SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

René Lacerte. He's the founder and CEO of Bill.com, the leading business payments company. He's a fintech industry vettor and has been working to simplify business payments since 1999, when he founded PayCycle, which was later acquired by Intuit in 2009. Bill.com is now working to help bridge the digital divide between banks and businesses by partnering with 3 of the top US banks and 45% of the top hundred accounting firms. He believes that banks play a critical role in the advancement of fintech. While technology advancement since Silicon startups are divided by or driving much of the industry change, René believes that banks are and will remain the center of the financial universe for quite some time. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Advantage What CEO do you follow? – Pete Kight Favorite online tool? — Dropbox How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Don't stress over the hard decisions" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:22 – Nathan introduces René to the show 02:07 – Andy from Wealthfront disagrees that banks will remain to be the center of the universe 02:27 – Bill.com makes close to $40B a year 02:32 – The average transaction is $1700 to $2000 03:16 – "We make doing business really easy" 03:17 – Bill.com automates the back office of businesses 03:24 – They take all the paperwork, workflow, payments and integration with the accounting software 03:40 – Bill.com charges per seat, per subscription and transaction fees 04:15 – The subscription model is their main revenue stream 04:36 – Bill.com charges .49 cents for every electronic payment and $1.49 for paper 05:30 – The fintech space is a natural viral coefficient space 06:00 – Bill.com had $110M from venture capital 06:12 – René was 32 when he started PayCycle, in 1999 06:20 – René worked in Intuit prior to PayCycle and stayed there for 5 years 06:34 – René had some experience innovating products from Intuit 06:54 – René grew up in a family of entrepreneurs 07:04 – One of René's grandfather's businesses is an automatic data processing company 08:26 – René's father went back to college to understand more about business 09:16 – The idea of Bill.com is that there's a better way to take advantage of technology to make payroll easier 09:58 – Bill.com helps define and automate the back office 10:06 – PayScale does online payroll and started with household payroll, which Intuit doesn't want to do 10:47 – PayScale raised $150K 11:23 – PayScale was acquired by Intuit for $170M 12:21 – Average number of paying customers of Bill.com 13:16 – "If we get customers active and get them using it, they don't churn" 13:26 – They're active when they already have paid for Bill.com 14:04 – Average customer pay per month is $100 14:15 – You can try it for the first month, for free 15:00 – Bill.com automates some of their tools to make the customer feel that they need the product 15:18 – Bill.com does A/B testing to check how they can get their customers engaged 15:52 – Bill.com is adding thousands of new businesses a month 16:56 – René tracks how many months the payback will be when it comes to CAC 17:23 – Payback target is 10-13 months 18:07 – LTV is around 5 years 18:48 – René has raised $50M 19:39 – René's strategy is to maintain a strong relationship with VC 19:53 – Team size is 225 20:10 – Bill.com was launched in 2008 21:07 – Bill.com isn't selling anything and not partnered with anybody, today 22:45 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: It is important to engage your customers. Banks are and will remain to be the center of the financial universe. Hard decisions and their consequences will pass, so don't let them bother you too much. 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 Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE 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 Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Laurent Le Moal. He brings extensive knowledge of digital payments in emerging markets to PayU where he serves as the CEO. He culminated an 11-year career at PayPal as general manager for continental Europe, Russia, Middle East and Africa, leaving a billion dollar development vision across diverse geographies. Prior to PayPal, he founded an Italian startup called Talent Manager. He built a 40-person team there and now the startup has expanded to France and Spain. He also has experience in McKinsey and Antal International. He leads PayU's strategic direction and development and is currently building on the company's position and high-growth markets all around the world. Given the company's focus on being an expert in a local market in which it operates, Le Moal leads the creation and implementation of payment methods which best suits PayU's customers all around the world. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Chris Skinner Favorite online tool? — The Top Inbox 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? – "Just go and experience more" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:19 – Nathan introduces Laurent to the show 02:22 – PayU is a payment gateway which is basically serving merchants 02:43 – PayU has their own original platform 02:53 – "I believe that payments are extremely local and regional" 02:58 – Since Laurent joined PayU, they moved from pure payments to actual financial services offering credit solutions 03:22 – Payment is still the bigger market for PayU 03:34 – Laurent thinks that financial services is strategic move for payment companies 03:56 – Nathan had Monish Anand in Episode 617 who talks about data science 04:25 – "The ability to offer credit is the ability to manage risks" 04:38 – All banks are using the same credit score model 04:48 – If you go to India and want to address 90% of the population, then have the means to repay their debt 05:16 – If you have a technology that does credit scoring, then the rest of credit is just mechanics 05:40 – Talent Manager is Laurent's first company 05:54 – Laurent started small in Milan 06:39 – Laurent was 25 when he started Talent Manager in 1997 06:56 – It was easy to get consumers 07:20 – Laurent raised around €5M for their first round 08:01 – It was growing fast 08:22 – Laurent goes to India and sees companies with a high burn rate, which is a couple of hundred million rupees a year 09:26 – Talent Manager was able to have a couple of million in revenue 09:36 – Talent Manager's software was sold 10:29 – Paypal started in 2004 with 3 people in Europe 10:35 – They were looking for someone to do a market study about the potential for PayPal outside of eBay 11:00 – PayPal expanded outside of eBay 11:22 – When you go to a high-growth market like India, most of the companies are still trying to increase the engagement of consumers 11:47 – Laurent had different stock options with PayPal 13:01 – PayU is part of Naspers, which is a diversified group and one of the biggest technology investors for the high-growth market 13:28 – PayU has their payment business and a fintech arm which is investing in interesting startups 13:56 – For PayU, the opportunity is not to just be an operator, but an investor 14:04 – Laurent believes that in fintech, it is difficult to scale your business 15:08 – Laurent invested Monese who is building the new bank for "unbanked" people 16:11 – Laurent shares how he got into PayU 16:30 – Laurent join Naspers and PayU on the basis that he'd manage the business and transform it into a financial service company 16:53 – In 2016, PayU 's total payment transaction was around $18B 17:12 – Growth rate is around 40% year over year 17:20 – PayU forecasts to maintain their growth rate 17:24 – PayU sees a really big push in India where the growth is around 70% 17:30 – Laurent sees India as the most exciting market in the world 17:50 – Laurent sees their financial services to be continuously building in the coming years 18:10 – Laurent wants 10% of their revenue to come from credit 18:24 – Credit is the consumer credit where you give money to people and make money based from the interest rate 18:38 – "What is important is when you start credit from scratch, it's actually to build your portfolio in a very consistent way" 19:06 – PayU takes 1-3% per transaction 19:35 – Team size is close to 1500 from 4 main regions and they have 16 offices 20:54 – In fintech, there are regulations including money laundering regulations 21:53 – Average ARR in 2016 22:24 – PayU just launched LazyPay in India 22:35 – The concept is to give you the possibility to buy something online then pay your debt later 23:43 – The merchants love it 24:08 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The payment gateway space is expanding and more startups are giving people easier access to credit. Regulations are necessary, especially when it comes to managing those who try to take advantage. Just go out there, gain more knowledge, and experience MORE. 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 Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE 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 Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Jonathan Epstein. He's the current senior VP for international at Sentient Technologies, the maker of Sentient Ascend, the first conversion optimization solution that is powered by evolutionary artificial intelligence. Epstein has been in many companies at the forefront of technology and media including GameSpot, which he's the founding CEO, and Omek which was sold to Intel and GameSpy which was eventually sold to IGN. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Hire With Your Head What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — BuiltWith and SimilarWeb How many hours of sleep do you get? — 5-6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wished I had stepped on entrepreneurship early" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:22 – Nathan introduces Jon to the show 02:18 – Jon's good exit range is from tens of millions to the hundreds of million dollars 02:39 – Jon helped the founding CEO of Gamespot turn it around 03:18 – Jon has worked in an actual gaming company 03:29 – Jon started at IDG as magazine publisher 03:49 – GameSpot was the first professional online review site for games 03:56 – GameSpy had an editorial element and Jon published some of its software 04:35 – GameSpot was launched in 1995 04:45 – Jon launched the magazine Digital News and Multimedia World 04:53 – Jon was working for IDG when he launched the magazines under their brand 05:28 – Jon had great partners when he started GameSpot 05:55 – The initial idea came from the 2 co-founders 06:20 – It was clear that the internet thing was happening 06:30 – The problem, then, was that the release of the magazine came out way too late for newly released game reviews 06:55 – Having the magazine online is a better way to update the gamers 