Top Founders

Latest Episodes:

730: How Two JP Morgan Men Sell $600k+ In Baby Clothes Jul 24, 2017

Show notes

Cam Miller and Akin Onal, the founders of MORI/BabyMori.com. Cam is the chief growth officer and co-founder at MORI. He is responsible for building out their essential babies' brand and the creative use of marketing and technology. This summer, he represented the brand as one of the 500 startups at Mountain View Accelerator. Prior to MORI, he studied an MBA at London Business School, had various roles in Australia, France and the UK, and studied engineering business development finance and event management.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup (Cam)
Most recent read book – Bhagavad Gita
Favorite online tool? — Slack (Akin)
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7-7/5 (Akin)
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wish I got into entrepreneurship a bit sooner"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:08 – Nathan introduces Cam and Akin to the show
01:47 – Cam and Akin met at JP Morgan
02:12 – There are a lot similarities between what they were doing at JP Morgan and what they are doing now
02:19 – MORI is a direct-to-consumer business model
02:33 – MORI has over 10K customers over 50 countries acquiring 1000 additional customers per month
02:57 – The non-subscription model is what MORI have on most countries
03:05 – MORI has really high repeat orders per month
03:13 – MORI is looking to relaunch a new and improved subscription model
03:31 – The sleeping bag has been their bestseller for the last 6 months
03:51 – A repurchase is when the same customer buys the same item, but a bigger size
04:35 – Half of the revenue per month comes from repeat customers
05:15 – The sweet spot on sales for repeat customers ends around 2-2.5 y/o
05:45 – Average cart price is $100
06:26 – MORI uses Klaviyo and MailChimp for their upsell
07:21 – The website's product recommendation is manual
08:35 – 2016 topline sales was around $500K
09:00 – 2017 goal is $4M topline
10:03 – Cam and Akin have pivoted over 1 and half years
10:09 – MORI had a subscription model before the e-commerce
10:24 – After launching the latest collection in an ecommerce platform, sales went up
11:32 – The subscription is only for a specific product
13:20 – A repeat customer is the one who goes to the site to buy again
13:33 – The subscription model is almost phased out
14:22 – A lot of the products on the site are bundled, but they're not part of the subscription
14:45 – The customer cohort of MORI outgrows them
15:53 – Paid acquisition last month was $50K
- 16:14 – They've recently launched a retargeting program
17:00 – MORI just closed a $2M round which was an equity round
17:28 – LTV
18:14 – LTV is measured on the growth trade and not on revenue
18:31 – Pre-money valuation
19:45 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

The right model for your business can be proven by an increase of revenue.
Keep in mind that your revenue growth is NOT the only basis of your LTV.
Start entrepreneurship as early as possible.

Resources Mentioned:

The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
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

729: Will Edelman Digital Creator Lead New AI Marketing World? Jul 23, 2017

Show notes

David Dunne. He's the CEO and co-founder of Velocidi, a marketing intelligence company that harnesses data for leading brands and agencies. In the 7 years since founding Velocidi, it enables marketers to make data-driven decisions that optimize marketing spend. David is currently leading the firm's next chapter into artificial intelligence.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Selling the Invisible
What CEO do you follow? – Richard Branson
Favorite online tool? — Tidal
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5-6
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Hurry up, things are changing fast, you have to move faster"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:07 – Nathan introduces David to the show
01:41 – Velocidi focuses on how AI can speed up insights
01:48 – Velocidi's technology has always been enabling the process of analysts driving the insights
02:22 – The analysts are Velocidi's customers
02:39 – Velocidi is a SaaS business selling licenses
03:01 – Pricing starts at $3K a month
03:23 – Average monthly RPU is around $6K
03:44 – Velocidi charges by the amount of data streams
04:20 – Velocidi uses API calls to bring in the data
04:42 – Velocidi was launched in 2010
05:19 – There are people who are with David in building Velocidi
05:44 – David was a part of a global business
06:11 – David was happy with Edelman, but he wanted to reinvent himself
07:46 – David was 43 when he started Velocidi
09:26 – Every entrepreneur takes risks
09:51 – David has always separated personal assets with work
10:15 – Velocidi was capital intensive for the first few years
10:56 – Velocidi has initially raised $3M from friends and families
11:01 – Velocidi just closed a $12M round
11:18 – David has ambitious plans for growing the business
11:49 – More capital allows you to have more options
12:10 – CAC
12:21 – Most of Velocidi's customers are large global agencies
12:31 – Velocidi is expanding into other industries
13:45 – LTV to CAC ratio
13:58 – David tries to look at some of the classic businesses for comparison
15:19 – Velocidi focuses on what they can give to customers
16:04 – Velocidi keeps their customers for at least 5 years
16:54 – Some of Velocidi's customers have thousands of customers and there's a lot of room to grow
17:39 – Velocidi is innovating their product at a much faster rate
17:55 – The innovations depend on the customer's' needs
18:21 – Velocidi is expanding their automated self-serve platform this year
18:40 – Velocidi has hundreds of customers
19:19 – Self-service means different things
20:08 – Analysts have been using excel and powerpoint
20:42 – Velocidi delivers the core-data and the clients tailor the data
21:11 – The quality of the data alongside a creative makes Velocidi's clients standout
- 23:01 – David believes that data with creative is a better creative
23:55 – Average MRR
25:36 – David won't sell Velocidi
26:53 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Entrepreneurs will always take risk—what matters is how big of a risk you're willing to take.
Focus on what you CAN commit to your customers.
Things change faster than you think; so KEEP moving and don't get left behind!

Resources Mentioned:

The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
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

728: With $24m Raised, Why is He Buildling FinTech On Back of Advisors? Jul 22, 2017

