Top Founders

Latest Episodes:

810: SaaS: With $70m Raised, White Board Videos Secret to VidYard 2x YoY Growth Oct 12, 2017

Show notes

Michael Litt. He's the co-founder and CEO of a leading video marketing platform called Vidyard. While he's not bringing leading video-based technologies to market, he serves as general partner at Garage Capital, a seed stage fund focused on supercluster companies looking to expand their networks in the Silicon Valley. He also sits as Communitech's board of directors, a KW-based organization designed to help companies start, grow and succeed.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – N/A
What CEO do you follow? – Shannon Stubo
Favorite online tool? — Coinbase
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? – You need a big support network and focus your energy into building a business

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:41 – Nathan introduces Michael to the show
02:16 – Michael was in Episode 414 of The Top and back then, they only had 132 people on their team
02:30 – Vidyard now has around 250 employees
02:38 – Vidyard has 3 offices
02:44 – Vidyard has launch multiple products including a self-serve product called Viewedit
- 03:13 – Vidyard just had 100K users sign up after launching Viewedit, which is free
- 03:33 – It's currently a chrome extension
04:22 – Michael shares how they spent their last amount that was raised
- 04:51 – Vidyard had their series C in January of 2017
- 05:30 – Michael believes that the CFO should be the "house of no"
- 06:00 – Everybody should be accountable for their finances and Vidyard uses Adaptive Insights for budgeting
- 06:43 – Vidyard has to be very careful with their lifeline and maintain their cash flow
07:23 – Michael's goal as the CEO
08:39 – Vidyard's RPU has grown over time
08:53 – Target for upsell is 30% of net new revenue
10:03 – Annual logo churn
10:13 – Net retention
10:42 – Over thousands customers are using Vidyard's platform
10:57 – Viewedit is being used in tons of organizations
11:46 – Michael believes Vidyard will double, year over year
13:00 – Streaming cost for Vidyard
- 13:11 – Vidyard streams over 50M videos a day
- 13:15 – Vidyard subscribed on the Netflix model
14:41 – Weirdest strategy Michael employed to get new customers
- 15:08 – The strategy was inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk
- 17:17 – Michael shares how they were able to get customers from companies in other countries
- 19:10 – New CMOs in a company are one of the best target customers, so Michael looks out for new CMOs announcements
19:54 – Payback period is usually 18 months
- 21:02 – Payback period reflects your company's status
21:20 – CAC
- 21:35 – Michael is also looking into zero-cost marketing
22:09 – Michael won't sell Vidyard to Salesforce, even with a $300M offer
22:55 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Use your funds conservatively and make everyone accountable for budgeting.
How your company is doing reflects on your payback period.
Make sure you have a big support network in place.

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

809: How This $12m Accounting Biz Moves from On-Prem to SaaS Model Oct 11, 2017

Show notes

Barry Clapp. He brings over 30 years of experience in sales and management to Centage. Beginning with IBM, he held successional positions with increasing responsibility on software and internet businesses. At DigitalGlobe, a satellite imagery company, he served as VP of international sales opening distribution in over 20 different countries.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Biography of Richard Branson
What CEO do you follow? – Marcus Lemonis
Favorite online tool? — Salesforce
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? – Be bolder, take more risks and get more equity from businesses with potential

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:43 – Nathan introduces Barry to the show
02:12 – Centage makes a budgeting and planning tool simple
- 02:20 – Every company budgets and most use Excel, which can be very difficult
- 02:49 – Centage automates budgeting to replace Excel
03:10 – Centage is a SaaS business
03:18 – Centage was launched in 2002
03:37 – Centage's current business model is a changing from their previous licensing model
04:27 – Centage is in the SMB space and they have less competitors
04:55 – One of their competitors, Adaptive Insights, has just raised $175M
05:13 – Centage has raised a total of $13.5 M
05:50 – Barry shares what he did prior to Centage
06:24 – The top three PE firms for Barry, in Boston
07:16 – Centage's customer pays an average of $35K to $40K a year
07:26 – Centage has also sold services in their first years
07:48 – Pricing is per seat
08:18 – Centage currently has a thousand customers or 10K users
- 08:46 – Most customers have 3 or more subsidiaries
09:06 – Barry is hoping to break the $30M ARR number
09:20 – Centage just launched their new product that is currently on beta
09:57 – 30% of Centage's customers are on subscription and the 70% are installed on premises
11:07 – 2016 ARR was $12M
12:43 – Team size is around a hundred with some remote
13:13 – Average CAC
- 13:36 – Centage has an inside sales model
14:29 – Annual logo is quite higher than the previous model
14:41 – Centage has 80% retention rate
15:43 – Centage's product has been continuously improving over the years
16:32 – Centage has always made 10-12% of their revenue from upselling
- 16:52 – Centage sells additional training
17:11 – Barry shares the weirdest thing they did to acquire new customers
18:50 – Gross margin
19:10 – Centage runs webinars, goes to tradeshows, spends at least $10K a month on Google AdWords and total marketing spend is around $100K a month
21:06 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Be BOLD and take risks now!
Shifting from a previous model does NOT mean that you should force your current customers to shift as well.
If people see value and how you can make life easier for them, they'll stay loyal to your product.

