SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Martin Koppelmann. He is the co-founder and CEO of Gnosis, the decentralized platform for prediction markets. He has been an entrepreneur and thought leader in the blockchain space for more than 4 years. He is closely related to prediction markets and has worked on decentralized, market-driven, governance mechanisms. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Martin does not read books, but considers Reddit a good resource What CEO do you follow? – some VCs, but no specific CEO Favorite online tool? — Slack, Trello How many hours of sleep do you get?— Less than 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – He wished he looked earlier into game theory and economics Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:07 – Nathan introduces Martin to the show 01:43 – Bitcoin was the reason Martin got into the crypto and blockchain space 01:58 – This was during the time the Euro was having problems 02:09 – Martin started to evaluate how he looked at money; he learned about bitcoin and the possibility of creating different forms of money 02:35 – Gnosis has evolved 03:04 – They are assuming that Gnosis will be a decentralized platform for prediction markets; for betting, auctions and insurances 04:32 – Martin says companies like eBay, Uber and AirBnB will be replaced by a decentralized platform 04:51 – They may replace companies that go into information aggregation 05:02 – Instead of having different analysts determine the revenue of a company, markets and forecasts will be aggregated to one number 05:15 – Gnosis has zero customers and zero in revenue, but they have a team and have raised capital thru selling GNO tokens; they raised $12.5 million 06:14 – The tokens were sold for 250,000 ether, a blockchain currency, and at the time the tokens were sold, the ether was worth $12.5 million 06:55 – The token has its own value and is currently trading at $240 a piece 07:04 – Gnosis collects ether and pays their employees with it 07:33 – To convert ether into real dollars, Martin uses Kraken, Coinbase and Poloniex 08:40 – The foundation of crypto is its big vision and the vision to create something as big as the internet; however, currently, it is still just speculation 09:31 – The token itself is almost always issued in Ethereum; the consumer creates the rules so the first set of rules they made involved organizing the token sales 10:03 – Martin did the token auction and was completely controlled by the blockchain 10:40 – Compared to Bitcoin, Ethereum was easier to use for developers 11:10 – If crypto becomes the currency of the future, Martin says he hopes that people will become equally rich. He is currently working on a project where each person can issue their own currency and others would agree to accept each other's currencies 11:37 – They are trying to democratize money 12:27 – Nathan says there is a limited supply of ethereum in the blockchain 12:46 – Personally, Martin does not follow the bitcoin model 13:02 – Martin is thinking of a new world where people are part of a new economy; each one gets to issue their own tokens and the tokens have value 13:50 – Inflation can be used to finance a public good 14:11 – For example, let's say you want to create a platform like Uber, Uber is made to serve the public 14:35 – The operating cost is not what made Uber expensive to build, it was the spend on marketing and buying everyone on the platform 14:57 – Martin says there can be a new model where people can create value by joining the same platform 15:13 – The value creation happens when people join the platform, this is where tokens are useful and can be used as incentives 15:58 – The early adopters get more and those who join later will have to pay fees 16:12 – Nathan says this sounds like a network marketing scheme 16:25 – Martin says this is how Uber found success – in the beginning someone paid $2 billion and in the end, it's the users that pay; but, the curve can be much flatter 17:02 – Nathan asks Martin how values go up in crypto 17:42 – Martin says value creation is made when everyone agrees on something 18:15 – The thing about competing token issuances is that people need to find a way to combine their different tokens onto one platform 18:44 – Nathan says he can see the good intentions of the people who are in the crypto space, but he is trying to figure out who will win or lose when the crypto marketplace is more mature and established 19:28 – Martin says assuming there will be a winner and loser, the difference is found in people who have control over a platform 19:49 – For example, in Uber they can change rules and raise fees, but on a decentralized platform, you can structure it in a way that makes restrictions on yourself 20:16 – If you monopolize the platform, you can still get the fee but you have no control in changing it 21:02 – Martin says there is power in making your governance mechanism into something that does not allow you to change anything 23:31 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Crypto and blockchain can be the currency of the future. You create value when people agree to join a platform together. A future where people can have their own currency may be the way to democratize our use of money. Resources Mentioned: 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

Nick Candito. He is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of the company called Progressly, championing the company's mission towards becoming the new standard for how teams find and execute business processes. He previously served as Relate IQ's head of user success and business operations which was acquired by Salesforce, the first automatic and intelligent CRM solution. Nick founded Progressly to address how large industries operate, innovate and share around core business processes. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Weiner, Satya Nadella, Dick Costolo, Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — Hubspot tools for email, Pocket How many hours of sleep do you get?— less than 8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – be patient, ask more questions and optimize by being around the best people Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:07 – Nathan introduces Nick to the show 01:49 – Nick thinks Salesforce will win the CRM space, as well as Microsoft and LinkedIn 02:25 – Nick is impressed by Base CRM and Social Capital 02:57 – Nick stumbled into tech as he was originally a finance major 03:15 – He started by joining a small software team building technology for the pharmaceutical industry and learned about the manual system of the tech industry 04:04 – Nick then joined Crimson Hexagon and he learned how to take a company to the next level using tools like Salesforce 04:38 – With RelateIQ, Nick learned how to create a sales system of engagement 05:18 – Nick thinks the best founding duo he has ever encountered is Adam Evans and Steve Loughlin 06:29 – Progressly is the operational system of records with a focus on the Fortune 1000 CROs or contract research organizations 07:24 – The company has a mobile first strategy (people who are working outside of office) 08:01 – Progressly works with a variety of companies; big companies that include Shell Oil and those in the mid-market segment 08:25 – The highest price is $49 per user, with the IT Group of Chevron they have 60,000 employees within the company 09:31 – The company was founded in 2014 and started to fundraise aggressively in 2015; they were able to raise $10 million in the seed, series A and after 10:22 – They had a very specific profile for their seed round and focused on a large institutional investor, a micro VC, and some high value angels—it played out the way they planned 11:17 – They are looking at getting a positive net churn and at how they can accelerate the growth of their accounts; for example, from site-wide deployment to regional deployment to enterprise deployment 13:28 – They are now in the hundreds in terms of customers; the energy and utilities sector has a high network effect 14:05 – Nathan just interviewed Geoff Moore who said the more specific or weirder the sector, the better 15:24 – The utility metric depends on what the user is running on operationally 16:03 – The active number of seats are in the thousands 16:46 – The first year revenue was pretty low because they did a paid pilot offering 17:10 – They were looking into the pilot to use case expansion 17:55 – They want to have a 100% growth, year over year 18:10 – It is easier to drive a high growth rate rather than have customers who can refer you to others 19:41 – Nick will celebrate when he gets to $5 million in ARR or accounting rate of return 20:40 – Currently, they are doing less than 300 grand per month 21:16 – Having an enterprise cycle in your business is slower upfront, but has the ability to experience significant growth in the long run 21:31 – They have 30 employees with some in product design and engineering 22:31 – The payback period is significantly lower than 12 months 24:38 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Target a specific group for your customer base to increase the chances of referrals. An enterprise account may prove to be slow at first, but it will pay off in the long run. Ask your customers to promote your business to other people. Resources Mentioned: 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

Anindya Datta. He is the CEO and Chairman of a company called Mobilewalla, a mobile consumer, audience platform company. Before Mobilewalla, he founded a company called Chutney Technologies where he was backed by Kleiner Perkins which was eventually acquired by Cisco Systems. He has been on the faculties of Georgia Tech, The University of Arizona and The National University of Singapore. He obtained his undergraduate degree many years ago and his MS and PhD degrees from the University of Maryland College Park. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The New New Thing by Michael Lewis What CEO do you follow? – Jose Mourinho Favorite online tool? — Outlook and Gmail How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5 ½ hours If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Drink less and study harder Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:26 – Nathan introduces Anindya to the show 02:21 – Mobilewalla collects data for how consumers behave on mobile and processes it for mobile marketers—they have two products: mobile audience and raw mobile data 03:38 – When companies buy the audience, Mobilewalla provides the IDs and it is a one-time deal; the raw data is given on a subscription-basis which is paid monthly 04:28 – Right now the SaaS model is earning more in terms of revenue, but Anindya thinks this will change in December 04:57 – They are currently modifying the audience pricing to become a recurring stream 05:10 – They are planning to offer the data segments needed by a company and get a monthly payment for it 06:07 – Mobilewalla gets their data from different sources including the ad request system in mobile, they barter with the ad company in exchange for data 06:54 – They also put a pixel in an ad and obtain data from you as you browse 07:23 – This includes your location 07:57 – The company started with buying the information they can collect from other companies' ads and then moved on to trading 08:32 – 2014 is their first revenue year where they got $1 million from the cut of the media buy 09:10 – 2015 was also all media buys where they got $4 million 10:18 – They stopped media buying in June 2016 and played a key role in the US presidential election—the revenue generated was $4 million: $750,000 in data and $3.25 million was from media 11:33 – The projection for this year is $5.1 million (all coming from data), but they have deals with companies that include media work 12:21 – Mobilewalla was one of the key data arms for a major party 12:33 – They created segments for evangelical Christians 13:31 – Anindya cannot share who they worked for but they can say the client was very happy with their work 14:10 – They raised their capital thru venture funding which are convertible notes worth $4 million; they have not yet raised a series B 15:50 – In May 2016, all the revenue was from data and they got $12,000. In June of this year, they hit $250,000—this is a 20x growth in 13 months 16:32 – In May 2017, they made $172,000 17:05 – On SaaS, they have 9 customers with subscription accounts and they pay from $8,500 to $41,000 a month 17:21 – The biggest chunk of audience revenue comes from Oracle, they get paid based on the segments that were sold 18:10 – In June, they were close to $100,000 from their mobile audience; there are over 250 organizations buying from them including Unilever and Procter and Gamble 19:12 – Ever since they started there are only two companies who have not continued working with them 20:01 – The company has two sellers – one in New York and one in Singapore 20:27 – The total team size is 38 with 3 focused on sales acquiring new clients; the average sales cycle for a SaaS client is 45 days 21:21 – There is zero variable marketing spend for the company 21:51 – The company headquarters is in New York and the US team is located in New York and Atlanta where the US engineering team is based 22:12 – The US team size is 10, the Singapore team size is 12, and the rest is based in Calcutta, India 24:21 – The biggest amount of money they generated during the election was the "get out to vote or GOTV" – they monitored every polling booth in a certain number of states and they were able to tell the ground team who voted and who did not 25:04 – During the election their data was acquired in real time 27:15 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Invest in a business that can bring in profit; this will give you the capital you need for your other businesses. Data is king. You CAN barter with other companies to reduce your spend on marketing. Resources Mentioned: 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

Cameron Herold. He's known as the business growth guru. He's the mastermind behind hundreds of companies' exponential growth. He's built a dynamic consultancy whose current clients include the big 4 wireless carriers. His clients like that Cameron only speaks from experience. He's earned his reputation as the business growth guru by guiding clients to double their profit and revenue in just 3 years or less. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? – Travis Kalanick Favorite online tool? — CommitTo3 How many hours of sleep do you get?— 9 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Everybody's insecure, everybody's nervous and just suck it up and run with it, because everybody's more worried about themselves and never about me" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:16 – Nathan introduces Cameron to the show 02:04 – Cameron was featured on TED Talks' Raising Kids as Entrepreneurs and that's where his career got started 02:13 – Cameron got into College Pro Painters 02:24 – Cameron was the COO at 1-800-GOT-JUNK 02:29 – Cameron grew the company from 14 employees to 3100 employees in 6 years 02:33 – Cameron started coaching CEOs 10 years ago 02:48 – Brian Scudamore who was in Episode 409 and he is Cameron's friend 03:20 – Cameron shares why he chose the consultancy path 03:43 – "I don't need to build another company to feel good" 03:50 – Cameron likes doing what he does 04:02 – Cameron shares what happened in cryptocurrency in 2000 04:04 – There were 15K companies using currencies 04:14 – Electronic currency was tied to US dollars in terms of valuation but it was backed by nothing 04:27 – They took a percentage of every transaction 05:06 – One of the companies that Cameron helped was BlueGrace Logistics 05:18 – Cameron coached the CEO, Bobby Harris, and 5 other executives 05:21 – Form $80M top line revenue, they grew to $250M 05:33 – The company is all about culture and that is Bobby's focus 05:47 – Cameron does two 90-minute video calls with all of his clients 05:56 – It's mostly mentoring 06:08 – Cameron teaches how to put the right systems and processes in place 06:25 – Most entrepreneurs just wake up one day with the realization that they're clueless about what they're doing 06:44 – After experiencing substantial growth, a company has no idea what to do next 07:04 – There are a couple of companies that Cameron has equity in 07:30 – Cameron has a couple of groups on the investment side 07:43 – Cameron's two books, Double Double and Meetings Suck, speak to the core of what Cameron is doing 07:55 – Cameron wrote a book because he's a paid speaker and speaker bureaus want to put out more content 08:04 – Cameron is an advisor and investor for Tucker Max's Book in a Box 08:16 – Book in a Box does an 8-hour interview and strips the content from your head 08:40 – It costs $25K to pull the content out of your head and put it into print 08:44 – Thought leaders and CEOs need to have a book in this day and age 09:10 – Cameron shares how great Book in a Box is at what they do 09:24 – They also pulled some content from Cameron's previous speaking events and used the copy of his first book 09:29 – They provide a format for our thoughts and they ask the right questions 09:49 – Cameron has sold around 50K copies of Meetings Suck 10:03 – Cameron targets the leaders of the meetings, participants and discusses how the meeting should proceed 10:30 – Cameron wrote Double Double 6 years ago 10:52 – Cameron's speaking fee was $7500 before he had published his books, now it is $35K 11:11 – Cameron is one of the best speakers that we've had in a long time now 11:51 – "I think we're at the very, very peak of a market right now" 12:34 – Some of Cameron's clients have been with him for 3-4 years, some just a year and others 3-6 months 12:51 – Cameron's starting fee is $80K annually and goes up depending on the client's needs 13:20 – Cameron shares how he talked with Sprint's Jaime Jones 13:46 – "I don't understand their business and I don't need to" 14:35 – Cameron focuses on the people side of the business 15:16 – Cameron shares where he puts his money to increase his revenue stream 15:42 – Everything is a little overpriced now in real estate 16:04 – Cameron shares where his property is and how he is managing them 19:25 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Some entrepreneurs get overwhelmed by their company's incredibly, fast-paced growth and they need support in learning how to sustain that growth. Have the right systems and processes in place to carry the momentum of your business. Invest your money after you've done the research yourself and know exactly what you're getting into. Resources Mentioned: 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

Jack Peterson. He's the co-founder of Augur which is a decentralized, prediction market platform that runs on the ethereum decentralized network. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Handbook of Applied Cryptography What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Ethereum 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? – "Don't spend too much time on impractical things" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:10 – Nathan introduces Jack to the show 01:28 – Augur is a decentralized prediction market platform 01:34 – The platform exists on a ethereum decentralized network 02:09 – Bitcoin is the first blockchain which was initially intended for payment 02:19 – Ethereum is a blockchain that is flexible, you can upload programs where people can execute their programs 02:38 – Augur is a set of programs that run on the network of ethereum 02:54 – The founder of ethereum was on Episode 758 03:11 – Augur has a set of smart contracts on ethereum that people run 03:57 – Augur is currently finishing their beta test and it is not yet live 04:02 – Their smart contract code is undergoing security audits 04:12 – Jack shares how to use Augur 04:27 – The aim is to make the experience similar to accessing a regular website 04:40 – Augur is a venue to bet on any world event 04:49 – For example, making predictions with politics 05:40 – The market you create is where you can buy and sell shares of the event 06:25 – An example scenario: the Super Bowl 06:40 – A market is where someone can place their bet 07:10 – In a normal sportsbook, people can bet on the winner 07:19 – Who will win the Super Bowl? This is the market on Augur and people can place their bets 07:37 – You can buy and sell shares of any of the outcomes 08:17 – The people in the market set the price of the shares 09:06 – With the Super Bowl, there will be multiple outcomes 09:28 – When you set-up the market, you set-up the order book for each of the outcome 10:05 – You could place a bet by buying shares of the outcome 10:41 – When your bet wins, the value of the shares go up and if you lose, it will be zero 10:59 – "You're betting on how likely the outcome is to happen" 11:27 – Jack shares how someone who doesn't have any experience in crypto can participate in Augur 11:35 – First thing you need to do is get the crypto currency (you can use your credit card) 12:01 – Augur isn't involved with any platform that exchanges dollars to crypto, so you have to get it from third-parties 12:30 – You can buy ether from Coinbase and use the ether to place bets on Augur 13:10 – If you already have ether, you can already participate in a market 13:55 – Augur has an embedded plugin similarly to Paypal which is for Coinbase and ShapeShift 14:25 – If you signed in, you will have the ether to bet 15:05 – You can create a market on the trading page 15:37 – You're betting with whomever wants to participate in the market 15:48 – The person who creates the market will set-up an order book with actions 16:51 – Jack did a Token share 17:07 – "Our token is called rep" 17:58 – Token has raised $5.3M in August and September of 2015 18:10 – It was a $5.3M equivalent in crypto 20:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Ethereum is a blockchain that Augur uses to run its programs. There are multiple platforms available for dollar to crypto currency exchange. Maintain your focus on what's important. Resources Mentioned: 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

Steve Kirsh. He's the CEO of Token, a Silicon Valley startup company developing a modern platform for open banking. He's pioneered several computer core technologies like optical mouse, Internet search, spam filtering, and secure identity and founded 7 high tech companies—two with billion dollar market caps such as Infoseek and Frame Technology. He received his BS and MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 1980. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Like A Virgin What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — SimplyFile How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6.5 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Just hire good, strong and experienced people" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:25 – Nathan introduces Steve to the show 02:04 – Token supplies open banking software to banks 02:24 – There's no real API that works with banks and this is the problem 03:00 – One of Token's customers is Fidor Bank 03:02 – The problem is most banks don't have an open API where you can do things like move money 03:19 – Token can get into Fidor's API to drive its API 04:13 – Token has spent time creating an end-to-end secure architecture that is based on digital cryptography 05:24 – Steve thinks that there's no real need for blockchain for a lot of financial applications 05:38 – "The technology for blockchain is just not appropriate" 05:48 – The Bank of England did an experiment with etherium 06:24 – Token was launched in 2015 06:50 – Steve shares how Token came to life 07:15 – Token raised $18.5M in a series A 07:26 – There's legislation in Europe that requires banks to open their APIs and that's when Token came in 08:07 – Token charges per API calls 08:10 – Token gets the calls for free from the banks 08:50 – The charge depends on the API calls 09:18 – Nathan simplifies how the model works 10:05 – There's no equivalent to PSD 2 in the USA and it's only for banks in Europe 10:20 – This can only happen in the USA if people want to be compatible with the banks in Europe 11:33 – Token's first bank 12:11 – There are currently around 5 banks that are integrated with Token 12:25 – Team size is 25, split between San Francisco and London 14:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Find the perfect timing and opportunity to pitch your business. It is easier and more secure for banks to adapt a technology that has been tested than it is for them to create their own. Hire good, strong and experienced people for your business—it just makes like easier. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

