Top Founders

Latest Episodes:

EP 511: How to Pivot $50K MRR SaaS Company with Ian Cullen CEO of Leadiro Dec 17, 2016

Show notes

Ian Cullen, a demand generation expert and the co-founder of Leadiro, an account-centric data platform designed to enable account based marketing and sales development efforts at named accounts. Ian was previously the co-founder of Internal Results, which was acquired by Madison Logic in May 2016. He started his first business, Target 250 in 2001, grew it to a team of 130 staff and it was a leading B2B technology based, lead generation company which was sold in 2010.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Magic of Thinking Big
What CEO do you follow – N/A

Favorite online tool? — SimilarWeb
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Work hard because nothing happens overnight and if you really focus and you can achieve anything"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:37 – Nathan introduces Ian to the show
02:25 – Ian says he sold Target 250 for simply "not enough"
02:35 – Ian received investments from bench capitalists for Target 250
02:48 – After 6 months, Ian sold with a soft landing
03:19 – One year, non-compete, Ian set up an another company and sold it
03:48 – Chris is a partner and cofounder of Leadiro
03:57 – What Leadiro does and how they make money
04:00 – New startup, four months old, Leadiro is a B2b service platform that offers account-based marketing
05:19 – You can send cold emails to leads that are relevant
05:41 – Customers pay monthly or quarterly basis
05:55 – Average customer pays $ 20,000-40,000 per year but can be much higher, $ 6-10,000 per month depending on customer's volume
07:00 – Launched July 2016
07:06 – Serving under 20 customers
07:29 – Customers are people we know in the industry
07:57 – Our customers are people that are launching certain products into the market to a specific audience
08:25 – Do they need help in reaching out to a larger audience as opposed to their first party list of possible customers?
08:35 – Why are people buying your data instead of others?
08:41 – Our platform is proprietary, easy to use
08:59 – "You can upload a list of domains within 10 seconds [of using our product] and pull out a specific audience within those accounts" and get their email addresses
09:12 – For example, there are 200 companies you want to target, upload that to our platform, and you have a list of everyone who works in those companies (job title, level, function), and can select what you want
09:52 – Very common product, that people that win are those who market better
10:18 – Like Siftery, but Siftery doesn't get you the leads
10:53 – Leadiro's current revenue: $50,000
11:06 – Leadiro is self-funded
11:09 – Ian does not want to raise
11:19 – Team size: 6 people
11:31 – Hired people to develop full-time, remote, in New Zealand
11:56 – 3 in UK, 1 in Ireland, 2 in NZ
12:56 – 50,000 in MR divided by 20 customers = Monthly RPU: $2500 per customer
13:11 – Early cancellations, because they're in a learning stage
13:25 – One big struggle with this particular product—companies can download everything they need and leave
13:46 – Nathan wonders if these types of companies are SaaS companies or should there be a one-time fee where customers get what they need and leave?
13:55 – Something they are still working out, perhaps a 1-2 month subscription
14:22 – Discussion of competitors and who is doing the same thing well
15:21 – To connect with Ian, go to his LinkedIn
16:53 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Always think of how your product sets you apart from your competitors and SELL to that strength.
A startup and any business for that matter is a work in progress—just keep at it.
Work hard, focus in on your task, and you can achieve ANYTHING.

Resources Mentioned:

Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
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.
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
@Qwil – Johnny's business Twitter handle
Blog - Johnny's business blog site
Qwil.co – Johnny's business website
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 510: HubDoc Hits $132k MRR, 1200 Customers, $2M Raised to Help You Accountants Manage Their Documents with CEO Yoseph West Dec 16, 2016

Show notes

Yoseph West. He dreams of a world where accountants and bookkeepers never have to ask their clients for documents—that's why he joined HubDoc to lead growth. He previously co-founded Vuru, a stock analytics platform for retail investors and led it into its acquisition by Wave Accounting in 2012. Listen as Yoseph shares his experience with Vuru's acquisition and how he ended up now with HubDoc.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – William Rockefeller

Favorite online tool? — Text Expander
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Stay patient

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:34 – Nathan introduces Yoseph to the show
02:10 – Yoseph co-founded Vuru to make investing easier
- 02:33 – Vuru was making money off ads, they then supposedly reached out to Wave Accounting
- 03:15 – The acquisition was a soft landing
- 03:36 – "All of us want to work with people that we're excited about"
- 04:29 – Yoseph and his team got a little excited as they talked more with angel investors
- 04:50 – Vuru was having a fundraising
05:30 – HubDoc offers SMBs a cloud accounting space
05:42 – There's a movement to make accounting space invisible
06:13 – There's a big shift in the accounting industry
06:40 – HubDoc has a feature similar to how bills and other documents are being consolidated in a bank
07:04 – HubDoc has over 700 web scrapers
07:50 – Business owners won't be bombarded with reminder emails from their accountants and bookkeepers using HubDoc
08:25 – HubDoc was re-launched in early 2014
08:55 – Number of HubDoc's paying customers
09:28 – HubDoc caters to bookkeepers and accountants who then add all their clients
10:40 – Average monthly RPU
11:20 – MRR
12:00 – CAC is quite low
12:18 – Customers stay for approximately 32 months
12:30 – Gross monthly churn is usually negative
12:40 – Bookkeepers are always continually adding new clients
13:45 – Lifetime value
14:10 – Team size is 22
14:27 – The Australian market is 3-5 times ahead of the American market
14:40 – HubDoc has raised capital
- 15:00 – The funding market in Toronto described
15:40 – 2017 revenue goal
16:49 – Follow Yoseph on Twitter and HubDoc is looking for content marketers and other marketing people so touch base if you're interested
19:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

The future of accounting and bookkeeping is far better with technology; it's much faster and paperless.
Acquisition is sometimes painful but there are always new opportunities ahead.
Stay patient AND optimize for learning—there's time to learn and grow.

Resources Mentioned:

Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
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.
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
@YcWest – Yoseph's Twitter handle
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 509: 21 Year Old Invests $500k To Re-Invent Webinars with Demio CEO Wyatt Jozwowski Dec 15, 2016

Show notes

Wyatt Jozwowzki, co-founder and CEO of Demio, a smart, webinar platform on a simple mission. He's passionate about creating a great customer and user experience. Listen as Wyatt shares about Demio; from its inception to a Wyatt creating a working, webinar platform that is earning a revenue from only a few days on the market.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – Jason Lemkin

Favorite online tool? — Clarity.fm
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— seven to eight hours
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "That it was going to be 10 times harder than I thought"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:42 – Nathan introduces Wyatt to the show
02:08 – Demio is a web-based webinar platform built for marketing
02:18 – "We wanted to create a webinar platform that is actually easy and ready to use"
02:35 – Demio was just launched in November 9th of this year
02:54 – Wyatt has a company called Drip Apps as well
03:12 – Demio is the biggest software project that Wyatt has ever taken on
- 03:15 – Wyatt has been working with Demio for 2 years now
03:28 – Demio was in free beta for 3-4 months
- 03:38 – People used Demio for their webinars for free
- 03:48 – This was done to test Demio's reliability and performance
- 04:02 – Wyatt wants simplicity to be Demio's platform
04:51 – Wyatt has invested about half of million on Demio
04:48 – Demio has a team of 3 developers, 1 designer, and 1 QA manager
- 05:40 – Some of the team members are from Upwork and other online job postings
06:21 – Wyatt got his funding from Drip Apps' revenue
06:53 – Wyatt got the idea of Demio from a suggestion
07:30 – First software project of Wyatt's was a video ranking platform
07:45 – Drip Apps has Drip Core which has a $47/month subscription
- 08:09 – 470 users have signed-up
- 08:23 – Drip Apps was launched 3 years ago
08:53 – Drip Apps' 2015 revenue
09:15 – Drip Apps runs independently of Wyatt, freeing him up to work on Demio
09:52 – Demio was not really planned
10:20 – Nathan refers to Episode 252 and how Wyatt reminds him of Omar of Webinar Ninja
10:38 – Demio already has paying customers
10:46 – Demio is a SaaS business model and they currently have discounted annual pricing
10:59 – On launch day, Demio's price range was from $237 a year to $497 a year
- 11:08 – Price range increased on November 16th
12:20 – Wyatt's strategy for Demio
13:10 – Having a webinar is not that easy and is very challenging
13:40 – Demio is web-based and does not require any desktop software to be installed
- 13:42 – Wyatt is currently focused on expanding browser and mobile support
14:05 – There are a number of unique customers that have signed-up
14:30 – There are customers who have asked for refunds
15:49 – Connect with Wyatt through Twitter
17:20 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

There are huge challenges in the tech industry, but it's definitely worth it to keep pressing on.
Streaming in real-time is one of the most difficult things to achieve in a webinar.
Be consistent in working out those hurdles and challenges.

Resources Mentioned:

Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
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.
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
@WyattJawz – Wyatt's Twitter handle
Upwork – Where Wyatt found his team members
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 508: Siftery $4M Raised, 25,000 Users to Help You Find Software Tools with CMO Gerry Golyer Dec 14, 2016

Show notes

Gerry Colyer, head of growth at Siftery. He was previously the VP of growth at HealthSherpa and co-founder of two startups. He's a graduate of Yale and Stanford. The CEO of Siftery was convinced there was a better way for companies to discover, select, and make better use of their software and so began their journey into filling this particular need in the market.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Hooked
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? — Buffer
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Not quite
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Gerry wish he had studied more in Computer Science

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:32 – Nathan introduces Gerry to the show
02:11 – Gerry's 500 company is Central Mayoreo
02:57 – Siftery helps users discover and choose the right software to reach their needs
03:20 – Siftery is currently tracking 10,000 software programs
03:30 – Siftery gets data from their recommendation engines
03:57 – Siftery has a small team in SF
04:11 – Siftery has 30 team members in Bangalore and Kiev
05:24 – How Siftery collects data
- 05:59 – There's a combination of data scraping from the web and getting recommendations from actual software users
06:48 – Siftery is trying to create tools for software buyers
08:10 – Siftery has no pricing model yet and currently free
09:13 – Monthly headcount expenses
10:00 – Advantages of having a development team in Bangalore
- 10:12 – Cost of living is Bangalore lower than in SF
11:00 – What number are you focused on every day?
- 11:11 – Data points being contributed in the community
- 11:31 – Number of vendors engaged in the platform
12:00 – Launched earlier in 2016
12:30 – Siftery is more powerful than Techcrunch
13:00 – How are you able to get updates so quickly?
- 13:05 – We get feedback from software reviews, friends in the 500, and other software owners
13:43 – 25 data contributors
14:00 – Utility metric
15:15 – Siftery's target area
15:50 – Connect with Gerry through email, Twitter and Siftery
18:05 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Meet people and build connections or, better yet, build companies.
There are opportunities in the B2B space—find the gap and fill it.
Having a team in another country can help startups build their business at a lower cost but still maintain the quality of work.

Resources Mentioned:

Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
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.
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
Gerry@Siftery.com – Gerry's email address
@Ggiaco – Gerry's Twitter handle
Siftery.com – Gerry's company website
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 507: $300k Raised, ChatBot Helps Your Audience Talk To You and Get Answer with CEO Abhimanyu Godara Dec 13, 2016

Show notes

Abhimanyu Godara, founder and CEO of BOTTR.me. He previously managed portfolio investments at TLabs where he worked with over 40 startups around strategies and things similar to that. He's very well educated and now sitting on a platform that he thinks is going to be very exciting for him coming up.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Zero to One
What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs

Favorite online tool? — Trello
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "The world doesn't work the way you want it to work"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:31 – Nathan introduces Abhimanyu to the show
02:08 – BOTTR is a personal bot platform that one can converse with to ask questions they'd essentially want to be asking you (ex. How much for your services? When is the next podcast coming out?)
03:01 – BOTTR is like a personal assistant or replica of someone
03:09 – BOTTR is currently focused on influencers and celebrities
04:10 – BOTTR's current business model
05:05 – Still validating the potential of the business
05:40 – BOTTR currently has 250 paying customers
06:40 – BOTTR's next version will have all the data pre-filled for every user
- 06:58 – BOTTR will gather information from social media channels like LinkedIn
- 07:34 – BOTTR can make you save time because now you do not need to address every question that comes up in email as it can already answer most questions
07:44 – BOTTR had a funding round
08:25 – Current team size is 7-10
09:35 – Abhimanyu shares how users of BOTTR can get paid
10:00 – There are bloggers who have already reached out to BOTTR
11:15 – BOTTR is an ecommerce product to find information and services
12:16 – Connect with Abhimanyu through BOTTR.me/Abhimanyu
13:55 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Create something that is DIFFERENT in your space.
Performing a pre-launch can help you gauge what you still need to improve upon.
What you plan to do won't always work – ALWAYS have a plan B.

