Top Founders

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640: ProntoSign Passes 300 Enterprise Customers with $50-$500k ACV To Help Manage Secure Signatures at Scale with CEO Bill Brice Apr 25, 2017

Show notes

Bill Brice. He's currently the CEO of AlphaTrust Corporation which he launched in 1998, to capitalize on the sustained long-term shift from paper-based document businesses to fully electronic document processes. Bill is considered as one of the industry's pioneers and he's a leading authority of electronic signatures, especially around generating real economic impact and brand enhancement. He served as chairman of the board for the Electronic Signature and Records Association and is currently a member of the board of directors. Before his electronic signatures company, he started his entrepreneurial career, when in college, by co-founding Brice Foods and is chairman and CEO. He grew the company into a global enterprise best known for its chain of frozen yogurt stores. The company grew into 1500 franchise locations and 43 countries with manufacturing operations on 4 different continents. For his work, he was awarded as The Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the International Franchise Association, which is the world's oldest and largest organizations representing franchising worldwide.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm
What CEO do you follow? – N/A
Favorite online tool? — HubSpot
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "At that time, I wished I would know what happened with the internet before it happened"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:23 – Nathan introduces Bill to the show
02:36 – Bill was based in Dallas and that's where he started his yogurt company
- 02:57 – Bill's was the first company to bring frozen yogurt in Texas
- 03:15 – Frozen yogurt was first popularized in California
- 03:32 – Bill wanted to pioneer the first operational chain selling frozen yogurt in Texas
03:39 – Bill has turned to franchises and now has 1500 franchise locations
- 04:00 – The first franchise was $150K, $20K franchise fee and 5-6% royalties
04:34 – The frozen yogurt company had $150M in revenue
04:50 – In 1996, the franchise sold because someone wanted to buy it
05:09 – Franchise valuation is similar with other businesses
05:31 – The franchise was cash flow multiple
- 05:42 – 6-10x was the best multiple
06:15 – Bill was making a lot of software on the side of the yogurt business
- 06:53 – Bill was annoyed by the amount of paperwork a business had to go through
- 07:16 – A computer was about automating business
- 07:35 – Bill had a completely different team for his yogurt company than his e-signature company
07:41 – AlphaTrust is completely privately owned and funded
- 08:00 – Being privately funded allows them to focus on what they are doing
08:20 – AlphaTrust is in a specialized segment of a market
- 09:10 – AlphaTrust started on the enterprise businesses in the late 90s
- 09:24 – Some of AlphaTrust's clients are General Motors, ADP and AT&T
- 09:36 – Some of the big companies have millions of documents processed yearly
- 09:42 – AlphaTrust specializes in the high performance processing of documents
- 09:52 – AlphaTrust's customers still deploy and embed their software on premise
- 10:12 – AlphaTrust also operates cloud systems for their customers, but they support the plan and model the customers want
10:38 – The pro-side of AlphaTrust is quite small
- 10:53 – It accounts for only 10-15% of the revenue
- 10:56 – The rest of the revenue comes from licenses
11:50 – Average initial contract value is $50K-$500K
- 12:00 – Some of the customers pay for perpetual licenses
12:40 – AlphaTrust currently has 300 large enterprises
13:10 – Team size is 20
13:22 – AlphaTrust does direct sales, but they also have partner channels
13:46 – AlphaTrust has 20-30 specialists around the world who are part-timers
14:36 – AlphaTrust is happy with how they're doing at the moment
14:59 – Bill MIGHT sell the company to Salesforce if an offer comes
16:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

The franchise business is the same as any other business – even when it comes down to the valuation.
Working with big enterprises can set you apart in a saturated space.
Saying "yes" to an acquisition isn't a terrible idea; instead, it's just a good way to exit.

