Top Founders

Latest Episodes:

650: TREX FinTech $15M Raised, Breaks Down Securitized Loans From Renewable Energy Orginators So Investors Can Buy with CEO Benjamin Cohen May 05, 2017

Show notes

Benjamin Cohen. He's the CEO and leading T-REX, with a strong vision for the future of enterprise financial technology and its impact on marketing and making markets more transparent and efficient. He's built the T-REX team and the T-REX software platform by combining the most sustainable elements of finance with modern SaaS technology.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Influence
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn
How many hours of sleep do you get?— Between 6 and 7.5
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wished that I knew that not everything was of the utmost consequence for my entire life"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

02:24 – Nathan introduces Benjamin to the show
02:55 – T-REX is a fintech company that makes complex capital markets more liquid by making them more transparent and efficient
- 04:04 – T-REX provides a familiar framework where their clients can slice and dice everything
- 04:15 – "We're just making the risks more transparent"
04:20 – T-REX has an enterprise SaaS model
04:59 – Customers are paying $2k-20K per month depending on the functionalities they need
05:09 – Benjamin launched T-REX in 2012
05:55 – The Ecosystem Integrity Fund is T-REX's series A lead investor
06:12 – T-REX has raised $15M in total
- 06:26 - T-REX had 2 priced equity rounds
06:32 – Team size is 21 and based in New York
- 06:39 – Half of the team is based in Tel Aviv, Israel and are mostly software engineers
- 06:57 – The cost of living in Israel is a bit lower
07:35 – T-REX has over 225 users
- 07:51 – The 225 are all paying customers
08:28 – The model of T-REX is that investors are coming in and looking for different deals than what originators have out, which includes different loan portfolios—specifically in the renewable energy sector
09:34 – Loan's interest
09:44 – The secure ties
10:30 – Average MRR
11:13 – "I invested 2 years of my time before getting a dollar"
11:19 – It took Benjamin 2 years to raise capital
11:36 – Benjamin's fund was from his previous role in Macquarie Bank
12:12 – Renewable energy presented a great slate of a market
12:33 – Benjamin funded T-REX with a 6-figure capital
12:52 – A junior engineer's average salary from Tel Aviv
- 13:53 – Everybody in the company has equity
14:03 – Benjamin is the sole-founder of T-REX
14:32 – Customer churn is currently zero
- 14:54 – Benjamin is expecting T-REX to be incredibly sticky
15:20 – T-REX is selling additional seats and their customers can sell more modules
- 15:29 – T-REX can expand horizontally to different markets and vertically where they can sell different models
15:50 – Years ago, T-REX has set up their own broker/dealers
16:05 – CAC is dependent on the customers
17:11 – T-REX will do a $10K conference sponsorship and they need to be there
17:35 – T-REX series B closed in November 15th
20:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Be in the space that you know best and don't fear being a solo founder.
It is actually GREAT to make mistakes and GREAT to fail, as long as you learn from it.
Don't fear that every decision you make or action you take has a lifelong consequence in your life—it simply isn't true.

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
Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
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
Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

649: HolaGus $1.4M Raised Helping Clients Automate Support with AI with CEO Pablo Estevez May 04, 2017

Show notes

Pablo Estevez. He's a Mexican entrepreneur who co-founded HolaGus, an artificial intelligence company that focuses on automating customer service and sales via chat for Spanish speaking countries. Since founding his company, he has been distinguished for receiving awards like The Diamond Winner by MassChallenge.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – A lot
Favorite online tool? — N/A
How many hours of sleep do you get?— Usually 7
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "That this is going to be really, really hard, I was going to work a lot of hours"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:14 – Nathan introduces Pablo to the show
02:00 – HolaGus develops AI to automate customer service and sales via any chat channel
02:11 – HolaGus charges businesses for every assisted conversation
- 02:39 – HolaGus's standard fee is 1-2 Mexican pesos
- 02:47 – HolaGus has a pay-as-you-go model
03:20 – HolaGus is a B2C business and is similar to GoButler
03:37 – "If we really want to scale the business, we have to focus on the AI"
04:04 – HolaGus was launched in 2015
04:10 – There are 3 co-founders
04:22 – HolaGus has raised capital and is about to close their third round
- 05:04 – HolaGus has raised a total of $1.4M
05:23 – HolaGus focuses on the customer's closing and how much automation they're able to create
- 05:39 – "We try to keep the bots, like, between 80-90%"
- 05:53 – HolaGus focuses on closing the biggest amount of clients that they can
- 05:58 – HolaGus has a lot of interesting commercial deals in the pipeline
06:09 – HolaGus has already sold 3 contracts
- 06:16 – HolaGus only started selling 4-5 months ago
- 06:21 – HolaGus is hoping to close 85 clients
06:55 – HolaGus is still on pre-revenue
07:10 – HolaGus has different projected revenues and models for their 3 customers
07:12 – HolaGus has an upfront development fee of $25K
08:02 – HolaGus pricing will depend on the technology
- 08:13 – HolaGus develops AI, specifically for a business
- 08:39 – HolaGus is now creating an ocean of knowledge
- 09:08 – "If we have a thousand clients, our AI gets smarter and smarter really quick"
11:08 – Pablo believes that they automate a lot
11:25 – Total projected conversations for the first 3 customers will be 20K-40K conversations
11:56 – HolaGus tries to charge a minimum of monthly consumption
12:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