07:13 – GameSpot took in external investors 07:34 – GameSpot was sold for stock in ZDNet 08:09 – Jon had an international role and wanted to gain experience in dealing with other countries 08:16 – ZDNet had joint ventures and Jon had been with them for a while 08:34 – Jon had invested from ZDNet to GameSpy 09:04 – Jon had 8% of GameSpy 09:28 – Jon joined GameSpy in September 2001 09:32 – GameSpy was sold in March 2004 10:01 – Jon made around $61M cash from GameSpy's exit 10:21 – Jon stayed with IGN after the exit and stayed there for a while 10:30 – Jon joined Double Fusion, which is a venture-backed startup 10:55 – Sentient had been around for 9 years and was one of the best funded companies 11:21 – Jon fell in love with Sentient because of their goals 11:29 – Sentient was built with a powerful AI platform 11:34 – It focuses on AI at scale and is able to run AI problems across millions of GPUs 11:58 – Sentient does multiple types of AI 12:00 – One is deep learning or neuron-network which is used for handwriting, voice recognition and image analysis 12:12 – Another product of Sentient is the evolutionary computation which is an AI that mimics natural selection 12:38 – Sentient ran a hedge fund using their products 12:51 – The fund size is growing rapidly 13:14 – Big investors invest to hedge funds in order to achieve stable, good returns 14:16 – Sentient is a SaaS business disrupting the world of AB testing 14:48 – Using the evolutionary AI approach speeds up AB testing 15:41 – Sentient currently has 25 paying customers 15:52 – Average contract price is $3K-30K a month 16:12 – Zero customer churn 16:24 – CAC 16:52 – Sentient is also doing paid advertising 16:56 – Sentient attends conversion conferences where they spend $5K-10K for sponsorship 17:40 – Sentient has raised a total of $143M 17:52 – Sentient has around 110 employees 17:58 – There are still 15-20 open positions 18:24 – Sentient was founded in 2007 18:57 – "We think it's too early to sell" 19:15 – Mark Cuban said that the first trillionaires will come from AI 20:35 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Never be scared about exits – it just means new doors are opening for you. Be in a company that you're really interested in—where you can align yourself with their goals. Start as early as you can when it comes to entrepreneurship. 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 Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE 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 Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Joe Koufman. He's responsible for introducing at least 3 married couples in countless contacts to establish business relationships. In early 2014, he parlayed his passion for connecting people and founded a company called AgencySparks, which is essentially a dating service for brands and marketing agencies. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Challenger Sale What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Hilimire Favorite online tool? — Lucky Orange How many hours of sleep do you get?— "I try to get 7" If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I would have invested even more in relationships. They will absolutely pay off down the road" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:36 – Nathan introduces Joe to the show 02:29 – AgencySparks focuses on making connections for brands and agencies 02:34 – AgencySparks is paid by the agencies to help them with their business development and outreach to potential clients 02:50 – In many cases, AgencySparks can help subvert the RFP and the client will hire the agency directly 03:15 – One of AgencySparks' clients tells them about Coca-cola's water sustainability efforts and that they need the story to be everywhere 03:46 – AgencySparks was able to make a connection with one of their agencies that focuses on public relations and they made a deal 04:13 – AgencySparks is shifting their model now 04:20 – AgencySparks is traditionally paid by agencies to get them through a thorough, upfront, vetting process 04:27 – AgencySparks is getting paid through monthly retainers and a percentage of the deal 04:34 – The monthly retainer is $5K per agency, which is 12-month deal 04:50 – AgencySparks was launched in early 2014 04:58 – Joe spent years with KnowledgeStorm which was acquired by TechTarget 05:05 – TechTarget went public and bought KnowledgeStorm for $58M 05:26 – Joe spent 6 years building marketing and business development in Engauge 05:31 – Engauge was then acquired by Publicis 05:56 – When Joe left Engauge, he had job offers from 6 different agencies and that's when he had the idea of AgencySparks 06:21 – Joe's highest offer from one of the agencies was $400K and he said "no" 06:55 – AgencySparks is Joe's first entrepreneurship stint 07:11 – Joe didn't have any equity in KnowledgeStorm 07:45 – Joe made a big transition while he was at KnowledgeStorm 07:47 – Joe started as an account manager in 2000 08:05 – Joe moved to sales and realized that he was just going to have the same exact salary 08:23 – Joe did well in sales and had grown big accounts 08:50 – Joe's last salary was $210K, in 2007 09:20 – By the time Joe left, he was making around $300K in 2013 09:43 – When Joe started AgencySparks, he knew that we wouldn't have much revenue, at first 09:52 – First year revenue was $270K 10:03 – Year 2 was $370K and Year 3: $430K 10:13 – 2017's goal is to double 10:25 – To achieve their goal, they