Scale or Die

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Founder Fridays: "The Board Man gets paid" Jun 14, 2019

Show notes

All week, I’ve been telling our team, “The Board Man gets paid!” I love that quote. But what does it mean? Kawhi Leonard is an NBA player that just took the Toronto Raptors to the Finals and won the world championship, knocking off Golden State.

He’s a total freak, and I read an amazing article this week breaking down who he is and how he operates. It has inspired the heck out of me, and I pulled 6 hilarious stories out of it to share with you to inspire you and your team to greatness. Kawhi is a Board Man. Let’s all be Board People.

Liking Founder Friday? Have an idea for a topic you'd like us to cover? Tweet at Dave — or shoot him an email at Dave@UseProof.com & tell us your thoughts!

We're excited to have you along for Season 1 of #ScaleOrDie. Before you leave, be sure to leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, post a comment, or share with your friends! Tune into more episodes at useproof.com/scaleordie and read more stories at blog.useproof.com. Follow Dave & Proof on Twitter — @DaveRogemoser and @UseProof. We publish episodes every week so be sure to check back often for more interviews with the internet’s best minds in growth!

#12: Brian Balfour of Reforge on Flywheels, Funnels, and the Future Jun 04, 2019

Show notes

Are funnels dead? David McClure's famous AARRR funnel framework has been the guide book for growth strategies for years — the problem is McClure's funnel framework is nearly 11 years old!

Are loops and flywheels the new thing? Making the transition from thinking about growth strategies from funnels to loops and flywheels could be the key to drive growth for your business in 2019 and the years to come.

Listen to Brian Balfour, Founder/CEO of Reforge, talk about his experience with growth VP of Growth @ Hubspot. Then we'll cover his journey along the way to scale his new growth masterclass business. Learn from Brian's extensive knowledge gained from countless hours studying 100s of SaaS companies.

0:00 — Introduction
1:48 — How Brian helps companies at Reforge
3:24 — Brian's journey from Hubspot to Reforge
4:42 — Funnels versus loops? Funnels versus flywheels? What's here to stay?
11:08 —Learn how growth cycles play out at Reforge
14:31 — Where do you think paid traffic plays into startups?
20:00 — Examples of building loops into products
22:58 — Brian's biggest challenges at Reforge
23:53 — Why is Reforge's business seasonal?
25:45 — The Salty Six to know Brian better

This is an actionable episode — we hope you enjoy! Get ready to #ScaleOrDie...

#11: Colin Nederkoorn, CEO of Customer.io, on why knowing your customers is the key to growth May 21, 2019

Show notes

Customer.io is a SaaS product that allows companies to create, manage, and send all of their messages between their apps & their customers. The software solves a common headache by providing a no-code-required solution for product teams — one in which you can pipe in events from platforms like Segment and then drag and drop automated email messages.

Since their launch in 2012, Customer.io has grown rapidly — to 41 employees and more than 1200+ customers ranging from SaaS to lot and beyond!

In our conversation with Colin Nederkoorn, the CEO & co-founder of Customer.io, we’ll cover the origin story and how he powered early growth through directly talking to customers. Then, we’ll dive into why word of mouth has been such a powerful growth method for their brand. Finally, our conversation dives into how Colin is approaching the development of paid & partner marketing, fundraising, brand, and remote culture.

0:00 — Introduction
3:25 — What is Customer.io? What’s the origin story behind the company?
4:46 — Email felt like the universal thing we could affect. We were email only for 3 out of the 6 years.
7:45 — Learning to describe your customers is important — we sell to product teams
8:30 — Who do people switch from? What’s the use case for a product team using customer.io?
9:25 — How did you get your first customers?
9:45 — We reached out to talk to and learn from future customers in forums and on Twitter
10:45 — Playing the long game is important. Early conversation with marketer at (Moz) became a sale 6 years later when that person was a CMO at another company.
11:22 — Launched in private beta in April 2012 with 5 companies paying us $10/month. Then opened as a public beta product about 4 months later.
12:05 — "People have their guard up when they think any conversation is going to lead to a sale at the end... If I was starting a company from scratch again, I’d start talking to people even if I had nothing to sell them”
13:05 — How are you acquiring customers today?
13:50 — The way Customer.io supports agency clients differently
15:00 — Customer.io’s entrance into paid marketing
16:18 — As a CEO, how do guide your CMO to approach entering the paid space?
19:30— What levers are you thinking about pulling when you are focused on growth?
20:30 — Branding and messaging is important. We’re in a crowded space. You really quickly want to give a customer value.
22:20 — “So much of what people consider conventional has never felt right to me and our company”
23:20 — Colin’s decision in having a fully distributed team
26:18 — Customer.io's untraditional approach to fundraising. “We view funding as a tool to get to the next stage of the business.”
28:40 — CEO to CEO, what’s the best thing you’ve done to develop yourself?
30:48 — Why we sleep
31:45 — The Salty Six