Show notes

Aaron Klein. His career has largely been in the intersection of finance and technology. As co-founder and CEO at Riskalyze, he led the company twice to being one of The World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Finance by Fast Company Magazine. Today, over 150 riskalyzers served thousands of advisors. Aaron has served as a Sierra College trustee and in his spare time, co-founded a school project for orphans and vulnerable kids in Ethiopia. Investment News has honored him as one of the industry's 40 Under 40 executives.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Extreme Ownership
What CEO do you follow? – Ben Horowitz
Favorite online tool? — Twitter, Evernote and Uber
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? – "The most important skill that you will ever have in starting a company is making great hiring decisions"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:15 – Nathan introduces Aaron to the show
02:07 – Riskalyze's mission is to empower the world to invest fiercely
02:20 – An average consumer struggles to invest and understand the concept of investing
02:39 – Warren Buffett said "Stock for the one thing the American consumer refuses to buy when they were at their cheapest and only wants to buy at their most expensive"
02:48 – Riskalyze invented risk numbers that they can create for short-term
- 03:06 – Riskalyze's focuses on the short term
- 03:43 – The harm usually comes from short-term decisions
03:58 – Riskalyze needs a context to understand how to make a good short-term decision
04:11 – Investors who don't use Riskalyze would normally ask if the 2% down on their portfolio is still okay
- 04:18 – 8% of that portfolio is actually normal
04:56 – "We tend to stereotype people based on their age"
- 05:12 – The typical questions in the industry would often base on the age of the investor
05:41 – Riskalyze has a team of academics who delve into the data and methodology behind the risk number
06:00 – Riskalyze's technology helps the advisor assess how much risk they can handle in a quantitative-objective way
06:27 – Riskalyze works with financial advisors and helps their investors become more successful
06:45 – Riskalyze is a SaaS business
06:48 – Riskalyze is launching their auto-pilot platform
07:19 – Pricing starts at $145 a month
07:36 – Riskalyze was launched in 2011
07:41 – Prior to Riskalyze, Aaron was in a brokerage firm and saw firsthand how poorly average investors thought about risk
07:54 – Aaron told his financial advisor friend about the risk and they founded Riskalyze
- 08:07 – Equity was 50/50 at first
- 08:27 – They've raised and brought in investors along the way
09:03 – Investors have seen a good return of up to 10X
09:48 – Riskalyze is currently focused on going to financial advisors first
09:59 – Riskalyze was capital efficient
10:02 – First round of funding was around $420K all equity
10:23 – Riskalyze is a substantial business and their ARR was a multiple of the capital deployed
10:40 – Total funds raised to date is $24M
11:10 – Team size is 175 from 90 last October
11:24 – Based in Auburn, California
12:21 – Riskalyze currently serves 19K advisors
- 12:25 – There's no free plan
12:42 – Advisors are known to be money efficient
12:59 – Riskalyze tried a free version
- 13:23 – The plan was originally $99 a month
- 13:40 – After they tested to push the price up, their conversion rate tripled
14:10 – Gross annual churn
14:32 – Riskalyze typically loses an advisor to retirement or death
- 14:48 – Riskalyze found a solution for retirement
15:33 – Aaron doesn't have the number for their net expansion RPU yet
- 15:50 – Riskalyze rolled out their advisor product in March 2013
- 15:53 – Then, they went into hyper-growth mode, from 380 customers to 2000
- 16:24 – They lost track of the data with only 4 people
16:50 – Cost to acquire new customers
17:10 – LTV
18:00 – Nathan recommends Klipfolio as a dashboard for Aaron
18:15 – Aaron rolled out a premier tier of Riskalyze in February which is $225
19:18 – Average MRR
21:30 – Aaron shares why Warren Buffett recommends investing in Vanguard
- 21:31 – Vanguard fits the people who are in their 70s and 80s
22:04 – Buffett also said that going to an advisor isn't necessary
22:18 – Aaron believes that Vanguard should still be a part of a person's portfolio; but what about someone who is a risk 45 and Vanguard is a risk 78?
24:45 – Nathan never went to an advisor as he found them fishy
25:15 – Aaron doesn't have any financial advisors at the moment but he will in 2-3 years
- 25:20 – Aaron believes that an advisor can help him maximize the money that he has for the future
- 26:08 – The reason to use an advisor
- 26:32 – Riskalyze wants people to get risk aligned with the risk they can handle
26:48 – Advisor charges a flat fee based on the investor's asset
27:34 – The value of human vice
29:14 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

If an average consumer knows his risk number, he will be more confident to invest.
An advisor will not only help you manage your money, but show you how you can grow it.
Focus on your hiring—this will contribute to a fast-growing company.

Resources Mentioned:

The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
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

727: Why People Pay Him $10m+/year or $4 on Every $10 in Ads Managed Jul 21, 2017

Show notes

Andrew Fischer. He's a seasoned entrepreneur with extensive business development and sales experience in digital media and enterprise software or SaaS. He's recently launched Choozle, a simple and digital marketing platform in the fall of 2012. Based in Denver, Colorado, Choozle is the world's fastest growing digital advertising platform.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Green
Favorite online tool? — Evernote
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? – "I will probably reinforce the message of focus"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:04 – Nathan introduces Andrew to the show
01:35 – Choozle is the fastest growing digital advertising platform because of Inc Magazine's annual ranking
- 01:45 – It will be Choozle's first year in Inc
02:02 – Choozle became profitable last year
02:16 – Choozle was launched in 2012
02:25 – Revenue is between $5-10M
02:29 – Team size is around 32
02:36 – Choozle raised a small round
02:54 – Choozle is a SaaS that installs on an agency level
03:07 – The lowest level of subscription is $99 for an agency with one client and up to $2K a month for unlimited accounts
03:21 – Average pay per customer is $300 a month
03:25 – Choozle has 250 clients
03:30 – Choozle offers hybrid-managed services
03:51 – Choozle is also an ad-tech company, so they take a percentage of media
04:03 – Media shares start at 40%
04:17 – Choozle is a premium player in the space
04:53 – 2016 revenue
05:00 – 2017 target revenue
05:34 – Majority of Choozle's revenue are coming from Q3 and Q4
05:51 – Choozle has raised $8.5M to date
06:02 – Choozle's grace capital is from non-traditional services like a family office
06:29 – The goal when they had a raise was to build a sustainable company
- 06:51 – The raise was an equity-based investment
07:02 – Average churn is 5-7% per month
08:03 – Andrew is currently happy with their churn rate
08:32 – LTV to be
08:52 – CAC
09:22 – Average payback period
09:34 – Choozle has 10 full-time salespeople, total team size is around 30
11:25 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

The digital advertising space is quite saturated and the churn rate of a SaaS businesses is quite high.
Aim for your company to not just be profitable, but sustainable as well.
Don't limit who you allow as investors in your company.

Resources Mentioned:

The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
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

726: This $500k/mo+ Entrepreneur Says Key is Minimizing Expenses Jul 20, 2017

Show notes

Heather Marie. She's the founder and CEO of Shoppable, a technology company that helps media companies, brands and retailers bring the checkout experience to anywhere a consumer discovers or engages with their products. While with Shoppable, she won the 2013 Women in Digital Award from L'Oreal, was named 1 of the 10 Most Powerful Millennials in Manhattan by Gotham Magazine, and 1 of the 11 Tech Gurus Changing the Luxury Game by Refinery29. The company was a 2014 Webby Award Honoree for Online Shopping, a 2016 Webby Honoree for Technical Achievement and named one of the 100 Brilliant Companies by Entrepreneur Magazine.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Never Eat Alone
What CEO do you follow? – Jennifer Hyman
Favorite online tool? — Boomerang for Gmail
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? – "Just how long everything takes"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:07 – Nathan introduces Heather to the show
02:07 – Shoppable creates a technology that helps people buy what they see online
02:37 – People see products in every place
02:50 – Shoppable created a patent pending technology that provides different locations to shop that is outside the traditional retail shop
03:20 – Heather started the company in 2011
03:36 – Heather pitched Shoppable to a number of different retailers
03:49 – Shoppable launched a technology with The Wall Street Journal
04:00 – The Wall Street Journal branding was able to bring in a bunch of retailers and advertisers
04:40 – Shoppable has grown to under 30M products across the whole platform
05:28 – Shoppable brings the technology to where the consumers already are
05:40 – com uses Shoppable on their website and customers can buy directly from the website
07:24 – Shoppable brings the technology to different types of companies
07:40 – Shoppable is also integrated with publications such as WSJ, Condé Nast and others
07:58 – Shoppable is a SaaS company and charges annually for licenses
08:20 – Average customer pay is 5 figures
09:11 – Prior to Shoppable, Heather was at post acquisition of com
09:26 – Heather was a founding member of Affinity Labs
10:21 – Heather got into Affinity right after college
10:39 – The exit with Monster was all cash with an additional incentive
10:49 – Heather made it for 2 years after the acquisition, doing research on Shoppable
11:45 – Heather had to make Shoppable work
12:01 – Heather knew that she would start her own company
12:21 – Heather had debt that she was able to pay off after the acquisition
12:55 – Heather kept a part of the money for Shoppable
13:40 – Heather also had to downsize her condo to keep her expenses low
15:13 – There are ways you can increase your buffer
15:33 – Heather had to change her habits
16:22 – Shoppable has raised $5M
16:33 – The last round was a year ago
16:43 – Heather isn't selling to Shopify
16:55 – Shoppable is above breaking even
17:24 – Team size is 20 and they are all based in New York
17:53 – Heather went on a business trip to NY and on her second day, she thought that Shoppable was made for NY
18:31 – Shoppable has around 438 merchants and 2000 brands
18:38 – One merchant could have hundreds of brands
19:15 – Average ARR
21:13 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

As an entrepreneur, you need to know how to manage money well.
Building a company requires research and an action plan—especially if that company is your first and last shot at building one.
Be aware that things in business and in life may take longer that what you're expecting.

