Top Founders

Latest Episodes:

700: With $3,000,000 in Projects Completed, Will He Take Down Upwork and Toptal? Jun 24, 2017

Show notes

Connor Gillivan. He's a 27-year old serial entrepreneur and published author. He started his first company out of his college dorm room and built it to sell over $20M in products on Amazon.com. After he became an expert on hiring online, he co-founded FreeeUp, an online hiring marketplace focused on connecting the top 1% freelancers with business owners. He's the author of Free Up Your Business: 50 Secrets to Bootstrap Million Dollar Companies.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Shoe Dog
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
Favorite online tool? — Jira
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? – "I wished I knew to stay focused on what I do best"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:47 – Nathan introduces Connor to the show
01:32 – Connor makes 20% to 30% of the gross margin of a product on Amazon
- 01:38 – Net profits end up being from 5%-15%
02:04 – It was 6 years ago when Connor started his business
02:15 – Connor earned on the first year of the business
02:51 – Connor has scaled up his first company
03:00 – The company still operates with $1-2M in revenue per year
03:08 – The team is composed of freelancers who are based around the world
03:27 – The 3 founders, including Connor, are getting their pay quarterly
03:40 – Connor now spends his time on his second business FreeeUp
03:52 – Connor's first company is Portlight
- 04:05 – Average price point was $75-100
04:25 – FreeeUp was launched in 2015
04:29 – Connor and his co-founder learned about hiring freelancers through Odesk and Elance, which merged and is now called Upwork
04:36 – They didn't like the process of posting job ads and going through every applicant
04:46 – FreeeUp has a better solution where the business owner doesn't have to do the upfront work
04:58 – FreeeUp finds the top 1% candidates for the business owners
05:18 – Toptal is more focused on top developers and designers
05:23 – FreeeUp's freelancers are specialized on e-commerce business operations
- 05:35 – There's no upfront free
05:43 – FreeeUp has a standard markup that they charge on their clients for hourly rates
06:06 – The minimum charge is $2 and 20% for the higher price
06:55 – There are over 500 freelancers on FreeeUp
07:28 – FreeeUp's system can measure the amount they're paying their freelancers
07:37 – The biggest metric is the hours billed to the client
08:01 – Average billing per hour is $10
08:18 – FreeeUp is keeping $60K-80K in revenue per month
09:11 – FreeeUp has around 1500 signups on the platform
09:16 – FreeeUp bills between 300-500 people who are utilizing their workers
09:45 – 2000-2500 people have been billed since FreeeUp started
09:58 – FreeeUp has a referral program where clients can refer other people who would want to use FreeeUp and they receive $0.50 for every hour that has been billed
10:28 – FreeeUp is more hands on with their client
10:56 – Most clients start slow and when they see FreeeUp's benefits, they'll use it more
11:10 – Team size is 20-25 part-time people
11:51 – Connor is currently in Orlando, FL
12:11 – Both of Connor's businesses are bootstrapped
12:21 – Total transaction volume for 2016 is a bit over a million
12:33 – 2016 average revenue
12:44 – 2017 projected transaction volume is $3-4M
13:20 – Connor puts his money back into his businesses to scale them
13:47 – Connor splits the 20% from FreeeUp
14:32 – Since April, FreeeUp has grown 1000%
15:20 – FreeeUp started winning in the ecommerce industry
15:58 – FreeeUp now offers digital marketing as well and try to find different areas that will interest more clients
17:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

There are more business owners relying on outsourcing for their needs and share with others just how beneficial outsourcing is.
Ensure you have backup funds for your company.
Focus on what you do best.

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

699: The Fired ConvertKit Co-Founder You've Never Heard Of, Father Made Me Feel "Not Worth Enough" Jun 23, 2017

Show notes

Dan Gamito. He now leads partnerships and B&D for a company called ManyChat. Formerly, he led the customer success team for ConvertKit.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – N/A
What CEO do you follow? – Des Traynor
Favorite online tool? — Calendly
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? – "Just chill out"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:47 – Nathan introduces Dan to the show
01:16 – ManyChat is marketing automation platform for Facebook Messenger
01:28 – ManyChat is a SaaS business
01:38 – Nathan uses ManyChat and struggles with the emotional factor
02:11 – Users struggle with emotion because of the automation side of ManyChat
02:14 – Think about how people use messenger
02:29 – Dan suggests in keeping your messages informal, straight to the point and write what people would find valuable in EVERY sentence
02:49 – People are now shifting to Messenger from email marketing
02:57 – Messenger is different from email
03:05 – Nathan shares how he struggles figuring out what messages to set
03:54 – How can people use ManyChat in a simple way?
- 04:04 – Dan challenges us to look at our phones and see who we want to talk to at that moment
- 04:17 – Build the interactions up from the bottom
- 04:19 – The goal is to make people want to have a live chat conversation with you
04:51 – ManyChat can be part of your funnel
05:49 – ManyChat has a partnership with Sean of Soul Space Media
- 06:04 – Sean's wife had a case study of ManyChat on their podcast
- 06:10 – DigitalMarketer did a case study, as well
07:05 – For 0-500 subscribers, pricing is $10
07:18 – Average customer pay
07:51 – ManyChat has been around for about a year and a half
08:38 – ManyChat has raised a seed round from 500 Startups
09:02 – ManyChat has raised around a million
09:19 – ManyChat has over 40K bots
10:26 – Dan on leaving ConvertKit
- 10:33 – Dan was Nathan's first hire at ConvertKit
- 10:45 – Dan did everything to add value to the company, more specifically in customer success
- 10:56 – Dan has launched his own software product prior to ConvertKit
- 11:27 – Dan saw Nathan trying to compete with Infusionsoft
- 11:41 – Dan was like a silent co-founder
- 12:12 – Dan ended up not being a good fit for ConvertKit
- 12:54 – Both Dan and Nathan are both headstrong and their communication broke down
- 13:16 – Nathan terminated Dan on short notice
- 13:50 – Dan was naïve and inexperienced during that time
- 14:19 – "I walked in completely unprepared"
- 15:01 – Nathan gave an offer to Dan
- 15:30 – Nathan explains how equity works in startups
- 16:16 – Dan thought he didn't value himself very much
- 19:10 – Dan is now almost 30
19:31 – Dan was pursued by ManyChat's CEO Mike
- 19:55 – "He believed in me"
- 20:13 – Dan approached ManyChat with what he could add to it and the structure that he could build
- 20:21 – Dan knew he could do it by heart
20:36 – Team size is over 15
20:49 – Dan still has no equity
21:03 – Dan joined ManyChat in November of 2016
22:38 – "Time-boxing things and putting expectations around things is never going to work"
24:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

In new work opportunities, know your contract by heart.
Know your worth—don't undervalue yourself.
Automation can sacrifice the emotional and interpersonal interaction with your customers.

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

698: How this Sales Training Tool Went from $600k to $1.2M in Revenue in 1 Year Jun 22, 2017

Show notes

Sam Caucci. He's the CEO of Sales Huddle, a training and development team that is using game technology to help organizations better prepare their people for the workforce.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Meditations
What CEO do you follow? – Jason Lemkin
Favorite online tool? — GrowBots
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 4
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Sam is a big believer that you have to over-network

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:52 – Nathan introduces Sam to the show
01:30 – Sales Huddle is a mobile game platform for employee training
01:43 – Sales Huddle has everything a business needs to learn
02:04 – Sales Huddle is a subscription business
02:10 – Pricing is from $5K to $15K
02:13 – There's a monthly recurring fee based on the number of employees on the platform
02:20 – 2016 revenue closed out at $1.2M
02:29 – MRR is around $800K 82 subscribed clients on the platform
02:58 – Sales Huddle has an initial integration fee for converting a client's current content into the platform
03:18 – Most companies pay Sales Huddle an upfront payment
03:36 – Sales Huddle tries to get companies to pay upfront first
04:03 – Sales Huddle has 100% retention
04:37 – Sam credits their 0 churn on the product not infringing on the customer's current learning stack yet
05:10 – Sales Huddle started as a part-time consulting company 6 years ago
- 05:26 – The development of the product was in middle of 2014
- 05:27 – Selling started in 2015
05:40 – Team size is now 20
06:05 – Sales Huddle is currently raising and has raised $400K
06:33 – The round was a kiss convertible note
06:41 – A kiss convertible note converts to an equity and is similar to safe note
07:44 – Many startups don't think of their sales pipeline
08:08 – Sales Huddle is currently in a strong position
08:40 – As a founder, Sam believes it is his responsibility to drive the shift with his team
08:58 – Sam can definitely raise money through sales, but they have to think of the worst case scenario
09:12 – Sam sees his company running a 100m dash; once they get to 200m, they will think about how to get to 300m
09:30 – ARR goal is around 100m and they're currently at 50m
10:16 – Sam just had a daughter
10:49 – Sam is building a team that is going to have your back in a bar fight
11:12 – Sales Huddle's competitors
11:43 – Sales Huddle just started to spend money on paid acquisition
11:59 – Sales Huddle is almost always breaking even
12:16 – Sales Huddle is burning $40K-60K a month
12:41 – The hardest shift for Sam
13:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

A great retention rate could mean you're not charging enough or your product is just that good.
Be the founder that your team trusts—even to the point of trusting you that raising funds is not necessary.
Always invest in growing your network!

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

697: How $1m in Personal Guaruntees Led to $500M IPO 15 Years Later Jun 21, 2017

Show notes

Scot Wingo. He's the CEO of Spiffy. He's also a 4-time serial entrepreneur and industry thought leader in ecommerce and on-demand economy realm. He's appeared on CNBC's Today's Show and contributed his expertise to The Wall Street Journal, New York Times along with many other publications. He previously founded Stingray Software which he sold to Rogue Wave Software, AuctionRover which was sold to GoTo/Overture, and ChannelAdvisor that went public in 2013, under the stock symbol ECOM.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos
Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 4-6
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "To trust your instincts and invest even more in your own companies"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:44 – Nathan introduces Scot to the show
01:29 – Spiffy is an on-demand car wash and detail company
01:33 – Customers pay for car washes and Spiffy is full-stock
01:59 – Spiffy is a pay-as-you-go model
02:02 – Some customers would request to have their car cleaned on a regular basis so they're currently working on a subscription plan
02:30 – Having your car cleaned is addicting
03:02 – Spiffy started in 2014
03:17 – Scot was 46 in 2014
03:26 – Scot loves building a company
04:00 – In 1999, AuctionRover started
04:14 – AuctionRover is a search engine for auction sites
- 04:16 – Scot always had a plan to develop software for sellers
- 04:20 – After getting acquired, they developed the software which turned into ChannelAdvisor
05:43 – They've raised $3M for AuctionRover
05:53 – AuctionRover started to get acquisition offers
06:16 – Scot was a fan of Goto
06:45 – Stingray put Scot in a position where it had to work
- 07:32 – Scot had accumulated personal debt to run Stingray
- 07:55 – Scot was 25 when he founded Stingray
- 08:03 – Scot had Stingray for 3 years before selling it to Rogue
- 08:11 – Acquisition price was around $7M
- 08:27 – It was software and Scot had a 30% margin
09:07 – Scot added $3M through fundraising
- 09:55 – Tim Draper was on Episode 129
- 10:17 – AuctionRover's acquisition price was $20-50M
10:43 – The negotiation with Goto to buy back AuctionRover
11:18 – Scot bought back AuctionRover for around $1M
- 11:37 – They bought it back in 2001
12:00 – When Scot IPOd ChannelAdvisor, everything was new to him and he had never taken a company that big before
12:07 – Scot's dad was a business person and was on Fortune Magazine
12:58 – Scot always has a higher goal
13:37 – "If you've raised a venture capital, you're going to have an exit"
13:47 – Scot wanted to see what an IPO process looked like
14:02 – Scot raised capital for ChannelAdvisor
14:14 – ChannelAdvisor helps retailers and brands sell on eBay, Amazon and other channels
14:26 – ChannelAdvisor raised a total of $90M before the IPO
15:08 – ChannelAdvisor's market price on Day 1
16:03 – Scot brought in a COO to help him
- 16:11 – After going public, the COO was promoted to president
- 16:20 – Scot felt he wasn't learning much more and the president wanted to step into the CEO role
- 16:27 – Scot felt it was a great time for the president to mature and take on the CEO position
- 16:47 – Scot just simply sent a letter to the board about him leaving
17:35 – Scot is more of a tactical entrepreneur
17:47 – "I just really like solving hard problems and scaling businesses"
17:55 – Everytime Scot would have a career change, it was in a different space
18:05 – Since Spiffy is consumer oriented, Scot believes he can scale it faster than ChannelAdvisor
18:27 – Scot's goal for Spiffy
19:35 – Scot had 2 physical car washes after selling his 2nd company
19:44 – Spiffy was an MVP in 2014 when it was launched
20:09 – There are reasons why customers don't like detailing
20:40 – 70% of Spiffy's revenue is from out-work consumers
21:11 – Spiffy just crossed the $200M runaway and is growing annually north of 100%
21:33 – Team size in the office is around 20 and around 60 technicians
22:06 – Spiffy has raised $7.5M on their series A
22:18 – Scot still gets excited raising funds
22:38 – Scot's aspiration for Spiffy is bigger than his checkbook
23:55 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Always aim higher when it comes to your goals.
Going through multiple exits boosts your learning and experience.
Always trust your instincts.

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

696: The Debate: Are Patents "Entrepreneurial" Or Unfair? Jun 20, 2017

Show notes

Dimitris Giannoccaro. He founded IAMIP, in 2013, after an extensive career in engineering and intellectual property together with some of the strongest leaders and inventors at ABB. The urgent need for digitizing an intellectual property world and maximizing the potential of intellectual property successfully has been felt during his work at his company.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – n/a
What CEO do you follow? – Björn Lilja of Kundo
Favorite online tool? — Slack
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? – "I would never do this again"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:44 – Nathan introduces Dimitris to the show
01:31 – IAMIP is a typical SaaS company
01:56 – IAMIP is where users can collaborate in real-time in order to access all the patents
02:49 – IAMIP has 3 target groups: small startups, medium-size companies and corporations
03:06 – Small startups still need to know how to protect their solution
03:22 – Medium and corporations are big companies and they want to make sure no one is infringing on their rights
04:12 – If you want to get acquired later on, you want to make sure you don't infringe on other's rights
04:42 – Patents are important for product
04:58 – Patents are also filed on services
05:32 – As a consumer, the focus is on the usability of the product or service
05:40 – If you want to make money right and keep growing, you want to have your IP
06:08 – Team size is 14
06:19 – IAMIP was launched 3 years
06:23 – Average MRR is $60K
06:38 – IAMIP currently has 500 users
- 06:54 – There are 62 paying customers
07:18 – IAMIP raised 2 years ago, but it was initially bootstrapped
07:34 – Dimitris was 37 when he launched IAMIP
08:05 – IAMIP managed to have their first client after a few months
08:22 – IAMIP has 2 founders and the split is 50/50
08:59 – Dimitris regretted not inviting more people
09:55 – IAMIP has raised $1M on the first round
10:01 – IAMIP is in the process of raising an equity round
10:27 – Dimitris based the valuation on the future number of customers
11:08 – IAMIP didn't give a discount on their first round which is an equity round
11:44 – Gross customer churn
12:16 – Dimitris' tactic on having 0 churn
12:46 – 2016 revenue
13:08 – 2017 goal
13:16 – IAMIP has recently been accepted by the UCLA Amazon program
13:33 – CAC
13:59 – Everybody is part of the sales team
- 14:30 – All of the people on the team are engineers and the 7 spend additional time in sales
14:51 – LTV
16:17 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Patents are important for growing businesses in order to protect your solutions.
Having co-founders has its advantages and can be much better than doing it solo.
You CAN acquire new customers without an expert salesperson.

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

695: When You Deploy Software Product, Use This to Keep Hackers Out with Detectify CEO Jun 19, 2017

Show notes

Rickard Carlsson. He's the CEO of Detectify, a Stockholm-based security startup selected as one of Sweden's super talents, in 2015, by the Swedish business publication, Veckans Affärer. He has lived and worked in Sweden, USA and India and holds an MSc of applied physics and electrical engineering.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Home Improvement Books
What CEO do you follow? – N/A
Favorite online tool? — Google Calendar
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? – "Know more about how to build a great team"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:43 – Nathan introduces Rickard to the show
01:35 – Detectify integrates security testing into the development workflow
- 01:49 – Detectify makes sure that the safety testing is brought to development
02:08 – Pipedrive uses Detectify as a part of their security
- 02:25 – Security is important for Pipedrive so they use Detectify to automate a large part of their security detecting
02:54 – Average pay per customer is €80
03:10 – Detectify was launched in 2014
03:50 – Rickard's co-founders who worked for the biggest tech companies had the idea of Detectify
04:44 – Rickard met his co-founders at his previous job and they were Angel investors to Detectify
04:58 – Rickard was a business consultant for McKinsey
05:54 – Rickard started a startup to learn new things
06:21 – Detectify has 4 founders and the split is not the usual 25% each
06:41 – Detectify has now raised €2.5M
06:49 – The last round was a priced equity round
07:13 – Rickard does everything except coding including sales
07:42 – Detectify managed to get 1-2 important Angels on board
08:09 – Detectify is currently serving 350 customers
08:20 – Majority of the customers are the long-paying customers
08:45 – There's an increasing number of larger customers
08:55 – MRR is around $30K
09:10 – Nathan has released interview videos on Youtube
09:45 – Team size is around 25
- 10:09 – Salaries in Europe are much smaller than in the USA
- 10:18 – 2/3 of the team are full-time engineers
11:17 – Gross customer churn
11:26 – Detectify has no paid acquisition
11:30 – Detectify has 2 outbound sales people who just started
12:00 – The team is based in Sweden
12:17 – LTV
12:47 – Detectify has a few enterprise customers
- 13:00 – Deals are usually a year contract with an upfront payment
13:25 – Rickard won't disclose what the salespeople get for every $10K deal they close
15:36 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

An eagerness to learn new things is a great motivator to start one's own business.
Security is simply a necessity.
Having different brackets of customers allows for more growth.

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

694: Why 1 Year Payback Period is Important From $50M Funded CEO Jun 18, 2017

Show notes

Don Mal. He's the CEO and co-founder of Vena Solutions which was established in 2011 and is the fastest growing provider of cloud-based corporate performance management software. Prior to Vena, he's owned several executive tech positions along the way with companies like Clarity Systems and IBM.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Who Moved My Cheese
What CEO do you follow? – Satya Nadella
Favorite online tool? — Dropbox
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7-8
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wish I knew that sales cures all"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:44 – Nathan introduces Don to the show
01:21 – Vena was the fastest company to acquire a hundred customers
01:29 – Vena is growing a 100%, year over year
02:05 – CPM or corporate performance management is budgeting, planning and forecasting financial performance
02:28 – A fastfood chain can use Vena's service to capture the sales of their burger
02:55 – CPM is about measuring results in a couple of different dimensions
03:16 – The Top had Glen Coates of Handshake and they're an inventory management
03:31 – Vena is more horizontal based and vertical industry based
04:20 – Vena doesn't compete with Bill.com and Expensify.com
04:31 – Annual RPU is $50K
04:53 – Vena was launched in 2011
05:02 – Team size is almost 200
05:18 – Vena has raised capital with equity rounds
05:49 – Don was running sales for a company in the same space that Don sold
06:02 – Don has already built credibility, so he was able to convince families and friends to invest
06:21 – Don has raised over a million to launch the business
06:50 – Don's process of closing
07:06 – Don was able to raise $3M from other sources
07:30 – If your friends and families can't write a $25K check, a $1k check will do
07:42 – Don has now raised a total of $50M
08:35 – Having the right kind of partner is important in raising a round
09:17 – Vena is approaching 350 paying customers
09:38 – Average MRR is $1.4M
09:47 – Vena finds new customers with a combination of inbound and outbound marketing
- 10:04 – Vena also nurtures their prospects through drip campaigns
10:22 – Total spend on paid acquisition is a couple of hundred grand a month
10:40 – Vena has a team that does the testing for new channels
11:05 – Don wants to keep their CAC below a 12-month cost of the revenue
11:38 – Don is looking at a 12-month payback
11:55 – LTV
- 12:05 – A customer stays with Vena up to 10 years
12:48 – Don sees the significant expansion of their platform
12:55 – Client starts with 2 user cases and can end up having more than 20
13:28 – Gross churn
13:39 – Vena has hit their net negative revenue churn
14:05 – Vena's dollar will turn into $1.20 with their current system
15:15 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Before a big round of fundraising, master your pitch and start with your friends and families.
Make your product stick to your customers and you'll experience amazing growth.
Have experts in your sales and marketing team; trust and release them to do their job.

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

693: How to 3x SaaS Revenue in 8 Months from $25k to $85k Jun 17, 2017

Show notes

Victor Levitin. He's the CEO of CrazyLister and last time he was at The Top was in late 2016. His company, Crazy Lister, has passed 2K customers, about 600K raised and about 30K in 2015 revenue. Each customer pays about $15 in monthly revenue. They've passed 25K in MRR with about 3% gross customer churn each month. They are based mainly in Tel Aviv with their team of 8.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About The Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – Jason Lemkin
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? – "Start with SaaS, everything else does not compound"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:44 – Nathan introduces Victor to the show
01:25 – CrazyLister is the easiest way to create high-converting, mobile-optimized product listings for eBay
01:36 – Investors call CrazyLister, the Wix for eBay
01:49 – CrazyLister closed the door on their Tel Aviv office and focused on just working
02:14 – CrazyLister has recently hit $1M in ARR
02:38 – CrazyLister just passed 3.5 paying customers
03:13 – CrazyLister's growth is a combination of several tactics and strategies
03:26 – CrazyLister now nailed paid acquisition
03:47 – CrazyLister managed to get their CAC to LTV ratio to 1:8
04:01 – CrazyLister is spending $15K a month for paid acquisition
- 04:10 – To acquire a new customer costs $80
04:29 – CrazyLister is trying every paid acquisition
- 04:41 – CrazyLister is now focused on Google AdWords which is working quite well for them
04:58 – CrazyLister couldn't make it on Facebook
05:31 – CrazyLister targets specific customer needs in retail
06:15 – Victor has been in California for 2 months to discuss the future of CrazyLister
- 06:40 – Victor came to the conclusion that with the growth that they have experienced, raising a big VC round wouldn't be healthy for them
07:06 – Victor now focuses on making e-commerce easier for retailers
07:17 – CrazyLister will first prove traction beyond eBay then raise a not-so-big round to sustain growth
- 07:35 – It will be between $1-2M
07:40 – Current team size is 10
07:53 – CrazyLister just hit cash flow positive in March
08:03 – CrazyLister doesn't really need capital, but wants to grow beyond eBay
08:48 – CrazyLister now has 3 plans: $9/month, $25/month and $45/month
- 09:04 – The best customers for CrazyLister are the highest paying ones
- 09:35 – CrazyLister tries to understand their customer even before they upgrade
10:24 – As CrazyLister adds more features and updates, they increase their pricing
10:56 – CrazyLister has developed a feature that is beneficial for businesses
11:37 – Victor has 2 co-founders
11:51 – There are 3 main pillars in CrazyLister
- 11:55 – Victor and Max, the co-founder, are the business pillars
- 12:06 – The second pillar is the CTO
- 12:25 – The third pillar is the paid acquisition expert
- 12:45 – The paid acquisition expert is a full-time employee
14:00 – When CrazyLister began with paid acquisition, their budget was only $5K
- 14:08 – As the data becomes better, they've raised their budget as well
15:34 – CrazyLister now wants to replicate what they did to eBay to other channels
15:50 – 2016 total revenue
16:40 – As a seller/business, you constantly need to add listings on eBay, so there's a considerate need to use CrazyLister
17:03 – Gross churn per month
18:38 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Focus in on your goals, then see if you can raise a bigger round.
Paid acquisition, if done well, can get you new customers consistently and help grow your company.
Let your pricing reflect the valuable updates and developments you make to your product.

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

692: With Microsoft Deal and $225k MRR, Will He Win CRM Space? Jun 16, 2017

Show notes

Jon Ferrara. He's been recognized for pioneering innovation in the customer service management category for many years. Prior to founding Nimble, he was the creator and co-founder of the award-winning customer management product GoldMine. In 1999, Goldmine got acquired by FrontRange and he left to pursue other interests. During those years, he continued to watch the CRM market grow. He saw that most CRMs in the industry that were serving small businesses moved up market and became way more expensive and more complex—leaving the small business market totally underserved. It was at that point that Jon decided to create the next generation CRM product for small businesses called Nimble.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Think and Grow Rich
What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff
Favorite online tool? — Buffer App
How many hours of sleep do you get?— Around 8
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Start a business earlier"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:44 – Nathan introduces Jon to the show
01:42 – Jon was on Episode 643 of The Top
- 01:55 – Nimble has around 10K paying customers with a monthly RPU of $20
- 02:08 – 3% monthly churn
- 02:14 – CAC is around $5
- 02:24 – Team size is 25
02:43 – Nimble has recently closed a $9M round
03:07 – Acquiring SMBs is the exact same way they've scaled Goldmine
- 03:20 – The problem with most CRMs today is that only sales and marketing people use these systems when in fact, everyone in the company should use it
- 03:56 – Jon cold called every Novel reseller in the country when Goldmine was just starting
- 04:00 – "People sell what they know and know what they use"
04:15 – When Jon started Nimble, no one knew that social media would be the way to grow a business
04:30 – Jon looked around for influencers for Nimble's launch
- 04:48 – Nimble is the early pioneer of influencer marketing
- 05:08 – Nimble was getting 100K website views with 0 marketing spend
05:25 – As a company scales up, it should also touch the customers in different ways
05:43 – Nimble doesn't pay influencers
05:45 – To find influencers, you have to know the core influencers around your product
- 06:00 – You find ways on how to build a relationship with influencers
06:32 – Nimble will now try to get around with ad spend
06:41 – Jon always believed that there was another way to get access to customers
06:44 – Jon is going to replicate the strategy they used with Goldmine by partnering with people similar to Microsoft and Google and get their VARs to use Nimble and start recommending it
07:01 – Nimble just signed a deal with Microsoft where they can be a reseller of Nimble
- 07:12 – Microsoft can now give their VARs Nimble so their VARs can be better, smarter and faster in sales and marketing
- 07:33 – Nimble will work on top of Office 365 as the operating system of a business
07:57 – Microsoft is currently passing their revenue to the VARs
08:11 – The VARs are the one making the MRR which is 20%
08:30 – Nimble's average RPU is now around $30
08:41 – If you can help a business person with their sales and marketing needs, you're now opening yourself up to other functionalities for that customer
08:53 – Every business struggles with sales, marketing and relationship management
09:20 – Nimble just rolled out new pricing and marked on automation add-on
10:13 – March MRR is around $225K
10:25 – Nimble now has around 10.5K customers
11:31 – Without relying on the VARs, it's going to be a long term strategy for Nimble
11:48 – Microsoft has bundled Nimble inside of Outlook mobile, Office 365 and Outlook desktop
- 12:07 – It is like a free acquisition
12:32 – Jon won the deal with Microsoft because of their relationship
12:42 – In every business relationship, you want to know how the other person answers and what success looks like for that person
13:21 – Nimble is now a free plug-in with Office 365
- 13:37 – Users can use Nimble for free without paying $30 a month
- 13:42 – Nimble is like Rapportive on steroids
- 13:48 – Nimble has a limited feature for free users
14:14 – Business people are the ones who usually convert to paid users
14:33 – The market of Nimble is a very fragmented market
14:37 – Nathan mentions the people in the same market that were on The Top:
- 14:39 – Hatchbuck
- 14:55 – Pipedrive
- 15:02 – Close.io
- 15:08 – Contactually
15:29 – In a fragmented market, you need to be top of the line with your customers, influencers and with business products that people use
15:52 – Nimble continues to be rated as No. 1
17:00 – The way Nimble wins is how it executes the distribution channels
17:13 – Team size is currently 32 and based in Santa Monica and Ukraine
17:44 – You don't go to raise with a particular value in mind
- 17:53 – Let the market determine the value
18:06 – The last round raised was a series A
- 18:22 – Nimble has talked to a number of VCs and with this deal, they're bringing in a seasoned CEO
19:18 – What people are vetting for Nimble is the future
19:41 – "We're definitely going for a large exit with Nimble"
20:14 – Office 365 is now dominating the email cloud productivity space and they're just starting
20:48 – "And Nimble, I believe, is positioned today to dominate in this space"
22:05 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

In a fragmented market, you need to be TOP of line—a product that people will always recommend.
You have to know how a potential client answers a question and how they define success when making a deal.
Nurture your business relationships—this is KEY to your success.

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

691: King of Amazon Pricing Raises $33M, Helping 500 Sellers Make More Money Jun 15, 2017

Show notes

Victor Rosenman. He's the CEO and founder of Feedvisor. Before founding Feedvisor, he was the founder of an innovative marketing startup and a senior R&D manager at Sun Microsystems. Victor holds a BSc in computer science and an executive MBA from Kellogg Northwestern.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Black Swan
What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos
Favorite online tool? — Whatsapp
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? – "Whenever you make a decision, you need to think a little bit longer"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:47 – Nathan introduces Victor to the show
01:24 – Feedvisor is a decision support system for large ecommerce vendors that sell through marketplaces
02:57 – Most of the e-commerce that joins Feedvisor has significant business on Amazon
- 03:06 – Before joining Feedvisor, they will be doing marketplace management through Amazon
- 03:32 – Feedvisor makes the numbers on the marketplace right
03:50 – Feedvisor looks into a load of various numbers so they can tell which price is right
- 04:05 – Stock is almost similar to Amazon where there's competition in prices
- 04:20 – To look into the numbers and make decisions is tough
04:42 – Feedvisor decides more on pricing, replenishment and assortment
05:02 – Feedvisor charges a monthly subscription
05:15 – Average customer pay is $2-3K a month
06:06 – Undercuts is getting information and automated price adjustments
06:20 – For every revenue Undercuts gets through the system, they pay a rev share
06:40 – Not going through Feedvisor's system will not make sense for the clients
- 06:49 – "There's no way you'll be fast by doing things manually"
06:55 – The rev share is a portion of the entire fee
07:20 – Average rev share percentage
07:38 – Majority of Feedvisor's revenue is coming from their fixed revenue stream
07:45 – Feedvisor was founded in 2011
07:55 – Feedvisor was initially bootstrapped for a year
08:00 – Feedvisor got an initial seat funding in 2012
- 08:03 – It was for $500K
- 08:11 – It was all equity
08:15 – To date, Feedvisor has raised $33M
08:34 – Feedvisor's funding experience wasn't easy but it was fair
08:46 – Feedvisor was initially from Israel
09:12 – Israel has a powerful VC ecosystem
- 09:18 – It's not different than Silicon Valley
09:48 – Feedvisor's revenue just before raising a round
10:00 – When Feedvisor raised a seed round, Victor didn't know about the e-commerce business
- 10:16 – Feedvisor was primarily rev share when they started
- 10:47 – Feedvisor raised funding in Q4
11:45 – Victor pitched to the investors slowly
12:00 – In the end, Angel investor is much more of a personal business
12:55 – The series B was done with a common valuation
- 13:09 – The common valuation for series B is 60%-150%
13:30 – Team size
13:40 – Feedvisor has around 500-600 customers
14:12 – Average MRR
14:57 – Churn is quite low
15:50 – Feedvisor is close to net negative revenue churn
16:10 – Feedvisor focuses on value
16:57 – By optimizing Feedvisor, they create an ROI
17:58 – Feedvisor is charging a fair amount and they understand their customers
18:55 – Feedvisor finds customers through brand building initiatives and content marketing
- 19:02 – Feedvisor invests a lot on brand building
- 19:10 – "When you think Feedvisor, you think it's a reliable solution"
- 19:34 – Feedvisor does their own conferences
- 19:47 – Feedvisor creates an environment where people can learn
20:21 – Feedvisor has paid $3-4K for content marketing
- 20:57 – It is about investing into everything that can help you position yourself, not just content marketing
21:44 – LTV
22:23 – CAC
23:45 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

People want their businesses not to just be automated, but also precise at the same time.
Building your brand creates a great reputation and image for your business.
Making big decisions requires careful consideration and time.

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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