SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Patrick McGinnis. He's the author of The 10% Entrepreneur which focuses on living your startup dream without leaving your day job, which was just published by Penguin Portfolio. He's also credited for coining up with the term "fear of missing out". He's a graduate of Harvard business school and is living in New York City. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup What CEO do you follow? – Sheryl Sandberg Favorite online tool? — Quip Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6-12 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Patrick wished he had more confidence in his abilities and more open to trying new things Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:30 – Nathan introduces Patrick to the show 02:10 – Patrick is a Wall Street refugee 02:21 – Patrick has his own advisory firm 02:29 – Patrick built up his portfolio of over 20 investments 03:04 – Patrick worked with his friend in Real Influence for free 03:14 – They sold $300K-$400K 03:19 – The business didn't push through and Patrick sold his shares 03:35 – Patrick was 33 03:46 – After a year, Patrick's friend asked him if he was interested in investing in a startup 03:51 – Ipsy has raised $100M 04:08 – Patrick is one of the first investors of Ipsy 04:32 – Ipsy's co-founder is Michelle Phan 04:49 – Patrick's friend who is the CEO of Ipsy met Michelle through Funny or Die 05:46 – Michelle's huge fan base made Ipsy spend zero on CAC 06:00 – How Patrick decided to invest in Ipsy 06:03 – Patrick's friend was already raising a round 06:33 – Patrick's friend already had a lead 06:38 – Patrick started his venture capitalist path in 2000 06:48 – Most of the deals Patrick looks at are simple deals 06:53 – Patrick invested in Ipsy in 2012 07:50 – Ipsy is one of Patrick's most successful investments 08:00 – Another one of his investments was Bluesmart 08:24 – He also invested in Affinity which is a big data company 09:04 – How many deals do you have to make to ensure there's a big exit in the portfolio? 09:12 – When Patrick started investing, he thought of the possible mistakes he could make as an investor 10:03 – As an investor, you have to invest in your area of expertise 10:08 – Second, think of the deal as a commercial deal, even with friends 10:21 – Third, don't follow other people 10:39 – Stay away from "will-to-be" syndrome 11:09 – Patrick was working with AIG's private equity fund 11:41 – Patrick shares why he wrote a book 11:48 – Patrick always talks to people about what he does as an investor 12:12 – As Patrick met with more and more people, he realized that he could actually help people believe in what he does 12:25 – "It's been a blast actually and I love writing, anyway" 12:56 – Patrick shares why he decided to have a publisher rather than self-publish his book 13:02 – Patrick wasn't a well-known media figure and a publisher would help his credibility 13:12 – Patrick got a great editor 13:24 – Patrick wanted to go global 13:34 – Patrick has sold an average of 50K copies 13:40 – A book update is given every 6 months 14:00 – Patrick gets around 10% royalties on sales 14:26 – Patrick's book is a bestseller in South Korea 14:48 – Patrick had an advance of around $100K prior to his book launch 14:58 – Patrick has an agent who is with UTA 15:38 – Patrick met his agent through his friend 16:02 – If you are generous to the world, it comes back to you in so many different ways 16:25 – "If you want to publish a book, you should know how hard it is" 16:40 – Publishing a book is like running a startup 16:54 – Patrick shared on a couple of podcasts which boosted his sales 17:03 – Patrick's book is in physical bookstores, too 17:20 – Patrick was also live in CNN Espanol in South America 17:37 – Amazon's ranking is always updated 17:44 – Patrick also has a group who does social media for him 18:22 – Launching a book is a process 18:56 – Patrick has a day job that covers the bills 19:12 – "Freelancing is great in terms of flexibility, but you build zero wealth" 19:48 – Patrick also invests in commercial real estate 20:04 – Patrick shares how he and his friend get dividends from real estate 23:25 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Investing in your friend's business is a commercial deal, so invest wisely. Be prepared—publishing a book is not a walk in the park and involves several processes. Freelancing is great in terms of flexibility, but you build zero wealth. 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