have to change their model a bit 10:45 – The client is asking AgencySparks for different options 10:59 – They want to have multiple agencies in one category 11:27 – AgencySparks currently has 11 clients 11:40 – AgencySparks has other revenue streams 11:48 – The commission percentage is 10% 12:10 – AgencySparks offers other services like info-product 12:40 – March 2017 revenue 13:00 – Team size is 4 and all are in Atlanta 13:18 – Greg Crabtree's labor efficiency ratio is the idea of hovering between 2 and to 3.5, so for every dollar spent on payroll, you should be bringing in $2.50 - $3.50, in terms of revenue 13:47 – As a CEO of a company, if you're not pulling out the salary that you would be making as a hired CEO, then your business isn't profitable 14:00 – Nathan's computation within The Top's 600 interviews done with SaaS companies 15:04 – AgencySparks' net margin 15:27 – Joe is the guy who would re-invest his money into the business 15:33 – Joe isn't a family business guy 15:44 – Joe is looking into 5 years, then selling his business 15:52 – AgencySparks already has interesting offers 16:14 – AgencySparks has a method that is a repeatable and sustainable as a business development process—which is part of what they're teaching 16:57 – "The challenge is that this is a very relationship-focused business" 18:28 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: As a CEO of a company, if you're not pulling out the salary that you would be making as a hired CEO, then your business is NOT profitable. Continue to grow your business as much as you can, but be mindful of the interesting offers that come along the way. Invest in relationships. 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 Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE 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 Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Ryan Stewart. He's a digital marketing expert with over 8 years of client facing experience. He currently owns and operates Webris, a Miami-based digital marketing agency specializing in SEO and content marketing. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Attached What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — SEMrush 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? – "Just self-awareness things about who am I as a person, where I want to go and how I want to live my life" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:17 – Nathan introduces Ryan to the show 01:39 – Webris is an SEO agency which does a lot of digital marketing and link building 01:48 – They specialize in generating organic growth for any sort of clients 02:00 – Webris has a retainer model of 5K-6K a month depending on the work 02:15 – They require a minimum of 6 months 02:22 – Webris currently has 22 clients 02:30 – Webris is doing $100K minimum MRR 02:38 – Webris was launched March, 2016 02:52 – In Webris' first year, they earned 750K 03:00 – Webris also has a training program 03:11 – Ryan is doing concept marketing for himself 03:32 – Ryan had link building training where he taught how to build links at scale 03:44 – Ryan also did blogger outreach PR stuff 04:18 – Ryan didn't do any advertising on Youtube, but he has a good content 04:30 – He has a good email list and a Facebook group with 10K people, a Facebook page and Twitter page 04:42 – Ryan uses concept promotion on the videos with more views 05:30 – Ryan uses automation in Google Drive Suite 06:14 – Ryan launched a video regarding using Google Suite for automation 06:50 – Ryan thinks that YouTube is more powerful than the blog 07:09 – YouTube is much easier to use for engagement purposes 07:22 – Ryan also does mini-checklist processes for their clients 07:26 – If you have an email list and you can get 100 engaged views on your videos, it is more than enough to set you on the right direction 07:37 – Ryan's email list is 10K with 30% open rate 07:49 – Ryan would get 500 views in 12 hours after sending his content out to his email list 08:02 – Ryan uses SEO for his YouTube video titles 08:22 – They'll go after the keywords on their blog 08:31 – "People aren't really using the same keywords on YouTube" 08:37 – For YouTube, you need to grab attention from the titles 09:07 – Team size is 7, in Miami and some are remote 09:30 – Webris is doing a lot of content creation and they pay per article 09:57 – Webris can also negotiate with other people for content 10:06 – They pay $100-200 depending on the client niche 10:20 – Ryan posts job ads on Upwork and on the Facebook group Cult of Copy which is run by a copywriter, Collin Theriot 11:01 – Webris has an in-depth content generation process 11:12 – Webris mitigates the process with the research upfront and by building a really good outline for the writer 11:35 – Webris will also just google for bloggers in a specific niche and pay them around $500 to write 11:54 – Content is dependent on niche 12:28 – You just got to go out and pay writers the right amount 12:50 – Prior to Webris, Ryan was doing his MBA and realized he hated everything about that life 13:59 – What Ryan made last year is less than what he did when he was 20 14:21 – Ryan's #1 goal is that his people are happy 14:33 – Ryan spends $4K a month on their office space 16:00 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: If you hate doing something – just quit. Paying your writers the right amount will lead to great content. In every decision you make for your business – consider your 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 Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE 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 Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Trevor Wolfe. He's the CEO and co-founder of Delvv.io. He started his career in New York, where he held product innovation and marketing positions for Kantar and TNS. He also led the marketing for New York brands, Gerson Lehrman Group, along with Moveline—which is a tech startup in NYC Company and Morgan Stanley. Throughout his career, he's launched over a dozen analytics and research products and is an active advisor to investors in market research, adtech, and media tech startups in New York, Vegas, and Africa. He holds a BBA in international business from Hofstra University and is an aspiring sailor. His cat's name is Junior. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Tracy Kidder's books and The Power Broker What CEO do you follow? – Scott Belsky Favorite online tool? — The Top Inbox and Slack How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5 and half to 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Trevor would tell himself to go find his fiancée so that he could spend 5 more years with her Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:12 – Nathan introduces Trevor to the show 02:06 – Delvv is a platform that allows advertising and marketing professionals to get a peer review on creative campaigns before using them as paid ads 02:22 – Delvv has 2 models: the marketplace, where they go to agencies and brands, and the subscription model, where you can use Delvv's own organization 03:05 – Delvv was launched in March, 2016 03:29 – The subscription model has just been launched and is already being used by Ogilvy 03:31 – The subscription model is per license fee 03:48 – Delvv packaged a panel of 30 professionals to start an organization 03:57 – The panel processes the feedback and turns it into a report 04:17 – The 30 professionals are paid depending on campaign feedback 04:32 – If Ogilvy pays 5K for a campaign feedback, $1500-2200 will go to the 30 professionals 05:12 – Trevor and his co-founders have spent more time in advertising campaigns 05:39 – Delvv is doing more digital now, but most of their revenue comes from TV and radio campaigns 06:00 – Delvv has worked with 17 different brands and they're working with Delvv in 10 different countries 06:16 – Delvv did $180K since May 2016 in marketplace sales 06:30 – Delvv has paid 700-1200 professionals to do the campaign feedback 06:41 – Some of them are from agencies and would spare 30-60mins for the feedback 07:10 – Delvv is getting $4000-6000 per contract 07:23 – Delvv has 8 full-time workers and a few contractors and interns 07:30 – The team is based in Johannesburg, South Africa 07:45 – There's an advantage to having a team in South Africa 08:11 – The disadvantage in South Africa is the electricity, but not the internet speed 08:21 – Once a week, the power in the whole city goes out for a few hours 09:05 – Trevor and his co-founder funded the business for $10K 09:37 – They have raised $300K from Angel investors 09:49 – Trevor was 32 when he launched Delvv 10:29 – Trevor has kept his expenses down to $2K to save up for the business 10:41 – "I've traded my shoebox of an apartment in New York for a 4-bedroom house, here, with open garden and a pool" 11:18 – Delvv has 80K in contract for the month of March 11:33 – "We really wanted to push the SaaS based platform" 12:08 – Delvv will start their seed round of about $1M on an equity round 13:12 – Delvv has a UK investor, a local fund and VC in South Africa as their investors 15:00 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Campaigns are significant to any company and having feedback can help you save more money. There are pros and cons in having a business in another country – try to find a way to work it out if you really want a change of environment. You can enter the world of entrepreneurship by saving up and making your expenses as low as possible. 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 Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE 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 Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Varun Chandran. He's the founder and CEO of Corporate360, a big data marketing software startup. He bootstrapped the company in 2012, grew the business into multimillion dollars in revenue with international clients and 40 employees across 5 countries. Prior to Corporate360, he worked for some of the leading technology companies like SAP, Oracle, Dell and Netapp in 3 different countries. He's a college dropout and a national footballer. He loves data science and travelling. Under his leadership, Corporate360 became the first international startup from Kerala, bringing IT jobs that foster social empowerment. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – N/A What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Google Apps How many hours of sleep do you get every night?