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

808: AdTech: AdForm Beats $40m Revenue Monetizing These 3 Days Oct 10, 2017

Show notes

Gustav Mellentin. He's the founder and CEO of Adform in the adtech space. Before that, he was an engineer in the banking world with an MBA, and was also doing consulting. He just recently came back from a European holiday.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Daring Greatly
What CEO do you follow? – Jorgin Vig Knudstorp
Favorite online tool? — Vivino Wine App
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? – Be bold and do what you think is right

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:46 – Nathan introduces Gustav to the show
02:20 – Gustav shares his European holiday experience
- 02:30 – It was pure leisure
02:50 – Adform is a tech company that has developed an ad tech platform
03:13 – Adform typically takes a percentage of the spend in the trading model which is on a monthly fee
- 03:27 – Adform also has a per usage model for their application software
03:50 – Average fee from the data model starts at $5K
04:23 – Most of the revenue from Adform is from the trading space
04:42 – Adform's data model is the fastest growing part of the business and 10% of the revenue comes from it
06:07 – Adform takes around 10% from the trading model
- 06:21 – Gustav believes 10% is healthy for spend
06:55 – Adform was launched in 2002
07:10 – Gustav shares how they came up with Adform
07:41 – First year revenue
08:15 – Adform has past their million dollar mark in revenue, in 2010
08:40 – Team size is 780 globally
09:01 – Adform was initially bootstrapped, then they raised $5M in equity and $20M from debt
10:23 – Gustav shares about the deal they made
- 10:40 – "At the end of the day, it's all about trust"
12:50 – Adform has a great management team that is able to manage their number of employees
14:20 – Adform's DMP or data management platform was launched 18 months ago
- 14:34 – Current number of customers is around a hundred
15:16 – Gustav has flown his whole team in
- 15:38 – Gustav shares what people do at their end-of-the-year party
16:18 – Target revenue by end of 2017 is $50M to $100M
17:00 – Gustav is one of the major shareholders of Adform
18:00 – Gustav shares what other entrepreneurs could learn from his story of entrepreneurship with his personal relationships
20:27 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Zero revenue can turn into millions if you focus on your goals.
Keep your people happy and make them feel that they're part of the company's success.
Entrepreneurship and personal relationships can grow at the same time.

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

807: He Exited His Company Than Invests $1m Into Energy Company For Operations Roll Oct 09, 2017

Show notes

Christopher Engman, the founder of companies like Vendemore, Retain24, TaxiSystem and many others and he's also an active investor. One of his companies, which he's now active and an investor in is called Climeon. He's also involved with Proof Analytics, Trigger Bee and many others.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Inside the Tornado
What CEO do you follow? – N/A
Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Put learning fast in front of prestige"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:38 – Nathan introduces Christopher to the show
02:14 – All of the companies Christopher founded are profitable and are growing companies
02:50 – Christopher's biggest exit was Vendemore
- 03:04 – Christopher ran it for 9 years
- 03:12 – Vendemore was initially bootstrapped and raised funds
- 03:51 – The exit was three years ago
- 04:42 – Christopher and his wife owned 75% of Vendemore
05:40 – Christopher took 50% of his Vendemore exit to start Climeon
- 05:53 – It has 350 shareholders
06:11 – Christopher believes that Climeon will be the next dominant player in mechanical engineering
07:13 – It is easier to raise funds if you have a number of shareholders
- 07:28 – The next round for Climeon will be a big round
08:08 – Christopher shares how Climeon works
- 09:50 – The process of energy transformation inside the Climeon
10:37 – Christopher believes in the potential of Climeon
11:24 – Team size is 40
11:41 – Climeon has less than 10 customers
12:10 – Climeon's target clients are steel plants, cement plants and those in geothermal energy
12:36 – Christopher runs sales and marketing
12:42 – Climeon's founder is in CTO side
12:54 – Christopher shares how he found out about Climeon
- 13:20 – Christopher's shares in the company is quite big
14:05 – The starting contract value of Climeon
14:40 – Climeon is getting several hundreds of millions of dollars per client
14:51 – Christopher doesn't get commission from the sales
16:40 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Building companies isn't always about revenue, but the value you bring.
If you believe in something, go for it.
Turning heat into electricity is the future of energy.