Clate Mask and he has been educating and inspiring entrepreneurs for over a decade. He's recognized by the small business community as a truly visionary leader. His passion for small business success stems from his personal experience, taking Infusionsoft from a struggling startup to an 8-time Inc. 500 and Inc. 5000 winner. As CEO, he's leading Infusionsoft on its mission to create and dominate the market of sales and marketing software for small businesses. Under Clate's leadership, the company has landed 4 rounds of venture capital including a $55M series D led by Bain, with contributions from prior investors including Signal Peak Ventures and Goldman Sachs. He's also named Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, a Top 100 Small Business Influencer by Small Business Trends, and one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs of 2013 by Goldman Sachs. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm and The Advantage What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff Favorite online tool? — Thumbtack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Never If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Clate wished he knew that business, not law, was the path for him AND that building a team and culture is far more fun than making money. Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:18 – Nathan introduces Clate to the show 02:28 – When you serve small businesses, make sure you have the right target customers 02:35 – There are 27M small businesses 03:02 – "You got to get it right. You got to get the market fit" 03:20 – Infusionsoft focuses on businesses with 2-25 employees but the sweet spot is 2-10 employees 03:28 – Average customer pay per month is $250-300 03:54 – "It's CRM, marketing automation, sales automation, e-commerce on one suite" 04:03 – Majority of Infusionsoft's revenue is SaaS 04:10 – Infusionsoft's $3.4B payments processed 04:36 – Infusionsoft created their own payment solution 2 years ago 05:04 – It triggers all kinds of Infusionsoft's automation 05:50 – Infusionsoft started in 2002, as a software company 05:56 – Infusionsoft pivoted in 2007 and decided to really go for it 06:16 – "We started, like every small business, with no intention to build something big" 06:34 – Clate saw how Salesforce moved upfront quickly and that opened up the opportunity for Infusionsoft 06:43 – "Why not be the Quickbooks to sales and marketing software" 06:53 – Infusionsoft's dark days 06:56 – In the first 3 years, every day was a fight for survival 07:43 – The second dark day for Infusionsoft was when their product market fit went off and the churn rate went up to a 8% gross monthly customer churn 08:08 – Infusionsoft had raised $17M when their churn skyrocketed 08:38 – Infusionsoft's churn rate is usually 2-2.5% 09:15 – Infusionsoft has raised a total of $125M and about half was capital for the business 10:00 – "When you create something that's growing, there's always a new investor who wants to replace an old investor" 10:27 – When the round becomes "over-subscribed", you have to take a percentage of what you've raised and make it available for your existing shareholders to sell some shares 11:09 – Infusionsoft currently has around 600 employees and still continues to grow 11:20 – Infusionsoft has around 135K users 11:30 – Infusionsoft just completed their 10 year adverse completion 11:56 – There are more things coming up for Infusionsoft 12:27 – Average MRR 13:19 – Clate shares why they haven't gone public 13:58 – What happens is private money is easier to raise 14:06 – Historically, public valuation was better than private valuation, but that shifted over the years 15:00 – When the market changed in 2014, Clate had decided that it's better to stay private as long as they could 15:30 – Infusionsoft is currently between $100M – 150M ARR 15:51 – The leverage that Clate pulled to turn their monthly churn 16:10 – Infusionsoft is serious about helping small businesses succeed 16:22 – The breakage model that results in you having a lot of churn 16:45 – Infusionsoft says "no" to thousands of businesses every month 17:06 – The challenge when you serve small businesses is you that have to tweak and adjust to get the LTV-CAC ratio right 17:17 – Infusionsoft is currently at $4 LTV for a dollar CAC 17:44 – The LTV-CAC ratio is the number that every SaaS business has to manage well 18:15 – It's better to look at your revenue in unit churn 18:42 – The upfront fee was the number one factor for Infusionsoft's churn moving from 8% to 2% 21:05 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: When you serve small businesses, make sure you have the RIGHT target customers and be committed to helping your customers. Going public requires a deep understanding of how adaptable you can be in an ever changing market. The LTV-CAC ratio is the number that every SaaS business has to manage well—that's the trick. 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