AI technology can be complicated and needs continuous development.
Play around with different payment models to see what works best and is most profitable.
Starting and running a business is tough work—you just have to be dedicated.

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
Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
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
Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

648:Biluu Lets Mexicans Safely Drink Tap Water for $150 with CEO Peter Aronso May 03, 2017

Show notes

Peter Aronson. He's an award-winning journalist who's has been featured on NPR and Marketplace. He's also been a vice president in the corporate world. Now, his startup helps Mexico transform that notorious Mexican tap water into perfectly drinkable clean-tasting purified water.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Founder's Dilemma
What CEO do you follow? – N/A
Favorite online tool? — HubSpot CRM
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Peter wished he took business courses and knew about the GTD (Getting Things Done) methodology

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:12 – Nathan introduces Peter to the show
01:33 – People aren't supposed to drink the water in Mexico
01:41 – Mexico became the No. 1 consumer per capita in the world
- 02:08 – 70% of the consumed bottled water in Mexico is 5-gallon jug
- 02:21 – An average Mexican family is spending more for their water than on their broadband or landline
02:48 – Peter's company is Biluu
03:07 – Peter had been curious about the startup and business world
03:13 – Peter was the corporate vice president for US-Indian Joint Venture
03:30 – While in the Himalayas, Peter would boil his drinking water every day
03:35 – Eventually, Peter taught the people how to use a water purifier
04:00 – Peter searched how to properly filter water and what should be taken out
04:25 – Peter's wife is Mexican and he returned to Mexico
04:36 – Biluu is a for profit business, not a non-profit
- 04:44 – Biluu is currently doing direct sales and YouTube promotions
- 05:00 – The main challenge in Mexico is changing people's habits
- 05:12 – "We've had to establish trust"
06:12 – Biluu filtration system cost is $170
- 06:50 – For $170, they can get virtually unlimited purified drinking water for a year
- 06:58 – A cartridge will last for a year
07:11 – 1500 people are drinking Biluu's water
07:35 – Some of Biluu's filtration systems are in restaurants
07:53 – Biluu has sold around 100 units
08:10 – The previous water filters in Mexico weren't effective or scientifically proven
08:43 – 42% of Biluu's growth came from referrals
08:55 – Biluu isn't manufacturing by themselves
- 09:28 – Biluu has an exclusive license to the technology
- 09:39 – The deal is by volume commitment
- 09:57 – Biluu needs to maintain a 6-figure sales
10:14 – Biluu is totally self-funded
10:20 – Team size is 5 and all are based in Mexico City, Mexico
10:47 – Biluu is trying to look for brand ambassadors to reach out to people
- 11:06 – Biluu is also doing Facebook paid ads and Google AdWords
12:17 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

It's not easy to change people's habits, but you HAVE to try—especially if it's for the better.
Learning from a community can be a life changing experience.
Find a brand ambassador who has a good online reputation and large following.

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
Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
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
Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

647: Tai Lopez Owns 50% of $89/mo MentorBox.com, 800 Units, $80k In Initial Test for Self Help Box with CEO Alex Mehr May 02, 2017