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

639: Fastest Growing Canadian Software Company: $200k to $20M in Revenue from 2010 to 2015 with CEO Tobyn Sowden Apr 24, 2017

Show notes

Tobyn Sowden. He's the CEO of Redbrick, the second fastest growing software company in Canada and the birthplace of a product called Shift.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – How to Win Friends and Influence People
What CEO do you follow? – N/A
Favorite online tool? — InVision
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 would tell myself technical, all the way"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:39 – Nathan introduces Tobyn to the show
02:00 – Profit Guide named Redbrick as the second fastest software company in Canada, by measuring revenue growth
- 02:25 – Profit Guide measured a whole 5 year period
- 02:30 – Redbrick had $200K revenue in 2010 and $10-20M in 2015
03:00 – Redbrick was launched in 2010
03:15 – Redbrick started from an app distribution perspective
- 03:38 – Redbrick has developed their own tools to track
- 04:20 – Redbrick's main software is Deskmetrics, which is integrated into Shift
- 04:31 – Deskmetrics currently has 500K active users
05:00 – Not all who downloads are active users
- 05:08 – The number of downloads are tracked
- 05:34 – SDK is a software development kit
05:59 – Deskmetrics provides consulting services
06:06 – Facebook is one of Deskmetrics' sources for customer acquisition
- 06:40 – Redbrick is currently spending around $30K for Facebook paid acquisition
- 06:54 – Redbrick is working with a team on Facebook and is committed to growing their spending into millions of dollars for growth
07:33 – Tobyn shares the idea of Shift
- 08:07 – Shift had a preview in September and people liked it
- 08:12 – Shift allows you to switch around your Gmail and google accounts
08:51 – Tobyn increased their team size and hired more developers
09:08 – Shift is a SaaS business with $20/year subscription fee
09:31 – Shift primarily uses Facebook for advertising
09:49 – Shift has around 30K installs and 10K active users
10:00 – Shift's free-to-paid conversion rate is around 4-5%
10:23 – Shift is 3-months old
10:48 – Tobyn needed to decide if they will launch Shift on December 20th or wait until 2nd week of January
11:16 – Shift is doing great at the moment and there's definitely a market for it
11:40 – Tobyn shares why they decided that Shift be a desktop download
- 12:53 – Tobyn wants to avoid integrations that will make Shift look like a browser
13:15 – Redbrick has 3 parts: the app distribution side, Deskmetrics and Shift
- 13:35 – The app distribution side is the major revenue stream
- 13:45 – Tobyn believes that their path is the app distribution side
14:16 – Team size is 37 and they're based in Victoria BC in Vancouver, Canada
- 14:31 – There are small teams in Poland and Brazil
15:12 – Deskmetrics is primarily a desktop software analytics platform
16:15 – An average customer pays $500 monthly
16:36 – Tobyn was charging per number of users, but they changed it
17:14 – Deskmetrics was launched in 2016
17:45 – Redbrick has a lot of predictive models that they used in terms of CAC
19:20 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Facebook is one of the best places, at the moment, for paid advertising.
You can always go and develop more products, but recognize when it's wise to stick to the path you're already on.
Charging per head can at times restrict your customers from using your product to its fullest potential.

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

638: Alternative Investment Ideas, His Book Deal Included 10% Royalty, $100k Advance from Entrepreneur Patrick McGinnis Apr 23, 2017

Show notes

Patrick McGinnis. He's the author of The 10% Entrepreneur which focuses on living your startup dream without leaving your day job, which was just published by Penguin Portfolio. He's also credited for coining up with the term "fear of missing out". He's a graduate of Harvard business school and is living in New York City.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup
What CEO do you follow? – Sheryl Sandberg
Favorite online tool? — Quip
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6-12
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Patrick wished he had more confidence in his abilities and more open to trying new things