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

806: SaaS: Recruiting Tool w/ $60m Raised, 2000 Customers, Unleashes CRM Oct 08, 2017

Show notes

Daniel Chait. He's the CEO and co-founder of Greenhouse, which designs tools that help create and navigate a new world of work. Daniel has been a technology entrepreneur in New York for nearly 20 years. Before Greenhouse, he co-founded Lab49, a global firm providing technology consulting solutions for the world's leading investment banks. He's a proud graduate of the computer engineering program at the University of Michigan.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Nudge
What CEO do you follow? – Kim Scott
Favorite online tool? — Trello
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7.5
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "The dotcom crash"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:35 – Nathan introduces Daniel to the show
02:10 – Greenhouse sells recruiting software that corporations use to design and execute their hiring process
02:40 – Greenhouse is a SaaS company
02:50 – Average customer pay per year varies
- 03:05 – The pricing model depends on the size of the company
03:40 – Greenhouse tends to price higher than their competitors' because they offer a premium software solution
04:05 – Greenhouse is in the recruiting software space which is currently crowded
- 04:15 – Daniel shares some of their competitors depending on the categories
- 05:10 – The competition is extremely fragmented
- 05:33 – Greenhouse falls into all the categories, from the smaller ones to enterprise
06:05 – Greenhouse offers three tiers
06:24 – Greenhouse was launched in 2012
06:32 – First year revenue was around $50
07:33 – Post product revenue is around $1M
08:25 – Greenhouse currently has 2000 customers
09:03 – Team size is 195, based in San Francisco and New York
09:30 – Greenhouse has raised $16M from their series C round
09:53 – Daniel enjoyed doing their fund raising and he believes in their investors
- 10:13 – Every round is different
- 10:40 – This was the first time that Daniel raised outside the investment
11:19 – Greenhouse has a world-class retention rate
- 11:36 – 97% of their customers have renewed
11:55 – Most of the team is in inside sales
12:36 – Daniel shares where their expansion comes from
13:11 – Greenhouse's newest product is Greenhouse CRM which is still in beta
14:10 – The inside sales team job is heat mapping the products used by a customer
- 14:41 – The expansion is through additional growth
15:15 – LTV-CAC ratio
- 15:48 – "We have a healthy ratio"
16:04 – Payback period
17:00 – The weirdest thing Daniel did to acquire new customers
- 17:43 – They went from market research to marketing
17:57 – ARR
- 18:07 – Daniel on hitting the $50M ARR mark by end of 2017
19:40 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Create something that will make you stand out in a competitive and crowded market.
Focus on how you can increase your customer retention rate—perhaps it's by adding new products that will better serve them.
Raising a capital round can help you gain new customers.

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

805: SaaS: 30,000 Customers Make Him King of Call Tracking and Attribution Oct 07, 2017

Show notes

Todd Fisher. He's the co-founder and CEO of CallTrackingMetrics, a top rated call automation and lead management platform serving over 30K businesses around the globe. Todd developed the initial software and continues to be the driving technical force behind the company. He has also made a number of notable developments in the technical field, especially within the Ruby on Rails community.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – N/A
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk and Steve Jobs
Favorite online tool? — it
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? – "Get your shit together"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:30 – Nathan introduces Todd to the show
02:00 – CallTrackingMetrics has 30K paying customers
02:45 – CallTrackingMetrics sells phone numbers and provides functionality and features to those
- 03:08 – It can track which ads resulted to a phone call
03:27 – CallTrackingMetrics was launched in 2011
03:40 – Todd started with Revolution Health Group in 2005, then in Captico in 2008
04:24 – Todd started with a website that accepts credit cards for CallTrackingMetrics
04:58 – Todd met his wife in 2008, and who is also part of the CallTrackingMetrics company
06:00 – First year revenue was around $10K MRR
06:26 – In 2012, CallTrackingMetrics had 1700 customers which became 5K in 2013
- 06:43 – Currently, they're passing 30K customers
07:05 – Todd shares how they increased the number of their customers
- 07:42 – The first few customers found CallTrackingMetrics through a small landing page which was put into Google AdWords
- 08:30 – Todd's conversation with Living Social's founder, Erin
- 08:55 – Todd learned the RIGHT way to target customers through AdWords the HARD way
09:28 – Todd tracks their own app
09:46 – Last month, they spent 6-figures on AdWords and they also did other paid channels
- 10:49 – Average CAC
11:20 – Customers pay an average of $2K a month from a marketing agency
- 11:46 – Call tracking is an enhancer for their campaign
12:08 – CallTrackingMetrics has two types of customers
12:43 – 20% of the 30K customers are marketing agencies
13:16 – Last month's MRR is around $1.2M
15:04 – Churn is around 6% monthly
15:43 – Team size is 23,
- 15:55 – 3 in sales, 2 in marketing, 5 engineers and most are in support
17:35 – The Famous Five
20:08 – CallTrackingMetrics is totally bootstrapped

Key Points:

Continue to explore what you want to do until you find something that will make you content and happy.
Ask around for opinions and don't make decisions out of frustration.
Create something that adds value and brings joy to others.

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

804: SaaS: Yapp Passes 80,000 Events Powered Oct 06, 2017

Show notes

Maria Seidman. She is the CEO and co-founder of Yapp, the top platform for event applications. Prior to Yapp, she was the GM for mobile and VP for Warner Bros. Digital Distribution. She has her MBA from Stanford and her BA from Yale and resides in New York City.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – How
What CEO do you follow? – Stewart Butterfield
Favorite online tool? — FullStory and Slack
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5-7
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Take more risks"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:41 – Nathan introduces Maria to the show
02:29 – Yapp already has 85K apps published on their platform since they started
02:28 – Yapp was founded in 2011 and launched in 2012
02:56 – Maria left Warner Bros in 2010, then she met her co-founder for Yapp and they started in 2011
03:40 – Yapp's market is professional events or the "mice industry"
03:54 – Yapp provides event technology for organizers who are in corporations or associations
- 04:25 – Yapp isn't for casual events
04:56 – Yapp is a SaaS business and charges monthly fees
05:17 – Nathan shares how his former business, Heyo, was seasonal and the churn was difficult to manage
05:40 – Maria shares how Yapp attracts customers because of its affordability and its ability to adapt to different types of events
- 06:10 – Yapp has an internal communications tool
06:44 – Most customers are having multiple events per year
07:00 – Yapp's pricing starts at $400 up to their volume pricing which is annual
07:32 – Small organizations tend to avail of Yapp more
08:34 – Team size is 5, all remote
- 08:48 – 3 are engineers, 1 in marketing and Maria is in charge of other tasks
09:12 – Yapp started with a small debt round for capital, but was bootstrapped after the growth
10:19 – The investors were supportive of Yapp
10:45 – Maria aims for Yapp to be a group of tools targeting marketing and events
12:14 – Yapp is in a competitive market and can't share their numbers
12:42 – Yapp is focused on their ARPU and is going deeper on the enterprise
13:16 – Maria shares the weirdest thing she did to get customers was sneak into tradeshows
15:45 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

The seasonality of the business affects churn drastically so having a second revenue stream is a must.
Smaller groups are having more events than corporations are having within the frame of a year.
Applications that are versatile get more users, especially from the business market.

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

803: SaaS: Email He Used To Get From $0 to $10k MRR Oct 05, 2017

Show notes

Spencer Coon. He's the co-founder of HiBox.co and Joincube. He has over 5 years of experience in enterprise collaboration software and 7 years working internationally. He has managed teams across 3 continents and 5 countries. Previously, he was in investment banking at JP Morgan in New York City.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Black Swan
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
Favorite online tool? — Intercom
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Spencer wished he knew that technology was going to be more of his passion

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:50 – Nathan introduces Spencer to the show
02:20 – HiBox is a collaboration app for teams
- 02:31 – It has an artificial intelligence to bring everything together and enhance productivity
03:19 – HiBox is a SaaS model with a 14-day free trial
- 03:30 – It has 3 different versions, including a pro version and an enterprise version
03:57 – ARPU is $32 a month
- 04:03 – An average account has 7-8 people
04:55 – Spencer wanted to have his own product, so he left JP Morgan
- 05:13 – He wanted to create something tangible and has been passionate about Latin America
05:39 – Spencer started HiBox in Buenos Aires
- 05:46 – It's less competitive to start a business in Latin America with talented people and their rates are more competitive
06:16 – There are 5 people on the tech team and 15 people in total
- 06:28 – Most of the team is in Barcelona
06:36 – Spencer left JP Morgan in 2012 and went to another company where he met his now business partner
07:28 – First year revenue was less than $10K
07:43 – HiBox is Spencer's first baby as an entrepreneur
08:00 – Spencer used up his savings to start HiBox
08:41 – HiBox has raised some seed rounds
- 08:54 – It was more difficult to access VC funds in the USA because HiBox is based in Latin America
- 09:16 – They had 2 priced rounds with a total of $500K funds raised
- 10:00 – Spencer is still in the middle of negotiations for their next round
10:20 – Over 10K companies have signed up to HiBox and there are 35K active users
10:38 – HiBox is their main focus at the moment
10:42 – Joincube is an enterprise social network focused on multi-national companies in Latin America
11:13 – There are 300 companies paying for HiBox
11:30 – MRR is around $10K for the pro version
11:54 – Last month's revenue
13:05 – Joincube will become HiBox corporate
13:34 – Gross monthly churn is 6.2%
15:10 – Spencer shares why their product would still be beneficial for their clients after the upgrade
- 15:46 – It's almost similar to Intercom, but better
16:00 – CAC is $233
- 16:10 – Most are used for online ads
- 16:26 – It is a fully weighted CAC
- 16:38 – $3K was spent on paid advertising last month
16:57 – Spencer is hoping that the business will be profitable at the outset
- 17:32 – They're doing as many tests as they can
18:05 – ARR target by the end of 2017
19:00 – Weirdest thing we ever did to acquire clients was tell them I lost a bet and would give them a 50% discount forever
20:00 – Gross margin
20:48 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

It's never too late to start your entrepreneurial journey.
Starting your business in a country with less competition is a cost-efficient and wise decision.
An upgrade should NOT affect customer loyalty and their experience with your product.

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

802: Crypto VC: After $10m Raised in ICO for Fund 3, Now Demand High for $250m Fund 4 Oct 04, 2017

Show notes

Spencer Bogart. He's a managing director and the head of research for Blockchain Capital, the premier venture firm for investing directly in the blockchain companies. Prior to joining Blockchain Capital, Spencer was a VP of Equity Research where he covered traditional software and internet stocks. He had his first industry report on blockchain technology and is the most active analyst covering bitcoin.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Zero to One
What CEO do you follow? – Balaji Srinivasan
Favorite online tool? — Telegram
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? – "I just wish I would have spent more time on bitcoin"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:48 – Nathan introduces Spencer to the show
03:10 – Crypto hedge fund has created a "honey pot" for hackers
- 03:18 – The "honey pot" is actually bigger on the exchanges
04:23 – Most companies are now making bitcoins more accessible
- 04:45 – Spencer shares how to use Coinbase
05:00 – Spencer has predicted that there's a sub 25% chance that the US SEC is approving a bitcoin ETF
- 05:21 – It is difficult for regulators to get comfortable with bitcoin
- 05:30 – Spencer shares the pros and cons of approving a bitcoin ETF
- 06:02 – There has been changes in US SEC's administration that could be favorable with the approval
- 06:39 – There's an ETF that was disapproved, but appealed and it was then granted
- 07:34 – There are speculators who moved in beforehand
08:03 – Blockchain Capital is a VC firm that has focused on blockchain for the last 4-5 years
- 08:14 – The last fund they did was their own ICO
- 08:23 – Their cap was a $10M offering
- 08:33 – Their offering's sold out in just 10 minutes
- 08:50 – They are currently raising their fourth fund
09:10 – The industry has been changing consistently
- 09:36 – "We're just all hands on deck"
10:08 – Blockchain Capital's fund one was $3-5M and fund two was $15M
- 10:40 – Target fund for the fourth one is $250M
11:12 – Spencer shares about their Civic deal
- 11:50 – Civic allows you to provide your identity to others without them getting your identity
- 12:28 – Civic's ICO
12:50 – Spencer discusses with his team how they handle situations where they had an initial investment of token sales
- 13:22 – Tokens are not dilutive
- 13:57 – People who bought into token issuance won't directly benefit from the acquisition of companies
- 14:08 – There's a lot of demand for under-line technology
15:35 – Spencer shares the problems Civic is trying to solve
- 16:18 – Civic wanted to sell enough tokens to get the attributions abroad to create an initial user base
- 16:35 – A company won't sell its equity upfront
17:45 – Spencer made their acquisition and token issuance in two totally different time frames
- 18:13 – Token offerings have different models
20:19 – Nathan asks Spencer how an entrepreneur can manage his money in order to run the business vs. what to keep
- 20:31 – Most of the funds that have been raised should be converted to dollars so they can pay the bills
- 21:05 – Spencer is liquidating usually 80%
- 21:19 – "Do yourself a favor, convert into a currency that you can actually pay your bills in and pay the developers in"
21:57 – Spencer believes that Coinbase is the biggest brand in the space, especially in exchange
22:38 – Nathan asks Spencer, "what if any government starts normalizing crypto?"— the demand for the exchange would decrease drastically
- 22:58 – Coinbase was incentivized to not see widespread government adoption of cryptocurrency because they need people to put money into their system
- 23:20 – Spencer believes that if this happens, this will be a high class problem for Coinbase
- 23:25 – There are companies who are using Coinbase, not just for exchange
26:24 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Bitcoin is becoming more accessible to people because of the demand.
The government's regulation on cryptocurrency is still in its beginnings.
Liquidation of the funds depends on the company's decisions regarding what they need and their what their goals are.

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

801: The $60M King of Ticket Sales Oct 03, 2017

Show notes

Jayesh Parmar. He's a serial entrepreneur with two decades of event industry experience. Currently, he's the CEO and co-founder of Picatic and is listed as one of the world's top 10 tech entrepreneurs disrupting the event industry.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos
Favorite online tool? — Amy
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-8
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Failure is just a data point"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:44 – Nathan introduces Jayesh to the show
02:10 – Picatic brings people together and does things that are absolutely different from others
- 02:22 – Picatic has given away a product for free
- 02:55 – Picatic has changed the ballgame with their pro product
- 03:13 – Picatic offers Picatic Anywhere which is a new ticketing service
04:00 – The bigger stream for Picatic is the commission-based stream
05:00 – Average pay for Picatic varies
05:26 – Picatic has a basic product which is free and the pro product which is commission-based
- 05:33 – Base rate is a dollar and commission rate is 2.5% per ticket
- 05:46 – Stripe is on top of Picatic
06:18 – Enterprise API ranges from $5K to $100K depending on the API calls and ticket sales
06:58 – Event businesses are seasonal, but Picatic has partnered with different venues and organizations that aren't seasonal
08:00 – Picatic was launched in 2008 as a side project
08:20 – Picatic went through Extreme Startup and got $250K with 10% equity
08:33 – Picatic has raised $1.5M as additional capital
09:22 – First year revenue is less than $10K
09:48 – 2015 revenue is less than a $100K
10:05 – As an event organizer, Jayesh wanted to de-risk events
10:31 – Picatic has pivoted from their previous model
11:40 – 2016 revenue
- 12:22 – The revenue is around $1.2M
12:40 – Team size is 15 based in Vancouver, Canada
13:55 – 2017 goal
14:05 – Picatic grows 100% year over year
14:25 – Jayesh has been going to different events to market his Picatic by being a doorman
16:40 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Don't stick with your current business model just because—test other models that your company could benefit from.
The online ticketing world is consistently improving.
The best way to get your business out there is by marketing it yourself.

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

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected