies make online purchases by finding suppliers and the best deals 03:14 – One of their newest customer's is Beam Suntory who makes Jim Beam bourbon 03:56 – They use Scout RFP to source for the best deals on raw materials that they use to make their liquor 04:15 – Scout RFP is a SaaS model 04:20 – Scout RFP charges per user basis 04:47 – They charge only the buyers who are making the purchase and not the suppliers 05:00 – Scout RFP also has different tools that they offer depending on the plans 05:34 – Average per seat is $5K annually 05:53 – All contracts are annual contract 05:59 – Scout RFP has raised capital: $27.5M in total 06:27 – Alex's last company just raised $500K and it had a great exit 07:00 – Alex has thought about what it's like to have big companies involved in your company 07:30 – The capital allowed them to not skim and invest on growth upfront 07:49 – Current team size is 50 07:59 – Half is the engineering and product side and half is for the sales side 08:29 – The exit price of the first company was in the tens of millions 09:37 – Alex has co-founders who were with him in the first company 10:43 – There are over 100 companies that use the platform 11:10 – The number of seats per company depends on the company 11:54 – Scout RFP has overall users and paid users 12:12 – Paid users is more than 3K 13:05 – Scout RFP is part of Silicon Valley Sourcing Leaders Group 13:31 – The group is about networking and sharing information and knowledge 13:49 – There are now sourcing leaders programs in New York 14:00 – The group helped Scout RFP to acquire new customers 14:30 – The organization hosts their companies 15:18 – Gross customer churn 15:31 – Logo churn is not that high 16:00 – Scout RFP has 17% net negative churn 16:58 – Scout RFP has a customer success team, a sales team, ADPR team and management team 17:38 – As a business grows with Scout RFP, the LTV grows as well 18:22 – The average deal size per business is quite consistent, about 10 19:09 – CAC to LTV ratio is 3 19:25 – Payback period is around 15 months 20:17 – Paid acquisition costs are around $40K a month 20:49 – They do LinkedIn ads, some Facebook and Google, and a lot of tradeshows 21:23 – Gross margin is 85-90% 21:44 – Target ARR this 2017 22:14 – Scout RFP is currently over $1.2M in MRR 23:54 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: An acquisition is an opportunity to build a bigger and better business. Being in a group with your target market is a big opportunity for you to acquire new leads. Let your big questions guide you in growing your business. 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

Bruce Pon. He's the CEO and founder of BigchainDB and he's been playing in the crypto world. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Mungerisms by Charlie Munger What CEO do you follow? – Vitalik Buterin Favorite online tool? — Streak CRM How many hours of sleep do you get?— At least 8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Buy bitcoin earlier" Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:03 – Nathan introduces Bruce to the show 02:44 – Bruce built BigchainDB to manage data 02:55 – Bitcoin is a payments cryptocurrency in a global network while Ethereum is a business logic in a global network 03:11 – People pass trusted data over the blockchain network for enterprise use cases and consumer applications 03:32 – From the business logic, you can exchange bitcoin and other types of value 03:42 – The problem with the use case on top of the bitcoin blockchain 3 years ago was it didn't scale 04:04 – Bruce was building io which is putting intellectual property into the blockchain 04:25 – You can sell your intellectual property over the network 04:48 – It was built over the bitcoin blockchain and got difficult to develop over time 04:54 – Ascribe.io needed meta data about the creative work, author and licensing model 05:04 - Ascribe.io isn't just built for bitcoin—it's like trying to using a Lamborghini to move your house 05:49 - Ascribe.io had AI, scientists and other PhDs who told them that building Ascribe.io wasn't worth it 06:09 – Team size is around 20 and is based in Berlin 06:24 – BigchainDB has raised $6M in price round series A 06:41 – Open source software is traditionally a dual license model 06:53 – BigchainDB is looking at an enterprise model 07:00 – They're looking into the ICO craze too 07:21 – BigchainDB is like a SaaS model 07:27 – They're looking at per transaction charges but it may not work for the long-run 07:54 – BigchainDB just released their 1.0 08:08 – They give premium support 08:27 – Bruce is looking into 5-6 figures per month for their starting price point 08:58 – One-third of the work in businesses happen in the back office 09:13 – Blockchain allows you to have a single source of truth 09:29 – BigchainDB unlocks the opportunity for different organizations to have a single source of truth 