James Smith. He's the co-founder and CEO of Bugsnag, the leading crash monitoring platform for web and mobile applications. The company helps companies like Airbnb, Lyft, Cisco, Pandora and Yelp catch and fix errors on their applications. Originally from London, James moved to the Bay area in 2009, leading the product team as the CTO of Heyzap. In his spare time, he likes hacking open source software, eating junk food and practicing his American accent. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Radical Focus What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — eShares 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? – "If you don't ask, you don't get, apply it to your life" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:11 – Nathan introduces James to the show 02:00 – If a company has a software, Bugsnag detects when the software is broken 02:22 – Bugsnag charges monthly 02:28 – The price varies depending on the company's needs 02:36 – Price starts at $29 a month to tens of thousands a month depending on the scale of the business 03:17 – Customer cohorts 03:57 – Team size is 35 and will be 45 at the end of the year 04:30 – James and his co-founder quit their job in 2012 and started Bugsnag in 2013 04:40 – James was the CTO for Heyzap which was a Y combinator company in the gaming space 04:59 – Heyzap wasn't able to solve the problem James had with Bloomberg 05:59 – James invested in Heyzap and learned a lot from his time with them 06:40 – Heyzap was acquired by the German company Fyber 07:06 – James' experience entering the startup world 08:30 – With Heyzap, James had to decide whether or not he'd buy his shares before the acquisition 09:43 – James' price was low because he was an early employee of Heyzap 10:41 – James was 29 when he left Heyzap 10:50 – Bugsnag was initially bootstrapped, then raised in 2013 11:08 – Bugsnag went with Matrix Partners 11:32 – Bugsnag raised a total of $9.5M 11:49 – Customer number is around 4000 companies 12:04 – Bugsnag has a free and premium model 12:14 – There are 60K software engineers who are using Bugsnag 12:21 – One third are organizations and the rest are using it for free 13:00 – First year revenue was $4.5K in ARR 13:27 – Bugsnag has broken $2M ARR already 13:47 – "The expansion revenue is really, really strong" 13:50 – Bugsnag is constantly in a net negative churn 14:06 – Logo churn is around 1% 14:40 – Bugsnag started with low deal sizes and grew them slowly 15:05 – People try Bugsnag for free and see its value 15:45 – Healthy net negative churn in the industry is around mid-single digit to low double digit negative churn 16:41 – The best driver of growth for Bugsnag is word of mouth 17:01 – Bugsnag also does conferences and had 18 conferences last year 17:10 – Sponsorship price per conference can go up to $10K 17:28 – Large companies go to conferences as well 17:35 – Payback period is the 12-month which is the rule of thumb 18:17 – Bugsnag is in a typical SaaS gross margin 20:25 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: If you don't ask, you won't receive; therefore, just get out there and ask for what you want. Small deal sizes can grow and expand to large ones once people see your value. Consider owning a part of a company—especially if it's a company that you truly believe in. Resources Mentioned: 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

Jim Larrison. He's the co-founder and president of Dynamic Signal, the leading, customer-employee, advocacy engagement platform. Jim has been involved in a handful of startups that were successful from within big companies to venture-funded businesses. With a couple of sold businesses and an IPO, he is set to come forward with Dynamic Signal which has already raised over $68M in funding. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Business Adventures and Into Thin Air What CEO do you follow? – Tony Hsieh Favorite online tool? — Owler 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? – "It's important to fail and not to be scared of failing" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:12 – Nathan introduces Jim to the show 01:53 – Dynamic Signal was founded 7 years ago with the mission to revolutionize how to communicate with your employee 02:03 – Big companies struggle to communicate with their employees 02:23 – Dynamic Signal focuses on simplifying this communication 02:34 – Some large companies don't use the internet to communicate—they send snail mail, newsletters or magazines 03:09 – Dynamic Signal works with Slack which is a collaboration tool 03:20 – Dynamic Signal is a top-down communication tool 03:43 – Dynamic Signal is a SaaS business with monthly subscription plans 03:59 – Dynamic Signal goes after global businesses, enterprises and corporate businesses 04:40 – Dynamic Signal charges by number of employees 05:36 – Big companies grow faster than the small companies 05:56 – Dynamic Signal segment customers depending on the number of employees and where the employees are based 06:20 – Nestle is a global business with hundreds of companies under their brand 06:43 – Dynamic Signal has no cap in the number of employees 06:57 – Global 50 companies have 23K to millions of employees 07:11 – Global 1000 companies have 5K to 25K employees and 5K employees below are for corporate businesses 07:26 – Dynamic Signal was launched in 2010 07:30 – Jim and his co-founder sold their previous company Adify to Cox 07:43 – It was for $350M 07:52 – It was a quick exit and they've raised $20-30M 08:06 – The original idea for Dynamic Signal was to go after advocates and influencers 08:25 – Jim saw that the biggest advocates for businesses like Oakley and Nike are their employees 09:30 – Jim and his co-founder built Dynamic Signal because they like working together, even after their successful exit 10:06 – When they started the company, they told themselves that they wanted to build the technology the right way 10:32 – Team size is around 200, some are in the field and some are in San Francisco 10:45 – Around 80 people are engineers/technical and 40 are on sales 11:17 – First year revenue 12:10 – 2016 ARR 12:40 – Jim's vision for the company is to go public 13:00 – Total customers is close to a couple of thousand 13:25 – Dynamic Signal has 20% of the global 200 companies 13:55 – Dynamic Signal's costs are driven to the technology 14:03 – Gross margin is around 85% 14:23 – Jim and his co-founder had a good relationship with Cox 14:36 – Cox also funded Dynamic Signal 15:52 – Jim hasn't seen any logo churn since they launched 16:03 – Dynamic Signal has a long sales cycle: from 240 days to years 17:15 – Jim has tried the seat bucket license but it hasn't worked as well as their previous pricing 18:00 – "The way we drive growth is 100% based on getting more usage and that's it" 18:35 – After the raise, Dynamic Signal is focused on expanding their business 18:50 – Paid spent is less than $500K 19:03 – Payback period 21:07 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Larger companies struggle to communicate and connect with their employees and oftentimes, need a solution. The biggest supporters and advocates of a brand are the employees. Get used to failing and don't fear it—it's part of your path to greater success and understanding. Resources Mentioned: 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

Brendan Candon. He's the co-founder and CEO of SidelineSwap, an online marketplace for athletes to buy and sell their sports gear. The company has over 100K users, participated in 500 startups and has raised $1.5M in venture funding. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Leaders Eat Last What CEO do you follow? – Jack Ma Favorite online tool? — Slack and Appear 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? – Brendan wished he could have been more active in entrepreneurship while in school Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:20 – Nathan introduces Brendan to the show 01:43 – Brendan was in Episode 359 of The Top 02:33 – Brendan believes that SidelineSwap will make $5-6M in sales by the end of 2017 02:43 – SidelineSwap just launched their iOs app 03:28 – SidelineSwap is where athletes list their items for free 03:35 – You can list any new or used sports equipment 03:43 – SidelineSwap takes a 12% cut 03:49 – Their top KPI is gross merchandise volume 03:53 – They look at the number of sales they drive to the platform 04:51 – SidelineSwap currently has 15K sellers and around 23K buyers 05:22 – There are 2 sides of a marketplace: 05:30 – SidelineSwap gets supplies from the sellers which drive traffic 05:35 – There should be a balance between supply and demand 05:45 – SidelineSwap started by their search to see how many people had sports gear lying around 05:58 – They went to former college athletes, professionals and others in the industry 06:35 – They got some highly desirable gear from former known athletes 06:39 – SidelineSwap started with social media to drive traffic to the website 06:45 – They now have around 70K Instagram and Facebook followers 07:34 – SidelineSwap has marketing ads highlighting some gear that can be considered collector's items 08:25 – Total transaction volume since the launch of SidelineSwap is around $3.5M 08:35 – 70% happened in just the first 6 months 08:57 – Brendan thinks that getting the right supplies affects their growth significantly 09:08 – SidelineSwap also educates the buyers on the items that they're getting 09:30 – SidelineSwap tries to avoid jockstraps 09:43 – There are also different accessories that target the younger buyers 10:28 – eBay started in a similar way as SidelineSwap 11:00 – "We want to be the resource for every sports family" 11:21 – SidelineSwap wants to build the best possible shopping experience 11:45 – Average order value is $80 11:56 – SidelineSwap focuses on the number of gear listed 12:23 – In May, there were 3K buyers and 1500 sellers 12:48 – SidelineSwap has recently $1.5M in summer 12:56 – Total will be around $3.5 including a current negotiation 13:23 – Brendan shares how he pitched SidelineSwap as a marketplace 13:45 – Brendan believes there will be a sporting goods marketplace 14:19 – SidelineSwap is currently growing 30%, month over month 14:43 – Current team size is 10, some are in Boston and some are in New York 17:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: There will be a marketplace for sports equipment in the near future. For every business, aim to achieve a balance with your supply and demand. Research where you can find the BEST resources for your supply—this will attract your target market. Resources Mentioned: 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

Eric Tang. He's a computer programmer and co-founder of Live Peer, a decentralized video live streaming platform incentivized with the blockchain. He was introduced to the blockchain in 2014, and it's pretty much everything that Eric thinks about now. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Jerry Colonna Favorite online tool? — MetaMask How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6.5 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Eric would tell himself to be more focused and worry less Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:06 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show 02:07 – Wowza does video transcoding in a centralized way 02:30 – One of the big CDN players is Akamai 02:59 – There are two different cases for why people would use Live Peer over the other players in the industry 03:05 – Live Peer is in a decentralized world 03:11 – App developers nowadays are building decentralized applications 03:18 – The applications do not have a server 04:13 – They can duplicate their projects over the blockchain 04:17 – Live peer is the only solution for decentralized apps 05:20 – The government wouldn't be able to figure out the IP of Live Peer 06:06 – The idea of blockchain is the participants are the stakeholders 06:16 – When you use Facebook live, you're just a user and not actually benefiting from it 06:27 – In a decentralized world, if you're a participant of Live Peer, you earn tokens which grow and become more valuable 07:07 – From an ecosystem standpoint, the companies building businesses around bitcoin and ethereum are early coin holders 07:28 – Joseph Lubin, Ethereum's co-founder, is now hiring 400 people for ConsenSys to build applications around the ethereum ecosystem 07:55 – Ethereum provides a smart contract platform which bitcoin doesn't provide 08:47 – How Ethereum and bitcoin are competitors and how they are not competing explained 09:17 – Anyone can build their own bitcoin blockchain but they won't be always successful 10:18 – Eric thinks co-blockchains will also exist 10:50 – Eric thinks bitcoin is a great way to hold value as it has a great network now 11:11 – Ethereum has its own value and for a completely different purpose 11:29 – We use the ethereum platform to hold our tokens 11:50 – In the open blockchain world, anyone can be an investor 12:10 – There's just more risk in investing earlier 12:44 – Can someone cheat the system by having fake miners grow the value earlier? 13:00 – Some are pumping the tokens and selling them 13:13 – When a company comes, Eric would have them hold their tokens at first 13:48 – If you have a lot miners, you're already contributing a lot to the network 14:00 – The network will leverage the access capacity 14:12 – if you spun out a bunch of miners, Live Peers will have a large capacity in terms of amount of transcoding and live streaming work we can do 14:23 – This creates a cheaper price for the amount of live streaming 14:43 – Nathan makes a comparison using Live Peer 1 and Live Peer 2 as competitors 14:49 – When investors spend money on the 2 companies and contribute more resources, the prices of the service will go down for the consumers 15:07 – The longer they spend money, the more users they can drive 15:55 – If Nathan launches an email marketing tool, how can he create traction if people don't understand crypto 16:18 – There's actually a need for people to simplify the complexity of crypto 16:59 – Eric is thinking of providing incentives for individual stakeholders to get new users on board 17:23 – The big investors can put aside a big percentage of tokens and just incentivize it 17:37 – It's like an employment equity pool 17:54 – The early participants will benefit more from the ecosystem 18:03 – The first bitcoin transaction was 10K bitcoins for a pizza 18:16 – The bitcoin price to buy a pizza is a little over $2500 (a coin) 20:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: More developers are building decentralized applications because of the security piece. The participants in the blockchain are the stakeholders as well. The one who will win is those who can spend more money and contribute resources for a longer span of time—this will attract more users and create cheaper prices for the consumers. Resources Mentioned: 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