Top Founders

Latest Episodes:

EP 501: Track Uninstalls with $325k in Funding, 15 Customers, with CEO Pritesh Vora of Uninstall.io Dec 07, 2016

Show notes

Pritesh Vora. He has over 10 years of experience specializing in building and growing innovative technology products. He was a formerly a partner at 1000Lookz and the business head at NotiPhi. He has also worked at TCS, one of India's biggest IT service companies across US, Europe and India. He has a Bachelor in Technology from MSIT.

Famous Five:

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

Favorite online tool? — Buffer
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Definitely, knew more about how to see the business"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:22 – Nathan introduces Pritesh to the show
02:10 – Uninstall.io is Pritesh's current company
02:14 – Uninstall.io is a niche analytics company
- 02:40 – Uninstall.io provides analytics to popular mobile apps
02:50 – Uninstall.io is a SaaS business with monthly subscription and fees depending on the number of users and modules
03:02 – Average pay per customer is $100,000 a month
03:11 – Uninstall.io was launched in 2015
03:22 – Uninstall.io was bootstrapped for the first 6-8 months and raised $365K
03:50 – Uninstall.io is currently serving more than 150 apps
04:36 – ARR is currently $100K
- 04:48 – MRR is around $10K
05:00 – Uninstall.io currently has 15-17 customers
05:23 – Pritesh shares why companies leave after just a few months
06:37 – Pritesh and his team are still working on how to make customers stay
08:30 – Pritesh and his team are learning more about their customers' needs and data so that Uninstall.io can become indispensable to them
09:00 – People have a typical analytic scheme in their company
09:25 – Uninstall.io has 10 people on their team
09:44 – Uninstall.io is using shared resources to take the data from each account
10:00 – Average CAC
10:38 – Average monthly salary
11:12 – Pritesh and his team are based in India
12:00 – Lifetime value
12:47 – Pritesh still has around $150K in the bank
13:02 – Pritesh is currently spending $20,000 for the expenses
13:40 – 2015 revenue is around $45,000
14:12 – Connect with Pritesh through his Twitter, website and blog
15:55 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Work to know your niche and target market on a deeper level.
Having a business is a continuous experiment—it's how one learns and adapts.
Focus on your team first and look after them well.

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
@PriteshVora – Pritesh's Twitter handle
Uninstall.io – Pritesh's business website
Blog.Uninstall.io- Pritesh's blog site
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 500: $5M Funding, $1.3M Revenue For LGBT Lifestyle Traveling like AirBNB with CEO Matthieu Jost Dec 06, 2016

Show notes

Matthieu Jost, who founded his first company when he was 17 and exited it when he was 21. Most recently, he started Misterb&b in 2015 and has become the world's largest gay hotel brand in the world. Listen as Matthieu shares how he managed his first business at an early age and how Misterb&b grew exponentially in less than 4 years.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – N/A
What CEO do you follow? – Brian Chesky