09:48 – When you can make IoT, AI and blockchain tools, you can track the product from the inception until it gets to the customer's hand 10:01 – The customer will now understand how the product is made 10:03 – The regulators will know that the product followed the guideline 10:07 – The company will know if there's a recall or quality issue and they will know where exactly the product is 10:40 – BigchainDB can work with different kinds of products 11:20 – Blockchain is definitely auditable 11:30 – Before the product comes to you, it will be signed by entities with a cryptographic key in every process 12:00 – With AI, you can also see who is in the very process of making your product 12:34 – The key metric Bruce is measuring is the number of people that are building upon them 12:56 – Target MRR is $100K by end of 2017 13:03 – BigchainDB is currently at $50-60K MRR 13:19 – Number of customers 13:44 – There are 300 developers in BigchainDB's channels and there are 5K clones of their software 13:54 – BigchainDB has 1K monthly downloads of their whitepaper 14:45 – The ratio of developer to clone is the 300 developers to 5K clone requests 16:05 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Data that is passed over the blockchain network can be used for enterprise use case and consumer applications. The beauty of blockchain is that it is auditable and has accountability capabilities. Some tools that are built over the bitcoin network won't always work; even if you have the best people in the industry. 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

Christoph Jentzsch. His background is in Theoretical Physics and he's been part of the Ethereum project since 2014 as a lead tester. At the end of 2015, he co-founded Slock.it, working on decentralized sharing economy through the connection of blockchain and IoT (Internet of Things). One of the more famous projects that he was part of was the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Zero to One What CEO do you follow? – God Favorite online tool? — GIthub 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? – "Avoid the bug in the DAO" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:50 – Nathan introduces Christoph to the show 02:20 – DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization 02:26 – It is a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain which aims at connecting people to pull their funds together and run small contracts 02:45 – It failed and all the people got refunded 03:10 – Christoph believes that Anthony Di Iorio is one of the founders of Ethereum 03:24 – As a lead tester for Ethereum in 2014, Christoph was responsible for driving tests 03:39 – Consensus tests are for client implementation 04:10 – Nathan's analogy of cryptocurrency using railroad tracks 04:55 – Augur has launched their own token on top of Ethereum 05:18 – They created their own token of value in exchange of the virtual currency of ether 05:47 – There has been a lot of ICOs (Initial Coin Offering) lately and there has been opinions around them 06:03 – Bitcoin was always meant for virtual currency 06:09 – While Etherium has a virtual currency too called ether, its actual purpose is to be an open source platform to build decentralized applications or Dapps 06:22 – People now create simple Dapps issuing a token on the Ethereum blockchain to fund Dapps projects 06:32 – People thought DAO was an ICO but it wasn't 06:35 – DAO has collected a hundred million dollars in ether 06:44 – After that, many ICOs have gone out 07:40 – There are only a few hundred people who send ether into their contract 08:11 – There was an article Nathan had read regarding Bitcoin's current problem 08:28 – The main problem is public blockchains are not scaling 08:38 – In the protocol, one blockchain can only have 1 megabyte 09:04 – There is now a high demand that leads to a higher price 10:33 – Everybody can take part in the cryptocurrency game 11:45 – People can create their own blockchain but they're missing the network effect 12:18 – There are some minors who control the network 12:48 – As long as there are users in the system, they don't mind the minors 12:54 – Minors serve the blockchain, but Christoph believes the users are the ones in-charge 13:21 – After the DAO failed, there was a discussion of how things should be done 13:27 – Some are saying to split the blockchain into 2 versions: the new version is where people get refunded and the old version is the hackers who have the money 14:58 – There are now 2 Ethereum classes: ethereum classic and ethereum 15:19 – Christoph's focus is now on Slock.it where they've built a decentralized sharing economy 16:02 – It is built over the public ethereum and they don't have tokens 16:17 – They're using ether as a payment 16:33 – Most startups are called ICOs and make their own tokens to fund themselves 16:40 – Slock.it is VC funded with a seed funding of $2M 18:06 – Slock.it isn't currently getting any payment but they will in the future 18:38 – Slock.it collaborates with Innogy 18:51 – Innogy allows electric charging stations to connect with smart contracts in the blockchain 19:00 – A user can charge his car, making him enter the smart contract 19:10 – If you're the owner of a charging station and you have an electric car, you can set the price for the station and offer it to public 20:05 – Noke padlocks can now be open and closed through Bluetooth and Slock.it has added a payment option where it can be opened by paying 20:34 – Slock.it can be integrated into the device and it is different from Airbnb 21:28 – As long as the ethereum blockchain is alive, the Noke padlock can be used through Slock.it 22:10 – Christoph currently resides in Germany 22:45 – "As of now, crypto is not a very good currency" 23:23 – Ether is as volatile as bitcoin 23:45 – You can definitely exchange your tokens for real dollars, but it's not an efficient system 24:03 – Paying people with ether isn't that easy at the moment 24:12 – Currency is the least interesting aspect 24:19 – There's a limitation in scalability and in privacy 24:40 – Christoph thinks ethereum, smart contracts and blockchains own up as programmable money 25:55 – Slock.it is currently integrated into an existing hardware 26:20 – There are currently thousands of charging stations under Slock.it 26:36 – Team member is currently 14 26:48 – The seed round was in February 2017 28:02 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Some startups are coming out as an ICO to fund themselves, but not all of them are legal. Cryptocurrency still isn't very stable so as a business owner, paying your people with this currency isn't efficient. Public blockchains are not scaling and there's a protocol that needs to be followed. 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

Brandon Bruce. He's the COO and co-founder of Cirrus Insights, the sales plugin for Gmail and Outlook. The company is number 41 on the Inc. 5000 and the fastest growing company in Tennessee. Brandon once raced his bicycle 508 miles across Death Valley in 35 hours and 7 minutes. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Energy Bus What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — Google Drive and Slack 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 would've tried to start a full-fledged company earlier" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:50 – Nathan introduces Brandon to the show 02:25 – Brandon was in Episode 226 of The Top 02:38 – They had $550K in funding 02:48 – The team back then was 55-60 and now it's 70 02:59 – No additional funding has been raised 03:16 – Cirrus Insights is a fast-growing company that didn't rely too much on VC 03:35 – 5 years ago, Cirrus Insights wanted to solve the problem of going back and forth between Gmail and Salesforce 03:53 – Cirrus Insights brings Salesforce into the inbox 04:05 – They also help sales reps to seamlessly update Salesforce from the back end 04:13 – Salesforce isn't actually a CRM 04:38 – Cirrus Insights just launched Flight Plans, which is an extension of their philosophy 04:42 – It is fully built-in to Outlook and Gmail 04:44 – It allows people to setup a sequence of sales touches 04:58 – It's personalized and low scale 05:51 – Cirrus Insights' growth is mostly from the Salesforce app exchange 06:00 – Continued growth is still from word-of-mouth 06:31 – Cirrus Insights has passed 100K seats with an average seat price of $6 06:53 – The average seat price has gone up now 07:19 – Flight Plans is a new tier 07:24 – Cirrus Insights is the product name and Flight Plans is going to be an addition 07:27 – There are now 3 additions to the product 08:18 – Cirrus Insights has just passed $1M in MRR 09:00 – Customers are choosing Cirrus Insights over others because some are overpaying and underutilizing marketing operations 09:29 – Marketing and sales are now working as a team with Cirrus Insights 09:58 – Cirrus Insights now charges $8 per seat 10:32 – Marketing operation has 4 big, unicorn companies 10:49 – There are now hundreds of tools in marketing operation and it will be interesting to see a consolidation 11:04 – Brandon is thinking customers will just utilize the best tools for the job 11:33 – Cirrus Insights is trying to position themselves to be the best at what they do 11:43 – They're also continuing to offer more in the future 13:00 – Gross customer churn: 15-20% annually, but they're targeting to lower it down to 10% 13:30 – There's a lot less churn in the enterprise 14:17 – Net annual revenue churn is still negative and net seat churn is below 10% 15:16 – Most of the new leads are from word-of-mouth, with some small scale paid acquisition 15:22 – They're more focused on the content that can drive more people 15:25 – Brandon has read The Slow Sale which is about how slowing down can win more deals 16:30 – Budget for paid marketing is $25-50K 16:43 – They've done sponsorship for conferences, but the ROI is getting low 17:25 – Check out their podcast: Our Love Hate Relationship with Sales, which drives sales as well 18:22 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: As saturated as the market is, there's still a way for your business to stand out. Marketing and sales teams are looking for tools that will not just help them with their workload, but encourage them to work together. If your company constantly adds value, word-of-mouth will be your driver of sales. 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

Jeff Glueck. He became the CEO of Foursquare in January of 2016 after 18 months as the COO of the company. Prior to that, he was the CEO of Skyfire Labs, co-founder of Site59.com and CMO of Travelocity. Previously, he was a strategy consultant at Monitor Company and served as a White House Fellow in the Clinton Administration. He holds a master's degree from Oxford as a Marshall Scholar and a bachelor's degree from Harvard College. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? – Adam Neumann Favorite online tool? — Stitcher 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? – "It's going to be okay when you take a risk" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:46 – Nathan introduces Jeff to the show 02:53 – Jeff has been with Foursquare for 3 years 02:55 – Jeff joined the company while it was evolving into a hot social network in 2012 03:10 – Foursquare developed the technology of Pilgrim that turned it into a powerful enterprise business 03:19 – Foursquare's early valuation was based on the fact that it would be the next big social media network 03:51 – The valuation was only made up because it wasn't based on revenue 03:57 – When Jeff entered, they raised a round and they're now growing over 60% in the past 3 years 04:13 – Foursquare is now more rationally valued 04:55 – Foursquare has a powerful community of people mapping the world 06:05 – Pilgrim is based on Foursquare's nearly 12B check-ins 06:13 – Foursquare is having more check-ins today than it did 2 years ago 06:30 – The check-ins are called explicit ground trips 06:55 – Everytime someone check-in, they're mapping the business for Foursquare 07:15 – The explicit ground trip makes the program powerful 08:06 – Foursquare launched the Pilgrim SDK which is a white label way for their developers to add in background content and give users a better experience 08:24 – Using the Pilgrim technology, Capital One can ask its user if they want to opt-in for being informed about how to receive rewards points 08:36 – People overwhelmingly opting-in 09:08 – The notification from Capital One encourages people to actually use their mobile wallet 09:18 – TouchTunes uses the Pilgrim technology 09:25 – TouchTunes runs 65K jukeboxes through mobile app 10:37 – Pilgrim technology has learned when to send notifications 10:47 – Pilgrim technology also informs their developers of the best time to send notifications 12:08 – When Jeff joined, he saw how everyone, including Fortune 500 companies, was using them for free 12:15 – Jeff told their CEO that they're actually losing money and that they needed to start charging customers 12:42 – Foursquare didn't lose even a single developer after putting up a paywall 12:49 – The model was licensed-based depending on the usage 14:15 – Three of the largest headphones in the world are Foursquare's customers 14:40 – Jeff understands how the market changes 14:55 – 92% of the consumer spending is far from the 8% they spend on e-commerce like amazon 15:10 – Foursquare has predicted how Chipotle's sales will go down by 30% 15:20 – "We're not investors, we're technologists" 16:16 – Jeff believes that Foursquare's mission is to be a location intelligence company 16:34 – Jeff is proud of Foursquare's technology; they can build tools that help companies 17:07 – Foursquare started out as a consumer company but now, more and more apps are using them for their applications 17:51 – Jeff believes that in the future, they can also make real estate better 18:45 – 90% of Foursquare's revenue is from B2B 19:34 – Foursquare's paying customers are some of the biggest brands in the world who want a company that is as good as Google Maps 19:58 – People don't want to be dependent on Google in the future 20:18 – "A lot of smart companies want to build differentiated mobile experiences in the future and we're helping them do that, that is our business" 21:48 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Even if your company can go IPO, it doesn't mean that it should. Offering your services or products for free may work for the short-term, but if your service adds value to your customers, they WILL pay. Focus on what your company is good at. 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