Resources Mentioned:

The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
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

725: How This $3.5m Real Estate Guy Jumped into Group Coaching Jul 19, 2017

Show notes

Charlie Gaudet. He's the best-selling author of The Predictable Profits Playbook. He's a keynote speaker and creator of predictable profits methodology—the most reliable way to systematically generate predictable profits for small businesses. He's been an entrepreneur since the age of 4, creating his first multi-million dollar business at 24 and has helped others generate millions through his strategy. He's received a lot of awards, recognitions and has given business advice around the world including INC, Forbes and Fox Business as well on podcast and radio. He was named one of the American Geniuses Top 50 Industry Influencers. He's a crossfitter, Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter and 3-time wrestling state champion. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife, 3 adorable kidpreneurs, and 1 badass dog.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Losing My Virginity
What CEO do you follow? – Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos
Favorite online tool? — Infusionsoft
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? – Charlie would tell himself to stay in line and pick one particular craft to master

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:53 – Nathan introduces Charlie to the show
02:08 – Charlie is no longer in real estate
02:38 – Charlie grew his real estate company to $3-4M before getting out of it
- 02:46 – They built 2 roads and 30 homes
02:54 – Charlie was in Episode 343
03:21 – Charlie wasn't having fun in real estate so he shifted
03:32 – Charlie has always been growing businesses
03:48 – Someone came to Charlie asking him to help grow his business and paid him $500 an hour
- 03:54 – It was in 2009
- 04:18 – Charlie went to $500 from hour to $2500 an hour
- 04:36 – Charlie realized that there is value in coaching
04:49 – Charlie ended up making 1.1M when he changed his model
05:35 – In 2016, 90% of Charlie's income was percentage-based
06:05 – Charlie is going to a more scalable model in 2017
06:34 – Having the business that is dependent on Charlie won't be good in the long run
06:53 – Charlie can build a system around his coaching model
07:40 – Charlie had a client in the financial space
- 07:44 – Charlie created 4 emails in the financial space for a 12-hour promotion that made $212K
- 07:56 – The client is a small business company
08:12 – Charlie had a client who was selling to lawyers who also brought in $200K from the 4 emails that Charlie curated
08:32 – In some cases, Charlie would get a percentage of top line revenue and for others, he would still get paid per hour
09:20 – The baseline payment will still depend on the client
09:38 – Charlie is highly recommended by his clients
10:26 – Charlie will also bring outside expertise to help him
10:53 – When Charlie got into a marketing promotion, they controlled the whole promotion
11:30 – Something is always bound to happen and Charlie tries to have a contingency plan
12:00 – Charlie has made most of their money from the incentive-based model
12:20 – Recently, Charlie found out that lost $75K from the incentive-based model
13:33 – Most of Charlie's clients are using Infusionsoft
- 13:39 – For every email that they blast out, they have built in tracking
14:331 – Nathan is confused as to why Charlie would switch from the real estate to incentive-based coaching, which is hard to predict
14:37 – Charlie's company is named Predictable Profits for a reason
15:26 – Charlie has different coaches delivering value
15:56 – Group coaching can work on a scalable format
18:25 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

If you lose interest in what you are doing; decide if it's time to take the leap and pivot to something new.
Something is always bound to happen, so a contingency plan is necessary.
If you focus on just one craft, you can grow consistently and exponentially.

Resources Mentioned:

The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
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

724: The $70m+ Recruiting Company You've Never Heard Of Jul 18, 2017

Show notes

Colin Day. He's the chairman and CEO of a company called iCIMS which he founded in 2000 with a vision to deliver applicant tracking software, emphasizing easy-to-use, unparalleled, customer service. iCIMS is the largest stand-alone provider of talent acquisition software in the industry and stands among Forbes top 100 fastest growing private cloud companies in the country