Favorite online tool? — RJ Metrics
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Being less naïve maybe"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:31 – Nathan introduces Matthieu to the show
02:00 – Matthieu's first company that posted TV series was sold to PlanetSeries (French equivalent of IMDB) for about $1 million
- 02:33 – The team composed of 4 people
- 02:53 – The company sold series' merchandise
- 03:18 – Matthieu built the company
- 03:38 – Matthieu studied Computer Science for two years to work in a radio station
04:38 – Matthieu shares how Misterb&b is different from Airbnb
05:00 – Misterb&b is a marketplace
05:25 – The sellers are the homeowners
05:36 – "It's not only for gay men, we are open to everyone in the LGBT community"
- 05:45 – There are straight women using Misterb&b because they find it cool and much safer
06:10 – Misterb&b is taking 4% from the host and 12% from the traveler
06:27 – Average booking for 3 nights is $300
06:40 – Misterb&b was founded at the last quarter of 2014
06:50 – Misterb&b was bootstrapped for 6 months and went on raising capital
- 07:02 – Total funds raised was $5 million
07:10 – Team size is 22
07:44 – Currently, there are 80,000 hosts in Misterb&b in over 135 countries
08:00 – Misterb&b has an average of 80,000 bookings per month
08:22 – Most of the travelers are solo travelers
09:16 – First year total transaction volume is 300K
09:35 – Total transaction volume for 2015 is $3M and 2016 total transaction volume goal is $7M
09:58 – Misterb&b is seasonal
11:00 – Misterb&b's 2015 average revenue is $480,000
11:12 – Misterb&b's 2016 revenue aim is $1.3 million
11:24 – Misterb&b is working on different types of ads
12:05 – There are around 300K people on Misterb&b's email list
12:12 – Average opening click-thru rate is 14%
- 12:50 – People are paying Misterb&b a flat-rate and they are getting 15,000 clicks
- 13:00 – Misterb&b also works with non-media companies
13:46 – 40% of Misterb&b's travelers are repeaters
14:28 – Follow Matthieu's company on Facebook and visit the website
16:33 – The Famous Five
- 17:16 – RJ Metrics was at The Top Episode 233

3 Key Points:

It is always advantageous to start your business as EARLY as possible.
Life is about making a choice; don't be afraid to step out and make that decision.
Misterb&b is about building a worldwide community that promotes safe travel without discrimination.

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
Facebook – Matthieu's business Facebook account
Misterbandb.com – Matthieu's business website
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 499: GetSignEasy Passes $200k MRR and 130k Customers To Help Sign Documents withCEO Sunil Patro Dec 05, 2016

Show notes

Sunil Patro, founder of SignEasy, a technologist, product thinker and entrepreneur. He has a decade of experience as a member of multiple early stage product team at Microsoft, Juniper Networks and Tokbox. Putting enterprise communication apps to carrier great routing system to consumer focused video conferencing software. After facing many problems to sign an important job offer while traveling in Mexico, he was inspired to build a product that could solve this hindrance. Since bootstrapping SignEasy in 2010, he led SignEasy to a growing and profitable company that putting 3M downloads with a 5-star rating in over 150 countries, ranked 1 of the top 15 apps and in top 100 downloaded apps for business including Apple's Best New Apps and Editor Choice Picks.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Crucial Conversations
What CEO do you follow? – Jason Fried

Favorite online tool? — Slack
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Not everyday
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Just focus on being part of a great team and focus on learning things rapidly and just have an experience. Find the things you enjoy the most at work"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:32 – Nathan introduces Sunil to the show
02:33 – SignEasy is a cloud-based easy to use app
- 02:50 – SignEasy allows users to be completely paperless
03:00 – SignEasy is a SaaS model and has a free trial for 14 days
- 03:12 – Pay-as-you-go is also available
- 03:17 – Businesses can subscribe to pro and premium plans
03:34 – Sunil started coding SignEasy in early 2010 and launched around July 2010
03:35 – First year revenue
04:02 – Current number of customers in 2016
- 04:20 – 40-45% are on subscriptions and the rest are on one-time payment
04:33 – Average monthly RPU is $ 4 – 5 for pro and 80-90% are pro subscriptions
05:09 – Average monthly recurring revenue for SignEasy
- 05:58 – The difference of their payment plans before and now and how it affects their MRR
06:41 – SignEasy has grown high double digit over the last few years
07:07 – SignEasy is totally bootstrapped
07:25 – Team size
08:00 – Sunil is based in the bay area
08:52 – Gross monthly customer churn
09:02 – SignEasy is focused on SMB
09:45 – Customers can only pay SignEasy annually
10:35 – Lifetime value
10:46 – SignEasy hasn't done paid user acquisition yet
10:55 – Almost 100% of SignEasy users are inbound based or app store driven
11:57 – Sunil shares how they are reaching high number of downloads in app store
- 12:10 – SignEasy has been in the app store for 6 years
- 12:30 – There are many factors that app store considers
- 12:43 – SignEasy has been using keywords for app store
14:10 – SignEasy gets 60K downloads a month from app store
- 14:35 – In iOS, the conversion from free to paid users is 5-6%
- 14:44 – In Android, the conversion from free to paid users is half of the iOS
14:50 – The free trial is either 14 days or limited to 3 documents
- 15:15 – SignEasy's paid features
15:39 – SignEasy just launched a new feature wherein a user can send a document to sign to multiple people remotely and they can establish a work flow
16:00 – Sunil's philosophy
17:10 – Nathan made a mock offer of $ 15M and Sunil is open to it
17:47 – Find Sunil on Twitter and send him an email
19:27 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Build something that people want.
Follow your passion and do what you drives your passion.
Focus on being part of a great team and focus on learning things rapidly.

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.
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 498: $130M Raised Wealthfront Crosses 100,000 Investors, $4.4B in AUM with CEO Andy Rachleff Dec 04, 2016

Show notes

Andy Rachleff, president and CEO of Wealthfront. He served as a member of the board of trustees and vice chairman of the Endowment Investment Committee for the University of Pennsylvania and as a member of the faculty for Stanford Graduate School of Business where he teaches course on Technology Entrepreneurship. Prior to Wealthfront, Andy co-founded and was general partner of Benchmark Capital, where he was responsible for investing number of successful companies. He has also spent 10 years as a general partner for Merrill, Pickard, Anderson & Eyre - MPAE. Andy earned his S from University of Pennsylvania and his MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Innovator's Dilemma
What CEO do you follow? – N/A

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? – "Associating myself with great people"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:41 – Nathan introduces Andy to the show
03:03 – Andy is retired for his Venture Capital business so he wants to give back
04:07 – David Swensen has been an investor on Andy's 2 venture capital firms
04:37 – The way Wealthfront generates investment mix is the same method David Swensen uses
05:09 - Wealthfront manages a diversified of portfolio of low-cost index funds in behalf of their client
- 05:20 – Minimum is $ 500 to open an account
05:55 – "If you like Vanguard, you're going to love Wealthfront"
- 06:00 – Wealthfront can minimize taxes using a software that Vanguard can't do
07:59 – Software works 24/7 so you can monitor your losses daily
08:36 – Wealthfront has been managing around $ 4.4B assets
08:53 – Wealthfront's asset management worth is much smaller than Vanguard
09:25 – "With every new technology that succeeds, it gets adopted at a faster rate"
- 09:47 – Automated Investment Services has been adapted at a faster rate than ETF
- 10:09 – Automated Investment Services are actually managing more assets than ETF
10:21 – Volume of individual metrics
10:54 – Wealthfront manages the first $ 10,000 for free and charges a quarter of a percent on a amount managed excessing $ 10,000
- 11:10 – Sample model is Dropbox
12:00 – "It is more of the client's satisfaction of our service"
12:25 – Percentage of sent invites by users
13:01 – The number of people actually invested in Wealthfront
13:51 – Average MRR
14:04 – Overtime, Wealthfront will introduce new services
14:51 – Wealthfront is a hybrid of old model and also new channels in the software
- 15:28 – "We want to build services that benefit our clients
16:03 – Wealthfront was launched in Dec 2011
16:12 – Team size is about 140
16:15 – Total capital raised is $ 130M
17:15 – "I'm willing to sacrifice some growth for a far more sustainable model"
17:55 – Connect with Andy through his email and Twitter
16:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

With every new technology that succeeds, it gets adopted at a faster rate.
Sacrifice some growth for a far more sustainable model.
Associate yourself with great 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
Andy@Wealthfront.com – Andy's email address
@Arachleff – Andy's Twitter handle
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 497: Woopra $1M Raised, $1.6M 2015 Revenue, $300k MRR To Help Businesses Get Smarter with CEO Elie Khoury Dec 03, 2016

Show notes

Elie Khoury, co-founder and CEO of Woopra – a customer intelligence platform that helps businesses essentialize customer engagement across all channels. He studied Computer Science in Lebanese American University where he booked the first generation of Woopra in 2007. In addition to Woopra, he co-founded YallaStartup, a non-government organization establish to proper entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs

Favorite online tool? — Google Calendar
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 won't change a thing"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:32 – Nathan introduces to Elie the show
02:09 – Woopra is designed for businesses to help them consolidate their customer activities across channels
02:22 – Woopra is a SaaS model and has monthly subscription
02:34 – Woopra is self-funded but they raised an Angel round few years ago
- 02:43 – Raised about a million dollars in the Angel round
- 02:48 – It was an equity round
02:58 – There are 12 people in the team
- 03:08 – All are based in SF
03:18 – Woopra mainly focused on SaaS businesses but they cater to wide-range of businesses
03:39 – Woopra has around 1000 customers at the moment
03:50 – Woopra has 100,000 active projects and 1000 of that are paying customers
04:10 – Average RPU is around $30,000 a year for enterprise and $ 3000 a year for SMB
04:30 – Woopra introduced their enterprise edition a couple of years ago
05:05 – Average MRR
05:27 – Gross customers monthly churn is lower on enterprise than SMB
06:15 – CAC is $ 1-2,000 on enterprise
06:35 – Lifetime value
- 07:39 – Average monthly lifetime value
07:53 – Woopra has a sales team that engages with enterprise customers
08:08 – Woopra was launched in 2008
- 08:25 – Woopra has 15,000 active projects that are running for free
09:25 – 2015 total revenue around $ 1.5 million
09:50 – Woopra is in a good place at the moment
10:02 – "Raising funding is always an option. We are just waiting for the right fit and the right time"
10:13 – Woopra has to scale in a faster pace and identify the perfect marketing tool
10:44 – Connect with Elie through their blog and his email
12:20 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Raising fund is always an option. Just wait for the right fit and the right time.
There is time to polish things out. Take things slowly.
Embrace your ignorance.

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.
Elie@Woopra.com – Elie's email address
Woopra.com/Blog – Elie's business blog
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 496: PayByGroup $3.4M Raised, $10m in Transaction Volume to Help Groups Pay with CEO Camilo Acosta Dec 02, 2016

Show notes

Camilo Acosta, CEO of Pay By Group, which is based out of San Francisco. Their team is working with global brands to make it easier for people to minimize the cost of any purchase at the online checkout. One of their customers expresses their gratitude for the company by saying that their "family reunion [wouldn't] happen without Pay By Group." Listen as Camilo shares how Pay By Group's revenue grew from zero in 2011 to nearly $30 million in 2016.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – High Output Management
What CEO do you follow? – N/A

Favorite online tool? —Hubspot Sales
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— "Now, I do"
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wish I moved to San Francisco earlier"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:36 – Nathan introduces Camilo to the show
02:05 – Pay By Group is a worldwide payment solution that allows families and friends to split the cost of their online purchases
- 02:20 – Pay By Group is plugged-in directly to online merchants
02:33 – Pay By Group is a checkout option
02:47 – Pay By Group charges the business and consumers
03:07 – Camilo gives an example on how to use Pay By Group using Walmart's website
03:44 – Pay By Group makes more money on the consumer charges
03:50 – Pay By Group is active on vacation rental sites like CaboVillas
- 04:19 – The organizer is free but every invite will be charged 2.9%
05:17 – Pay By Group is a pay-as-you-go model
05:34 – Pay By Group was founded in 2011
05:38 – Team size is 20
05:41 – Pay By Group raised $3.4 million in the second round
05:56 – The first round of raised capital
06:28 – Average order value:
- 06:46 – There's no one number because it depends on the merchants
06:56 – Vacation rentals is Pay By Group's current "bread and butter"
07:08 – Number of merchants currently using Pay By Group is over 300
07:20 – Pay By Group tracks the number of groups/families that have used their system
07:52 – Pay By Group had tens of millions of transactions
08:11 – 2011 total transaction volume number is zero
08:25 – Pay By Group was in 500 startups in 2012
- 08:58 – Pay By Group's first merchant was Rent Like A Champion
- 10:04 – 2012 total transaction volume number is less than a hundred thousand
10:30 – 2013 total transaction volume number is around $3 million
10:45 – Goal transaction volume number in 2016 is $30 million
10:57 – Pay By Group is seasonal
11:33 – The Top: Ep. 489 is the episode where Rent Like A Champion's CEO was featured
12:38 – Pay By Group's team is based in San Francisco
12:56 – Camilo's goal for Pay By Group
13:40 – Connect with Camilo through LinkedIn and his website
16:20 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Enjoy WHAT you do and WHO you work with—learn from them.
The secret is simplicity; less is always more.
Dream it and do your best to achieve it.

Resources Mentioned:

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 developers.
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
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.
LinkedIn – Camilo's LinkedIn account
PayByGroup.com – Camilo's business website
CaboVillas – One of Pay By Group's vacation rental merchant
Rent Like A Champion – Pay By Group's first merchant
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 495: WebEx Killer +$5M In Revenue, 1.7M Users For Better Online Meetings with BusinessHangouts CEO Gary Guseinov Dec 01, 2016

Show notes

Gary Guseinov, an investor, operator, and advisor in various technology companies including Business Hangouts, InCast, Playsino and Revenue.com. During his career, he has over $100 million in growth capital and structured complex financial transactions. He's also acquired over 300 million users for global technology product and services.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Power the Mind
What CEO do you follow? – Mark Zuckerberg

Favorite online tool? — Calendly
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 knew how to start a business with very little capital"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:26 – Nathan introduces Gary to the show
02:08 – Business Hangouts is a web-conferencing and webinar platform
- 02:17 – It is specifically designed for Google apps
02:47 – Gary has raised capital for USTechSupport in 2003
- 03:07 – Private from 2003 to 2007
- 03:15 – From September 2007 to 2012, it became public in Nasdaq
- 03:22 – It was bought out by a big marketing company in LA
- 03:29 – Gary was the co-founder and left the company because he needed a break
04:24 – "It takes a lot of processes when it comes to legal and accounting when you shift from private to public"
- 05:05 – SDC reviews the applications and processes
05:20 – Gary was in his mid-thirties when he started USTechSupport and didn't have any experience running a company
- 05:29 – Gary is now 46
05:40 – Gary acquired Business Hangouts from the previous owner
- 05:51 – Business Hangouts had 1.7 million enterprise users when it was acquired
- 06:02 – Over 700,000 registered users and 70,000 enterprise users
- 06:40 – Number of paying users
07:10 – Business Hangouts' competitors usually separate web conferencing and webinar leading to 2 different subscriptions
- 07:48 – Consumers wouldn't know what their monthly expenses were going to be
07:54 – Business Hangouts is not as complicated as their competitors
- 08:10 – "Our pricing model is very simple"
09:07 – Average monthly RPU is $70
10:40 – Business Hangouts is currently getting offers from investors
11:45 – "We try to build a business based on purely economics"
12:06 – "We think that we are a strong contender to multi-million dollar entities"
12:54 – Gary does not wish to disclose their MRR because they are not looking for capital at the moment as they are still a small company
13:57 – Gary's goal is to stay "at the radar"
- 14:18 – "You want to be good at what you're doing and you want the market to recognize that"
14:55 – Churn is less than 10% yearly
15:32 – Gary acquired the company for less than $10 million
17:00 – Gary can afford to put inside sales representatives in the demo
17:36 – Business Hangouts is completely bootstrapped
18:15 – Current CAC is zero
18:55 – Team size is less than 10
19:16 – Connect with Gray through LinkedIn
20:42 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Choose a business that is viable in the marketplace.
Staying "at the radar" while doing an excellent job at what you do will help you become recognized by the marketplace.
You CAN start a business without raising capital.

Resources Mentioned:

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 developers.
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
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.
LinkedIn – Gary's LinkedIn account
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 494: PDFFiller $10M+ Revenue, 200k Customers To make Document Signing/Management Easier with CEO Borya Shakhnovich Nov 30, 2016

Show notes

Boris Shakhnovich, president of PDF Filler. He manages the daily operation and marketing campaigns but he is also responsible for the mission and vision of the company. Prior to his work at PDF Filler, Boris earned a PhD in Bioinformatics and he's a Bioinformatics Professor at Boston University. He later moved to Harvard University to work with Systems Biology.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Guerilla Marketing
What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff

Favorite online tool? — Google Analytics
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "That doing is more important than knowing"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:40 – Nathan introduces Boris to the show
02:30 – Boris is the president and co-founder
02:47 – PDF Filler is a document management platform
- 02:51 – It allows people to do end-to-end document generation
03:40 – PDF Filler is a SaaS business model and they charge per month
- 03:46 – 3 tiers: professional, non-professional, and business
- 03:50 – Business is the most expensive at $15 a month
03:58 – Average customer pays per month
04:10 – In 2008, the founder started the business and ran it by himself until the end of 2011
04:25 – Boris joined the company 5 years ago and applied marketing technology to it
04:39 – PDF Filler has now close to 200,000 customers
04:58 – Monthly RPU
05:16 – PDF Filler was needed when it launched so it grew organically
05:30 – Gross customer churn per month is low
06:28 – PDF Filler works with the government institutions
06:58 – PDF Filler's digital marketing platform
- 07:08 - PDF Filler runs 60 million keywords on top of SEO and other SEM platforms
- - 07:19 – Brings 4 million website views monthly
- 07:30 – Internal CRM with A/B Testing
08:22 – "We have a marketing technology that allows us to find sites that would be interested in collaborating with us and we have that as a partnership program"
- 09:00 – It is part-human and part-code
- 09:36 – Semantic search technology
- 10:06 – They write every code in house
10:50 – They have one of the largest SEM platforms and account in Google
11:44 – PDF Filler makes money on the first payment of their customers
12:20 – There are 160 team members divided across Boston
12:52 – PDF Filler is completely bootstrapped
13:14 – First year revenue was about $20,000
13:36 – 2015 total revenue is double digit millions
13:55 – Future plans with the business:
- 14:17 – Doing a lot of partnerships with private and government companies
- 14:43 – PDF Filler is a zero salespeople company
15:45 – Do you have an appetite for acquisition? Have you done it before?
- 15:50 – Absolutely, but we haven't done it before and are in the process of doing that now
- 16:05 – "Looking for companies that are complimentary to us and we can add value"
- 16:40 – "We would buy a competitor of a part of the business, not the whole business"
- 17:28 – They are currently looking into mail merge space, CRM space, and signature space
17:56 – Connect with Boris through his LinkedIn and website
20:28 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

If you can, strive to have a partnership with BOTH private and government agencies.
A GREAT marketing technology will create TONS of organic website visits.
DOING is extremely more important than knowing.

Resources Mentioned:

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 developers.
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
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.
PDFfiller.com – Boris' business website
LinkedIn – Boris' LinkedIn account
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 493: DocHub $90k MRR, 15M Users To Make Document Signing Easy with CEO Chris Devor Nov 29, 2016

Show notes

Chris Devor, founder of DocHub and other extensions. DocHub allows you to view, edit, and sign PDFs online for free to streamline the exchange of documents. Listen as Chris shares how DocHub is different from their competitors and why he won't easily jump into offers for a share of his company.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – N/A
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? — New Relic
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 would have taken Computer Science and it would probably make my life easier"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:40 – Nathan introduces Chris to the show
02:16 – Chris started DocHub 3 years ago
02:57 – DocHub integrates with different providers
- 03:17 – DocHub can be opened directly from Gmail
- 03:30 – The signature looks real
03:48 – Number of users is 15.4 million and 52.2 documents
04:18 – What does 15 million users mean?
- 04:29 – For every one document opened up equates to one user
05:08 – The monthly recurring expense led Chris to having a paywall
06:57 – Chris runs several of the operations
07:16 – Number of paying users in October is around 5,000
08:00 – MRR in October is about $95,000
09:30 – Chris owns 100% of DocHub
09:43 – Team size
11:00 – In the last 30 days, DocHub had 1600 new subscriptions and 650 new cancellations
11:21 – DocHub has 30-day free trial
11:40 – DocHub's revenue churn is 75%
12:23 – When can an investor invest or buy DocHub?
- 12:40 – It is still too early and Chris hasn't tried new features
- 13:38 – Chris is finding a good valuation for their company
15:40 – Nathan shows Chris a $200,000 check asking how much equity Chris is willing to give
- 16:25 – "It's too complex"
17:10 – Would you consider an offer for $5 million?
- 17:13 – "I will think about it"
18:50 – Connect with Chris through his website
20:19 – The Famous Five

Key Points:

A free trial is an EXCELLENT way to attract new customers—including a paywall helps, too.
Always continue to BUILD and EXPAND your company.
Choose a type of degree or diploma that will give you MORE opportunities in the future.

Resources Mentioned:

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 developers.
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
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.
DocHub.com – Chris's business website
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 492: $2M Raised, $12k MRR with DocuFirst CEO Randall Nachman Nov 28, 2016

Show notes

Randall Nachman of DocuFirst, who has over 15 years of experience in mortgage lending and software development with a strong focus on business processes, work-flow, operation, sales and marketing. He founded a mortgage brokerage company in 2003 which grew from 2 loan officers to 135 loan officers and ranked 2nd in the region for total loan closings and volume. He then founded ATLOS, a document management in 2008 which is used by lenders and borrowers.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Trump: The Art of the Deal
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk

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? – "Pay attention in class"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:34 – Nathan introduces to the show
02:31 – DocuFirst focuses on 3 core functions within software
03:12 – DocuFirst also focuses on document storage and management
- 03:39 – The files are stored securely that they can access anytime
03:44 – ATLOS and DocuFirst was launched in 2015
04:13 – First year for DocuFirst was close to $100,000
04:21 – DocuFirst's is a SaaS model and is subscription-based
04:58 – Average monthly RPU is $150
05:35 – ATLOS is for mortgage space but DocuFirst handles any type of forms
06:40 – DocuFirst is currently serving 80 unique companies
- 06:54 – Each company has an average of 6-7 users
07:06 – ATLOS has 4 companies they're serving
- 07:18 – ATLOS markets directly to the mortgage lending space
07:38 – DocuFirst's monthly revenue is $12,000
08:07 – Randall started in the document space because he wanted to automate his own business
08:43 – Why create a new brand if they are both running on the same software?
- 08:45 – ATLOS stands for Automated Tracking Loan Origination Software which is dedicated in the real estate space
09:18 – Team size for DocuFirst is 16
10:11 – DocuFirst's churn rate is low
10:33 – Average CAC is less than $100
11:00 – Randall has raised capital for both brands
11:31 – Randall raised capital because he wants to speed up the way they develop
12:08 – Randall and his team are based in Louisiana
12:51 – Randall considered spinning out DocuFirst as a separate entity
13:46 – DocuFirst's valuation
15:03 – Randall will not sell the business or get an offer
15:28 – Randall has been focus on developing DocuFirst
16:03 – DocuFirst is adding at least 10 customers a month
16:19 – Connect with Randall through DocuFirst and ATLOS
19:02 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

You can create a business with SIMILAR software, but DIFFERENT target market.
Always work to develop and improve your business MORE.
Education can lead you somewhere, so pay attention in class!

Resources Mentioned:

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 developers.
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
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.
DocuFirst.com – Randall's second business website
ATLOS.com – Randall's first business website
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

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