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:30 – Nathan introduces Patrick to the show
02:10 – Patrick is a Wall Street refugee
02:21 – Patrick has his own advisory firm
- 02:29 – Patrick built up his portfolio of over 20 investments
03:04 – Patrick worked with his friend in Real Influence for free
- 03:14 – They sold $300K-$400K
- 03:19 – The business didn't push through and Patrick sold his shares
- 03:35 – Patrick was 33
03:46 – After a year, Patrick's friend asked him if he was interested in investing in a startup
- 03:51 – Ipsy has raised $100M
- 04:08 – Patrick is one of the first investors of Ipsy
- 04:32 – Ipsy's co-founder is Michelle Phan
- 04:49 – Patrick's friend who is the CEO of Ipsy met Michelle through Funny or Die
- 05:46 – Michelle's huge fan base made Ipsy spend zero on CAC
06:00 – How Patrick decided to invest in Ipsy
- 06:03 – Patrick's friend was already raising a round
- 06:33 – Patrick's friend already had a lead
06:38 – Patrick started his venture capitalist path in 2000
- 06:48 – Most of the deals Patrick looks at are simple deals
- 06:53 – Patrick invested in Ipsy in 2012
07:50 – Ipsy is one of Patrick's most successful investments
- 08:00 – Another one of his investments was Bluesmart
- 08:24 – He also invested in Affinity which is a big data company
09:04 – How many deals do you have to make to ensure there's a big exit in the portfolio?
- 09:12 – When Patrick started investing, he thought of the possible mistakes he could make as an investor
- 10:03 – As an investor, you have to invest in your area of expertise
- 10:08 – Second, think of the deal as a commercial deal, even with friends
- 10:21 – Third, don't follow other people
- 10:39 – Stay away from "will-to-be" syndrome
11:09 – Patrick was working with AIG's private equity fund
11:41 – Patrick shares why he wrote a book
- 11:48 – Patrick always talks to people about what he does as an investor
- 12:12 – As Patrick met with more and more people, he realized that he could actually help people believe in what he does
- 12:25 – "It's been a blast actually and I love writing, anyway"
12:56 – Patrick shares why he decided to have a publisher rather than self-publish his book
- 13:02 – Patrick wasn't a well-known media figure and a publisher would help his credibility
- 13:12 – Patrick got a great editor
- 13:24 – Patrick wanted to go global
13:34 – Patrick has sold an average of 50K copies
- 13:40 – A book update is given every 6 months
- 14:00 – Patrick gets around 10% royalties on sales
- 14:26 – Patrick's book is a bestseller in South Korea
14:48 – Patrick had an advance of around $100K prior to his book launch
- 14:58 – Patrick has an agent who is with UTA
- 15:38 – Patrick met his agent through his friend
16:02 – If you are generous to the world, it comes back to you in so many different ways
16:25 – "If you want to publish a book, you should know how hard it is"
- 16:40 – Publishing a book is like running a startup
- 16:54 – Patrick shared on a couple of podcasts which boosted his sales
- 17:03 – Patrick's book is in physical bookstores, too
- 17:20 – Patrick was also live in CNN Espanol in South America
- 17:37 – Amazon's ranking is always updated
- 17:44 – Patrick also has a group who does social media for him
- 18:22 – Launching a book is a process
18:56 – Patrick has a day job that covers the bills
19:12 – "Freelancing is great in terms of flexibility, but you build zero wealth"
19:48 – Patrick also invests in commercial real estate
- 20:04 – Patrick shares how he and his friend get dividends from real estate
23:25 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Investing in your friend's business is a commercial deal, so invest wisely.
Be prepared—publishing a book is not a walk in the park and involves several processes.
Freelancing is great in terms of flexibility, but you build zero wealth.

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

637: Reason Infusionsoft Didn't IPO, Passes $100M ARR, $125M Raised, Helping 45,000 SMB's With Marketing and Sales Automation with CEO Clate Mask Apr 22, 2017

Show notes

Clate Mask and he has been educating and inspiring entrepreneurs for over a decade. He's recognized by the small business community as a truly visionary leader. His passion for small business success stems from his personal experience, taking Infusionsoft from a struggling startup to an 8-time Inc. 500 and Inc. 5000 winner. As CEO, he's leading Infusionsoft on its mission to create and dominate the market of sales and marketing software for small businesses. Under Clate's leadership, the company has landed 4 rounds of venture capital including a $55M series D led by Bain, with contributions from prior investors including Signal Peak Ventures and Goldman Sachs. He's also named Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, a Top 100 Small Business Influencer by Small Business Trends, and one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs of 2013 by Goldman Sachs.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm and The Advantage
What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff
Favorite online tool? — Thumbtack
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Never
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Clate wished he knew that business, not law, was the path for him AND that building a team and culture is far more fun than making money.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:18 – Nathan introduces Clate to the show
02:28 – When you serve small businesses, make sure you have the right target customers
- 02:35 – There are 27M small businesses
03:02 – "You got to get it right. You got to get the market fit"
03:20 – Infusionsoft focuses on businesses with 2-25 employees but the sweet spot is 2-10 employees
- 03:28 – Average customer pay per month is $250-300
03:54 – "It's CRM, marketing automation, sales automation, e-commerce on one suite"
04:03 – Majority of Infusionsoft's revenue is SaaS
04:10 – Infusionsoft's $3.4B payments processed
04:36 – Infusionsoft created their own payment solution 2 years ago
- 05:04 – It triggers all kinds of Infusionsoft's automation
05:50 – Infusionsoft started in 2002, as a software company
- 05:56 – Infusionsoft pivoted in 2007 and decided to really go for it
- 06:16 – "We started, like every small business, with no intention to build something big"
06:34 – Clate saw how Salesforce moved upfront quickly and that opened up the opportunity for Infusionsoft
- 06:43 – "Why not be the Quickbooks to sales and marketing software"
06:53 – Infusionsoft's dark days
- 06:56 – In the first 3 years, every day was a fight for survival
- 07:43 – The second dark day for Infusionsoft was when their product market fit went off and the churn rate went up to a 8% gross monthly customer churn
- 08:08 – Infusionsoft had raised $17M when their churn skyrocketed
- 08:38 – Infusionsoft's churn rate is usually 2-2.5%
09:15 – Infusionsoft has raised a total of $125M and about half was capital for the business
- 10:00 – "When you create something that's growing, there's always a new investor who wants to replace an old investor"
- 10:27 – When the round becomes "over-subscribed", you have to take a percentage of what you've raised and make it available for your existing shareholders to sell some shares
11:09 – Infusionsoft currently has around 600 employees and still continues to grow
11:20 – Infusionsoft has around 135K users
11:30 – Infusionsoft just completed their 10 year adverse completion
11:56 – There are more things coming up for Infusionsoft
12:27 – Average MRR
13:19 – Clate shares why they haven't gone public
- 13:58 – What happens is private money is easier to raise
- 14:06 – Historically, public valuation was better than private valuation, but that shifted over the years
15:00 – When the market changed in 2014, Clate had decided that it's better to stay private as long as they could
15:30 – Infusionsoft is currently between $100M – 150M ARR
15:51 – The leverage that Clate pulled to turn their monthly churn
- 16:10 – Infusionsoft is serious about helping small businesses succeed
- 16:22 – The breakage model that results in you having a lot of churn
- 16:45 – Infusionsoft says "no" to thousands of businesses every month
17:06 – The challenge when you serve small businesses is you that have to tweak and adjust to get the LTV-CAC ratio right
- 17:17 – Infusionsoft is currently at $4 LTV for a dollar CAC
- 17:44 – The LTV-CAC ratio is the number that every SaaS business has to manage well
18:15 – It's better to look at your revenue in unit churn
- 18:42 – The upfront fee was the number one factor for Infusionsoft's churn moving from 8% to 2%
21:05 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

When you serve small businesses, make sure you have the RIGHT target customers and be committed to helping your customers.
Going public requires a deep understanding of how adaptable you can be in an ever changing market.
The LTV-CAC ratio is the number that every SaaS business has to manage well—that's the trick.

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

EP 636: Bangalore Startup Hits $40k MRR Helping 18 Customers Get Consumer Data Using Social Intelligence with Frrole CEO Amarpreet Kalkat Apr 21, 2017

Show notes

Amarpreet Kalkat. He's the CEO and co-founder of Frrole, an AI (artificial intelligence) startup that is redefining consumer intelligence. He loves building things, be it product, revenue streams, teams or organizations.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – Travis Kalanick
Favorite online tool? — Klout
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Amarpreet would tell himself to focus and prioritize

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:22 – Nathan introduces Amarpreet to the show
01:50 – Frrole provides consumer intelligence
- 01:53 – Frrole relies on public data to build insights about the consumers
- 02:07 – Frrole works with companies' marketing teams
02:35 – eBay and Flipcut are some of Frrole's customers
02:44 – It is crucial for marketing teams to understand their customers
02:57 – Frrole works with eBay's shipping insides team
- 03:02 – eBay wants to understand their customer's shipping experience
03:34 – Frrole has data partnerships with Twitter and Facebook
- 03:40 – Frrole has official access to data
04:11 – Frrole looks at the attributes and annotations as a guide for the data they need
04:30 – Frrole is SaaS business and customers pay them for the insights
05:00 – Average customer pay per month is around $32K per year
05:28 – "Personally, I don't believe in locking customers in"
05:37 – Frrole has a 30-day walk out clause
05:46 – Most of Frrole's customers pay quarterly
06:08 – Frrole started as a B2C in the news discovery product, in 2012
- 06:14 – In 2014, Frrole pivoted to a B2B model
06:46 – Frrole currently has 13 team members
- 06:52 – The team is in Bangalore and Amarpreet goes back and forth between Bangalore and San Francisco
- 07:11 – Amarpreet is currently in San Francisco looking for a sales guy
- 07:25 – Amarpreet ideally looks for a co-founder kind of role
- 07:39 – Amarpreet is willing to give 5-10% equity
07:49 – Frrole has raised a couple of small angel rounds
- 08:00 – Frrole has raised a total of $250K
08:05 – Frrole currently has 18 paying customers
08:23 – Average MRR
08:45 – Average customer churn
09:36 – Frrole has 1 sales guy in Bangalore
09:50 – CAC
- 10:15 – Frrole spends $500-1K a month for paid marketing
10:39 – Frrole is recently experimenting with LinkedIn for marketing
- 11:18 – Frrole sponsors an email list and a banner ad
- 11:28 – It worked out okay
12:00 – Frrole is currently breaking even
- 12:10 – Salaries in Bangalore are way less than in the USA
- 12:26 – The best web developer in India would cost around $30K
13:58 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Customers will use your product if they see the value – locking in is not always necessary.
Marketing people need to dig deeper to understand and serve their customers well.
Know what your priorities are and focus in.

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

635: RocketReach Kills Low Margin Product, Doubles Down on $70 ARPU Customers, $10M 2017 ARR goal with CEO Amit Shanbhag Apr 20, 2017

Show notes

Amit Shanbhag. He bootstrapped RocketReach from 0 to over 300K registered users in its first year. RocketReach and RocketReach API are trusted by some of the largest companies on the planet like Apple, Google, Chase and Morgan Stanley—just to name a few. He has more than a dozen patents and has started his professional life writing code for geostationary satellites. He's also a judge for the MIT $100K competition and hopes to invest more time and money back into the startup ecosystem.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – N/A
What CEO do you follow? – Sundar Pichai
Favorite online tool? — Google Search
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 4-5
If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – Amit would tell the young ones to take risks, give everything you're doing a good shot, and that worrying isn't productive

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:28 – Nathan introduces Amit to the show
02:08 – Amit was in Episode 465 and just passed 100K paying customers
03:03 – RocketReach has 300K signup users
03:31 – RocketReach has doubled its growth
04:00 – "We tried to go more into the lead generation space"
04:21 – The end customers hold RocketReach responsible for higher quality data, which is out of their control
05:04 – RocketReach is similar to LeadGenius
05:10 – LeadGenius charges higher for their data
- 05:48 – LeadGenius uses a combination of people and software to gather data
05:56 – Amit wants RocketReach to rely purely on software, without human intervention
06:25 – The other problem with the lead generation space is when the users don't follow up with the leads generated for them, then put the blame on RocketReach for not having quality leads
- 06:51 – Amit isn't sure if Lead Genius is doing something about this problem
07:36 – CAC is quite high
07:52 – The lead generation part of RocketReach hasn't really piloted
08:17 – RocketReach was getting $3K – 7K per delivery set, but the retention rate is low
09:00 – RocketReach is using a lot of open APIs like AngelList and Crunchbase
10:17 – Most of the APIs that RocketReach uses are paid APIs
10:55 – Amit has decided that RocketReach will not continue down the lead generation path
11:06 – Amit wants customers to think of RocketReach as a productivity tool that is accessible on their browsers
- 11:26 – "We wanted to become more of a de facto productivity tool for sales"
- 11:33 – RocketReach focuses on features that can make a team more productive
12:17 – RocketReach doesn't have the self-serve team feature on their website, at the moment
12:57 – RocketReach currently has 7 team members and is still bootstrapped
13:02 – RocketReach has one of the highest revenues per employee in the lead generation space
13:12 – If RocketReach had continued with the lead generation model, it would have made sense to raise
13:25 – RocketReach is trying to scale without hiring a sales team
14:20 – RocketReach has an average of $70 monthly RPU
- 14:30 – But the number of paying users is complicated
15:25 – RocketReach's 120K users mentioned in Episode 465 is the number of registered users
16:13 – Amit doesn't see the need to reveal the number of paying customers
- 17:18 – Customers are paying anywhere from 1K-50K
17:42 – Gross customer monthly churn is 7%
- 17:53 – The churn has gone down a bit
18:56 – RocketReach has 2 different revenue streams
20:40 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

The lead generation space isn't as easy as it seems.
It IS possible to stay bootstrapped while, at the same time, scaling your business.
Take risks, give your best shot, and worry less!

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

634: Lice Killing Brush Raises $2.2M Pre-Sale, Retail For $20 Bucks to Kill Lice with No Chemicals with CEO David Tavor Apr 19, 2017

Show notes

David Tavor. He has more than 20 years of experience as a general manager and founder of Biotech Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Company. He served as a fighter pilot and a commander in the Israeli Air Force and retired with the rank of a colonel. Mr. Tavor holds an MA degree in political science and national defense studies and MBA studies.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Born to Life
What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs
Favorite online tool? — David's common sense
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— About 3 or 4
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Lean on yourself"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:15 – Nathan introduces David to the show
02:04 – ParaSonic develops an ultra-sonic bomb that destroys lice and lice eggs
03:39 – ParaSonic developed a comb that treats lice in just one stroke of the comb
- 03:50 – The clinical trial was just completed and it was a success
04:52 – ParaSonic started in 2014
- 05:08 – The company was established within a technological incubator
- 05:16 – The incubator has 23% equity
- 05:45 – The incubator had put in $600K
05:51 – ParaSonic has raised an additional $1.6M
- 05:56 – ParaSonic is also in the process of raising $2M
- 06:28 – The rounds are equity rounds
07:28 – David's wife, Dana, is also part of the company
08:11 – ParaSonic has 5 team members who are mostly engineers
08:46 – The comb is going to be an over-the-counter product
09:05 – There will be 3 types of combs
- 09:25 – The comb's bristles are disposable
10:17 – David is also a chairman of 2 other companies
- 10:46 – One company developed a toothbrush where you can see your plaque through an app while you're brushing
12:17 – David is a freelancer for Colgate
13:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Developing a product in an industry that you are already familiar with is best for you.
Consumers will believe in your product when you use the product yourself.
Trust and lean on 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

633: Pipefy $2.6M Raised, $50k MRR, Helping 400 Customers Organize Processes with CEO Alessio Alionco Apr 18, 2017

Show notes

Alessio Alionco. He's the founder and CEO of Pipefy, which is part of 500 Startups. He's a passionate product manager.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup
What CEO do you follow? – Jason Lemkin
Favorite online tool? — Yesware and Salesforce
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Alessio would tell himself to be aggressive with his goals

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:56 – Nathan introduces Alessio to the show
02:12 – Pipefy is a workflow cooperation software
- 02:21 – Alessio got Pipefy's idea from his previous company
- 02:36 – Alessio uses a CRM to manage Pipefy
- 02:45 – Pipefy has a dozen of processes
03:12 – "We coordinate people's work"
03:36 – Pipefy provides guidelines for a smooth, business process
03:48 – Pipefy is more of a people coordination solution and Zapier is similar to IFTTT
04:00 – Pipefy charges per user, per month
04:10 – Average customer fee is $200/month
04:20 – Pipefy started at the end of 2014
- 04:26 – Pipefy had its beta
- 04:36 – Pipefy released pre-signups in April 2015
- 04:51 – Pipefy became one of the most voted products of the day
05:23 – There was no revenue in 2015
05:32 – Pipefy started charging in August 2016
05:47 – Pipefy now has more than 400 paying customers
06:00 – Average MRR
06:54 – Pipefy offered a special price for customers who renew their subscriptions
07:00 – Pipefy has more than 60K customers who use them for free
- 07:24 – Only a small portion of the customers converted
- 07:40 – SMBs don't have business processes in place and aren't willing to pay for one
- 08:06 – Pipefy wants to focus on companies that are close to being considered enterprise companies
08:42 – Pipefy has raised a seed round of $2.2M
- 08:50 – Some of the investors are Zendesk's founders, Valour Capital, Redpoint Ventures, FundersClub and AngelList
- 09:06 – Pipefy has raised a total of $2.6M
09:13 – Team size is 33
- 09:32 – 27 are in Brazil and 6 are in San Francisco
- 09:55 – Pipefy is still hiring more people
10:00 – CAC
- 10:30 – Overall CAC is around $900 per company
10:50 – LTV is still hard to predict
11:34 – Pipefy's per seat pricing
12:10 – Pipefy negotiates deals with companies with over 10K employees
12:33 – 2017 revenue goal
12:50 – "It's really a huge funnel to raise the seed round"
- 13:00 – The series A dynamic is completely different
13:26 – 2016 total revenue
14:00 – Pipefy is aiming for a $200K MRR which is 10x the growth
16:05 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

The best time to switch to a paid version of your product requires careful consideration to ensure the conversion takes place.
Some SMBs rely on free business software and services for their processes—therefore, you may need to adjust your target audience.
Be aggressive with your goals and just go for it.

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

632: Recursion enzyme company raises $23M, launched in 2013 now 40 people with drugs ready for market with CEO Christopher Gibson Apr 17, 2017

Show notes

Christopher Gibson. He's the co-founder and CEO of Recursion Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company leveraging the latest automation, computation and biological tools to perform drug discovery at scale. Chris holds a BS in bioengineering, a BA in managerial studies, and a bioengineering PhD from the University of Utah.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – Perry Fell
Favorite online tool? — Slack
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 5.3 to 5.4
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Chris wished he knew where he was going to go so he could get to where he is now, faster

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:42 – Nathan introduces Chris to the show
02:12 – Recursion shortcuts the long, arduous path of drug discovery into the market
- 02:24 – Recursion combines the best elements of biology, automation, and computation
02:34 – Recursion partners with large pharmaceutical companies
02:45 – Recursion partnered with Sanofi Genzyme
- 02:51 – Sanofi had drugs that didn't end up in the market
03:10 – The challenges involved in being target-based
04:00 – Recursion earns from partnerships and royalties
- 04:20 – Recursion also has an internal pipeline for the drugs that they've developed themselves
- 04:43 – Recursion doesn't earn from the internal pipeline
05:51 – Recursion and what they receive from their partners
- 06:28 – There are partnerships with very, little upfront
- 06:34 – There are partnerships that have 8 figures, upfront
- 06:46 – The number of scientists that will work on the drug is also considered
- 07:22 – If Recursion is successful with their deals, they get royalties
- 08:38 – The royalties' lifeline
08:56 – Recursion has 40 people
09:25 – Recursion was launched in 2013
- 09:34 – They sat in their office until January 2014
10:01 – Chris was part of a program where he was paid a stipend, so he broke even
10:20 – Chris' parents were excited about his PhD
10:37 – Recursion has raised $19M in equity and $5M non-diluted from grants and private foundations
11:28 – Recursion's valuation as a platform company
- 12:14 – If Recursion will be successful, they will impact the society in a big way
- 12:41 – It is vision-based
12:54 – First year revenue was 6 figures
13:12 – "Our deals have been strategic in terms of the way we put them together"
13:45 – 2017 target
16:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Different sources of revenue benefit a company.
The valuation of your company depends on how your company is currently performing and how well they will perform in the industry.
First year revenue isn't always nil.

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

631: Saleswise Raises $3m, Launches Product, Helping 12 Customers Deveop Better Relationships with Their Data with CEO Gregg Freishtat Apr 16, 2017

Show notes

Gregg Freishtat. He's a technology executive with over 20 years of experience leading innovative and transformative companies. He founded 4 venture-backed startups, all of which had successful exits and is now building a company called SalesWise. He's deeply rooted in venture capital and the management of internet technology companies having led several through acquisitions. He's also handled developing and disruptive technologies, convergence of telecom plus internet, personal finance and online banking, web-based analytics and digital media, such as online marketing and currently relationship intelligence.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Good to Great
What CEO do you follow? – Mark Benioff
Favorite online tool? – FullStory
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Don't sell your first company for $20M, when you can sell it for $50M"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:18 – Nathan introduces Gregg to the show
01:59 – SalesWise is a business relationship intelligence platform
- 02:03 – SalesWise helps sales leaders gain visibility of the most important relationships they have
02:17 – SalesWise is a SaaS company, but doesn't charge per seat
- 02:21 – SalesWise believes in democratizing data
- 02:31 – SalesWise prices based on the company size
02:52 – Average customer pay per month
- 02:53 – $500/month for entry level companies with less than 100 employees
- 03:00 – A company with 2K employees pays $2500 a month
03:11 – SalesWise was founded in 2015 and their current product was launched 4 months ago
03:33 – Gregg sold his last company to Outbrain
04:23 – SalesWise was bootstrapped for 6-8 months
04:50 – Gregg has raised a total of just over $3M
- 04:58 – All priced rounds
- 05:02 – Gregg's initial capital was a convertible note
05:12 – SalesWise has 12 team members and is currently hiring sales and marketing people
05:46 – SalesWise's current number of customers
06:00 – Average MRR
06:10 – The whole team is based in the Atlanta Tech Village
06:30 – Anticipated customer churn
07:16 – Some of SalesWise's competitors are Salesforce and Xero
- 08:17 – The guys in the BI space, like Domo and Tableau
08:43 – SalesWise isn't into web scraping
08:38 – SalesWise uses Clearbit
08:55 – SalesWise is breaking the linear relationship you have with email
09:29 – SalesWise walked directly into the APIs of Salesforce and Gmail
10:45 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Use your frustration as motivation to make things better.
Keep building companies – you're constantly learning and contributing to the industry while doing so.
Don't settle for less or devalue yourself and your company – reach beyond your expectations.

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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