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Good to Great
What CEO do you follow? – Satya Nadella and Marc Benioff
Favorite online tool? — Office 365
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? – "Trust your gut and trust your instincts"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:08 – Nathan introduces Colin to the show
01:47 – iCIMS know they're winning by customer base
02:02 – iCIMS is next to Oracle
02:37 – iCIMS has a bedrock product that is their applicant tracking system
03:07 – iCIMS is a SaaS business
03:39 – iCIMS has multiple products, but the main product is the tracking system
- 03:52 – It handles compliance around data
04:14 – Pricing varies
04:21 – Recruitment becomes an important part of a company when they reach 100 employees
04:37 – iCIMS has price buckets that fit the smaller market, mid-sized and high-end markets
05:10 – How Colin started a SaaS business in 1999
05:17 – Colin graduated from Cornell with a degree in Psychology
05:23 – Colin wanted to do something entrepreneurial
05:38 – Colin's first client was from New Jersey
05:56 – Colin was logged into Comrise's proprietary system
06:21 – Colin then thought to buy the rights to Comrise's proprietary system to start his own company
06:48 – Colin started as a recruiter in 1997
07:36 – The CEO of Comrise believed in Colin
08:43 – Colin saw an opportunity and bought the system
08:57 – The CEO of Comrise loaned Colin the capital for iCIMS
09:40 – When Colin was working as a recruiter, they couldn't find enough technology to work
09:55 – It was a "hey day" when Colin spun out
10:20 – The capital was called a payroll loan
- 10:48 – Colin will call the CEO every time he needed money
11:11 – Colin didn't negotiate equity upfront
11:37 – iCIMS was charging monthly
12:23 – Current team size is around 650
12:33 – In November, they'll be moving from New Jersey to Old Bell Labs HQ
13:06 – iCIMS has grown without any outside money other than the loaned capital
13:17 – iCIMS has brought in a private equity company
14:14 – The money from the private equity company went directly towards the equity and not on the operational side of the company
14:29 – Besides getting an outside investor, it is also a good choice to get a private equity company
15:22 – Colin has a desire to win
16:12 – iCIMS's mandate is to convince the world to be contrarian
16:51 – Colin wants iCIMS to be the definition of winning
17:30 – Colin tries to always stay focused
18:18 – CAC
18:43 – Average annual contract price is around $30K
19:50 – Average MRR
20:40 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Don't be afraid to ask someone about their business plan.
Always desire to win and stay focused – it works.
Trust your instincts; don't doubt yourself.

Resources Mentioned:

The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
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

723: He Sold His Company to Richard Branson, Then Oil Tanked Him Jul 17, 2017

Show notes

Scott Duffy. He's the co-host of Business & Burgers and a contributor at Entrepreneur.com. He's also listed as one of the top 10 keynote speakers of Forbes and Entrepreneur. He started working for bestselling author and speaker, Tony Robbins. He's been a part of early stage exits and worked with big brands like CBSSport.com, NBC internet, Fox.com. He sold his last company to Richard Branson's Virgin Group. He's the best-selling author of the book called Launch!.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – You Are a Badass at Making Money
What CEO do you follow? – Dave Meltzer
Favorite online tool? — Skype
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5.5 to 6 hours
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "You don't win by hard work alone"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:02 – Nathan introduces Scott to the show
01:51 – Scott wants to tell The Top tribe that it is all about being real and integrity
02:01 – Scott is doing a lot of work regarding mindset
02:05 – Scott has a new book coming out called Breakthrough
- 02:26 – It is being published by Entrepreneur Press
- 02:30 – Scott was working on the timeline
02:54 – Scott shares a story about failing
- 02:58 – Scott had a business called Smart Charter
- 03:04 – Scott was looking for distribution and ended up making a deal with Virgin
- 03:16 – Scott was putting in $10K-15K of his personal money
- 03:33 – Scott closed a deal and they moved to their new office
- 04:12 – Scott is now officially a part of the Virgin Group
04:42 – Scott wasn't paying himself nothing before he sold the company
04:54 – Prior to Smart Charter, Scott was a part of Sports 1 USA
05:20 – Majority of Scott's savings went to Smart Charter
05:51 – Instead of taking money out out Smart Charter, Scott decided to go all in
06:18 – Scott now has equity with Virgin
06:57 – Scott sold Smart Charter in 2008
07:10 – Scott learned that the biggest job of an entrepreneur has nothing to do with business
- 07:19 – The most important job for an entrepreneur is to protect himself
07:44 – Smart Charter had an equity pool prior to Virgin
08:22 – The possible deal from Virgin
09:17 – In a matter of weeks, everything changed with Virgin/Smart Charter
10:05 – On Scott's first day with Virgin, he knew that if he messed up, there wouldn't be another chance
10:28 – Scott's superpower is in getting distribution for early stage companies
10:51 – As a small company, dealing with big companies does not make you better
11:19 – The deal with Virgin didn't turn out the way Scott thought it would
12:26 – As an entrepreneur, Scott thinks he was played
12:53 – Entrepreneurs have to know how to repackage the things that have happened to them
13:09 – Business & Burgers is a search for the best burger in America and offers a side of great business advice
- 13:14 – They hit the best restaurant and talk to the top local entrepreneur
- 13:35 – Next episode is Daymond John from Shark Tank
15:20 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Don't be discouraged; sometimes, you just have to learn things the hard way.
Entrepreneurs need to know how to protect themselves.
Take time building relationships – relationships are everything.

Resources Mentioned:

The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
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

722: This Machine Learning Agency did $800k Last Year Jul 16, 2017

Show notes

Michael Segala. He's the CEO and co-founder of a company called SFL Scientific, a data science consulting firm that specializes in big data solutions. He's for leveraging machine learning in analytics techniques to arrive at insights to numerous industries— from healthcare to stock market predictions. Before founding the company, Michael worked as a data scientist in some of the well-known companies such as Compete Inc., Akamai Technologies and he also holds a PhD in Particle Physics from Brown University.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Challenger Sale
What CEO do you follow? – Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Favorite online tool? — Slack
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? – "Diversify my education, learn more than just science from the early set, it will help you out"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:09 – Nathan introduces Michael to the show
01:56 – The founding members of SFL Scientific are particle physicists
- 02:41 – They have a deeper understanding of the problem—from the academic and business perspective
02:58 – SFL Scientific is completely bootstrapped with $2K as their initial funds
03:07 – SFL Scientific got their first client only a few weeks after their launch
03:24 – The first client was a group of people from Stanford studying sleep apnea
- 03:30 – Sleep apnea is a disease that makes you stop breathing for a couple of minutes while sleeping and can lead to death
- 03:46 – The group's idea is to take the sound and record it through an iPhone app at night
- 03:59 – The group hired SFL Scientific to build an entire suite of AI machine-learning product solution
- 04:04 – SFL Scientific also got an FDA resolution for the product
04:30 – SFL Scientific is a complete professional-based consulting firm
- 04:40 – They write specific algorithms for the clients depending on their needs
05:18 – SFL Scientific got their first client in 2015
05:24 – Michael is now 31
05:44 – The pricing depends
- 06:17 – For a high-level R&D-based projects, the charge is hourly
06:34 – SFL Scientific does R&D-based projects with minimum requirements
07:10 – Most clients don't understand the scope of the project so SFL Scientific asks business questions or strategy
- 07:45 – SFL Scientific provides the possible end result
08:08 – First year revenue is low 6 figures
08:27 – SFL Scientific has 3 co-founders
- 08:38 – Michael does more on the sales stuff such as talking with client, one handles the technical and the other handles the implementation of behind-the-scenes coding
- 09:14 – Equity is almost equal with Michael getting 34%
- 09:37 – The first 2 years, they invested back into the company most of what they got
- 09:53 – They had some very low salaries
10:27 – SFL Scientific almost broke a million in 2016
10:42 – 2017 revenue might go over and above a million
10:57 – Team size is 10
11:30 – SFL Scientific currently has a dozen clients
11:38 – One of the clients takes up around 20% of the revenue and Michael knows that it is dangerous
12:00 – SFL Scientific has no churn yet
12:08 – SFL Scientific mitigates a couple of ways the employees can work on multiple projects at a time
12:24 – SFL Scientific doesn't invest only in one problem—go vertical to diversify the risks
13:12 – Looking at data science in general, the challenges are unanimous
13:34 – SFL Scientific is capable of understanding and solving cases from different industries
14:07 – Nathan just finished Thinking in Systems
15:48 – If you don't have decent data to support a model that is accurate to a certain degree, you're not going to get anywhere
17:03 – SFL Scientific looks at the potential of a project
17:16 – Michael is most excited with the health industry in terms of AI and machine learning
19:15 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Consider yourself lucky when you're completely bootstrapped and you end up getting your first client only after a few weeks of launching.
It's quite risky to only solve one problem as a company; diversify your services so you have a greater chance of surviving.
Study different fields and see how you can solve cases from these different industries.

