SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Nathan Latka
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Sep 10, 2017 • 27min

778: SaaS: With $80M Raised, He Left Salesforce to Bring Finance Departments to The Cloud

Dave Kellogg. Dave has more than 20 years of experience in high growth companies. Dave has been CEO of MarkLogic, CMO of Business Objects and member of Aster Data board of directors. Dave steered MarkLogic to $80 million in revenues. Business Objects witnessed equally impressive growth as it reached a revenue of billion dollars under his able guidance. Tune in and listen to Dave as he discusses various financial metrics of Hostanalytics. Targeting small businesses and enterprise level businesses, this company has grown 4x over the past 3 years. Read on and find out what makes this SAAS business tick. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Chaos Monkeys What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff Favorite online tool? — WordPress How many hours of sleep do you get?— 8 hours If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Go read Power: Why Some People Have It and Some Don't by Geoffrey Pfeffer Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:14 – Nathan introduces Dave to the show 03:19 – Host Analytics is a SAAS company that is disrupting the space for enterprise performance management 03:58 – Not dabbling in premise products at all 04:28 – Corporate finance does not scale up with growing company size; number of users for such a software is dependent on the centralization philosophy 04:42 – A big company might be heavily centralized with only a sprinkling of users, whereas a little company might have hundreds of users 04:52 – Pricing model is a combination of a fixed based fee and a user fee 05:00 – Fixed fee varies from 25k to 50k—both fixed fee and user fee are recurring 05:25 – User fee depends on the user type and to which extent the software features are being used 05:45 – Fixed fee per user per month may vary from a couple of hundred dollars to a thousand dollars 06:10 – Re-entered the startup world once he quit Salesforce and joined Hostanalytics 06:24 – Passed on the reigns at Mark Logic to Gary Bloom—Mark Logic is still doing very well 07:05 – Best strategy to exit a startup is to exercise 83B options 08:00 – Exercising all options results in FMP (Fair Market Value) equaling strike price 08:07 – You lose the optionality—shares might not increase in value at a later date 09:00 – Met VC's, entrepreneurs and angels while looking for a new opportunity after quitting MarkLogic 09:16 – Dave's buddies coaxed him to join Salesforce as CMO 09:39 – Learnt a lot about SAAS at Salesforce. However, he found out that he was more comfortable running smaller companies 09:58 – Dave met the founders of Host Analytics through a common friend who was on their board 10:31 – HostAnalytics was clocking revenues of $10 million when Dave joined them in 2014; a great board and a proven SAAS model are the other factors which compelled Dave to join the firm 11:20 – Revenues have grown 4x since 2014 11:42 – Founded in 2001, HostAnalytics grew via bootstrapping for seven years. They finally secured VC funding in 2008 12:01 – Raised $85 million to date 12:32 – Used 75 cent "I love EBITA" stickers and funnily enough, won customers due to that 13:47 – Servicing 700 customers, as of today 13:50 – Pareto's 80/20 principle is not applicable to them; they are bimodal with a dual focus on smaller businesses as well as enterprise businesses 14:20 – Both of them are run as different cohorts by different salesforces; revenues are split equally between small business and enterprise 14:50 – Each client is aggregating revenues of $70,000 per annum 15:13 – Payment terms are a tricky issue in SAAS 15:18 – While other SAAS players go for monthly and quarterly payments, HostAnalytics opts for annual payment 15:34 – If you are giving a discount smaller than your churn rate, then everybody wins 16:15 – Customer churn and revenue churn are surprisingly equal 16:25 – Spending on an average $1.5 to $ 2 for a dollar of AR to acquire a customer 17:16 – A team of 300 people out of which 100 are located in India, entire sales force of 60 is located in the US 17:23 – Company co-founded in US and India 18:10 – Average lifetime value of a client varies from 6x to 7x or half a million dollars 19:39 – Cloud penetration of this market is just 5% 19:57 – Finance department is 10 to 15 years behind sales in adoption of cloud 20:17 – 9.5 out of 10 people would say "Not now" 20:56 – Blended Gross Margin is lower since they have a slightly bigger services business than most SAAS companies 21:10 – ERP is a heart transplant. EPM is a knee transplant 21:20 – Services business helps reduce churn and create cash flow 22:57 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: A big company might be heavily centralized with few SAAS users, whereas a small company might have hundreds of SAAS users. Focusing on services reduces churn and creates cash flow; however, gross margins are less compared to other SAAS companies due to this. Focusing on small businesses as well as enterprise businesses is important—at HostAnalytics, revenue is split equally between these two models. 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
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Sep 9, 2017 • 27min

777: Will Masterclass Win Online Course Wars?

David Rogier. He's the CEO of MasterClass where he leads the company's vision of redefining digital learning by leveraging the expertise of world-class experts with the cutting-edge technology platform. David created MasterClass after seeing how the online education space was offering low-quality content and an unfair advantage of students. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Science of Shopping What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — Doodle How many hours of sleep do you get?— Average 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – David would tell himself that entrepreneurship will be the hardest thing he'll ever do Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:05 – Nathan introduces David to the show 03:05 – MasterClass offers classes from the absolute best in the world 03:14 – Online classes are offered both pre-recorded and live, both price at $90 03:31 – Students can study anytime they want and they have access forever 04:04 – Prior to MasterClass, David worked for a VC fund in the Bay area 04:21 – David worked for Michael Dearing of Harrison Metal 04:50 – Michael wrote David a check for $500K to start his idea for his business 05:03 – David tried almost everything to get an idea until he remembered his grandmother's story 05:49 – His grandmother applied for medical school while working in a factory 05:55 – She was rejected by almost 50 medical schools 06:20 – The reason she was rejected was because she was a woman, foreigner and Jewish 06:27 – One school accepted her and she became a doctor 06:53 – She told David that education is the only thing that people can't take away from him 07:04 – David thought of getting into the education space and studied it 07:53 – MasterClass was launched in May of 2015 08:00 – Total capital raised was around $50M 08:35 – The fund goes to expanding the team as well as production so they can shoot more classes 08:42 – Team size is currently 68 and will be 100 at the end of 2017 09:04 – Year One: number of students 10:13 – When they started, David was expecting a 10X increase in sales daily 10:38 – David cried after their first day of sales 11:18 – Reid Benson who is part of David's sales team and was formerly with Netflix, wasn't even scared after the launch 11:58 – Reid told David that their CAC was amazingly low 12:34 – The first 3 classes were led by Dustin Hoffman, James Patterson and Serena Williams 13:06 – The CAC for different subjects was actually close to each other 13:43 – Paid ads spent on Day 1 were less than $100K 14:14 – Paid advertising on different channels works well for MasterClass 14:22 – Instructors are also promoting their classes 15:00 – David can't disclose the deal they have with the instructors 15:13 – Most instructors teach because they really want to teach and not just to earn from it 15:51 – David shares how they handle instructors who don't want to teach, but want to share their knowledge 16:10 – Classes are designed by how instructors want to share their own craft 16:14 – Instructors have complete control over their class 16:28 – David shares what a class looks like for Serena Williams 17:24 – MasterClass partners with the instructors in their classes 18:17 – David shares why he won't share the deal with the instructors 18:38 – James Patterson teaches with MasterClass because of his own reasons 21:00 – David shares why instructors pick MasterClass over LinkedIn, which is more popular 21:50 – There are now 20 classes in MasterClass 22:07 – The number of classes should double, year over year 22:52 – Half to 80% of their first students haven't taken any online classes before 23:10 – Not all students are fans of the instructors 23:43 – David won't sell MasterClass for $300M 25:15 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Never miss an opportunity being offered to you, it was offered to you for a reason; so trust yourself and go for it. Most successful people in their field want to share their craft through any way possible. Education is one thing that people can't take away from you. 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
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Sep 8, 2017 • 19min

