Scale or Die

Latest Episodes:

#04: Brian Moran’s secret to paid traffic and massive growth at SamCart Feb 12, 2019

Show notes

When Brian Moran was growing up, his father gave him a piece of advice that stuck with him: learn to sell. After playing collegiate baseball, studying marketing, and running two online businesses, Brian launched SamCart, an e-commerce shopping cart software that helps small businesses get their online stores up and running. SamCart made quite the splash — and proved Brian truly knew how to sell — when it turned into a $1 million dollar business overnight.

In this episode, Brian chimes in on why friendships are invaluable when growing a business, why badly performing ads are nobody’s fault but your own, and how he’s designed a new type of signup funnel. Instead of pushing his traffic to a demo, Brian has a genius strategy where’s he’s effectively able to recover his marketing spend immediately, create a high-intent audience, and warm his audience through content.

Listen to this juicy episode to get the full story behind SamCart’s industry-defying growth.

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!

Founder Fridays: Confessions of a recovering MRR-obsessed startup Feb 08, 2019

Show notes

As a software startup, you can be focused on a lot of things: customers, revenue, churn, or even competitors. The focus you decide on helps dictate both the culture and direction of your business. At Proof, we recently made a paradigm shift — going from an MRR-obsessed mindset to a customer-focused one. Dave chimes in on his rationale for this change, and the initiatives he’s taking to build this focus into all parts of our business.

Founder Fridays: Why core values are your secret weapon Feb 01, 2019

Show notes

On Founder Fridays, Dave weighs in with what's going through his mind as he grows Proof. This week we'll cover core values in-depth. Dave talks about why core values are important (even at an early stage), how Proof settled on our 7 values, and why you shouldn't copy the values of other companies.

#03: Nathan Barry, CEO of ConvertKit, talks failed experimentation, the value of word of mouth, and growing his business to $1.2MM MRR Jan 28, 2019

Show notes

Nathan Barry isn't the typical startup founder. His company is based outside of a major tech hub (he lives in Boise, Idaho), he's bootstrapped his business to ~$1.2 MM in MRR, and he's as transparent as they come (putting all his financials up online for the world to see).

Find out how he's mastered growth by embracing unconventional wisdom — and why one A/B test almost tanked his signup flow this past year. Our conversation with Nathan covers the two inflection points that dramatically altered the course of ConvertKit, the decision behind switching to a credit card required sign-up flow, and how he's increased MRR using unusual tactics.

#02: Ankur Nagpal, founder of Teachable, on doing things that don’t scale, community building, and achieving 3x growth Jan 28, 2019

Show notes

In four short years, Teachable has grown to over $1 million of monthly revenue and last year, they helped their creators sell close to $190 million in courses. One of the most unique aspects of Teachable's story is that their CEO, Ankur Nagpal, scaled his business by following the counter-intuitive philosophy of "do things that don't scale." During this interview, you'll find out how Ankur hacked growth at Teachable using UDemy's API (until he got shut down), how he identifies the best business opportunities, and how he's approaching building a growth team from scratch. Find out why these strategies work for Teachable and how you can apply these lessons to your own marketing team.

Welcome to the #ScaleOrDie nation. 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!

#01: David Cancel, CEO of Drift, on the importance of brand for startups in 2019 Jan 28, 2019

Show notes

Drift is a company that we've been intrigued by for a long time. In this episode, David Cancel (also known as the uncle, D.C., or the GOAT) gives us his learnings from his 20+ year career as a serial SaaS entrepreneur. He's had five companies acquired (BuyerZone, Compete, Lookery, Ghostery, Performable), he served as Chief Product Officer at Hubspot, and now he's building Drift into one of the fastest-growing SaaS businesses of all-time.

In four short years, he's acquired over 150,000+ customers, grown his team to 250+, and created a new category in the process: conversational marketing. David has a lot of opinions on SaaS, growth, product, and team-building — and if you haven't already gotten the picture, he knows what he's talking about. In this interview, you'll hear about why DC thinks you should avoid in channels that don't scale, why you should throw NPS out the window, and how to create new business categories rather than waiting for the market to catch up. We'll cover brand in-depth and the idea of customer-obsession as it applies to both Drift and Proof.

This episode is packed with juicy content, and we're excited to share our full conversation with the #ScaleOrDie nation. 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!

#00: Introducing Scale or Die, the new growth marketing show from Proof Jan 24, 2019

Show notes

In the tech world, if you don’t scale, your business will die. Join our host, Dave Rogenmoser, co-founder of Proof, as he uncovers proven strategies from the growth experts behind some of the world’s fastest growing startups. Who are they?

On Season 1, you'll hear from some of the biggest names in growth: David Cancel (Drift), Ankur Nagpal (Teachable), Nathan Barry (ConvertKit), Brian Moran (SamCart), Ryan Farley (Lawnstarter), Wade Foster (Zapier), Sujan Patel (SingleGrain), Tyson Quick (Instapage), Casey Armstrong (ShipBob), Kieran Flanagan (Hubspot), Colin Nederkoorn (Customer.io), and Brian Balfour (Reforge). Plus, every week, Dave will chime in with a Founder's Friday episode — covering the biggest growth, product, marketing, and management thoughts we're having as we grow Proof.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Scale or Die

Related Podcasts

1

2

3

4

5

6