Resources Mentioned:

The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
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

721: 543 Upvotes Got Him on HackerNews Front Page Jul 15, 2017

Show notes

Owen Sadeghpour. A year ago, he was the technical employee or founder at an earlier company and has raised over $50M. Now, he's working at a successful company. He's also got a different project called You Exec.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Blue Ocean Strategy and How to Win Friends and Influence People
What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos
Favorite online tool? — Squarespace
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-10
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "The older you get the more you realize that human relationships are 50% of your work"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:05 – Nathan introduces Owen to the show
01:46 – You Exec is a community of professionals that are looking to improve their careers or the way they have relationships with people
01:57 – You Exec creates incredible resources for free and for paid members
02:13 – The paid members have the advantage of more features than the free members
02:26 – Paid members pay $4/month
02:43 – You Exec also takes insightful books, like The Lean Startup, and summarizes them
03:30 – You Exec's content is usually posted on many different channels
- 03:35 – Some of these channels include Medium, LinkedIn and Facebook
03:56 – You Exec has a mailing list that people subscribe to
04:25 – You Exec used to be something else
04:33 – As a technical person, Owen would write technical articles which were posted on Hacker News, a Y-combinator news stream
- 04:43 – Owen's article landed on the front page
- 04:59 – Owen's first article was Google and Facebook Ad Traffic is 90% Useless
05:20 – Nathan shares how he found Owen and what piqued his interest in him
05:50 – Owen has been a follower of Hacker News
06:02 – The first article wasn't intentionally made to blow up
- 06:49 – When Owen submitted the article, it got 30 upvotes only after a few minutes
- 07:03 – The readers were mostly looking at the tools that Owen featured
- 07:16 – By the time Owen got 50-60 points, Owen noticed that it wasn't getting on the front page which was supposed to happen
- 07:27 – Owen got some coffee and after 6 hours, he got tons of emails and the article was on the front page
- 08:20 – Owen's objective in creating the article was to share with engineers that they're wasting their money
- 09:10 – The article got a total of 30K views
09:47 – Owen wants people to see You Exec's value; that's why they sign up
09:51 – Owen doesn't share You Exec's numbers
10:40 – You Exec has around 1k signups on the paid membership
11:11 – Owen has Google Analytics on while working so he saw where the referrals are coming from
11:56 – The first article still gets around 10 readers a day
12:20 – Owen focuses on insights to bring traffic
12:50 – Owen is passionate in improving patients' lives
13:08 – Owen believes that a media company is great, but his passion lies in helping individuals
13:44 – You Exec also pays for resources
- 14:25 – When You Exec pushes out a weekly newsletter, they include references to the creditor
- 14:50 – The article should save You Exec's members hours of work
15:25 – You Exec pushes out all the sources of things
16:44 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Create something of value and people will stick with you.
More and more people are finding ways to shave hours off their workload WITHOUT sacrificing their quality of work.
Relationships with your colleagues are KEY to having a great work experience.

Resources Mentioned:

The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
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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