— 4 hours If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Build something that changes lives" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:12 – Nathan introduces Varun to the show 02:00 – Corporate360 is a sales intelligence data company for B2B enterprises 02:08 – Corporate360 is a SaaS business that sells their software through subscription 02:30 – Corporate360 has standard pricing 02:38 – Typical deal size would range from 20K onwards, annually 02:48 – They have some monthly contracts, too 02:57 – "We are evangelizing data as a service model as opposed to buying a marketing list" 03:33 – Corporate360 was launched in 2013 03:40 – Team size is almost 70 in 5 countries 03:47 – Corporate360 is totally bootstrapped and they're reenlisting profits back to the business to grow it 04:00 – Varun was 30 when he started Corporate360 and it was his first take on entrepreneurship 04:14 – Varun spent 8 years in the corporate world 04:26 – Varun had sales development and marketing roles 04:43 – Varun started the company with minimal capital of less than $10K 05:02 – Varun used the capital to learn data science and hired contractors from India and the Philippines 05:22 – The initial investment was for building the application, launching the website, and a basic outreach email campaign 05:55 – Customers use Corporate360 differently 06:01 – There's inside sales, analytics, campaigns, marketing and for sales operations 06:18 – One of Corporate360's customers is from Japan—they wanted to run a competitive attack and get competitive intelligent software 06:30 – The company from Japan started a subscription and they gave reference to teams in China, Singapore, and eventually to the Europe and US market 07:08 – Corporate360 is currently serving 300 customers 07:22 – They currently have 40K seats 07:28 – Seats per user license is sold only for inside sales 07:35 – Analytics and marketing are based on data and not per seat 07:58 – Corporate360 average deal size will be per user 08:04 – Varun shares how an inside sales deal works 08:52 – "We are not part of a data syndicate" 09:00 – Corporate360 source their data from their own algorithms 09:37 – FullContact focuses on getting data from syndicates 10:27 – Varun shares how they differ from other data sources 12:06 – When you subscribe to Corporate360, you can get a 360 degree viewpoint of 7 modules 12:22 – Corporate360 provides detailed information about the leads that they have and why they are the best fit for your company 13:30 – Average ARR 14:00 – Gross customer churn 14:16 – Corporate360 designs their services based on client feedback 14:46 – Churn is less than 10% annually 15:12 – Most of their customers are startups 15:51 – CAC 15:58 – Corporate360 doesn't have field sales and just 7 account managers 16:20 – They tried LinkedIn ads as paid ads 16:34 – They spent $200K on LinkedIn last year 16:47 – The budget for paid acquisition will go down this year 17:15 – LTV can be from $45K to a million 17:36 – Corporate360 headquarters in Singapore 17:40 – They have a large BPO center in India and Philippines 19:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Small capital can go a long way—don't be discouraged if you are beginning with little. THe data space is quite saturated—have something that sets you apart from the data syndicate. Build something that changes lives. 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 Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE 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 Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Oli Gardner. He's the co-founder of Unbounce. He's seen more landing pages than anyone in the planet. He's a prolific international speaker and he's on the mission to rid the world of marketing mediocrity by using data-informed copywriting, design, interaction, and psychology to create a more delightful experience for marketers and customers alike. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – How to Deliver a TED Talk What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — UsabilityHub How many hours of sleep do you get? — Maybe 3 hours If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Learn how to make decisions" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:10 – Nathan introduces Oli to the show 01:49 – Unbounce is a SaaS business and a conversion platform for marketers which started as a landing page platform 02:00 – They just expanded to convertibles that have overlays that captures more leads and signups on the website 02:17 – Unbounce was launched in August 2009 02:33 – Unbounce has 6 co-founders 03:11 – Oli was broke and filed for bankruptcy 03:26 – Unbounce was initially funded by friends and family with $15K CAD 03:38 – Unbounce had a seed round and Angel round and has raised a total of less than 1 million CAD 04:12 – The 6 co-founders are all equal 04:22 – All are working full-time 04:50 – They've figured out a rough valuation 05:25 – 5 of the 6 co-founders are still active 05:41 – Team size is 184 05:49 – Members are based all around Canada and some in South America 06:14 – RPU is $93 CAD a month 07:05 – Unbounce lets anyone in for at least 2 years 07:11 – Their plans have been restructured in a way that is most beneficial 07:38 – Their $10-plan has been removed 07:57 – Unbounce now has professional marketers 08:10 – As Unbounce continues to grow, they're trying to scale with their customers 08:33 – Unbounce currently has 14K active users 08:42 – You can create a demo account but you can't get your own domain with demo 09:13 – Average MRR is just under $1.4M 09:47 – Unbounce had a problem with churn, like what most SaaS businesses have encountered 10:03 – "We know that you need landing pages for everything you do" 10:55 – 5% is the problem churn with Unbounce 11:30 – If Salesforce or Marketo have been integrated, the