Resources Mentioned:

Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
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.
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
BOTTR.me/Abhimanyu – Abhimanyu's BOTTR account
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 506: Klipfolio $7.9M Raised, 7000 Customers for Smarter Business Dashboards with CEO Allan Wille Dec 12, 2016

Show notes

Allan Wille, co-founder and CEO of Klipfolio – a SaaS dashboard company headquartered in Ottawa. He's focused on making it easier and faster for SMBs (small to medium businesses) to monitor the health and performance of their businesses and they're taking an interesting approach. It is self-served, in the cloud, right to business users, eliminating them the need to work with IT procurement or make huge upfront investments. He has over 59,000 customers including Jet.com, Zendesk and Lifelock just to name a few. They also have the funding to back them.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Good to Great
What CEO do you follow? – N/A

Favorite online tool? — Mixpad
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I should have spent more time understanding people"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:31 – Nathan introduces to the show
02:15 – Klipfolio is focused on SMBs or businesses that really want to grow
- 02:36 – There's a lot of difficult data a SMB just doesn't monitor
- 03:09 – Klipfolio helps SMBs monitor their business to make the best decisions
03:28 – Klipfolio is 100% SaaS and a subscription based business
03:35 – Average customer pays per month $70-80
03:57 – Klipfolio does not have outbound sales people
04:34 – Klipfolio is serving 7,000 customers for November 2016
04:57 – Average MRR
05:07 – Customers can start Klipfolio with payments as low as $24 a month
05:40 – Klipfolio was launched in 2001
- 05:56 – The cloud version was launched in 2012
- 06:03 – "We're always into monitoring real-time data"
06:30 – Klipfolio started out bootstrapped
07:06 – By the end of 2012, Klipfolio had 350 customers
- 07:12 – In the end of 2013, Klipfolio had 1,100 customers
07:54 – Klipfolio had their first seed round at the end of 2014
- 08:02 – Klipfolio did their Series A at the beginning of 2015 with a $6.2M
08:55 – Klipfolio is continuously raising capital
09:05 – Team size is 70
10:03 – Klipfolio is currently on Series B
10:55 – Allan thinks that they are in a good space
- 11:16 – SMB is a good field market for Klipfolio
11:50 – Allan shares why he thinks Dasheroo didn't do well in the dashboard space
13:30 – Allan shares his thoughts on their competitors
14:10 – Gross monthly customer churn
15:45 – CAC
16:00 – Lifetime value
16:46 – Klipfolio does webinars to educate their customers on their data
17:30 – 2016 revenue goal
18:22 – Connect with Allan through Twitter and his blog
20:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Focus on the needs of your customer in running their business AND be a part of their growth.
It's important for businesses to have an editor or someone who can handle things that need to be customized.
Spend more time understanding people, especially how they work in a team.

Resources Mentioned:

Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal.
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 to listen to audio books
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
@Awille – Allan's Twitter handle
Klipfolio.com/Blog – Allan's blog site
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 505: Qwil.co Pre-Pays Contractors/Freelancers $10M in 2016 with CEO Johnny Reinsch Dec 11, 2016

Show notes

Johnny Reinsch of Qwil which is a company that provides instant pay for the growing freelancer segment of the work force. He's the co-founder and CEO and also a cryptocurrency nerd. Listen as Johnny shares how he shifted his career path and why Qwil is different from most startups.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Zero to One
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? — Toptal
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I didn't have to go to law school"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:24 – Nathan introduces Johnny to the show
01:57 – Johnny got tired of making rich people richer so he started his own startup
02:28 – Johnny shares his learnings from the cryptocurrency company
02:50 – Qwil helps freelancers collect their pay on time
03:21 – Qwil has a low price point
03:40 – Qwil is a transactional based model
04:05 – Qwil started summer of 2015
04:20 – First year total transaction volume is in low seven figures
04:51 – Target transaction volume for 2016
05:05 – Qwil's funding rounds
- 05:45 – It is an equitable note
06:07 – "We are not disclosing a round at the moment"
07:20 – 2016 total transaction volume
07:40 – Qwil has a similar metric with GMD
08:51 – Some freelancers won't release their payment right away
- 09:35 – If freelancers keep their money in Qwil for 30 days, they won't be charged any fees
- 09:50 – Qwil can't touch the cash of the freelancers
11:30 – Qwil offers conveniences to the users
13:28 – Profit margin base
13:44 – Team size
14:10 – Number of contractors who have used Qwil is in the thousands
15:21 – "We are trying to make a freelancer's lifestyle much easier than it currently is"
17:10 – Connect with Johnny through his website, blog, and Twitter
18:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Be sure to USE and APPLY what you learned well.
Be in a unique niche where competition is not very tough.
School does NOT always lead you to your future, don't let it narrow your scope.

Resources Mentioned:

Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
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.
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
@Qwil – Johnny's business Twitter handle
Blog - Johnny's business Twitter handle
Qwil.co – Johnny's business website
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 504: MailPlaneApp 10,000+ Customers With BetterGmail with CEO Lars Steiger Dec 10, 2016

Show notes

Lars Steiger, the co-founder of Mailplane. Nathan found Lars when he was searching in the Gmail space. Listen as Lars shares how he ended up managing Mailplane solo and the reason why he would never sell is company.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – N/A
What CEO do you follow? – Jason Fried

Favorite online tool? — Basecamp
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Stay calm"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:38 – Nathan introduces Lars to the show
02:05 – Mailplane started as GmailSender in 2006, which was then an iPhoto plugin
02:28 – Mailplane was founded by Ruben, Lars joined in 2007
02:53 – Lars has an equity now with Mailplane
03:15 – Customers are more important for Mailplane
03:33 – Mailplane has an average of 10,000 customers
03:52 – Mailplane offers a 15 day free trial
- 04:17 – 5,000 users a month try the free trial
04:40 – Mailplane relies mostly on organic traffic
05:00 – Mailplane is a one-time purchase business model
05:30 – 10,000 people from Mailplane's email list have tried the free trial
05:57 – Lars does the coding for Mailplane
- 06:15 – Lars uses business development tactics from time-to-time
06:30 – Mailplane is completely bootstrapped
06:53 – Average revenue in 2007
07:40 – Ruben joined Evernote and left Mailplane to Lars in 2012
08:24 – Lars' goal for Mailplane
09:36 – How much will make Lars sell Mailplane?
10:37 – Lars won't sell Mailplane because of the customers
11:17 – The most important number for Mailplane is the number of users who are downloading updates
12:25 – Connect with Lars through his email and Mailplane
14:25 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Value and show appreciation to your customers, working to better address their needs.
Sometimes, there's just no amount that can compensate for the hard work an entrepreneur has put into his business.
Stay CALM, nothing to be gained by choosing the alternative.

Resources Mentioned:

Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
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.
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
MailPlaneApp.com – Lars' business website
Lars@MailPlaneApp.com – Lars' email address
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 503: $125k for 5%, How To Grow Into $2m+ Valuation with InDemand CEO Alex Saidani Dec 09, 2016