This is an actionable episode — we hope you enjoy! Get ready to #ScaleOrDie...

#10: Kieran Flanagan, VP of Marketing @ Hubspot, on SaaS, Scaleups, and Startups May 07, 2019

Show notes

If there’s a company that knows the playbook for Growth, it very well might be Hubspot. In 13 years, they’ve scaled to one of the biggest names in marketing & sales and joined the ranks of successful tech IPOs. Kieran Flanagan, VP of Marketing and Growth, is charged with three of the most important parts of Hubspot’s flywheel: acquisition for the Sales product, the Freemium funnel, and the global web strategy. In his career, he’s worked for some of the biggest names in SaaS including Salesforce and Marketo. Plus, he’s helped many startups implement the strategies that power larger businesses.

In this episode, we’ll talk through how startups differ from scaleups, the inbound growth engine that has powered Hubspot’s success, why the funnel is dead, and the reasons more companies should invest in Customer Success.

0:00 Introduction
1:10 useproof.com/personalize
3:35 Kieran's career path to Hubspot’s VP of Marketing
4:23 Why the mission matter for SaaS
5:33 Scaleups are great when you want a new challenge every few years
7:37 What do the big companies do differently than small companies?
8:03 Check out our interview with Wade from Zapier on Season 1 Episode 6
9:12 100% sales are made from something we acquire
9:47 We have the advantage of being able to think 18 months down the line
11:46 How we experiment at Hubspot
13:00 Hubspot’s target persona — Marketing Mary
14:05 Hubspot startup discount
15:08 Going narrow at first is imperative for startups
16:00 Why the funnel is dead
16:40 Most companies are successful on 1 or 2 channels
18:16 Don't be underinvested in Customer Success
19:20 The Salty Six to know Kieran better
20:15 Inbound and Saastock
21:01 ReplyAll
21:10 Tim Ferriss
21:32 The Platform Revolution
22:48 @searchbrat
23:00 Growth TLDR Podcast

This is an actionable episode — we hope you enjoy! Get ready to #ScaleOrDie...

Founder Fridays: The NEW way we build product at Proof Apr 26, 2019

Show notes

Building great product is everything. Get it right, you'll win beyond your wildest dreams. Get it wrong, and life is painful. I've experienced both. One thing that's been a huge learning lesson as we've built Proof has been how to structure and run our product teams. We've iterated on this cycle quite frequently, and after a lot of failures, we've figured out some great systems to build product quickly and effectively. As a customer-obsessed company, we also have put systems into to place that makes us focus on our customers every day. In this episode, we'll cover everything product — from how we structure our teams to our philosophies on building great, customer-focused software.

Liking Founder Friday? Have an idea for a topic you'd like us to cover? Tweet at Dave — or shoot him an email at Dave@UseProof.com & tell us your thoughts!

#09: Casey Armstrong, on growing SaaS for eCommerce (lessons from BigCommerce & ShipBob) Apr 23, 2019

Show notes

Casey Armstrong is the CMO at Shipbob, an end-to-end fulfillment solution that brings the same 2-day shipping you know and love from Amazon to a wider array of businesses. Previously, Casey was the VP of Marketing at BigCommerce, an eCommerce platform with over 50,000 SMB clients. He has consistently acquired millions in net ARR, managed millions in spend, and driven billions of organic pageviews. In short, he knows how to grow a business.

Our interview takes a deep dive into the BigCommerce funnel, covers why marketing is symbiotic with other parts of the business, and talks about why partnerships have been critical to his success. As a leader in the B2B marketing world, Casey also provides great insights on how to think about building out a marketing team. During our interview, he was in the early stages of building out his team after his arrival at ShipBob and he walks us through his mindset.