company is a larger company 11:47 – Overlays have been successful and there's so much traffic and data 12:09 – Overlays are called overlays because they are similar to popups 12:20 – "We're trying to be responsible with the technology because technology is not the problem, we are" 12:52 – Oli respects Bounce Exchange when it comes to the overlays world and they're doing a lot with machine learning 13:06 – The biggest difference in using Unbounce is you will feel that you're not using templated overlays 13:40 – Unbounce's value is different from SumoMe and their targeting is getting smarter 13:55 – Most services like Unbounce charge $250-5K a month and Unbounce starts at $99 14:06 – There are cheaper ones in WordPress, but they're not really good 14:21 – Oli is primarily a public speaker now and spends most of his time on the road 14:25 – Oli was actually scared to start public speaking years ago 14:33 – Nathan recommends watching Oli speak in public 15:15 – The rest of Oli's time is spent with Unbounce's marketing team and data scientists' team 15:48 – Unbounce just got engaged with a new marketing agency 16:03 – LTV 16:14 – Unbounce had one marketing guy and he left, so they switch to a 5 digital local agency 16:33 – CAC 16:43 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Being broke should NOT hinder you from starting a business. A great product with a reasonable price will always attract more customers. Learn how to make decisions and don't hold back. 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 Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE 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 Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Martin Garcia. He's the CEO and founder of FLYX.Systems. He's also a mechatronics engineer and co-founder of Ilumexico, a solar power lighting company for rural communities in Mexico. He's got an MSc in drone design at University of Southampton and is an alumni of Singularity University at NASA Ames California, USA and later, a teaching fellow for space and robotics. FLYX.Systems is a company that develops technology for industrial UAVs that aim to improve the productivity of many industries. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Noun Project How many hours of sleep do you get? — About 8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Martin would tell himself to finish every project he started, then move on to the next one Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:22 – Nathan introduces Martin to the show 02:17 – FLYX.Systems develops technology that encompasses both hardware and software algorithms 02:33 – There are 3 UAVs in history: the military UAVs, the drones that are popular nowadays, and the industrial UAVs 03:22 – Industrial UAVs are going to be the biggest game changer in business 03:31 – Industrial UAVs will be completely autonomous 03:48 – 70% of UAV crashes are caused by human errors 03:55 – Martin wants to develop a company that aims to build industrial UAVs for different applications in different industries 04:25 – Martin wants to build a combination of both the UAV hardware and the UAV software or the brain of the drone 04:33 – VJA is a company that uses UAVs mainly for photography, but the drones can't be modified easily 04:59 – When Martin develops software in a computer that can be used in autopilot, it results to an amazing UAV with a high level of intelligence and algorithms that differentiate themselves from other UAVs 05:24 – FLYX.Systems currently has 2 main projects 06:09 - FLYX.Systems provides services to solar companies 06:26 – FLYX.Systems is still in the preoperative phase 06:34 – They've raised $100K 06:39 – They've used the funds for the UAV's prototype and the landing platform 06:48 – The landing platform is one of their biggest projects up their sleeves 07:17 – The landing platform will be applied to the solar companies 07:32 – Team size 07:46 – Based in Mexico, but thinking of expanding to Columbia 08:03 – FLYX.Systems was launched early 2016 08:21 – Prior to FLYX.Systems, Martin was working as a CTO, developing technologies for solar applications 08:28 – Martin went to Singularity University's summer camp where he met people in the same field 09:06 – Martin got his masters in UK and it was about the foundation and core of FLYX.Systems, which is the automation of the UAV system 09:27 – Martin was 28 when he entered Singularity 09:51 – One of the advantages in having an UAV business in Mexico is that the regulation for flying UAVs is not that harsh or strict compared to USA 10:18 – There's less competition in Mexico, too 10:20 – The people in Mexico are talented and the salary range is lower than in the USA 10:42 – UAVs are not expensive when you know how to build them 11:27 – There's a possibility for DJI to move to industrial in the future 11:40 – Martin wants to work on localized applications as quickly as possible 11:55 – Martin knows his market and wants to build something that is suited for their specific needs 12:13 – Martin also wants to combine technologies that DJI isn't developing 12:30 – AI is one of the tools that Martin wants to harness 13:00 – Martin doesn't want to depend on companies that sell UAVs 13:23 – People usually buy drones, then think of the vale 14:00 – Martin's prototype will be launched next month and will be sent to different states in Mexico 14:14 – You pay for the service of the drone, the drone is not yet for sale 14:30 – The pay will depend on the size of the land but it will be around $15-20 per hectare 16:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The UAV market is currently a very hot market – if you can combine both hardware and software, the better. Starting a business in other countries has its advantages – in this case, less competition, less cost, and fewer regulations. Don't start multiple projects at one time; finish one before starting another. 