Show notes

Alex Saidani, founder and CEO of Indemand. Alex is a developer who started coding at the age of 11. He started his first business at the age of 13 and was the youngest founder of a team to participate in the DotForge accelerator program with Hashtrack. Indemand supports businesses with providing online ordering software and an hourly delivery network. On top of this, Alex also finds time to mentor people in their start-ups and provide them with the necessary support.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Steve Jobs Biography
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? — N/A
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Don't waste time pursuing people who are not going to help you or create value"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:25 – Nathan introduces Alex to the show
01:52 – Alex went to the 500 startups program
02:12 – Indemand sells software to groceries and other retail stores
02:25 – Indemand charges the stores directly
02:36 – Indemand is a SaaS business
02:52 – Indemand started in 2015
03:14 – First year revenue
03:38 – Indemand's usual customers
04:15 – Indemand has worked with 150 companies and there are 25 active customers
- 04:28 – Most of the inactive customers are startups
- 05:04 – Indemand had to increase their fees to make money
05:10 – ARPU per month is around $250
05:22 – MRR
05:55 – October 2016 revenue was $25,000
06:45 – What do people get when they pay $400 a month?
- 06:51 – help with start-up, customize branding, end up with a customer facing application
- 07:14 – Users get to monitor all the orders in real-time
07:40 – Total transaction volume in October 2016, is around 200 orders
08:20 – Indemand had a capital raising
10:30 – Indemand's other expenses
10:46 – Indemand sources people from Fiverr to find information
12:00 – Alex and his team are based in California
12:18 – Connect with Alex through his LinkedIn and email
13:51 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

An entrepreneur can start as early as 13 years old—you're never too young or old for that matter!
Raising fees is often necessary to meet your clients' demands and update your services.
Don't waste your time on "non-value creating" people.

Resources Mentioned:

Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
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.
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
LinkedIn – Alex's LinkedIn account
Alex@TryInDemand.com – Alex's email address
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 502: 30% Annual Yield AirBNB Investing with Andrew Keene Dec 08, 2016

Show notes

Andrew Keene, president and CEO of AlphaShark Trading which is originally founded as KeeneOnTheMarket.com in 2011. Prior to that, he grew up working as a proprietary trader at Chicago Board Options Exchange. He began his career on a trade program and would eventually co-found the KATL group. He currently actively trades future equity options, currency options present in commodities, and was a regular guest/market commentator on such networks as Bloomberg, CNBC and Fox Business. His first love will always be trading but he's arguably even more well-known for building a trading room. He is especially proud of having taught his personal strategies trading for over 50,000 guests for years.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Automatic Customer
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? — N/A
Do you get 8 hours of sleep? — No
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Not to date a girl for 8 years and be engaged"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:38 – Nathan introduces Andrew to the show
02:32 – Andrew is based in Austin and San Diego
03:17 – Andrew is part of Entrepreneur Organization
03:55 – Andrew purchased a place in San Diego and put it on Airbnb
05:18 – "This year I expect to make $20,000 from that $70,000 investment"
06:24 – Andrew wants to get the "Super Host" status on Airbnb
- 06:33 – Airbnb advertises Super Host's properties more
06:53 – Andrew looks at Airbnb hosting as an investment
07:25 – The risk of having your properties in Airbnb
- 07:31 – Stand-alone is not covered by HOA
- 07:48 – HOA wants to ban short-term rentals in San Diego
- 08:10 – Hosts can take advantage of their cash-flow situation
08:50 – Andrew has made $5M from trading
09:30 – Andrew shares how he got into trading
10:32 – Andrew has a place in Chicago, too
- 10:38 – Andrew is making around $8,000 a year for his place in Chicago
11:16 – Andrew is starting his second deal
11:41 – People ask Andrew how he makes money through the investment
12:04 – Andrew is working on a book with Airbnb
12:11 – AirBNBopen in LA
12:25 – There are around 7,000 people who paid Andrew for trading information
12:35 – Andrew has more than 50,0000 people in his email list
13:09 – Andrew shares how his cash flow works with his property in San Diego
13:45 – Andrew names software that he uses other than Revestor
- 13:50 – AirDNA is where you can buy reports of any city
- 14:23 – Mashvisor use to search for rental properties
14:45 – You can use analytics and research by Revestor to get into the market
15:50 – Standard percentage for payment fees
16:30 – Nathan makes an offer to Andrew
17:55 – Email Andrew to connect with him
20:05 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Find the right investment and STUDY it as best as you can.
Go to someone who is an expert in a market that you want to be in.
Stay independent as long as you can.

Resources Mentioned:

Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
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.
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
Andrew@AlphaShark.com – Andrew's email address
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

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