00:00 Introduction
4:27 Inside the funnel at BigCommerce
5:33 Testing customers vs stock images in paid ads
6:40 Most marketers just drive people to the homepage. Why?
8:00 Native integrations can be a growth mechanism
10:00 How to add necessary friction to your funnel for quality
11:40 High quality data helps marketing & sales teams be successful
15:00 The product is a marketing & sales tool; marketers need to think about the product experience.
16:47 Growing and structuring your marketing team
21:00 Why marketers need to be able to do multiple channels
22:03 The salty six

This is an actionable episode — we hope you enjoy! Get ready to #ScaleOrDie...

Founder Fridays: Critical lessons from bootstrapping SaaS (live from Traffic & Conversion 2019) Apr 19, 2019

Show notes

At this year's Traffic & Conversion Summit in San Diego, Dave sat down with Garrett Holmes, Director of Content at Digital Marketer to discuss Proof's growth to date. This episode includes their full conversation — covering everything from our transition from agency to SaaS to how we used two strategic advisors to power viral growth. The episode is raw, conversational and full of life lessons from our company's journey. Hope you enjoy!

Liking Founder Friday? Have an idea for a topic you'd like us to cover? Tweet at Dave — or shoot him an email at Dave@UseProof.com & tell us your thoughts!

Founder Fridays: The most formative books I've read this year (+3 books I hated) Apr 12, 2019

Show notes

Dave is an avid reader — powering through about a book per week. In this episode, he'll chime in with his favorite reads from the last year and how they've affected his thinking at Proof. Plus, as a special treat, he'll share his 3 least favorite reads, so you don't have to waste your time.

Liking Founder Friday? Have an idea for a topic you'd like us to cover? Tweet at Dave — or shoot him an email at Dave@UseProof.com & tell us your thoughts!

#08: Tyson Quick on moving Instapage upmarket & growing Enterprise revenue to 20% of ARR Apr 09, 2019

Show notes

Instapage started in 2012 as a SaaS solution for easily creating landing pages at scale. Today, they are a company of 170 employees with 4 global offices, 15k customers, and a whole host of offerings to help advertisers increase conversions through post-click experiences. Tyson Quick, CEO and Founder of Instapage, has been critical to the success of the business. In this conversation, he talks with Dave about the origin of Instapage and how he grew the company into a leading name in SaaS.

Our conversation turned more interesting and actionable as he specifically discussed the strategy he used to shift towards Enterprise customers. These high-value customers have been insanely powerful for revenue growth and the long-term outlook of the business. We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.

Audio times:
0:00 Introduction
2:47 The origin of Instapage & where the company is at today
3:46 Transition from landing pages to a post-click optimization solution
5:01 How did you get your first customers?
6:23 Cutting through the noise and turning Instapage into a market leader
7:48 Moving away from being solely a landing-page builder
8:56 The shift to enterprise; selling value instead of a tool
9:10 Moving from no-touch to a sales-driven culture; pricing is key
11:05 My advice? Just get it out the door
12:40 Our magic number is "how much do you spend on digital advertising per month”
13:23 A year in 20% of our total revenue is from enterprise; and 60-70% of new revenue is from total revenue
14:20 People want to keep this secret. Why?
15:20 Investors care about gross margin; if you can prove it with services — do it
17:10 Deliver value in some way for marketers
18:45 The salty six
19:36 SaaStr
20:23 Pocket app for text to speech
21:48 High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil
24:35 @TysonQuick on Twitter

This is an actionable episode — we hope you enjoy! Get ready to #ScaleOrDie...

Founder Fridays: How we launched this podcast & made our first brand play Apr 05, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, Dave is joined by his first guest, Ben Johnson, the wizard behind Proof's content to discuss the launch of this very show. They'll talk through the concept of the show, the goal of the show, the equipment we use to film, how we book guests, our production process, our editing cycle, our launch strategy, and the methods we've used to scale the show.

If you've ever thought of producing your own podcast — or if you're just curious why we do this every week — this show has all of your answers.

Equipment mentioned during the episode:

Canon EOS C100 camera
Canon 6D camera
Audio Technica ATH-M30x headphones
Aputure Light Storm COB 120B lights
Sennheiser EW 112P microphones
Cayer BV30L tripods
Set from Article.com
Zoom.us for video recording software

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