Show notes

Alex Mehr. He's the founder of Zoosk, which filed to go public in 2014. His current venture is MentorBox, a unique and new self-help concept. Before that, he was an aerospace scientist at NASA.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – How to Win Friends and Influence People
What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos
Favorite online tool? — Trello
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— I try at least 8
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "To take more risks"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:10 – Nathan introduces Alex to the show
01:43 – Zoosk announced to go public for $200M
- 02:24 – Zoosk decided to stay independent, so they didn't pursue going public
- 02:44 – When you go public, you make projections about the growth rate and what you want to do financially
- 03:05 – The expectations from the public market for tech companies who go public are different than those who do not
- 03:14 – Alex and the team didn't want the company to push hard for a quarter by quarter growth
03::50 – Zoosk was launched in 2007
04:00 – Alex and his co-founder split everything 50/50
04:21 – Alex and his co-founder have worked for 8 years and they never had a problem
- 04:40 – Alex and Shayan have different domain expertise and they respect each other's' domain expertise
05:30 – Zoosk has grown rapidly until 2014
- 05:36 – "But the company was not profitable"
- 06:40 – Alex still has his equity and is part of the board
07:36 – Zoosk is growing again
07:53 – MentorBox is a self-education self-improvement education box
08:07 – Alex has always been a book reader his whole life
- 08:33 – Alex would gift his friends books all the time
- 08:43 – 10% of the population's primary method of learning is reading
- 08:50 – There are 4 methods of learning: auditory, visual, reading, and kinesthetic
09:20 – The idea of MentorBox is a subscription for business books that Alex thinks everybody should read per month
- 09:38 – MentorBox makes the information concise so that you can study the main concepts in 10 minutes
- 09:46 – MentorBox delivers in 4 formats
10:28 – Tai Lopez is Alex's co-founder
- 10:41 – 7 years ago, Tai and Alex met at an online gaming conference
- 11:05 – It turned out that Tai reads 1 book a day
- 11:40 – Tai and Alex have a 50/50 deal with MentorBox
12:03 – Alex had a landing page to test MentorBox
- 12:19 – They had a video that explained the product
- 12:27 – Tai has a large social media following so he tested his ad on his social media
- 13:05 – In the first test, they were able to sell $80K worth of product
13:22 – MentorBox is priced at $89 a month
13:50 – MentorBox's retention
14:14 – MentorBox's space is education subscription
14:40 – Average retention in the space
15:12 – Tai and Alex knew that MentorBox would be a sustainable business
15:38 – LTV and CAC are both high
16:18 – MentorBox also relies on word-of-mouth marketing
16:37 – The cost per box drops depending on the volume
17:26 – MentorBox buys from distributors and publishers directly
- 17:48 – MentorBox is looking at getting directly from the author
- 18:18 – The number of books MentorBox has bought from Ryan Holiday
19:15 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

The public market's expectations for companies that go public are very different and can put on additional pressures that, otherwise, wouldn't exist.
Do what you love AND share what you love doing to other people.
Be a risk-taker – you'll learn more that way.

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
Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
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
Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

646: He Coined Term "Growth Hacking" After DropBox, EventBrite, LogMeIn Work, Now Launching Book "Hacking Growth" with Sean Ellis May 01, 2017

Show notes

Sean Ellis. He's the founder and CEO of GrowthHackers.com, he coined the term "growth hacking" in 2010 after using it to ignite growth for Dropbox, Eventbrite, LogMeIn and Lookout. He also founded and sold customer insights company Qualaroo, growing it to millions of dollars in recurring revenue.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – Peep Laja
Favorite online tool? — The Calm App
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wished my 20-year old self knew things are going to be pretty good"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:25 – Nathan introduces Sean to the show
02:03 – Sean speaks at The Capital Factory in Austin, Texas
- 02:07 – Sean's talk was about viral coefficients and why it's important to decrease the time of the original share to really drive growth
02:50 – If you don't have a lot value at the foundation of the growth, it's hard to make your business sustainable
- 02:56 – Sean tries to understands the value of the product first, then goes backwards from there
03:16 – Sean used the referral program for Dropbox
- 03:30 – Sean, together with the group, came up with the idea of giving away free storage for referrals
- 03:45 – Sean's friend tested a double-sided referral program prior to Dropbox
- 03:53 – Sean's friend is James Siminoff, founder of Ring and the previously the CEO of PhoneTag
04:45 – Sean provides advice on viral coefficients
- 04:55 – In the case of DropBox—"Referrals were strong before the referral program went in place"
- 05:12 – Understand what the motivation is for people to do refer
- 05:18 – Think about every step in the process; for example, what's the prompt that gets people to share?
- 05:42 – Optimize all the steps of the referral process
- 05:47 – The more you have qualitative and quantitative insights about what's happening, you're going to be more informed in the tests that you are running
06:41 – Eventbrite didn't have an incentive, but just a natural viral product in itself
- 07:18 – Eventbrite helps companies sell tickets
- 07:30 – Eventbrite doesn't only offer a convenient experience but also good SEO, social integration, and other factors that will help you sell tickets
08:00 – Sean worked for LogMeIn's marketing for 5 years
- 08:05 – LogMeIn is now a $5B company
- 08:07 – "Natural word-of-mouth was huge with LogMeIn"
- 08:10 – By the time Sean left LogMeIn, 80% of the users were coming in through word-of-mouth
- 08:15 – LogMeIn was spending more than $1M monthly with a 3-month payback on acquiring customers
- 08:21 – "Value drives word-of-mouth"
- 08:35 – At first, the majority of LogMeIn's users didn't really use the product
- 09:25 – The CEO and whole team worked together to find out the problem with the customer experience
- 09:55 – LogMeIn has always been cash flow positive
10:13 – Look up how Sean runs questionnaires in his Youtube videos and slideshows
10:31 – Qualaroo is about customer insights
- 10:45 – Sean acquired Qualaroo in 2012
- 10:49 – Qualaroo was acquired from KissMetrics
- 10:53 – Qualaroo was a side business and Sean was an advisor for it
- 11:08 – Sean built Qualaroo to millions of dollars of recurring revenue and sold it last year
- 11:45 – Sean bought it for less than a million dollars
- 12:00 – The revenue of Qualaroo was less than a hundred thousand dollars
- 12:25 – Qualaroo was acquired by Xenon
- 13:01 – Jonathan Siegel owns Xenon
- 13:14 – Sean wanted to sell Qualaroo and wasn't trying to get top dollar for it
13:57 – Sean had a 7-figure advance on the book, so he's not losing money
- 14:09 – Sean has signed with Crown Business
- 14:29 – Sean has self-published a book before
- 14:49 – Sean's background and Growth Hackers allowed him to get a great deal with Crown Business
- 15:00 – Sean is the guy who came up with the term "growth hacking"
- 15:09 – There are already a lot of publishers who approached Sean to write a book about growth hacking
- 15:22 – Morgan Brown is Sean's co-author
- 15:47 – Morgan and Sean hired an editor to write the proposal
- 16:10 – Sean's agent is Lisa DiMona
- 16:30 – The process is getting an agent to invest in your book, they help you with the proposal and they pitch your book
17:21 – Sean's plan to make the book a successful one
- 17:26 – First is to gain momentum to get on the New York Times' Bestseller List
- 17:43 – The weekly sales is what will determine whether you make the list
- 18:05 – "If you get on the list, then it's a lot easier to stay on the list"
18:32 – People's perception on growth is often a bit flawed
- 18:45 – Growth hacking is more about testing stuff and doubling down when something works
19:04 – Sean has some copies of his book for his Microsoft presentation
- 19:20 – Sean also has some copies for different companies
- 19:31 – Sean offers ticket bundles for Growth Hackers Conference in May, in LA
- 19:37 – Growth University's growth master training course has bundled with book sales
- 19:43 – Sean is running bundled ads, too
- 19:51 – Sean is getting sub $50 sales on their course with the book bundled
- 20:51 – Sean is currently at a ConversionXL conference
- 21:05 – Peep Laja was on Episode 620, and he is the founder of ConversionXL
21:37 – Sean didn't commit to buying any books
22:35 – Why should people buy this book rather than the other growth hacking books?
- 22:39 – "Ryan Holiday's book was awesome to bring attention to growth hacking"
- 22:47 – There hasn't really been a guide book to what do you do as a team, especially for bigger companies who want to replicate what Facebook or Uber has done
- 23:12 – Marketing isn't that hard, but you need cultural change, cross-functional coordination, and collaboration
- 23:31 – Hacking Growth has the methods for what you need to drive growth at its foundation
- 23:44 – It is powerful and people need help
24:06 – Crossing the Chasm provides observations regarding the growth process
- 24:20 – The main difference between this book and Sean's is that it doesn't tell you how to organize your team to exploit that growth situation
- 24:32 – "We're not just telling you the fundamentals of how growth works, we're telling you how to run a growth process across a team..."
- 25:02 – "You need to have a very integrated coordinated team and the best time to build it in your business is early, when the culture is malleable to do it"
27:20 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Regarding viral coefficients, the more you have qualitative and quantitative insights about what's happening in the referral and sharing process, the more informed your tests will be.
Growth hacking is more about testing stuff and doubling down when something works.
You NEED a very integrated, coordinated team—the best time to build this into your business is early on, when the culture is still malleable.