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 Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE 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 Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Eric Min. He's the CEO and founder of a company called Zwift.com. Eric is a tech entrepreneur, a lifelong cyclist and is now spreading fitness through virtualization and gamification. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm What CEO do you follow? – Max Levchin Favorite online tool? — Slack How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Taking risks earlier" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:47 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show 02:11 – Zwift is creating a virtual space where cyclists can interact with each other in real time 02:31 – Eric is trying to solve one of the most common problems of cyclists 03:26 – Zwift is a pure SaaS company 03:29 – Zwift charges $10 a month 03:36 – "We're an asset-like company" 03:38 – Zwift works with partners who have all the different equipment available in the market 04:08 – The most basic setup to use Zwift is an iPad; a trainer that can be attached to your traditional bike to make it stationary 04:32 – Based on your weight and how you're pedaling, Zwift can put you in the game 05:08 – Zwift was launched in January 2014 05:18 – Eric and his co-founder committed a couple of million dollars to build Zwift 05:36 – Their friends and families had raised around $7M 05:47 – Zwift just closed their series A and they have a total of $45M raised 06:07 – Prior to Zwift, Eric and his co-founder built a trading platform 06:28 – Eric and co-founders wanted to build something out of their comfort zones 06:41 – Eric was 30 when he launched the trading company 07:08 – "Enterprise business is tough" 07:45 – Eric and his co-founder had a $100M contract and spent 5 years extracting the contract 08:18 – Initial capital was $3M 09:17 – Eric and his co-founder are set out to be category leaders, so they made a new category 09:51 – Zwift currently has over 300K accounts created 10:07 – Zwift has 5M rides and 5M hours of pedaling 10:16 – The average ride is 1 hour 10:28 – Zwift also has 88M miles recorded 10:36 – The engagement is fairly high 10:38 – People log in to Zwift to watch other people 10:44 – 202 hours of people logging in just to watch 11:07 – People are also broadcasting their experience with Zwift 11:42 – Zwift doesn't have free users and what they have is a trial period 12:00 – Zwift doesn't have year-long contracts at the moment 12:02 – Eric wants to understand the behavior of the customers 12:10 – Most of the customers are outdoor cyclists 12:33 – Eric believes that over time, Zwift will be a year-round overtime preposition for not just cyclist but fitness enthusiast too 13:11 – Almost all consumer businesses are seasonal, like gaming 13:20 – People spend less time playing games in the summer 13:34 – Zwift makes it easy for people to consume fitness 13:42 – "Our belief is that everyone is chasing fitness and everyone would like to consume fitness in the most efficient way" 13:53 – The solution enables you to be at home and it's cost-effective 14:55 – Zwift has 70% of the people stay with them every year 15:10 – Eric calls them "pause" and not churn 15:27 – As the social network expands, it's gaining more interest 15:40 – Zwift also crowdsources content 15:54 – Zwift has a community of users who want to volunteer their services 16:17 – 97% of Zwift's user acquisition is organic 16:54 – Zwift targets cyclists and most cyclists belong to a tribe or a team 17:29 – Zwift does a little on the digital advertising side 18:00 – Eric has invested in Zwift Academy which is modeled after GTA Academy 18:11 – GTA Academy is a marketing advertising program between Gran Turismo and Nissan 18:50 – Zwift took GT Academy's model and made Zwift Academy 18:55 – Zwift Academy called out ladies around the world to join and 1200 ladies joined the program 19:03 – Zwift had a public PR in different media channels to announce Zwift Academy 19:15 – There were 3 finalists and they had to go through numbers of different tests 19:29 – The 3 finalists were taken to Majorca, Spain where they trained for 10 days with a professional team 19:37 – The professional team tested the finalists and offered a professional contract to one of them 19:45 – One of them is now a professional rider who was a former series marathoner 21:12 – Eric doesn't worry about the valuation 23:07 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Get out of your comfort zone – you'll never know what's in store for you until you get there. A large, initial fund that was raised should NOT affect your valuation if your company is doing well. Take risks...the earlier the better. 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 Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE 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 Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives