Top Founders

Latest Episodes:

820: How to Bankrupt a $4m/yr Business then Relaunch as SaaS Oct 22, 2017

Show notes

Mateo Munoz. He's the COO and managing director of the Americas for Duuzra or Duzzra Group. Mateo has been a crucial part of the management team that helped the company turnaround from group consultancy to its second series A and is leading it from its service-based model to a SaaS-based model.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Never Eat Alone
What CEO do you follow? – Falon Fatemi
Favorite online tool? — Glow Baby and Slack
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? – "Listen a little bit more"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:49 – Nathan introduces Mateo to the show
02:25 – Duuzra was launched in 2012 as an event technology company
- 02:35 – It was on prem and they've worked with different companies
02:58 – They saw where the market was going; so, they started a solution on the cloud
- 03:18 – They got a little bit of the model wrong and there was some mismanagement
- 03:31 – They've burned $3M from 2012-2015
- 03:40 – Their current CEO is from a venture-traditional bank
04:14 – Duuzra then rolled over and Mateo had to deal with the IRS because of their back taxes
04:52 – Duzzra Group is from UK
05:15 – Duzzra was opened up in USA as an Inc. founded by the original management group
06:12 – Duzzra had their Series A
06:45 – In 2016, Duzzra made over £2M
07:12 – Current team size is 30 from the 80 people in 2015
07:19 – Duzzra raised £2.3M in their series A
07:32 – 20 people are in the UK, the rest are remote and are from other countries
08:17 – Mateo was the VP in marketing and he also had his own advertising company
08:42 – Mateo was offered the MD role by the CEO, he also acquired some equity
09:11 – Series A was a typical venture, but it was done through private wealth
- 09:28 – They're currently looking into raising £5M for series B
09:39 – Duzzra just released their SaaS product coming in as a beta product
10:05 – Target revenue for 2017
10:24 – Duzzra currently has a great team that is doing an amazing job
11:24 – The valuation will be important, but they also want the investors to be happy with their series B
12:30 – Duzzra has invested $400K on their new product
13:08 – An average pay per customer is $2500 a month
- 13:11 – The benchmark for Duzzra's predictable revenue was the license for the actual event
13:39 – Duzzra is moving to a completely different model
- 13:51 – Duzzra is now a content delivery and engagement tool with analytics on the back end
- 13:58 – Applications can be packaged quickly and easily
14:36 – Duzzra currently has 10 paying customers for the SaaS side and they still have their full-service suite
15:13 – CAC is around $3500
17:15 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Sometimes you have to accept that there will be loss at times while building a company.
If the business can maintain its credibility (even after burning millions) investors will still trust you and will invest.
Listen to others and learn from them; don't try to do it all on your own.

Resources Mentioned:

Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
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
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
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
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

819: AdTech: Bake Off Leads to Major Acquisition and $100m+ In Media Spend Under Management Oct 21, 2017

Show notes

Sandy Lohr. She's a mother, wife, dog lover and leader of one of the best advertising technology teams in Silicon Beach. Growing up in the industry, she transitioned from client side to tech provider over 2 years ago. Her team strives daily to help local businesses globally find the best customer with her company, MatchCraft.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Jab Jab Jab Right Hook
What CEO do you follow? – Susan Wojcicki
Favorite online tool? — Accompany
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5.5
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Be humble"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:44 – Nathan introduces Sandy to the show
02:18 – MatchCraft performs well and keeps its customers
02:46 – MatchCraft is a tech company in the adtech space
02:52 – 2018 will be MatchCraft's 20th year
03:02 – MatchCraft matches buyers and sellers and has mastered the craft for doing so
03:10 – MatchCraft has 2 founders who came up with the strategy in 1998
03:21 – Sandy is the CEO and she joined MatchCraft 2 years ago
03:40 – MatchCraft acquired the client side of the company in 2014
03:50 – MatchCraft has a technology platform that helps run programmatic searches
- 04:15 – MatchCraft has been doing it a long time with scalability
04:50 – MatchCraft is a managing service and SaaS model
- 04:59 – The managing service is 70% of the business
- 05:46 – MatchCraft doesn't work with any merchants
06:06 – Resellers of MatchCraft have over 6000 sales reps globally
06:23 – Resellers pay MatchCraft their media fee
- 06:35 – For the managing service, the fee is 17% to 12% depending on the volume
07:08 – MatchCraft has strategy discussions with their resellers
07:27 – The SaaS model varies, too
07:57 – MatchCraft provides ad copy in different languages and formats
08:50 – On the SaaS side, fees can go up to 7% of media spend depending on the volume
09:50 – MatchCraft is a privately held company
10:33 – Prior to MatchCraft, Sandy was on the client side and she was working for Advance Publications Inc.
- 11:30 – Sandy shares what she was doing prior to MatchCraft
- 13:15 – Advance Local Inc. bought MatchCraft and Sandy is now the active CEO in MatchCraft
- 14:08 – Sandy's background has always been in marketing and she enjoys learning about technology everyday
14:25 – MatchCraft's team size is nearly 100 and they promote diversity with their global offices
15:13 – MatchCraft doesn't have to raise capital
15:39 – "We have extremely aggressive goals"
16:19 – MatchCraft has grown 26%, year over year
16:45 – MatchCraft has processed more than $100M ad spend annually
17:03 – Sandy's opinion on the idea of Time being sold and what she would do if they buy one of Time's brands
19:43 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

There's nothing you cannot learn that you really WANT to learn.
If your product is performing well, people will remain loyal to you and to your product/service.
Acquiring a company requires your due diligence—make sure it's WORTH it.

Resources Mentioned:

Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
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
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
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
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

818: AdTech: Spongecell Passes $13m+ ARR, Lets Old Customers Go, $26m Raised Oct 20, 2017

Show notes

Ben Kartzman. He's the CEO and founder of Spongecell, one of the fastest growing companies in the United States. Earlier, Ben worked at venture-backed Guidester (now Searchandise.net) in product and business development. He graduated with honors from Carnegie Mellon with a dual BS in Human Computer Interaction and Information & Decision Systems.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Five Dysfunctions of a Team
What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos
Favorite online tool? — Mint
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? – Don't stress about your first job—just find things that are interesting for you, follow your passion and do those things

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:55 – Nathan introduces Ben to the show
02:25 – Spongecell is one of the fastest growing companies because they are revenue driven
- 02:36 – It was in 2009 when Spongecell first measured their revenue
03:15 – 2017 revenue goal
03:30 – $26M has been invested in the company and their largest investors is Safeguard
04:27 – Nathan shares about his first investor report
04:50 – Spongecell is a dynamic and creative company in the adtech space
04:55 – Spongecell works directly with marketers
05:21 – Spongecell's technology manages different creative variations
- 05:49 – The variations can grow very quickly
06:04 – Spongecell sells licenses to a platform and beyond that, it is based on usage
06:25 – The licenses are billed monthly and their biggest client is spending $3M a year
06:47 – Spongecell is working with hundreds of customers
07:20 – Spongecell is moving to target more enterprise customers
07:39 – To fire clients, Spongecell raises the minimum
- 08:47 – People are leaving because of the changes in the service
09:30 – Usage-based charges per impression
- 10:00 – For every 50 cents CPM, a company would spend $50K with Spongecell
- 10:15 – Spongecell doesn't get involved with the media side
- 10:49 – Most clients have an allocated budget to be spent on Spongecell
11:50 – Spongecell has a base amount and the average usage is based on how people are using it
12:06 – Spongecell was launched in 2006 and they raised their first round in the same year
- 12:41 – In 2009, they saw the need for programmatic media, which is the buying and selling of ads through technology
13:22 – Spongecell has 95 people on the team
13:53 – Average ARR
14:35 – Spongecell's intuition with their platform is one of the reason why companies choose them
15:40 – Spongecell has promised to set up an Amazon database so clients can look up the data
16:50 – Fully weighted CAC is changing as they're slowly transitioning, but it is more than $5K
17:43 – Ideal cohort of customers for Spongecell
19:20 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

It's not easy to let go of customers—however, there are times where it's the best decision to make for your company.
The transition to focus on enterprise clients isn't as quick or as easy as it seems.
Find your passion and GO with it.

Resources Mentioned:

Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
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
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
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
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

817: SaaS: DemandBase Raises $65m More, $90m+ ARR, Leading ABM Space, IPO Next? Oct 19, 2017

Show notes

Chris Golec. He's built three, successful, technology businesses in the last 18 years. Today, he's the founder and CEO of Demandbase and his mission is to transform B2B advertising, marketing and sales through innovations and digital technology. Today, hundreds of blue chip enterprises across financial services, hi-tech, manufacturing, healthcare and telecom industries have adopted a demand based on the B2B marketing platform and account-based marketing technology to dramatically improve the way they acquire and grow customers.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Straight from the Gut
What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff, Steve Jobs, Jack Welch and Sundar Pichai
Favorite online tool? — Slack
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-7
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Don't start a company just to NOT work for someone else

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:50 – Nathan introduces Chris to the show
02:28 – In the last two years, Chris has seen that there's a dramatic increase in demand
03:13 – Chris is seeing 50% growth in revenue this year
03:22 – Demandbase just closed funding of $65M in May 2017, which is on top of the $90M they've raised
03:50 – Chris shares the reason that they've raised another round
- 03:53 – The ABM category
- 04:10 – Demandbase has developed new innovations
05:27 – ABM is more of a business process and Demandbase is much more of a platform
05:41 – Demandbase has multiple products integrated into their solution
06:10 – Demandbase was launched in 2007
06:22 – Demandbase currently has a lot of options
06:33 – Salesforce and Marketo are getting into the ABM category as well
08:25 – By the end of 2017, they'll pass the $100M revenue mark
09:00 – Demandbase's customer expansion
09:44 – Current customer count is around 400-600
09:57 – Team size is 300
10:17 – Demandbase will probably break even or be cashflow positive in Q1 or Q2 of 2018
10:55 – Demandbase is increasing investments ahead of plan and that allows them to generate new products
- 11:13 – It makes new customers come to the platform
11:44 – Demandbase has offices in San Francisco, Seattle, New York and London
12:25 – Demandbase has 50-60 quota-carrying reps, 20-25 in marketing, 10-15 HR and the rest are in data, R&D and engineering
13:20 – Account-based marketing allows you to save a lot of money
13:58 – Customers pay annually
14:09 – Payback period is around 12 months
- 14:33 – Chris is lenient with their payback period
15:13 – LTV
15:30 – Chris won't barter just to acquire new customers
17:44 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Raising a large amount of capital will help develop the business quickly.
Account-based marketing can save you more money.
When you start a company, you're working for EVERYONE.

Resources Mentioned:

Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
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
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
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
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

816: Crypto: With $1b+ Cap, DASH Wants to be a Better Venmo Oct 18, 2017

Show notes

Ryan Taylor. He's currently the CEO of the Dash Core Team. Dash is an innovative digital currency that offers a number of improvements over bitcoin. Ryan is an expert in the payments industry with over 15 years of experience in financial services and technology.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Mastering Bitcoin
What CEO do you follow? – Jack Welch
Favorite online tool? — BitInfoCharts
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Don't worry about what everyone else has to say, follow what you really want to do"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:41 – Nathan introduces Ryan to the show
02:21 – Dash is based on the bitcoin code base and operates with the same level of security
02:28 – Dash has improved in 3 areas:
- 02:31 – First is governance that allows people to vote on changes
- 02:49 – Second area is that it's self-funded
  - 03:14 – Dash has incentives for people to contribute to the network
  - 03:25 – Dash received its own funding from the network itself to operate
  - 03:44 – There are masternode owners in Dash
- 05:48 – Team size is 50
  - 05:55 – Dash currently has 15 open positions
- 06:44 – Dash has a more sophisticated economic system than the early coins
- 07:00 – Getting donations for funds is what is primarily happening in the bitcoin world
  - 07:46 – Alot of them are ICOs that don't have an ongoing source of revenue to sustain themselves
- 08:15 – Ryan's opinion on Civic's model
- 09:00 – Dash currently has 4500-4600 masternodes, which is a marketplace
- 09:39 – An owner can own more than 1 masternode
  - 09:52 – There's no way to know the number of masternode owners
- 11:22 – The outcome of a vote
  - 11:30 – There are people who don't vote, but there's a minimum threshold
- 12:30 – Utility-wise, Dash is aiming to create a world-class payment system
  - 12:39 – Some tokens are focused on smart contracts while Dash focuses on the payment
  - 13:05 – Dash is launching their landmark product next year called Evolution
  - 13:42 – Dash is aiming to make payments as convenient and secure as possible
- 14:31 – The treasury is where they allocate transaction fees and block rewards that all cryptocurrency collect
  - 14:55 – With Dash, 45% goes to miners, 45% to infrastructure or masternode owners and 10% is set aside to the treasury
  - 15:33 – The treasury pot currently has $1.2M and the network is extremely well-funded
  - 16:20 – Dash incentivises each component of the network for it to remain functional
- 16:44 – Dash has integrations that they've funded
  - 17:00 – Charlie Shrem just gave them a proposal to create a US debit card
  - 17:14 – Dash has worked with Alt36
  - 17:36 – Dash has funded cards
- 18:00 – Dash's miner plus masternode combo allows things to be done instantly
- 19:42 – Ryan left his job at a multi-million dollar hedge fund to start Dash
  - 19:50 – Ryan believes that there's monetary and non-monetary rewards at stake with Dash
  - 20:10 – Dash has the potential to bring cryptocurrency to a whole new audience
  - 20:30 – Most of those involved have put their own stake into the network
- 21:29 – "My incentives are perfectly aligned with the network, the way it should be"
- 22:18 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

A blockchain company that uses its own network to fund itself remains self-sustaining and self-functioning.
Most ICOs rely on donations for funds, which can be unstable.
Ignore the noise—do what YOU want to do.

Resources Mentioned:

Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
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
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
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
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

815: SaaS: He's Replacing the iClicker Growing From $800k ARR to $1.5m ARR in 6 months Oct 17, 2017

Show notes

Johnny Warström. He's the CEO and founder of Mentimeter. He's an engineer from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. He's worked in 10 countries and visited over 60. He loves adventures and growing his company and he's getting married soon.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – Sebastian Siemiątkowski
Favorite online tool? — Intercom
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 8
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Do more crazy stuff"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:44 – Nathan introduces Johnny to the show
02:21 – Johnny founded Mentimeter with his three friends right out of university
02:38 – Mentimeter is an interactive presentation
- 03:00 – You can connect the audience's' phones with the presentation and they can vote or participate
03:53 – Mentimeter has a free and premium model
04:04 – Mentimeter has over 10M users and 400K presenters who lead meetings
- 04:31 – The presenters are the ones who pay
04:50 – Mentimeter currently has 6K enterprise customers
05:03 – Mentimeter is purely a B2B SaaS
05:36 – Average customer pay per month is $150 a year
05:56 – Mentimeter also offers packages
06:13 – ARR is around $1.5M
06:47 – Mentimeter was launched in 2003 and was initially bootstrapped as a side project
- 07:00 – Johnny was part of Telecom and his co-founders were managing consultants
- 07:18 – It took them 2-3 months to build Mentimeter and they showed it to their bosses
07:40 – Mentimeter had their $350K angel round in 2004 and they have a total of $500K funds raised
07:52 – Team size is 16 and everyone is based in Stockholm
08:25 – Mentimeter has no paid activities and relies fully on organic growth
08:53 – The goal of Mentimeter is to be a mass market product
09:38 – Mentimeter has 1 in sales, 9 in product and 6 in marketing
10:27 – Mentimeter was part of 500 S tartups last spring
11:17 – Fully weighted CAC
11:42 – Payback period is almost instant
12:20 – The team has been doing different experiments to increase customer engagement
13:48 – Mentimeter is on -5 net churn
14:22 – Mentimeter has a licensed model
14:51 – 1% monthly churn
- 15:18 – Some do not continue with their annual plan
- 15:44 – Mentimeter won't give money back, but there's a 40-day refund
17:00 – Johnny shares about a big, annual event in Europe that he's a big fan of
- 17:00 – Mentimeter has a built-in, voting module which functions as a simulation for a contest
- 17:37 – Mentimeter received a lot of attention from that event 2 years ago
18:12 – 2017 revenue goal is $2.3M
18:17 – 2016 revenue was $800K
18:52 – Johnny targets $10M in ARR for 2019
19:22 – "We're not looking for funding at the moment"
19:38 – Johnny isn't interested in selling the company at the moment
21:33 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Keep an open mind—your side project can be your next successful business.
Business ideas can come from the most unexpected of places—don't discount your ideas.
Success gained from organic traffic IS possible.

Resources Mentioned:

Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
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
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
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
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

814: My Hero: $3m+ In Revenue in SF, She's Resisted Funding While Helping Companies Digitally Transform Oct 16, 2017

Show notes

Neha Sampat. She's the CEO of Built.io, a 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant Vendor and 2016 Gartner Cool Vendor that provides a digital business platform that helps organizations excel their digital transformation. She's a recognized industry leader and has led product marketing, cloud computing and online experiences for Sun Microsystems and VMware. She's a proponent of diversity and outspoken advocate for nurturing women leaders in her industry. She was named the San Francisco Business Times' 40 Under 40 honoree and one of 50 Women in Tech Dominating Silicon Valley in 2015. She is part of SF Business Times 2017 List of Most Influential Women in Business.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Moneyball
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
Favorite online tool? — Alfred
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-7
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Do not start questioning yourself, you're confident now. Keep that confidence, anything else will just slow you down"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:42 – Nathan introduces Neha to the show
02:42 – Built is a digital transformation platform
02:37 – Neha started Built 10 years ago when digital transformation wasn't a thing yet
03:21 – Built sells products to enterprise companies
03:24 – Built is mainly a SaaS model, but they also offer services and license deals that may not be SaaS
03:37 – Built started as a professional services company
03:44 – Built is still bootstrapped
- 03:59 – "We're not a typical Silicon Valley company at all"
04:08 – Built was made based on the real needs of customers
04:27 – Team size is around 200, spread across India and San Francisco
- 04:50 – The team in India is mainly the R&D team and the professional services team
- 05:20 – Built has a real economic advantage having the majority of their team in India
- 05:49 – Built is in the remote part of Mumbai
- 06:16 – The office in India is where Neha's co-founder's family is from
- 06:48 – Neha shared how they started building their office with a not-so-good internet speed in India
08:12 – Built is slowly transitioning mainly to SaaS model
08:45 – First million dollar year was in 2013
09:13 – Neha started Built with her co-founder in 2007, and Neha took an advisory role at first
09:42 – Neha used her own money to fund Built
- 10:03 – Neha was very careful in handling her money
10:16 – When Neha and her co-founder started Built, they wanted it to be a product company
- 10:30 – Neha's co-founder was from the integration space and gave her the idea of transitioning to Built in 2013
11:30 – Average customer pay per month is $50K
12:00 – Built currently has thousands of trial signups and hundreds of paying customers
12:30 – Neha is a certified sommelier and when they go to conferences, they'll have wine tasting events to get new customers
13:40 – Gross logo churn
- 13:48 – Built has a 90% retention rate and has maintained it
14:12 – Fully weighted CAC and payback period is less than 10 months
14:43 – Built tries to always get paid cash upfront
15:10 – Gross margin
- 15:24 – Some of the services are used to fund their SaaS
16:06 – Most of the marketing is for conferences
16:54 – End of 2017 revenue goal
- 17:28 – They're focusing on doubling their SaaS revenue
19:11 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

If you build a product that begins by addressing people's needs, you will always have customers.
Don't raise funds if you don't need to, staying bootstrapped is an advantage.
Cash is king, always try to get paid upfront.

Resources Mentioned:

Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
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
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
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
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

813: AdTech: Scoota Raised $10m, $5m in Revenues, Looking at US Expansion for Programmatic Ad Platform Oct 15, 2017

Show notes

James Booth. He's the founder of Scoota and he founded it in 2008. Prior to that, he was the co-founder and CEO of a company that led Europe's rich media, providing infrastructure. He sold that to DoubleClick and Google back in 2007. He's won numerous awards for his service to online advertising, an active Angel investor and a non-executive to a number of startups.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm
What CEO do you follow? – Joe Zawadzki, Jeff Green and Robert Grazioli
Favorite online tool? — Gmail
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – James hoped he knew the internet was coming

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:50 – Nathan introduces James to the show
02:21 – The company that James exited was Tangozebra
- 02:26 – They found the name by accident and in 1999, they couldn't find a .com address
- 03:17 – It was initially bootstrapped and they eventually raised capital
- 03:49 – They had trouble articulating what they were doing
- 04:24 – They raised $1.6M and part of the business went to a media group for 5 years before it was sold
- 04:49 – Tangozebra was sold to Google for $30M
05:15 – After the exit, James spent 6 months creating a business plan
- 06:19 – James launched Rockabox (now Scoota) in 2007 with his co-founder, Torie
- 06:51 – James had put in his own money at the start of the business
- 07:08 – To date, they've raised £12M
07:15 – Scoota is a technology company specializing in programmatic technology
07:40 – Scoota charges a low cost per thousand fee with a benchmark of £1.50 per thousand
- 08:05 – There's also a managing service where Scoota takes a percentage
08:37 – Self-service is high-margin and media is low
09:17 – Two-thirds of the revenue comes from the self-service side
09:30 – Team size is 30—based in London and looking to open a New York office
09:53 – Scoota has global campaigns as well
10:41 – In the early days, James would make up all sorts of things just to get new customers
- 10:59 – In 1999, James had a conversation with a journalist where he spilled out mockups that gave them the exposure they needed
- 12:17 – Suddenly, there was a story about them
13:00 – Average number of customers
- 13:33 – 40 agencies and hundreds of brands
14:04 – It was in 2013 when Scoota broke their million dollar ARR mark
14:26 – In 2016, Scoota hit $10M from their managing service side
15:50 – Average ARR in 2016 was a little under $5M
17:33 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Digital advertising has improved tremendously profitable and continues to grow.
Continue to create something even after your first, big exit.
At the start of every business, you have to do what you can to get the first customer.

Resources Mentioned:

Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
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
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
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
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

812: Crypto: $3m Raised, He's Build the SSL for Cryptocurrency Oct 14, 2017

Show notes

Zooko Wilcox. He's the creator of Zcash and has more than 20 years of experience in open decentralized systems, cryptography and information security along with startups in general. He's recognized for his work in Digicash, Mojonation and many other things that he has worked on. He's also the founder of Least Authority. If you're following him on Twitter, you'll know that he sometimes blog about health science and is very active in Twitter and the crypto space.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Constellation Games
What CEO do you follow? – N/A
Favorite online tool? — Signal
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 8
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "That he would start learning by doing than learning from going to school"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:44 – Nathan introduces Zooko to the show
02:28 – Zcash is a cryptocurrency similar to bitcoin
02:55 – Zcash is like the SSL version of bitcoin
03:20 – Zooko explains why additional security is needed in the crypto space
04:33 – Bitcoin is mainly used for payment transactions
04:40 – Other uses of blockchain is widely proliferating and apply the same technology
- 05:18 – In any transaction, you need to protect not only the identity of the person, but the transaction in the system as well
- 05:38 – In bitcoin, there's no identity needed for the bitcoin address but the flow of funds—where the bitcoin is going may be visible to anyone who's in the blockchain
06:55 – Zooko shares his partnership with JP Morgan for their blockchain security solution
- 07:00 – They had an open, public blockchain which is as global as bitcoin
- 07:26 – The Zcash blockchain has had huge success going around the world
- 07:50 – It was successful because it made it to the top tier of the blockchain system
- 08:50 – Zooko really wanted Zcash currency to be more available globally and they received more users from China
- 10:00 – Yunbi is one of the exchangers in China
- 10:45 – The strategy was to attract users from different places
- 11:13 – Some crypto projects have pre-money and some have ICOs or pre-sale
- 11:44 – The Zcash blockchain started mining, where people can get their own Zcash tokens
- 12:44 – Zooko changed the algorithm for mining coins
14:30 – Zooko has raised $3M and promised investors that they will get a cut from the mining
- 15:28 – There are transaction fees, but it's different from what the investors get from the mining
- 15:45 – It's the miners who give the share of the reward over to the founder and they choose to do so
16:17 – Zcash is still early in the space
17:06 – The fundraising happened early 2015
17:50 – Zcash has a unique structure to their system
19:35 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

While blockchain system is known to be secure, it doesn't hurt to have additional security features in place with cryptocurrency.
ICOs and pre-sales are quite the trend for blockchain companies.
You can't learn everything from going to school—learn by DOING.

Resources Mentioned:

Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
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
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
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

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

811: Crypto: After $2m ICO, He's Building the Bloomberg Terminal for Crypto Oct 13, 2017

Show notes

Maksim Balashevich. He's a former IBM software engineer and co-founder of a successful, hosting business in Belarus. He now manages the overall product and leads the Santiment team. He's a veteran leader, having spent more than a decade trading successfully using Santiment and Elliot Wave as analysis. He's also a guru in yoga and meditation.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – N/A
What CEO do you follow? – Nick Szabo
Favorite online tool? — Blockchain and Reddit
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? – Move faster to the same goal

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:53 – Nathan introduces Maksim to the show
02:30 – Santiment builds information for the emerging cryptocurrency token economy
03:30 – When Santiment had their ICO, they've established a token for their platform
03:36 – To get access to Santiment, you can buy the monthly subscription by paying in dollars or by depositing your tokens into the platform
- 04:12 – There's no revenue on the SaaS side yet
04:33 – Santiment has raised $500K in July 2017
- 05:03 – Santiment has sold 45K tokens
05:17 – Santiment's token name is San
05:44 – Santiment got 720 participants on their token sale
06:14 – Santiment has 8 full-time people and a few contractors
06:29 – Santiment hasn't liquidated their funds yet
06:43 – Santiment got 12K ethereum from their presell, which they used to fund the development of the business
07:44 – Maksim is hoping to start charging in 3 months, but it seems like it will take 6 months
08:10 – From the community's response, Maksim can't charge for Santiment yet and people are asking for specific kinds of data
- 09:34 – It's not that they will not charge, but they can't charge just yet
10:00 – Maksim shares how Santiment works in the crypto economy
11:15 – Prior to ICO, Santiment didn't take additional capital and just used the presell
11:46 – Maksim shares how they came up with the number of tokens to issue
- 11:49 – For crowdsale participants, it is 54% of their outstanding
- 12:04 – For presell participants, for every 12K ether contributed, Santiment will issue them 50M tokens
- 12:21 – The rest will be part of the team's tokens, which is currently locked
13:55 – Maksim hasn't seen any active competitors yet
14:34 – Iconomi is one of Santiment's partners and is also in the same space
16:16 – Maksim's prediction for the next blockchain that will do well
- 16:48 – Maksim personally likes Polkadot which connects blockchains
- 17:10 – There are also projects that introduce the token economy
- 17:24 – There's a growing number of blockchain companies providing decentralized storage solutions
18:17 – Maksim shares the latest issue on hacking in cryptocurrency where $7M was stolen
21:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

When to charge for your service isn't an easy to decision to make—you have to consider the community and the value that they want to get from the company.
In recent hacking events with ICO, security issues are being called into question.
If possible, start working towards your goals as EARLY as possible.

Resources Mentioned:

Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
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
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
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
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

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