SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

BJ Lackland. He has spent over 15 years as an investor in startups. As an investor, he's been in VC and Angel and is now the CEO of Lighter Capital, where he oversees over 200 alternative investments in early stage tech companies. As an executive, he's been on the executive team of 3 companies including CFO of a public tech company called Power Efficiency Corp. He's raised and uploaded over $150M worth of capital. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Cirrus How many hours of sleep do you get? — 4-5 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Just keep seeking" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:20 – Nathan introduces BJ to the show 02:05 – BJ was at VC in the early 2000s for 5 years and focused on energy technology 02:58 – Lighter Capital is a fintech company that revolutionized as a startup finance 03:06 – They are using technology to improve entrepreneurs' access to capital 03:14 – Lighter Capital's model 03:23 – An entrepreneur spends 8-10 hours with them before they write a check 03:30 – The revenue-based financing tends to be the best aspect of equity 03:58 – On average, Lighter Capital provides companies $250K and can go up to $2M 04:28 – Pay multiple is 1.5 to 2 times and paid typically over a 3 to 5-year period 04:53 – If the company grows quickly, they can pay in a shorter time period 05:00 – "We have every incentive of trying to help them grow" 05:07 – Lighter Capital is really betting on the entrepreneurs 05:20 – Lighter Capital has raised a total of $120M 05:23 – The initial fund was $20M 05:45 – Lighter Capital is raising from traditional LPs 06:44 – Lighter Capital makes money like a bank does 07:35 – Most lenders are worried about payment defaults 07:44 – Lighter Capital focuses on helping companies grow long-term 08:40 – Lighter Capital has a minimum threshold of $15K a month 08:55 – Lighter Capital looks into 2 different audiences 08:58 – One is their customers 09:01 – The other one is their capital partner 09:14 – Lighter Capital is funding 10-12 companies a month 09:40 – Lighter Capital has a group of 9 developers and data scientists 09:49 – Lighter Capital has 90% accuracy for predicting revenue 10:45 – Lighter Capital still goes through several different factors for approving a company 11:56 – In Episode 421, Nathan had Ceterus who worked with Lighter Capital 12:17 – The payment can or cannot accelerate depending on the company 12:44 – Companies can pay lighter capital earlier with a lesser amount 13:56 – Lighter Capital funded companies that are just by themselves 15:00 – Lighter Capital is also funding similar companies 15:36 – In Episode 542, Nathan had HipLead and on Episode 560, Badger Maps, and they both worked with Lighter Capital 17:34 – Lighter Capital worked with 101 companies last year 17:54 – Lighter Capital closed a lot of deals last Christmas 19:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Thousands of new businesses are coming out every month; having easy access to capital is a huge advantage for them. Predicting one company's future revenue is beneficial, both for the investor and the company. Keep seeking, stay curious, and always find new things to learn about. 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

Khaled Naim. He's the CEO and co-founder of the company called Onfleet, a software company that makes it easy for businesses to manage local delivery operations. He holds an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business and studied computer engineering at The University of Michigan. He grew up between London and Dubai. He's currently residing in San Francisco. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Venture Deals What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Gusto How many hours of sleep do you get? — 7-8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Khaled would tell himself to do something that he's really passionate about Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:14 – Nathan introduces Khaled to the show 01:47 – Onfleet is a B2B software product that helps delivery companies manage and analyze their local delivery operations 02:18 – Onfleet provides apps for drivers, dispatching dashboards for the dispatchers, analytics and write-up optimizations and algorithms 02:29 – Onfleet charges monthly depending on the delivery volume 02:35 – The larger the business, the more deliveries they do 02:42 – Onfleet is a SaaS business 03:30 – Blue Apron is different because they don't deliver locally, but ship using FedEx 03:42 – Onfleet's focus is on companies who deliver their goods locally 04:16 – Onfleet was launched in April 2015 04:46 – Team size is 15 and all are in San Francisco 04:40 – Onfleet has raised $4.5M in total funding, so far 04:55 – If you can bootstrap, it is a good option 05:13 – There are factors that lead to the decision to raise funds 05:18 – If you're not generating enough money to support the team, then raising capital is a good option 05:45 – It was 30 years ago when Khaled launched Onfleet 05:51 – Khaled, together with his co-founder, started Onfleet while he was still at Stanford—this is also where they met their CTO 06:28 – Khaled, with his co-founders, attended Stanford's Accelerator Program in 2012 07:17 – Onfleet raised a convertible note round and an equity round 07:38 – Onfleet offers a 30-day free trial for new customers 07:48 – After 30 days, they need to enter their credit card information 07:55 – Onfleet's pricing is very transparent and can be easily calculated on their website 08:30 – The telephone services are the call and text messages that run through Onfleet 08:38 – The customer receives notifications automatically regarding the driver's status 09:16 – The cost varies primarily on the market 09:53 – Onfleet is currently serving 300 customers 10:10 – Onfleet's pricing page is really nice and easy to navigate 10:34 – Onfleet's average customer is between the standard and premium tier 11:06 – Some of the customers are paying the north of 10K a month 11:13 – Average customer pay per month is $400-500 a month 11:56 – Onfleet doesn't track the number of tasks during the free trial 12:38 – Onfleet helps businesses to scale their business 13:10 – Onfleet's net MRR churn is more negative than negative 5% 14:10 – Everything in Onfleet is pay-per-use or pay-as-you-go 14:40 – There are customers who start using Onfleet, then leave 15:27 – Onfleet doesn't have much customer churn 16:05 – CAC is around $1500 per customer 17:08 – LTV is around 18 months 17:37 – Onfleet's customers are categorized 17:47 – Onfleet is slowly moving to more larger accounts 19:20 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: You can start a business without a capital – just find a way to it. If you're not generating enough money to support the team, then raising capital is a good option. No matter what, follow your passion and you'll be alright. 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

Peter Kortenhoeven. He's a creative person with a great deal of experience in the gaming industry. He started after graduation at the Academy of Arts as an animator at Coded Illusions. He became a lead animator at Triumph Studios shortly afterwards. One of his key successes has been the successful Overlord series. As lead artist, he worked on many different, yet, unreleased games. From a need to gain more business experience, he decided to focus on applied games. He became an art director at Bright Alley and later on at Ranj. During his period within the serious gaming industry, Peter kept working on small game projects during his spare time. One of those projects, Pillow Willow, helped him start his first company, Pillow Willow VR Studios. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Story of Whole Disney What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — Trello 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? – "Take it easy and make sure you focus on the right thing" Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:22 – Nathan introduces Peter to the show 03:43 – Pillow Willow works on two flavors of games 03:47 – First is non-violent dreamscapes which are completely filled with liveliness 04:11 – They also work on active, full-body, VR games which stimulate players to move actively within the games 04:38 – Pillow Willow hasn't released a game yet and is still working on 4 titles, at the same time 04:47 – The first game, Drako, will be released within June and is a dreamscape game 05:13 – Drako's demo will be released for HTC Gear and Oculus 05:39 – The goal is to have a multi-player option in the future 06:05 – Pillow Willow won Best Dutch VR Game at the Bright VR Awards, in 2016 06:17 – It was for a demo game 07:00 – Pillow Willow has a seat funder which is Lumo Labs 08:00 – Pillow Willow has currently raised $500M 08:07 – Pillow Willow was launched in March 2016 08:23 – Team size is 12 08:46 – Pillow Willow will charge for their games and will create high end content 09:20 – Mobile VR is the Samsung S series combined with the Gear VR 09:38 – You have to have the proper phone and headset to play the games 09:52 – Average number of people who have VR gear 10:13 – Pillow Willow's first game will be an hour long and priced at $499 11:10 – Pillow Willow will try to create those dreamscapes games in a virtual universe 11:40 – Nathan thinks of the dreamscapes games like Neopets 14:15 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The VR space is a hot space at the moment and the games are getting more and more interesting. If you have a seat funder, your company can continue developing a product even without recurring revenue. Take it easy and make sure you focus on the RIGHT goal. 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

David Barrett. He started programming at the early age of 6 and has been inspired to become an expense reporter ever since. He attended the University of Michigan where he worked in a virtual reality lab before moving to Texas to write a 3D graphic engine for the industry. Then, he moved to California to join a name that is probably familiar to many of you, Travis Kalanick, in building a peer-to-peer file transport technology called, Red Swoosh, which was acquired by Akamai in 2007. In 2008, David left that company to start Expensify—where he is today—and he's trying to figure out the world's frustrations, one expense report at a time. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Innovator's Dilemma What CEO do you follow? – Travis Kalanick Favorite online tool? — G Suite How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wish I had dropped out of college" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:13 – Nathan introduces David to the show 02:36 – David was working on a debit/credit card idea and the banks weren't happy with it 02:50 – Expensify is the corporate card for the masses 03:08 – David got into the space when there was so much room for disruption and pain points 03:40 – Travis' first company is called Scour, which is an early file sharing network that got sued 04:06 – When David got into Red Swoosh, Travis was the only guy there 04:48 – David thinks that Travis is very articulate in communicating his vision 05:12 – David had equity from Red Swoosh 05:31 – Red Swoosh didn't have a big exit 06:14 – Expensify charges $9 per active user per month 06:20 – Expensify is a mobile app—you take a picture of your receipts and the app will read all the details on the receipt, automatically 06:29 – The information will then be categorized, sent to your account, and you'll get reimbursed the next day 07:10 – The company is only paying the active users 07:29 – Expensify's price points are $5 and $9 07:40 – David started Expensify's idea after Red Swoosh's acquisition 07:56 – David left Akamai in 2008, then he worked on Expensify 08:00 – Expensify's official launch is 2008 08:05 – Expensify's team size is around 110 08:18 – Expensify has raised capital 08:27 – Expensify has raised a total of $25M 08:36 – Expensify has been a break even business for a long time 08:39 – "We grow primarily through revenue" 08:52 – The vast majority of Expensify's growth is through self-finance 09:54 – The business itself is breaking even, but they're always raising and experimenting on big experiments 10:31 – There are about 25K companies who use Expensify 11:03 – There are millions of individuals who use Expensify, too 11:32 – 10% of Expensify's user base are paying customers 10:43 – 10% of 4.5M are paying customers 12:12 – "Churn is complicated" 12:33 – Expensify has a net negative revenue churn 13:05 – Expensify doesn't advertise and they have 100% organic traffic 13:37 – Expensify had a few fundraising rounds 13:41 – In 2008, they had their first $1M round 13:43 – They did a few more in a couple of years 14:25 – David doesn't talk with investors and hasn't talked with them in years 15:27 – Expensify is something totally different from Salesforce 15:53 – Expensify doesn't have salespeople 16:16 – Expensify's primary revenue generator is their support team who follow up on deployments 16:43 – Pricing has been difficult and Expensify is still working on it 16:53 – Expensify was originally free and customers didn't understand why 17:18 – David thought they needed a reasonable price point 17:31 – After choosing a price point, people became more comfortable and trusting 17:51 – Expensify's competitors followed their pricing 18:37 – Expensify's focus is on mastering the dynamics 19:06 – David thinks that, realistically, their pricing should be much higher 19:34 – David is planning on increasing their pricing 19:52 – "Because we don't need the money, we're focused on something else" 19:58 – "Maintaining an incredibly low price right now for the industry actually helps keep the competition out" 20:29 – People find Expensify through word-of-mouth 20:51 – "All of our emphasis is on building a product in a brand that generates an incredibly strong word-of-mouth" 21:34 – 99% of Expensify's traffic is people searching for us 21:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Adding a paid option to your product can actually make your customers more confident in your product. Word-of-mouth is one of the best and cheapest ways to grow your traffic and client base, but your business has to be valuable for people. A college degree is NOT the only road to success. 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

Dale Beaumont. He's an award winning technology entrepreneur, international speaker and author of 16 best-selling books. He started his first business at age 19 and has been building companies ever since. One of those companies is now a multi-million dollar enterprise which enabled Dale to become an investor, philanthropist, and has given him the opportunity to set foot in over 70 countries. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Seven-Day Weekend What CEO do you follow? – Mark Zuckerberg Favorite online tool? — Voxer How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Dale would tell himself to really have fun and just enjoy the journey Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:18 – Nathan introduces Dale to the show 02:00 – Dale's first book was published in 2001 02:23 – Dale published a total of 16 books and sold 250K copies 02:26 – All of the books that Dale published were on best-seller list in Australia 02:42 – A best-seller book in Australia sells 5K copies on physical bookshelves 02:57 – Dale was 19 when he started his first company 03:05 – One of Dale's challenges was being so young in business 03:27 – Dale thought that needed to create credibility and the one way to do that was to publish a book 03:45 – Dale's first book was The World at Your Feet which is a personal development book for teenagers 03:50 – When Dale wrote a press release, it got him on national TV, newspapers and magazines 04:23 – Dale's first company's revenue went up after they released his book 04:59 – The book became their launch pad 05:16 – Dale's first company's revenue increased to $500K 05:28 – Dale published a series called Secrets Exposed, which has 15 books—he wrote the series in two and half years 05:43 – The books are interviews conducted by Dale 06:16 – All of the books are self-published 06:39 – Dale worked on the series from 2007 to 2009 06:49 – Publishing this series is one of Dale's most successful ventures 07:10 – In self-publishing, the cost per book goes down when you have 5K copies 07:31 – Dale had a pre-sell for his books 07:48 – Dale also had partnerships with companies, associations and organizations and they pre-purchased his books 08:28 – There was no requirement for the interviewee to purchase a copy of the book 08:38 – When Dale was about to print the copies, he sent messages to people offering a discounted price for bulk orders 08:58 – After 4 books of his series came out, more people approached Dale to be interviewed, so Dale had to set requirements 09:08 – Dale was able to fill out the next 11 books by making people commit to buying 1K copies 09:40 – Brad Sugars is an example of someone who approached Dale 10:21 – Dale started a company called Business Blueprint 11:04 – The company teaches small business owners across Australia and New Zealand how to use technology to improve their business 11:11 – The company started from the ground up and has continued to grow for 7 years now 11:16 – It is doing more than $5M in revenue 11:26 – The company does live events, webinars and membership sites 12:05 – Dale's goal is to provide business education and support 12:30 – Less than 1% of businesses have a business coach or advisor 12:33 – Dale thought that it would be cool to create a product that would give everyone a chance to have a business advisor 12:46 – Dale started to build the world's first AI business advisor and his name is BRiN 12:54 – "BRiN is like the Siri for business" 12:56 – BriN is a smartphone app and is currently on free download in iOs and Android 13:50 – Dale shares the benefit of using BRiN rather than searching your business questions through Google 14:21 – BRiN has had 21K downloads in the past 6 months with 4K weekly users 15:00 – BRiN, overall, has had 164K user sessions 16:10 – Dale self-funded BRiN from the funds he got from his previous company 16:20 – Dale has also been approached by different companies who are trying to talk to small business owners 16:39 – BRiN now offers partnership packages 18:52 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: One way to "manufacture" credibility is by publishing your own book. It is good to know that you're on the right path in business – and business advisors can help guide you on that path. Work hard, live your life, but make sure you are ENJOYING the journey. 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

Maria Gotsch. She's the president and CEO at the Partnership Fund for New York City, which is the investment arm of the Partnership for New York City. In addition to leading the funds operations, Maria has spearheaded the creation and operation of a number of fund strategic initiatives including The Fintech Innovation Lab. Prior to joining the fund in 1999, Maria was a managing director at a company that is now part of Deutsche Bank, providing strategic and financial advice related to mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures and the development of business strategies. Maria worked for LaSalle Partners in the New York area and Merrill Lynch Capital Markets, in both New York and London. She graduated with an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Wellesley College. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – "A book on the Iranian negotiations with the US around the treaty" What CEO do you follow? – Henry Kravis Favorite online tool? — MyCity Bike app How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7 and a half If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Be bold, be bold, be bold!" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:11 – Nathan introduces Maria to the show 02:15 – Partnership Fund is the corporate sector at the table that is trying to grow the NYC economy 02:21 – Henry Kravis of KKR has raised funds in the late 90s and raised from major corporations and individuals, in NYC 02:32 – The investor list is the "who's who" of the private equity 02:36 – Partnership Fund was structured as an evergreen fund 02:48 – "We can do things that are a little bit riskier and take a little bit longer than a traditional private sector investor" 03:02 – "We often work with government, but we're privately funded" 03:13 – Partnership Fund is like an interest-free loan for 45 years 03:33 – All of Partnership Fund's gains just go back to their funds and they reinvest it 03:41 – "We have the investors' money for 45 years and if we make returns, it comes back to us to fund new projects" 03:58 – The Fintech Lab is currently in their 7th year and has 75 graduates 04:08 – It is an elite program and takes 68 companies a year 04:18 – It is structured as a civic program 04:32 – The goal of the program is to help reduce the pain and agony of a small emerging company trying to get into and get attention from large financial institutions 05:06 – "Because it is competitive to get in, it's a shark tank to get in, but once you're in, it's a dolphin tank" 05:18 – They get 150-160 applications a year 05:28 – Companies are selected by their financial institution partners 05:34 – A company's technology has to rise to the level of addressing a major pain point for major financial institutions 06:10 – In some cases, it's not about an acquisition, it's about using 06:15 – The fact that they are a non-profit civic organization is important 06:29 – CTOs and CIOs will come to the table as a civic program, partly to help grow the fintech community in NYC, to create jobs 07:23 – They invest in some of the graduates' post programs 07:30 – The lab is laser-focused in solving problems 07:41 – They are not doing any direct-to-consumer programs 08:20 – The big 3: data, security and risk management have been on the top of the CIOs list from the beginning 08:43 – However, new things are coming 08:47 – Disruptive talent management has been added as a new category 08:58 – Blockchain has gone through an interesting cycle 09:14 – This year, there's much less interest in blockchain and distributed ledger 09:52 – Maria predicts that in 2 years, there will be an increase of interest in enabling technologies that fit around the distributed ledger 10:31 – In data, Digital Reasoning came into the program with an interesting technology that is able to read unstructured data, and they're working for the government 11:03 – They were advised to focus on compliance 12:04 – In security, Centripetal Networks has a perimeter defense technology and they're gaining traction from people who have a lot of retail locations 12:34 – In risk management, Quarule automates some of the processing of regulatory tracking and flagging operations against the regulations 13:23 – In blockchain, Digital Asset Holdings has raised a significant amount of money and has been involved in some major projects 13:50 – Maria shares how they are telling companies to create more jobs in NYC 14:02 – The companies will also realize that they need to have people on the ground in NYC 14:20 – Some have moved to their headquarters in NYC 14:46 – "We've not raised money since the late 90s" 14:50 – The initial fund size was $120M 15:46 – New York is starting to be seen as a center for fintech 16:34 – There are some smaller companies that are trying to go after pieces and as they scale, the acquisition cost is increasingly expensive 17:05 – LearnVest is a good example 17:40 – The small business lenders come to a market that the banks aren't servicing 18:00 – There are companies who are an exception to the rule 18:17 – Most of the companies end up partnering with large institutions 18:54 – What the large financial institutions have is expertise and compliance 20:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The trend in the fintech space is constantly changing. Creating more jobs in New York City means more opportunities for companies and for the people of New York. Be BOLD—don't shrink, don't hesitate—just go for it. 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

Gaurav Dhillon. He's an early investor in a company called SnapLogic. He joined in 2009, when he saw the potential of how companies integrate applications data and devices for digital business. He spearheaded SnapLogic's rapid growth and overseas strategies, products, and operations. He's previously the co-founder and CEO of Informatica. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Power of Habit What CEO do you follow? – Andy Grove Favorite online tool? — Gmail How many hours of sleep do you get? — Close to 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wish he knew more that opportunity knocks often" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:22 – Nathan introduces Gaurav to the show 02:04 – Gaurav and his co-founder had a $75K SBA grant when they built Informatica 02:25 – They have raised a total of $13.5M 02:57 – "11-12 years is a long time and it's time to go" 03:32 – Gaurav is a company builder 03:47 – When Gaurav did an IPO, he sold some of his shares in a secondary public offering 03:53 – There was no lock-out 04:24 – They made $400M in secondary public offering 04:32 – Their initial raise was less than $100M 04:49 – In IPO, you are also trying to build a brand for yourself 05:23 – Gaurav left Informatica in July 2004 05:28 – Gaurav spent a year doing things on his bucket list 06:10 – When Gaurav went back to the valley, he joined a couple of boards 06:25 – Gaurav was in a board meeting when they talked about business internet, which is now cloud computing 06:37 – "People aren't just going to buy books from the web, they're going to balance books on the web" 06:58 – Gaurav invested in SnapLogic 07:05 – Gaurav wrote a couple of men a check saying that if there's a business, prove it to him, and he will provide capital 07:16 – The initial check was $1M 07:26 – Gaurav structured it as convertible debt 08:06 – SnapLogic has raised a total of $136M 08:10 – Initially, it was from Venture 08:23 – Most recent round was led by Vitruvian Partners 09:04 – Gaurav built Informatica to hook up those products with each other 09:21 – SnapLogic is connecting the new cloud application to what is now Legacy, which was a new application 20 years ago 09:46 – They're expanding out the product set in SnapLogic and providing all kinds of connections 10:12 – Is SnapLogic the unsexier version of Zapier, but more important? 10:26 – Zapier is a consumer place and Gaurav doesn't dislike it 10:32 – There have been companies, like Bump, who try to do certain kinds of things 10:56 – The problem of overt strata in business 11:05 – What they're solving on Zapier is on a personal level 11:20 – If you're trying to connect your human capital system with your SAP financial system and you are a big company, you will need something like SnapLogic 11:44 – SnapLogic is the industrial version 11:58 – SnapLogic is a PaaS (platform as a service) model 12:04 – SnapLogic is a cloud product and is like Google Chrome 12:33 – SnapLogic's average customer pay is $136K a year 12:57 – SnapLogic currently has 250 employees and is still growing 13:20 – SnapLogic's LTV 13:32 – "We've got many customers in 7-figures, already" 13:50 – "You can always buy that you can sell" 14:07 – SnapLogic has inside qualification people or SDRs for customer acquisition 14:24 – SDRs ratio 14:43 – SnapLogic has less than 20 SDRs 14:56 – CAC 15:49 – "We're a buzz company, customers love us" 17:15 – Gaurav looks at incremental growth 18:44 – Nathan thinks that it is so wrong for founders who focus on the LTV-CAC ratio 19:09 – "You don't want to be too conservative, right, because the early market share you get is the best market share" 19:26 – Gaurav shares the business metrics 19:46 – Try to do a 6-figure deal and try to have more customers than employees 20:06 – Average ARR 20:47 – SnapLogic hasn't broke the 9-figure ARR rate yet 21:05 – A company that can double its revenue has nothing to fear 21:34 – "What we're doing is building a robust business which, no doubt, is growing aggressively, but also has its feet on the ground" 22:50 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: If your company can double its revenue, it's a strong indicator that you are in good shape. The early market share you get is the best market share. Don't fret—opportunity knocks often. 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

Garth Moulton. He's invested and has advised a number of technology startups and was responsible for revenue growth for the channel for Pipl Inc. After 11 years of sales experience in the Bay area, Mr. Moulton had the perfect startup journey with Jigsaw, which was drawn up from 2 guys with a whiteboard to a $175M exit, in 2010, to Salesforce. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Speed of Trust What CEO do you follow? – Tim Ferris Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn 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? – "That time is not boundless" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:18 – Nathan introduces Garth to the show 01:58 – Garth didn't get depressed after Jigsaw's exit 02:23 – Garth and Jim stayed at Salesforce for a year and a half, after the acquisition 02:43 – Pipl was running together with Jigsaw 02:48 – Garth met Pipl's CEO during the early days of Jigsaw and they partnered together 03:03 – Pipl would drive traffic to Jigsaw 03:51 – Pipl was a typical search engine, driving traffic to partners 04:31 – In the last 3 years, Pipl was more of a data company that sold API access and basic search tools to access data and profiles to 3 channels 04:46 – First channel is a search app like Spokeo and Instant Checkmate where Pipl supplies them the data 05:19 – Second channel is fraud alert and ID validation 05:44 – Pipl checks if the email is real 05:56 – Garth overlooked the companies that were going to use the data for sales and marketing 06:18 – Pipl is partners with Full Contact 06:39 – Nathan has been trying to find the mother of data sources 06:52 – "Jigsaw was the source of the data" 07:12 – LinkedIn is still the biggest source of data for B2B 07:50 – There's a LinkedIn private channel 08:26 – LinkedIn has gotten more and more aggressive in making the data available 08:58 – There have been CEOs who received a cease and desist order from LinkedIn 09:24 – Some of the companies are wholly dependent on LinkedIn 09:56 – Garth shares the same sentiment as Nathan that there's no mother data source 10:31 – The Data Dinosaurs' data accuracy is horrendous 12:30 – An average of a hundred corporations have bought the API access of Pipl 13:14 – Pipl's business solution average price point 13:21 – $1200 a year for unlimited searches, per person 13:37 – Team size is 40 13:47 – Team location 14:15 – Pipl is bootstrapped 14:27 – Garth became interested in Pipl, because it was completely bootstrapped 15:15 – Garth had an agreement that he would come on for a couple of years and expand the channel for Pipl 15:37 – Garth is on the cap table 17:00 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Data sources are sharing each other's data to grow and verify their own data—there is no mother of data sources. A company that is bootstrapped definitely has more freedom and control of their company. If you can start your business as early as you can, do it. 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

Benjamin Cohen. He's the CEO and leading T-REX, with a strong vision for the future of enterprise financial technology and its impact on marketing and making markets more transparent and efficient. He's built the T-REX team and the T-REX software platform by combining the most sustainable elements of finance with modern SaaS technology. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Influence What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn How many hours of sleep do you get?— Between 6 and 7.5 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wished that I knew that not everything was of the utmost consequence for my entire life" Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:24 – Nathan introduces Benjamin to the show 02:55 – T-REX is a fintech company that makes complex capital markets more liquid by making them more transparent and efficient 04:04 – T-REX provides a familiar framework where their clients can slice and dice everything 04:15 – "We're just making the risks more transparent" 04:20 – T-REX has an enterprise SaaS model 04:59 – Customers are paying $2k-20K per month depending on the functionalities they need 05:09 – Benjamin launched T-REX in 2012 05:55 – The Ecosystem Integrity Fund is T-REX's series A lead investor 06:12 – T-REX has raised $15M in total 06:26 - T-REX had 2 priced equity rounds 06:32 – Team size is 21 and based in New York 06:39 – Half of the team is based in Tel Aviv, Israel and are mostly software engineers 06:57 – The cost of living in Israel is a bit lower 07:35 – T-REX has over 225 users 07:51 – The 225 are all paying customers 08:28 – The model of T-REX is that investors are coming in and looking for different deals than what originators have out, which includes different loan portfolios—specifically in the renewable energy sector 09:34 – Loan's interest 09:44 – The secure ties 10:30 – Average MRR 11:13 – "I invested 2 years of my time before getting a dollar" 11:19 – It took Benjamin 2 years to raise capital 11:36 – Benjamin's fund was from his previous role in Macquarie Bank 12:12 – Renewable energy presented a great slate of a market 12:33 – Benjamin funded T-REX with a 6-figure capital 12:52 – A junior engineer's average salary from Tel Aviv 13:53 – Everybody in the company has equity 14:03 – Benjamin is the sole-founder of T-REX 14:32 – Customer churn is currently zero 14:54 – Benjamin is expecting T-REX to be incredibly sticky 15:20 – T-REX is selling additional seats and their customers can sell more modules 15:29 – T-REX can expand horizontally to different markets and vertically where they can sell different models 15:50 – Years ago, T-REX has set up their own broker/dealers 16:05 – CAC is dependent on the customers 17:11 – T-REX will do a $10K conference sponsorship and they need to be there 17:35 – T-REX series B closed in November 15th 20:00 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Be in the space that you know best and don't fear being a solo founder. It is actually GREAT to make mistakes and GREAT to fail, as long as you learn from it. Don't fear that every decision you make or action you take has a lifelong consequence in your life—it simply isn't true. 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

Pablo Estevez. He's a Mexican entrepreneur who co-founded HolaGus, an artificial intelligence company that focuses on automating customer service and sales via chat for Spanish speaking countries. Since founding his company, he has been distinguished for receiving awards like The Diamond Winner by MassChallenge. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – A lot Favorite online tool? — N/A How many hours of sleep do you get?— Usually 7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "That this is going to be really, really hard, I was going to work a lot of hours" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:14 – Nathan introduces Pablo to the show 02:00 – HolaGus develops AI to automate customer service and sales via any chat channel 02:11 – HolaGus charges businesses for every assisted conversation 02:39 – HolaGus's standard fee is 1-2 Mexican pesos 02:47 – HolaGus has a pay-as-you-go model 03:20 – HolaGus is a B2C business and is similar to GoButler 03:37 – "If we really want to scale the business, we have to focus on the AI" 04:04 – HolaGus was launched in 2015 04:10 – There are 3 co-founders 04:22 – HolaGus has raised capital and is about to close their third round 05:04 – HolaGus has raised a total of $1.4M 05:23 – HolaGus focuses on the customer's closing and how much automation they're able to create 05:39 – "We try to keep the bots, like, between 80-90%" 05:53 – HolaGus focuses on closing the biggest amount of clients that they can 05:58 – HolaGus has a lot of interesting commercial deals in the pipeline 06:09 – HolaGus has already sold 3 contracts 06:16 – HolaGus only started selling 4-5 months ago 06:21 – HolaGus is hoping to close 85 clients 06:55 – HolaGus is still on pre-revenue 07:10 – HolaGus has different projected revenues and models for their 3 customers 07:12 – HolaGus has an upfront development fee of $25K 08:02 – HolaGus pricing will depend on the technology 08:13 – HolaGus develops AI, specifically for a business 08:39 – HolaGus is now creating an ocean of knowledge 09:08 – "If we have a thousand clients, our AI gets smarter and smarter really quick" 11:08 – Pablo believes that they automate a lot 11:25 – Total projected conversations for the first 3 customers will be 20K-40K conversations 11:56 – HolaGus tries to charge a minimum of monthly consumption 12:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: AI technology can be complicated and needs continuous development. Play around with different payment models to see what works best and is most profitable. Starting and running a business is tough work—you just have to be dedicated. 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