Amarpreet Kalkat. He's the CEO and co-founder of Frrole, an AI (artificial intelligence) startup that is redefining consumer intelligence. He loves building things, be it product, revenue streams, teams or organizations. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Travis Kalanick Favorite online tool? — Klout Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Amarpreet would tell himself to focus and prioritize Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:22 – Nathan introduces Amarpreet to the show 01:50 – Frrole provides consumer intelligence 01:53 – Frrole relies on public data to build insights about the consumers 02:07 – Frrole works with companies' marketing teams 02:35 – eBay and Flipcut are some of Frrole's customers 02:44 – It is crucial for marketing teams to understand their customers 02:57 – Frrole works with eBay's shipping insides team 03:02 – eBay wants to understand their customer's shipping experience 03:34 – Frrole has data partnerships with Twitter and Facebook 03:40 – Frrole has official access to data 04:11 – Frrole looks at the attributes and annotations as a guide for the data they need 04:30 – Frrole is SaaS business and customers pay them for the insights 05:00 – Average customer pay per month is around $32K per year 05:28 – "Personally, I don't believe in locking customers in" 05:37 – Frrole has a 30-day walk out clause 05:46 – Most of Frrole's customers pay quarterly 06:08 – Frrole started as a B2C in the news discovery product, in 2012 06:14 – In 2014, Frrole pivoted to a B2B model 06:46 – Frrole currently has 13 team members 06:52 – The team is in Bangalore and Amarpreet goes back and forth between Bangalore and San Francisco 07:11 – Amarpreet is currently in San Francisco looking for a sales guy 07:25 – Amarpreet ideally looks for a co-founder kind of role 07:39 – Amarpreet is willing to give 5-10% equity 07:49 – Frrole has raised a couple of small angel rounds 08:00 – Frrole has raised a total of $250K 08:05 – Frrole currently has 18 paying customers 08:23 – Average MRR 08:45 – Average customer churn 09:36 – Frrole has 1 sales guy in Bangalore 09:50 – CAC 10:15 – Frrole spends $500-1K a month for paid marketing 10:39 – Frrole is recently experimenting with LinkedIn for marketing 11:18 – Frrole sponsors an email list and a banner ad 11:28 – It worked out okay 12:00 – Frrole is currently breaking even 12:10 – Salaries in Bangalore are way less than in the USA 12:26 – The best web developer in India would cost around $30K 13:58 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Customers will use your product if they see the value – locking in is not always necessary. Marketing people need to dig deeper to understand and serve their customers well. Know what your priorities are and focus in. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences 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

Amit Shanbhag. He bootstrapped RocketReach from 0 to over 300K registered users in its first year. RocketReach and RocketReach API are trusted by some of the largest companies on the planet like Apple, Google, Chase and Morgan Stanley—just to name a few. He has more than a dozen patents and has started his professional life writing code for geostationary satellites. He's also a judge for the MIT $100K competition and hopes to invest more time and money back into the startup ecosystem. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – N/A What CEO do you follow? – Sundar Pichai Favorite online tool? — Google Search Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 4-5 If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – Amit would tell the young ones to take risks, give everything you're doing a good shot, and that worrying isn't productive Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:28 – Nathan introduces Amit to the show 02:08 – Amit was in Episode 465 and just passed 100K paying customers 03:03 – RocketReach has 300K signup users 03:31 – RocketReach has doubled its growth 04:00 – "We tried to go more into the lead generation space" 04:21 – The end customers hold RocketReach responsible for higher quality data, which is out of their control 05:04 – RocketReach is similar to LeadGenius 05:10 – LeadGenius charges higher for their data 05:48 – LeadGenius uses a combination of people and software to gather data 05:56 – Amit wants RocketReach to rely purely on software, without human intervention 06:25 – The other problem with the lead generation space is when the users don't follow up with the leads generated for them, then put the blame on RocketReach for not having quality leads 06:51 – Amit isn't sure if Lead Genius is doing something about this problem 07:36 – CAC is quite high 07:52 – The lead generation part of RocketReach hasn't really piloted 08:17 – RocketReach was getting $3K – 7K per delivery set, but the retention rate is low 09:00 – RocketReach is using a lot of open APIs like AngelList and Crunchbase 10:17 – Most of the APIs that RocketReach uses are paid APIs 10:55 – Amit has decided that RocketReach will not continue down the lead generation path 11:06 – Amit wants customers to think of RocketReach as a productivity tool that is accessible on their browsers 11:26 – "We wanted to become more of a de facto productivity tool for sales" 11:33 – RocketReach focuses on features that can make a team more productive 12:17 – RocketReach doesn't have the self-serve team feature on their website, at the moment 12:57 – RocketReach currently has 7 team members and is still bootstrapped 13:02 – RocketReach has one of the highest revenues per employee in the lead generation space 13:12 – If RocketReach had continued with the lead generation model, it would have made sense to raise 13:25 – RocketReach is trying to scale without hiring a sales team 14:20 – RocketReach has an average of $70 monthly RPU 14:30 – But the number of paying users is complicated 15:25 – RocketReach's 120K users mentioned in Episode 465 is the number of registered users 16:13 – Amit doesn't see the need to reveal the number of paying customers 17:18 – Customers are paying anywhere from 1K-50K 17:42 – Gross customer monthly churn is 7% 17:53 – The churn has gone down a bit 18:56 – RocketReach has 2 different revenue streams 20:40 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The lead generation space isn't as easy as it seems. It IS possible to stay bootstrapped while, at the same time, scaling your business. Take risks, give your best shot, and worry less! 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 Tavor. He has more than 20 years of experience as a general manager and founder of Biotech Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Company. He served as a fighter pilot and a commander in the Israeli Air Force and retired with the rank of a colonel. Mr. Tavor holds an MA degree in political science and national defense studies and MBA studies. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Born to Life What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs Favorite online tool? — David's common sense Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— About 3 or 4 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Lean on yourself" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:15 – Nathan introduces David to the show 02:04 – ParaSonic develops an ultra-sonic bomb that destroys lice and lice eggs 03:39 – ParaSonic developed a comb that treats lice in just one stroke of the comb 03:50 – The clinical trial was just completed and it was a success 04:52 – ParaSonic started in 2014 05:08 – The company was established within a technological incubator 05:16 – The incubator has 23% equity 05:45 – The incubator had put in $600K 05:51 – ParaSonic has raised an additional $1.6M 05:56 – ParaSonic is also in the process of raising $2M 06:28 – The rounds are equity rounds 07:28 – David's wife, Dana, is also part of the company 08:11 – ParaSonic has 5 team members who are mostly engineers 08:46 – The comb is going to be an over-the-counter product 09:05 – There will be 3 types of combs 09:25 – The comb's bristles are disposable 10:17 – David is also a chairman of 2 other companies 10:46 – One company developed a toothbrush where you can see your plaque through an app while you're brushing 12:17 – David is a freelancer for Colgate 13:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Developing a product in an industry that you are already familiar with is best for you. Consumers will believe in your product when you use the product yourself. Trust and lean on yourself. 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