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
Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
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
Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

645: WeFarm Helps 140k Off-Grid Farmers Learn Faster, $1.7M Raised, 90% Still Active After 3 Months with CEO Kenny Ewan Apr 30, 2017

Show notes

Kenny Ewan. He is in charge of the overall strategic direction for WeFarm where he oversees the day-to-day activities of the business. After graduating, he spent 7 years in Peru running an international NGO, specializing in work with indigenous communities. Kenny played the lead role in developing WeFarm, before launching it as a startup in 2015.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Chaos Monkeys
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
Favorite online tool? — Slack
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I'm happy to let him make mistakes"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:18 – Nathan introduces Kenny to the show
01:49 – WeFarm is a growth focus model
02:29 – WeFarm offers their services to farmers
- 02:37 – WeFarm leads farmers to the sellers and WeFarm will take a small transaction commission
03:00 – WeFarm offers information in the space
- 03:08 – A farmer in Kenya who has no internet access can ask WeFarm a question, through SMS, for free
- 03:30 – 10-15 people in WeFarm's network will try to answer the question
- 03:45 – The people who answer want to share their knowledge about farming
04:12 – WeFarm has generated revenue, but they're still on pre-profit
04:20 – WeFarm just closed a seed round for $1.7M
04:27 – WeFarm started as an Impact project for Google and they won
- 04:36 – They used the prize as capital
- 04:42 – The prize was £500K
05:04 – Team size is 20 and is still growing; they're around the globe
05:41 – WeFarm uses radio to connect with more farmers
- 05:51 – WeFarm partnered with radio stations and invited farmers on
- 06:00 – 4-5K people were joining WeFarm in just an hour
- 06:12 – WeFarm also partners with businesses where farmers buy
06:45 – WeFarm currently has 140K farmers on their platform
06:55 – WeFarm measures activity by the number of users who actively contribute every month
07:55 – WeFarm is also available online
08:15 – WeFarm has a super active marketplace
08:32 – WeFarm doesn't incentivize people who answer inquiries, just like Quora
08:50 – WeFarm's roadmap this year
09:00 – WeFarm has 20 people
09:30 – WeFarm already has a couple of commercial contacts with a major retailer in UK
- 09:48 – "We have validated our revenue sources"
10:00 – 2017 target revenue is around $50K
11:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

A business does NOT always have to be revenue focused; helping people can be a goal in and of itself.
We have a responsibility to help guide those who need it and access those who still do not have the internet.
Don't be afraid to make mistakes, but be sure to learn from them.

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
Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
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
Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

644: Tech CEO Takes on Coffee, $325k Raised, $17k in GMV in Jan 2017 Helping 750 Buyers Find Their Coffee with Crema.co CEO Tyler Tate Apr 29, 2017

Show notes

Tyler Tate. He's the CEO of Crema.co, the coffee market place. Previously, he co-founded TwigKit, which is an enterprise search software and was the first design lead at Nutshell, which is a SaaS CRM platform. In each case, he used product strategy and design thinking to play its part in envisioning, designing and building products from the ground up. He's also co-authored the book called Designing the Search Experience which Morgan Kaufmann published in 2013. He's spoken at numerous conferences. While at TwigKit, he consulted for organizations such as The Financial Times, Thomson-Reuters, Qualcomm, Vodafone, ITV, Rolls-Royce, BASF and Gemalto, helping them design search-driven applications. He's originally from Alabama, went to University of Kentucky, and spent 7 years in UK. He's also lived in Seattle and currently resides in the San Francisco Bay area.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Tyler prefers reading blogs at the moment
What CEO do you follow? – Michael Dubin
Favorite online tool? — Trello
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Tyler wished he realized earlier how important a network is

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:35 – Nathan introduces Tyler to the show
02:41 – In TwigKit, Tyler was selling an expensive software product to large companies
03:00 – Tyler learned that he'd rather do something that is more marketing-driven than sales-driven—something that is more consumer-driven than enterprise
03:14 – Tyler's realization in switching to a coffee company from a SaaS business
03:28 – At Nutshell, Tyler was the first design hire
- 03:33 – Nutshell has 3 founders and a CTO
- 03:53 – Tyler, together with the whole team, was able to build something from the ground up
- 04:01 – Tyler had some equity in the business
04:38 – Tyler had put in $15K to Crema
05:05 – Tyler sold his equities back to TwigKit and Nutshell
06:03 – Tyler started working with Crema early 2015
- 06:08 – Tyler did a Kickstarter campaign and made $25K
- 06:19 – Tyler closed and had an Angel round
- 06:25 – A total of $325K was raised and $150K came from 500 startups
- 06:48 – 500 startups had a deal of $150K for 6% which is a standard deal
07:21 – Crema is a marketplace for coffee drinkers to subscribe to roast-to-order beans
- 07:35 – Crema has a platform fee on every order
- 07:43 – When you buy $18 worth of coffee, Crema takes a $9 platform fee and the other $9 goes to the roaster
- 07:58 – The price that you pay is almost similar to retail price and the roaster price is above their typical wholesale price
- 08:15 – The total price includes shipping and other fees
- 09:00 – $9 is a flat fee no matter the order size
- 09:46 – Crema's concept is a single-origin emphasis
- 10:12 – Crema does the co-production for the roasters
- 10:24 – Crema has a storytelling team that write journalistic write-ups for their website
10:43 – Team size
11:06 – Crema currently has 15 roasters
- 11:11 – With a total of 60 types of coffee beans
11:27 – Crema had 750 customers in January 2017
- 11:30 – Generated $17K on the platform
11:44 – Crema's growth is 28% month over month
- 11:48 – "We're targeting something like 10x growth"
- 12:07 – Crema's growth metric is based on GMV and revenue
13:55 – Average cart value is $17 for a typical purchase
14:08 – Each box of coffee is shipped individually
14:43 – A customer spends an average of $23 a month on the website
15:05 – Crema started in Kickstarter in October
- 15:13 – Crema has been generating organic traffic since then
15:48 – Crema has spent $5K for Facebook paid ads
- 16:06 – CAC is around $20-25 to convert website visitors to subscribers
17:02 – Crema ran surveys about people's coffee drinking preferences
17:29 – Crema had sample packs for new customers allowing them to try 4 different types of coffee
20:15 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Shifting from B2B to B2C is a breeze when you really know who you want to target.
Great storytelling can engage consumers and connect them to the product.
Do not hesitate to meet people, move around, and build a network for 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
Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
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
Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

643: Nimble Passes $1.5M In ARR Last Year, $200k MRR now as CRM space heats up with CEO Jon Ferrara Apr 28, 2017

Show notes

Jon Ferrara. He's in CRM—a relationship management entrepreneur and noted speaker about social media's effects on sales marketing. He's reimagined the CRM by building a simply smarter social sales and marketing platform. His most recent venture is called Nimble.com. It's the first CRM that works for you by building the updated contact data for you and then works with you everywhere you work. He's best known as the co-founder of GoldMine Software, one of the early pioneers in the Salesforce automation and customer relationship management in software categories for SMBs. He's recently been recognized by Forbes as one of the Top 10 Social CEOs and Top 10 Social Sales people in the world.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Think and Grow Rich
What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff
Favorite online tool? — Buffer
Do you get 8 hours of sleep? — 7-8
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Not to sweat shit so much"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:17 – Nathan introduces Jon to the show
02:13 – There was no Outlook, CRM or Salesforce when Jon had the idea of GoldMine
- 02:31 – Jon started on $5K with no bank loans and VC
- 02:35 – Jon ran GoldMine for 10 years, had 5M customers around the globe, sold it and retired at 40
02:44 – GoldMine was a software platform
- 02:55 – GoldMine started as a floppy disk until it became a CD
03:28 – Jon started GoldMine in 1989 and sold it in 1999
- 03:38 – GoldMine passed $70M in annual revenue, with 250 team members worldwide
04:00 – ARR wasn't necessary before when it comes to valuation
- 04:22 – Jon sold GoldMine for $125M in cash with no strings attached
04:55 – A year after GoldMine was sold, Jon was diagnosed with a head tumor
- 05:07 – "The most important thing you have around you is your health, next is your family, then your passion and business"
- 05:19 – Jon was 41 when they found the tumor
- 05:27 – "We are on this planet to grow our souls"
05:51 – After the tumor, Jon spent next 10 years of his life with his family and friends, adding value to people
06:15 – Jon got into photography and worked as the photographer for USC football for 10 years
06:42 – "You need to be your own advocate"
- 06:56 – Jon found a doctor who developed the technology to have a radiation beam reach the center of your head without touching any vital nerves
- 07:17 – The tumor disappeared after 7 weeks of radiation treatment
- 07:42 – The radiation is like burning the seed inside the watermelon without burning the watermelon's skin
08:18 – Jon started in social media in 2006-2008
- 08:33 – Jon saw that relationship managers are contact managers
- 08:58 – Jon looked at CRM and saw the gap
- 09:07 – You have to use salespeople to use CRM
- 09:08 – "That's why they're called salesforce because you force salespeople to use it"
09:27 – Nimble's team was formed in 2010, Alpha in 2011, and they turned the paywall in 2013
09:36 – "Just like with GoldMIne, I was early to the idea of an intelligent social relationship manager that works for you"
09:57 – Business is social and life is social
10:11 – First year revenue
10:21 – Jon got their first customer for Nimble the same way he got their first customer for GoldMine:
- 10:36 – Jon had a trusted advisor for his prospect
- 10:51 – Jon got his first $50K revenue in GoldMine from resellers
- 10:56 – Jon grew the $50K by mobilizing writers who write about technology and business
11:10 – In 2009-2011, there was no reseller because everything was cloud
- 11:27 – Jon looked for influencers
11:36 – Jon put in his own $3M to the company
- 11:48 – Jon also got some cash from Mark Cuban, Jason Calacanis and others
- 12:05 – Jon's money went to the company's capitalization
12:20 – Nimble currently has 100K customers and 10K paying companies
- 12:31 – An average of 3 seats per company
12:36 – Nimble is a SaaS business and is generating 80K website visitors with zero marketing
- 12:43 – Trial to paid conversion is 20%
13:05 – Nimble started at $15 per user per month
- 13:08 – It recently rolled out to $25 and will have $45 and $65 buckets with a $99 mark automation add on
- 13:16 – "Sales and marketing should never have been split apart"
- 14:07 – $200K average MRR
14:15 – Gross churn is about 3%
- 14:22 – "We provide a lot of value and satisfaction to our customers"
14:32 – Nimble just rolled with Microsoft Outlook mobile by providing 40M handsets for free
15:04 – CAC is really small because they don't have a large team
- 15:25 – You don't need to spend or overspend in order to build a company
- 15:35 – It is great to find people who want to grow with your help
- 15:42 – Rather than hiring a sales guy, Jon would rather hire someone who truly cares about the customer experience
16:16 – Jon's team is based in Santa Monica with remote workers in USA and Ukraine
16:53 – 2017 target revenue
18:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Engage with your customers and add value – don't always think about the sales.
Share your passion with people on a daily basis, don't be afraid to bare your soul and make those connections.
You don't need to spend more to build a business – find people who are willing to grow the business with you.

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
Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
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
Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

642: ParkEvergreen $100/mo Per Airport Parking Space to Help You Park Faster with CEO Ben Cantey Apr 27, 2017

Show notes

Ben Cantey. He's a San Francisco entrepreneur and has a passion about solving problems and changing lives through technology. He teaches entrepreneurship and lean methodology at universities and high schools on his free time. He's launching some bad-ass technology with a handful of math geniuses in a parking space.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Rough Riders
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
Favorite online tool? — Yesware
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 8 1/2
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Execute faster"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:18 – Nathan introduces Ben to the show
01:51 – Park Evergreen revolutionizes the way parking is sold and managed at airports
- 01:55 – Airports currently use a whole stack of services, suppliers and contractors that are outdated
02:15 – Park Evergreen uses geolocation technology to bring physical parking online
- 02:25 – Travelers can find a reserve pay per parking through Park Evergreen's app
02:35 – Park Evergreen is somehow a marketplace
- 02:49 – Park Evergreen is more focused on the traveler's experience
- 02:54 – Ben and his co-founders came from the consulting space
03:10 - Park Evergreen started out with customers who wanted to find paid street parking
- 03:23 – Park Evergreen currently has a couple of deals
- 03:30 – Park Evergreen started growing their revenue in June
03:54 – Ben is just happy that they got a great product market fit
04:03 – Most USA airports are now going into modernization projects
04:44 – There's an interesting balance between travelers who prefer to leave their cars and those who prefer to just take an Uber car
- 04:53 – Park Evergreen's average customers are business travelers who are gone for only a couple of days
- 05:18 – The airport modernization includes parking expansion
05:54 – Travels tend to get cheaper each year and more and more people are travelling
06:02 – The millennials demographic has the most frequent business and pleasure trips
06:28 – The parking growth is growing 4-5% per airport, per year
06:34 – Park Evergreen was founded in 2016
- 06:43 – Park Evergreen didn't want to compete with parking meters and pay machines
- 07:08 – Park Evergreen was making a couple of thousand a month
- 07:22 – Park Evergreen made $15K topline
- 07:33 – Park Evergreen's biggest cost was for CAC
- 08:02 – "It's a tough market, people are used to their options"
- 08:10 – Park Evergreen pivoted because they're tired of their mobile apps parking solutions
- 08:18 – SpotHero and ParkWhiz are the biggest in the space
08:28 – Park Evergreen has raised $150K from 500 startups
08:43 – Team size is 5
- 09:01 – The equity is divided by 5 co-founders
- 09:19 – Park Evergreen is bootstrapped and the 2 co-founders have been building everything for free
- 09:25 – Ben is in charge of closing deals and doing the strategy
- 09:40 – It's a balanced team
- 10:03 – The team had some contractual work on the side and some have full-time jobs
11:11 – Park Evergreen charges a flat fee per space that they manage per month
- 11:39 – The average is $100 per space
11:55 – The average top 10 US airports manage 18K parking spaces
- 12:00 – Some double or triple 18K
- 12:10 – Park Evergreen's market size in terms of market space is over 4M
12:50 – When a traveler books his flight, he books his parking space, too
- 13:06 – Park Evergreen shows the traveler 2 hours before his flight, the fastest route to the airport and to the parking space
- 13:22 – Park Evergreen can tell you exactly how long it will take a traveler to go from one place to another around the airport
13:46 – "I want our travelers to know when they look at their phones in the morning, before they leave their house, what time will they arrive at the gate, ready to get on the plane"
14:20 – Park Evergreen started their user acquisition in March for the contracts
14:30 – Park Evergreen is using SMS initially
15:08 – "The only way to park is to use Park Evergreen"
15:18 – Park Evergreen is doing 500 spaces for their initial pilot
15:35 – Park Evergreen's contracts are on an expansion plan
16:16 – As soon as you get to the airport, you can get a Park Evergreen ticket with a code that you will use to text
- 16:45 – You can pay Park Evergreen ahead of time via text
18:40 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Airport parking is a great space to be in at the moment because of the modernization projects that are on the way.
To stay competitive in this space, provide the best traveler experience that you can.
It's can be quite difficult to broaden people's understanding of their options, but that does NOT mean you shouldn't try.

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
Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
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
Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

641: He Has $25B In Medical Tech Exits, $2B Raised, He's Sitting On PhotoTherapy $1b+ Bet Now with CEO Jim Sweeney Apr 26, 2017

Show notes

Jim Sweeney. He's the CEO and one of the founders of Clarify Medical. He began his entrepreneurial journey at Sharp Hospital where he worked full-time delivering hospital supplies while still in high school. He then spent 3 years in the US Army Medical Corps where he ran a remote, medical service dispensary serving 2500 families in Germany. He received a degree in business from San Diego State University. James has founded 12 medical companies including Caremark, Caps, Corum, Bridge Medical, CardioNet and co-founded Owned Outcomes. He's also led a successful leveraged buyout or LBO with McGaw Labs which he took public and is now owned by BBraun. His financing history includes raising venture capital and expansion capital for his ideas leading to over $25B in exit values of companies he founded.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Zero to One
What CEO do you follow? – David Hale
Favorite online tool? — N/A
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Between 4-6
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Jim wished he knew "that the government would have the amount of influence on health care that they have, today"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:49 – Nathan introduces Jim to the show
02:53 – Clarify Medical has a first-mover advantage in the dermatology space
- 03:00 – They have well-established treatments for various skin diseases
- 03:17 – They've developed a device that will enable people to self-treat at home, using their smartphones
- 03:33 – The device will be launched directly to the patients
- 03:40 – The device is called Clarify Mobile UVB treatment system
03:59 – There are over 33M Americans who suffer from skin disease
04:21 – The device can be connected through the smartphone
04:51 – Jim has raised a little over $2B in venture capital
04:55 – Jim had an exit value of $25B for his companies
05:06 – There are exits via IPO and sales
05:40 – Jim shares why he decided to have an LBO with McGaw Labs
- 05:56 – Jim had been an employee of the company so he acquired the company with prior knowledge of what their issues were
- 06:26 – The deal was in mid-October 1990
- 06:33 – The company's valuation
- 07:27 – Jim bought the company with his friends
07:47 – The Clarify Mobile UVB treatment system device will sell for $600 or can be leased for $39 per month
08:15 – Jim expects to have long relationships with their patients because some of their skin diseases are life-long conditions
08:30 – If the device didn't exist, patients would spend $100 annually for therapeutic drugs which have various side-effects
09:30 – Obamacare has allowed Clarify to go directly to the consumers
09:43 – Jim thinks the total costs of Obamacare haven't been exposed
10:35 – Jim expects more medical companies will go directly to consumers
- 10:42 – The bad news is that people will spend more directly from their pockets than in the past
- 10:50 – The good news is doctors are now seen as customers
- 11:11 – The solution for healthcare is for patients to be more engaged with their healthcare providers
11:33 – Clarify will start generating revenue from the device later this year
11:36 – Jim has already raised $6M and is still looking to raise another $12-15M in the next few months
12:00 – Jim doesn't have a scientific explanation on how he came up with the pre-money valuation
- 12:22 – All of Clarify's financing at this point is from their pre series A round
12:43 – Team size is 12 but will double in the next few months
- 12:50 – The company is based in San Diego
13:00 – Jim can't disclose the cost of making the device
- 13:43 – The cost will carry a respectable margin
- 13:47 – The app will be sold for $9.99 per month, on a subscription basis
14:25 – Jim believes that Clarify's valuation will be into the billions for IPO exits
15:45 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

More healthcare providers are now going directly to consumers and are skipping the third-party service.
Knowing a company by heart will make it easier for you to make a fair valuation.
Making your employees a share holder of your company will definitely change their attitude towards the job, leading to a more successful 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
Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
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
Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

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