776: TextingBase Shares Margins, Cap Table, Valuation, More

Eric Beans. He's the CEO of Texting Base and before that, he was the CEO of Appuix. He was also the former co-founder of Premier Mortgage Capital and the author of Changing the World Through Texting Software. He was in the production as the producer and writer of LA Style Magazine and he's "Chef Beans" on Daytime. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Steve Jobs What CEO do you follow? – Brett Kingstone Favorite online tool? — Gusto 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? – "Make better choices on who I surround myself with" Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:00 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show 02:43 – Eric wasn't really a chef and he made food for the person who was running the show 03:01 – Texting Base is a personalized, mass communication platform for texting which is similar to email 03:17 – It looks like it is personally written 03:23 – Texting Base charges monthly depending on the quantity of the messages 03:33 – Texting Base is a SaaS business 03:38 – Minimum charge which is also the average is $50 and will go up depending on the number of messages 03:55 – Customer number is almost 500 04:09 – Average MRR 04:21 – Texting Base was bootstrapped and raised $262K 04:47 – They had investors like Kimberly Partoll and Brett Kingstone who was a former CEO of an IPO company 05:29 – Gross margin is 566% 06:33 – 14% of the cost structure is Texting Base's messaging fee 06:52 – Server costs is around $900 a month 07:14 – Processing fee is 2.5% 07:47 – Gross margin is around 79% 08:05 – The higher the volume, the lower the charge Texting Base gets from the provider 08:09 – They had a contract for volume 08:23 – They negotiated with Twilio directly 08:35 – Volume should be at least 100K a month 09:18 – Eric started Texting Base in 2012 09:21 – Eric needed the product—no one had it so he left banking and started the business 09:37 – It took 3.5 years to launch 09:49 – Team size is 5 10:12 – Target customers for Texting Base are real estate and mortgage providers 10:21 – Texting Base uses email blasts to reach their clients 10:56 – Eric has used email providers until they started building their own list 11:24 – CAC was $28 and now it's around $18 11:47 – Current churn is about 2.87% monthly 12:23 – LTV is still a bit early 12:57 – Texting Base doesn't have contracts with customers 13:08 – Last month, $850 was spent on PPC 13:32 – Eric gave some equity of the company to the investors 13:53 – The people who are building the product also have equity 15:25 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: It takes time and patience to build a business, be sure that you're prepared for it. Create your own solution to the problem and don't be surprised if you end up solving multiple problems along the way. Your network can bring you places; nurture your relationships. 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
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Sep 7, 2017 • 20min

775: FinTech Founder: I'll Never Raise Capital Again!

Andy Swan. He's the founder of LikeFolio. The company uses social data to determine shifts in consumer behavior on Main Street before it becomes use for Wall Street. This is his third financial technology company. The second, MyTrade, was acquired by TD Ameritrade in 2007. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Think and Grow Rich What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — Gmail 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? – "A little bit more about patience" Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:07 – Nathan introduces Andy to the show 02:37 – MyTrade was geared directly towards option traders and active stock traders 02:50 – The technology allowed traders to copy someone's option trade which is very complicated 03:09 – It was sold because it was useless without a brokerage backend 03:48 – MyTrade had raised $500-600K and was sold just 3-4 months after the round 04:19 – Andy thought they had a good partnership with Ameritrade and that there was no plan of acquisition 05:06 – Andy stayed with Ameritrade for 3-4 years after the acquisition 05:30 – After 4 years, Andy and his brother spun off and created their own company 06:09 – Andy developed LikeFolio's technology after leaving Ameritrade 06:26 – LikeFolio sells insights on consumer behavior to professional investors and companies 06:35 – LikeFolio has a partnership with Twitter where they take every tweet and analyze it 06:54 – LikeFolio can map the trends in tweets and alert their clients about the shifts in behavior 07:40 – LikeFolio has different subscription plans 07:47 – LikeFolio's on-demand plan is $2K a month 07:56 – For extreme computing power and robust API, the plan costs $100-300K 08:11 – Most of the revenue is from the API plan 08:40 – LikeFolio On-Demand has just been launched 09:20 – Every contract of LikeFolio's is secure and LikeFolio isn't allowed to disclose anything 09:59 – Andy can't disclose the number of customers they have 11:18 – LikeFolio hasn't raised capital and Andy isn't planning on raising a round 11:38 – "I want to own it all" 12:02 – Andy doesn't want other people to have a say in his company and wants to be the decision maker in everything 12:36 – Andy's first company was Daytrade which was sold to a private equity 12:55 – It helped Andy to understand how to run a business in fintech 13:13 – Andy didn't raise money for Daytrade 14:03 – Team size is five; one in Louisville and four in Argentina 14:36 – One of toughest things LikeFolio faces is determining a tweet with the word "never"—it negates anything else in that tweet 15:01 – "I could NEVER live without weightwatcher" is missed by LikeFolio because it's a positive-negative sentiment 15:28 – LikeFolio takes a thousand tweets per month, per company so there will always be missed tweets 17:05 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: With technology today, consumers' behavior can now be tracked on different online platforms—this can help businesses provide the right product or service for you. It's OK to be the only person responsible for your business; however, there's still a possibility that you may need help in the future. Be patient! 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
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Sep 6, 2017 • 25min

774: CreativeLive's Chase Jarvis: If Linkedin Offered You $200m Do You Take It?

Chase Jarvis. He's one of the most influential photographers in the last 20 years. He's also the creator and CEO of CreativeLive. He's won awards for his images on six different continents, including his contributions to the Pulitzer Prize winning story Snow Fall—the acclaimed New York Times interactive story heralded as the "future of journalistic storytelling" and Emmy nominated for his work documenting the music scene in Seattle. In 2009, he created the Best Camera app which was the first photo app that shared images directly to social networks. It was #1 on iTunes, App of the Year on Wired and got many other awards. He's currently focused on his work as the founder and CEO of CreativeLive, the world's largest online education platform for creatives and entrepreneurs with over a thousand teachers, 1500 classes and 10K hours of classes. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Weiner Favorite online tool? — Evernote How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7.5 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Chase would tell himself that mental health is the most important thing Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:48 – Nathan introduces Chase to the show 02:48 – Nathan describes his experience with New York Times 03:11 – We are now in a weird and modern era of journalism and media 03:20 – "If you're really focused on innovating and breaking out of the norm, you can do it" 03:35 – Snow Fall is a story of an avalanche 03:40 – Chase's friend was a victim in an avalanche so the story was extra special to him 04:01 – Feature storytelling is continuing to grow and evolve 04:10 – Physical newspaper is dying and has becoming uninteresting 04:23 – Chase believes that there will be platforms in the future that are embedded with native bells and whistles that will continue to evolve 04:45 – "Journalism is moving in the same direction as tech" 05:02 – As platforms become more templated, we'll become more interactive and have exciting experience with our news 05:24 – "Timing is everything" 05:30 – Chase shares his experience with his Best Camera app 05:38 – Being the first was challenging 05:43 – The developer was in a legal snafu which slowed down the creation of the app and paralyzed Chase's business 05:57 – Companies had already asked Chase if they could buy his app 06:13 – Chase has spent 10 years identifying himself as an artist and entrepreneur 06:30 – Chase was struggling with his overall identity 07:30 – Chase just shut down his app; moved on and learned from it 08:11 – "I got more juice to go help other people break through some of those problems" 08:40 – Specifically, Chase owns all the intellectual property of his app 09:39 – "We need to overcome the psychology of being stuck in paralysis and analysis" 10:05 – Chase was in his late 30s in 2009 10:27 – Chase thinks that humans are generally resilient so he didn't dwell much on what happened 10:34 – 5 years later, Chase wrote about his failure on his blog 10:59 – It's more about having an impact on the world rather than just getting money 11:25 – Chase got into Instagram only a year and a half ago 11:35 – Chase was trying to preserve a legal position 11:53 – CreativeLive sells content that are created by the top experts in the world 12:01 – There's a premium model where customers can see how things are done 12:07 – There are channels that can be watched for free 12:33 – CreativeLive has a total of 10M students, paid and free users 13:12 – CreativeLive has a high conversion rate relative to peers and commerce 13:31 – Average conversion rate is 1-2% 13:39 – CreativeLive is curated to creators by creators 13:51 – It is more community focused and is not a two-sided marketplace 14:00 – Competitors' classes can be created by anyone which is very different from CreativeLive 15:07 – Chase has no desire to limit the creators in CreativeLive 15:29 – CreativeLive designs their contract and relationship with their creators 15:50 – Chase is confident in CreativeLive and the value it brings to people 16:58 – "We make you look great" 17:05 – CreativeLive only makes the extraordinary 17:24 – The challenge that Masterclass is facing 18:44 – CreativeLive was bootstrapped for the first 2 years 18:56 – CreativeLive has raised $58.8 M in total 19:30 – Chase won't sell CreativeLive for $200M, even if it's from LinkedIn 20:06 – CreativeLive's mission is for people to educate themselves and make a living 20:26 – Chase would only sell if the vision of the buyer aligned with them 22:00 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Don't dwell on your past mistakes, use them as motivation to move on and create better. Contracts are made for a reason; study and check thoroughly before agreeing to one. Stay aligned with your mission and vision. 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
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Sep 5, 2017 • 19min

773: Can $1m MRR Company Grow Into $10m Post Money Valuation?

Venkat Nagaswamy. He's the CEO of Mariana IQ. He brings a long and diverse background in high technology to apply artificial intelligence and deep learning to help marketers make account-based marketing at scale a reality. "Big Kat," as he was nicknamed by friends and colleagues, has led teams in creating analytics, technology and business development solutions at McKinsey, Juniper Networks and GE Plastics, among others. He's worked in enterprise and digital consumer hardware, SaaS, corporate and business unit strategy, market entry strategy, and product development. He's a proud graduate of the University of Michigan and the Georgia Institute of Technology. He holds an MBA and a Master's in Aerospace Engineering. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff and Mark Zuckerberg Favorite online tool? — Calendly and Feedly 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? – "Being diligent and hard-working counts for a lot more than being smart and clever" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:54 – Nathan introduces Venkat to the show 02:54 – Venkat was in Juniper trying to implement account-based marketing 03:14 – Venkat is trying to solve the problems in account-based marketing 03:27 – People buy a monthly subscription to Mariana IQ which will allow them to run campaigns targeting the same audience across different platforms 03:37 – Mariana IQ is a SaaS business 03:43 – Average pay is $4K a month per customer 03:55 – Venkat started Mariana IQ three years ago with his three co-founders 04:02 – Venkat also uses their technology 04:16 – Venkat and his co-founders felt that marketers need more tools to be successful in the field 04:36 – First year revenue was zero 04:45 – Late 2015, Mariana IQ made $155K and $550K in 2016 04:59 – Venkat is expecting to get 5x more in annual revenue this year 05:17 – MRR in June was $70-80K 05:45 – Mariana IQ has around 20 customers 06:00 – Zendesk is one of Mariana IQ's clients 06:13 – Zendesk wanted to target larger companies and so they gave Mariana IQ their data 06:30 – Mariana IQ used their API to find the targeted companies for Zendesk 06:54 – Venkat shares their success rate at Mariana IQ 07:27 – "We got better quality, 4x the volume while keeping the cost the same" 07:36 – Mariana IQ has raised capital 07:39 – First seed round was in 2014 which was led by Blumberg Capital 07:58 – David Blumberg owns Blumberg Capital and Bruce Taragin is who is on Mariana IQ's board 08:05 – Blumberg Capital has been around for 34 years 08:19 – The first round was a convertible note round with $6M capital 08:47 – Mariana IQ did another round in 2016 which was a priced round 09:10 – Mariana IQ has raised a total of $4M 09:48 – Venkat doesn't worry about growing into their valuation 12:00 – In Mariana IQ's first year, they were only getting beta customers 12:41 – Venkat shares the unconventional way he attracted more customers; a video of him in the shower, singing 13:05 –The video was posted on Twitter and got a million views 13:38 – "I'm the worst singer on the planet" 13:57 – Gross margin is around 80% 14:10 – Gross customer churn is quite high, at 3% 14:22 – Revenue churn 14:55 – Full weighted CAC is $22K per customer 15:06 – Customer LTV is $200-250K 15:40 – Venkat is looking at increasing their CAC by spending more on sales and marketing to increase their volume 15:54 – They will add two more salespeople 16:23 – Last month, they spent $2k on marketing alone 17:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Marketers are constantly looking for alternative ways to become more effective and successful in their industry. A business shouldn't worry about its valuation—as long as their confident with their product and continue to add value to their customers; it will work out in the end. It's necessary for companies today to invest in their sales and marketing to increase that engagement with their audience. 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
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Sep 4, 2017 • 23min

772: How Grant Cardone, Others Spend $25k To Get 100m Person Social Media Blasts

Jeremy Haynes whose company is Megalodon Marketing. He's building all kinds of personal brands for celebrities and entrepreneurs alike. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – 48 Laws of Power What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Infusionsoft, ClickFunnels and Stripe 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? – "Speed is power, but power is nothing without control" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:55 – Nathan introduces Jeremy to the show 02:28 – "Real results in real life" 02:33 – Jeremy's real life experiences have driven millions of dollars in infoproducts 02:43 – Jeremy only gives actionable advice 03:00 – Armando Montelongo is one of Jeremy's clients 03:02 – Armando had a show that ran from 2006-2009 which was called Flip This House, by A&E 03:10 – Jeremy brands himself as the largest go-to personality in digital agency 03:20 – 16 months after Megalodon's launch, Jeremy met Armando 03:28 – Armando explained to Jeremy how his TV show led to a business with $200M annual revenue in 2017 03:57 – $200M doesn't include any online revenue 04:05 – The entirety of its revenue came from selling event tickets to people over the phone and up-selling them 04:18 – There were 22K customers between 2006-2009 and the majority of customers have an average transaction value of $20K or more 05:18 – At first, Jeremy couldn't believe Armando's story because 2017 is the year of online advertising 05:35 – Armando paid Jeremy $5K per day to come in for 3 days in total 05:48 – Armando's business was built up on traditional media 06:05 – Jeremy did an assessment on Armando's business during his visit 06:15 – The business made 6-figures the first month of the launch after spending a mid 5-figures 06:30 – Armando is making a 7-figure revenue in the succeeding months 06:40 – Jeremy made 3 deals with Armando 06:48 – There was a monthly payment of $70K to pay for their social media partners 07:08 – Brandon Carter, Tai Lopez and Big Mike were some of his social media partners 07:14 – Dan Fleyshman and Branden Hampton from Elevator Studios have partnerships with big, social media brands 07:48 – $25K pays for 50 accounts to post to 100M people within 48 hours 08:38 – 33% of the social media activities is on Instagram as it's a powerful platform 09:00 – An account with 60K views in an hour can have 2% of that traffic go to the product 10:20 – There's a chrome plugin that helps you filter all Facebook posts 11:11 – Grant Cardone is the Number 1 sales trainer in the world 11:30 – Jeremy became a part of Grant's business as an email marketing manager; he trained 50 of his people to use Infusionsoft 11:46 – Jeremy ended up as a digital marketing specialist 11:50 – By Jeremy's sixth month, Grant's business was making a million dollars in digital revenue 12:28 – Jeremy started with $50K a year to $60K a year with a bonus 13:54 – Jeremy created an omnipresent advertising model for marketing automation 14:05 – Jeremy categorizes Grant's buyers 14:50 – Jeremy shows the buyers the ads they would want to see depending on their behavior and interests 15:21 – Jeremy shares an actual example using lead forms 15:43 – Jeremy tracks the leads from their customized URL and ads 16:29 – PlusThis is an Infusionsoft plugin where you can connect Facebook to Infusionsoft and generate an http post 16:47 – When a lead fills out a form, it will be generated to a campaign 16:51 – The first step in an marketing automation sequence will be an http post pushing the lead's data to the target audience where the lead should be 17:03 – Then, the audience will be connected to the ad that is made for them 17:10 – The sequence won't always be perfect 19:00 – Jeremy shares why people like him are needed to do this job 19:17 – People can hire from com 19:35 – Jeremy stayed with Grant for 13 months, then left to start his own agency 21:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Digital marketing is one of best ways to grow your revenue as a business. Know your worth and show people why you're worth it. Leave when you think it is the best time and/or option you have; then, continue to pursue your dreams. 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
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Sep 3, 2017 • 20min

771: $320M King of Mobile App Installs

Moshe Vaknin. He's been dreaming about his company YouAPPi since he bought his first iPhone 3. After a long and successful career working in a variety of positions, Moshe founded 3 successful startups before finally starting YouAPPi. As the CEO of the company, he brings vast experience in the fields of advertising, publishing and affiliate marketing, making him adept at identify opportunities that can be transformed into profitable realities. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – My Journey to Justice by Moshe Vankin What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — Whatsapp 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? – "Never give up" Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:41 – YouAPPi is a platform that enables users, publishers and developers to solve growing challenges related to mobile app development 03:19 – As an example, King, the maker of Candy Crush, is always looking for high-quality users for candy crush 03:30 – High-quality users are the ones who play and purchase virtual items 03:45 – YouAPPi will find these high-quality users 03:53 – The process of finding high-quality users is complicated 04:12 – King will have a better ROI to optimize their investment by partnering with a company like YouAPPi 04:47 – YouAPPi has an agreement with 4500 developers and publishers 05:13 – YouAPPi knows users behavior better than anyone else 05:21 – Moshe explains how YouAPPi learns the shopping behavior of each user 05:44 – By learning what to recommend to certain users, YouAPPI can better drive sales 06:50 – YouAPPi can't track the users and other private data 07:30 – As long as the user is within YouAPPi's publishers' network they can identify your device ID and recommend apps 07:56 – YouAPPi is getting paid per app installation and usage 10:52 – YouAPPi pays 70% of their revenue to their publishers 10:56 – From $20, the publisher gets $14 and YouAPPi gets $6 11:05 – YouAPPi was launched in 2011 11:15 – First year revenue was $250K which is the total cut from $1M 11:44 – 2016 total cut was $80M 12:05 – YouAPPi has raised closed to $20M 12:17 – "We have to invest building the platform" 12:19 – Total number of employees is around 130 with 10 offices globally 13:05 – YouAPPi's platform is for their own consumption 13:24 – "Our business model is our platform" 13:44 – YouAPPi is currently running hot on momentum and Moshe won't probably sell YouAPPi before 2019 14:10 – IPO recommendations 15:04 – HQ is in the Bay Area and Moshe is currently in Israel 15:33 – Top 2 competitors are Aerosource and AppLovin 17:07 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: As long as you're on the right path, you can reach your dream. A good relationship the people in your network can exponentially expand your business. Never sell too early—if you've got a furnace full of momentum, to cash in. 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
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Sep 2, 2017 • 22min

770: Crypto: He Has Third Largest ICO Ever With $53m Raised

Sergey Sholom. As a teenager, he was a championship-level gamer and created the first large gamer group called S-port Tournaments in Russia for Quake. After getting his PhD in mathematical modeling, Sergey founded Datcroft Games LTD in 2004. Over the past 13 years, the company has developed multiple worldwide popular games with millions of users. He continues to oversee a company with over a hundred employees and continues to bring new cutting edge games to the market. Their latest game called Pixel Wars which will be released in the summer of 2017, has already received critical acclaim and will become the game changer in mobile eSport. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Richard Branson's What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — N/A 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? – "Push more" Time Stamped Show Notes: 04:03 – The company was launched in 2004 04:29 – The make free games that sell virtual items—that's where the company gets it's revenue 04:43 – Around 5% of players buy virtual items 05:20 – Sergey had no revenue for the first 2 years of his company 05:58 – Sergey supported himself from other businesses 06:01 – His newest game has been in development for more than 2 years 06:13 – The team has 150 people with offices in 4 countries 07:34 – Datcroft Games had an 8-digit revenue in 2016 09:00 – Cryptocurrency helped Gamecredits to monetize their audience 09:20 – Sergey wants to prove game developers that more revenue can come from crypto 10:05 – Gamecredits is preparing to enter the Indian market 10:46 – Sergey believes that Apple promoting your game is just an extra advantage 11:35 – The number of followers that the Gamecredits store has 12:05 – Gamecredits is using its existing coin which has been on the market for 3 years already 12:34 – Gamecredits has been running the most successful crowd sale in the market 13:19 – Gamecredits will put 26.5 M crypto in marketing 14:17 – Sergey will have a way to exchange their coin in dollars 14:43 – Different cryptocurrencies are being put in Gamecredits 15:11 – Sergey is proud that they're able to run a real crowd sale with almost 10K crypto investors 15:23 – Not all ICOs are able to do that 15:34 – Gamecredits was able to raise capital from 4 tokens including bitcoin, ethereum, waves and gamecredits 16:05 – Gamecredits current tokens are mobilego tokens and their own gamecredits token 16:51 – The market is tremendous and the future community will be much bigger 17:46 – Apple and Google are for profit companies and Gamecredits is a non-profit 20:00 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: It's possible for a gaming platform to penetrate the cryptocurrency market. The cryptocurrency market has been growing significantly, increasing opportunities for different investments. As a non-profit business, your focus needs to be on the change you can create, not the contributions you can earn. 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
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Sep 1, 2017 • 18min

769: Do This To Use Your Crypto Coins to Shop At Walmart

Tran Hung. He's one of the founders of Uquid which is the world's first service offering debit card solutions for cryptocurrency holders. They currently support 79 of the biggest digi-coins including bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin, ripple, etc. They also offer worldwide mobile recharge support, bills payment services, grocery and pharmacy vouchers, ticketing services, and many other benefits. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Secrets of Building Multi-Million Dollar Businesses by Adam Khoo What CEO do you follow? – Richard Branson Favorite online tool? — Google Translate 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? – Tran wished he would have started studying code earlier Time Stamped Show Notes: 03:00 – Uquid is a debit card for 79 cryptocurrencies 03:10 – Customers can get the physical card with a Visa logo that they can use to withdraw money 03:28 – The card can be loaded with cryptocurrencies 03:43 – Before getting the card, you need to have cryptocurrency 03:49 – Signup at Uquid's website to get a card 04:04 – There's a fee of $1 for 1 virtual card but you need the physical card to use in ATMs which is $16 04:20 – After getting the card, you can reload it anytime you want with cryptocurrency 05:10 – Uquid is using the market price of cryptocurrency 05:42 – Uquid takes 0.5% of everything spent using the card 05:53 – If Nathan spent $100 on groceries using the card Uquid will take .50₵ 07:34 – Last year, customers spent $1.6M in total transaction volume 08:09 – Uquid is growing fast in 2017 08:30 – In July, Uquid processed $900K in total transaction volume 08:50 – Uquid has already passed $3M total transaction volume on the first half of 2017 10:45 – The process of exchanging bitcoin to other currencies was complicated 11:19 – Uquid is doing $5K a month in service charges 11:30 – Uquid also offers other services where they charge 10-15% 12:05 – Uquid charges 3% from the vouchers 12:20 – In May, Tran thinks they'll make around $50K in total transaction charges 12:58 – Team size is 5 and they're based in UK 13;15 – Uquid is planning to release their own token 13:29 – Tran is looking to raise $4-5M 13:44 – Tran is thinking of selling 15% of Uquid to be able to raise $4M 14:35 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The market for cryptocurrencies is rapidly expanding. People are now finding more and more ways to mine coins. No matter what service you use, the charges can differ drastically depending on the type of transaction you're engaging in. 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

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