Alessio Alionco. He's the founder and CEO of Pipefy, which is part of 500 Startups. He's a passionate product manager. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup What CEO do you follow? – Jason Lemkin Favorite online tool? — Yesware and Salesforce Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Alessio would tell himself to be aggressive with his goals Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:56 – Nathan introduces Alessio to the show 02:12 – Pipefy is a workflow cooperation software 02:21 – Alessio got Pipefy's idea from his previous company 02:36 – Alessio uses a CRM to manage Pipefy 02:45 – Pipefy has a dozen of processes 03:12 – "We coordinate people's work" 03:36 – Pipefy provides guidelines for a smooth, business process 03:48 – Pipefy is more of a people coordination solution and Zapier is similar to IFTTT 04:00 – Pipefy charges per user, per month 04:10 – Average customer fee is $200/month 04:20 – Pipefy started at the end of 2014 04:26 – Pipefy had its beta 04:36 – Pipefy released pre-signups in April 2015 04:51 – Pipefy became one of the most voted products of the day 05:23 – There was no revenue in 2015 05:32 – Pipefy started charging in August 2016 05:47 – Pipefy now has more than 400 paying customers 06:00 – Average MRR 06:54 – Pipefy offered a special price for customers who renew their subscriptions 07:00 – Pipefy has more than 60K customers who use them for free 07:24 – Only a small portion of the customers converted 07:40 – SMBs don't have business processes in place and aren't willing to pay for one 08:06 – Pipefy wants to focus on companies that are close to being considered enterprise companies 08:42 – Pipefy has raised a seed round of $2.2M 08:50 – Some of the investors are Zendesk's founders, Valour Capital, Redpoint Ventures, FundersClub and AngelList 09:06 – Pipefy has raised a total of $2.6M 09:13 – Team size is 33 09:32 – 27 are in Brazil and 6 are in San Francisco 09:55 – Pipefy is still hiring more people 10:00 – CAC 10:30 – Overall CAC is around $900 per company 10:50 – LTV is still hard to predict 11:34 – Pipefy's per seat pricing 12:10 – Pipefy negotiates deals with companies with over 10K employees 12:33 – 2017 revenue goal 12:50 – "It's really a huge funnel to raise the seed round" 13:00 – The series A dynamic is completely different 13:26 – 2016 total revenue 14:00 – Pipefy is aiming for a $200K MRR which is 10x the growth 16:05 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: The best time to switch to a paid version of your product requires careful consideration to ensure the conversion takes place. Some SMBs rely on free business software and services for their processes—therefore, you may need to adjust your target audience. Be aggressive with your goals and 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

Christopher Gibson. He's the co-founder and CEO of Recursion Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company leveraging the latest automation, computation and biological tools to perform drug discovery at scale. Chris holds a BS in bioengineering, a BA in managerial studies, and a bioengineering PhD from the University of Utah. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Perry Fell Favorite online tool? — Slack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 5.3 to 5.4 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Chris wished he knew where he was going to go so he could get to where he is now, faster Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:42 – Nathan introduces Chris to the show 02:12 – Recursion shortcuts the long, arduous path of drug discovery into the market 02:24 – Recursion combines the best elements of biology, automation, and computation 02:34 – Recursion partners with large pharmaceutical companies 02:45 – Recursion partnered with Sanofi Genzyme 02:51 – Sanofi had drugs that didn't end up in the market 03:10 – The challenges involved in being target-based 04:00 – Recursion earns from partnerships and royalties 04:20 – Recursion also has an internal pipeline for the drugs that they've developed themselves 04:43 – Recursion doesn't earn from the internal pipeline 05:51 – Recursion and what they receive from their partners 06:28 – There are partnerships with very, little upfront 06:34 – There are partnerships that have 8 figures, upfront 06:46 – The number of scientists that will work on the drug is also considered 07:22 – If Recursion is successful with their deals, they get royalties 08:38 – The royalties' lifeline 08:56 – Recursion has 40 people 09:25 – Recursion was launched in 2013 09:34 – They sat in their office until January 2014 10:01 – Chris was part of a program where he was paid a stipend, so he broke even 10:20 – Chris' parents were excited about his PhD 10:37 – Recursion has raised $19M in equity and $5M non-diluted from grants and private foundations 11:28 – Recursion's valuation as a platform company 12:14 – If Recursion will be successful, they will impact the society in a big way 12:41 – It is vision-based 12:54 – First year revenue was 6 figures 13:12 – "Our deals have been strategic in terms of the way we put them together" 13:45 – 2017 target 16:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Different sources of revenue benefit a company. The valuation of your company depends on how your company is currently performing and how well they will perform in the industry. First year revenue isn't always nil. 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

Gregg Freishtat. He's a technology executive with over 20 years of experience leading innovative and transformative companies. He founded 4 venture-backed startups, all of which had successful exits and is now building a company called SalesWise. He's deeply rooted in venture capital and the management of internet technology companies having led several through acquisitions. He's also handled developing and disruptive technologies, convergence of telecom plus internet, personal finance and online banking, web-based analytics and digital media, such as online marketing and currently relationship intelligence. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? – Mark Benioff Favorite online tool? – FullStory Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Don't sell your first company for $20M, when you can sell it for $50M" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:18 – Nathan introduces Gregg to the show 01:59 – SalesWise is a business relationship intelligence platform 02:03 – SalesWise helps sales leaders gain visibility of the most important relationships they have 02:17 – SalesWise is a SaaS company, but doesn't charge per seat 02:21 – SalesWise believes in democratizing data 02:31 – SalesWise prices based on the company size 02:52 – Average customer pay per month 02:53 – $500/month for entry level companies with less than 100 employees 03:00 – A company with 2K employees pays $2500 a month 03:11 – SalesWise was founded in 2015 and their current product was launched 4 months ago 03:33 – Gregg sold his last company to Outbrain 04:23 – SalesWise was bootstrapped for 6-8 months 04:50 – Gregg has raised a total of just over $3M 04:58 – All priced rounds 05:02 – Gregg's initial capital was a convertible note 05:12 – SalesWise has 12 team members and is currently hiring sales and marketing people 05:46 – SalesWise's current number of customers 06:00 – Average MRR 06:10 – The whole team is based in the Atlanta Tech Village 06:30 – Anticipated customer churn 07:16 – Some of SalesWise's competitors are Salesforce and Xero 08:17 – The guys in the BI space, like Domo and Tableau 08:43 – SalesWise isn't into web scraping 08:38 – SalesWise uses Clearbit 08:55 – SalesWise is breaking the linear relationship you have with email 09:29 – SalesWise walked directly into the APIs of Salesforce and Gmail 10:45 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Use your frustration as motivation to make things better. Keep building companies – you're constantly learning and contributing to the industry while doing so. Don't settle for less or devalue yourself and your company – reach beyond your expectations. 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

Matthieu Vaxelaire. He's the CEO of Mention where he moves all Trello cards to the right and closes deals. He splits his time between Paris and New York City. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Rand Fishkin Favorite online tool? — Hull Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6-7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Do more things and read less as you learn much more by doing than reading" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:17 – Nathan introduces Matt to the show 01:37 – Mention is Google Alert on steroids 01:51 – Mention is a SaaS business 02:05 – Mention has different segments of customers 02:08 – The SME customers pay an average of $65 monthly 02:13 – The mid-market customers pay an average of $400 monthly 02:25 – Average customer pay per month 03:20 – Most of Mention's customers don't like sharing their information 03:40 – Ogilvy uses Mention to track the campaigns they're building for their clients 04:17 – Mention is also an inferential tool 04:49 – Mention raised capital at an early stage 05:03 – Mention raised a total of $500K 05:11 – There are 45 people on the team and 10 are in NY, the rest are in Paris 05:50 – Prior to Mention, Matt worked at eFounders which is a startup studio 05:57 – Mention was one of the startups built by eFounders 06:20 – Mention has over 600K users and over 4K paying customers per month 06:42 – Mention's free version 07:20 – Mention uses a number of features 07:53 – There's no touch sales in the SME market 08:01 – The mid-market is inside-sales driven 08:15 – There are 2 groups of inside-sales teams: the inbound and outbound with 6 people in each group 08:50 – Average MRR 09:28 – Mention is more focused on gross MRR churn 09:35 – SME gross churn is 2% 10:43 – Mention is almost in a negative net churn 11:20 – Mention has an average of 10K signups per month 11:47 – Mention is currently spending $5-10K on paid advertising 12:04 – Mention is exploring other advertising options like G2 Crowd 12:20 – Mention's first trial result with G2 Crowd isn't that encouraging 12:44 – Mention uses a strong open-content strategy to drive people to their website 13:17 – CAC 14:00 – Matt is willing to spend up to $1K to generate new mid-market customers 14:17 – 2017 goal 14:58 – Mention is currently in the process of raising 15:07 – An $800K MRR by the end of December 2017 is a good number 17:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Sometimes, you got to spend to acquire those new customers. Paid advertising isn't the only solution to drive traffic to your site. Get out there and start moving—you learn more by doing than by reading. 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

In Episode #629, Nathan interviews Jennifer Reyna. She's got a lot of energy and more importantly, she studied business creation and development in Mexico. She's created 3 startups so far, Agri DeliCo which is a socio-company, Brain Fusion which is embedded in software development, and Gaszen or gas management. They've raised over $650K in Mexico and have developed their own working product. She's a mother, lover, sister, and daughter that enjoys her life and lives with zero regrets. She said, after all, there's only one life and she's in a constant pursuit of the best version of herself. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Lean Startup What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Slack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "That hard work can make everything happen for sure" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:34 – Nathan introduces Jennifer Reyna to the show 02:22 – Jenny realized that people complain about their gas 02:38 – Jenny created a device that works with stationary tanks 02:48 – Gaszen has an application where the consumer can see his gas consumption, statistics, and choose the best gas supplier 02:59 – Gaszen monetizes through selling information to gas suppliers 03:08 – Gaszen also monetizes from a consumer who wants automation 03:34 – Gaszen isn't in the market yet and is still finishing its development 03:41 – Gaszen will start selling in April 03:43 – Gaszen already approached gas suppliers and has pre-ordered from them 03:57 – There are already 2 gas suppliers who have bought from Gaszen 04:05 – Gaszen also has real estate clients 04:31 – Gaszen has partnered with 3 real estate firms 04:35 – Gaszen is currently in discussion with 15 more real estate firms in Mexico 04:48 – The firm buys the device for $77 04:59 –The device will go directly to the buyer of the house 05:21 – Gas suppliers get a discounted price for buying the device in bulk 05:48 – Mexico has problems with gas suppliers giving updates 06:08 – Each gas supplier bought 5k units of the device 06:19 – The amount per piece will be $50 06:38 – Having clients before the actual launch of the product is good for Gaszen 06:49 – Gaszen's first Kickstarter 07:07 – Gaszen raised 80K Mexican peso 07:19 – Gaszen had 111 backers 07:41 – Gaszen is B2B focused 07:48 – Gaszen has raised their first seed round with a total of $350K 08:05 – It was an equity round 08:14 – Gaszen started 2 years ago 08:26 – Gaszen had Angel investors and won the biggest Hackathon in the world 08:47 – Gaszen raised $300k with Angel investors 09:13 – From the gas suppliers, Gaszen charges after the 6-month trial, a monthly fee is charged per device or per device and user 09:32 – Gaszen charges 9 Mexican pesos per automated service 09:59 – Gaszen has no MRR currently 10:23 – The team has 5 people in management and 3 junior engineers 10:43 – The team is based in León Guanajuato, México 11:03 – It costs Gaszen $36 to make the device 11:30 – The whole device is made in Mexico 11:43 – The volume needed per year is 50K units in order to get a better price 12:13 – Gaszen wants to keep manufacturing in Mexico, if possible 13:45 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Look at the most common problem and create a solution. If you can keep sourcing and manufacturing locally and with a good price, the better. Keep at it—hard work definitely pays off. 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