Big Break Software Podcast

Tammy Haldeman, CEO of Your Shield, talks about coming up with the idea, developing it, their pricing plan, and why the application is ideal for adults and teenagers. You Shield is a safety application that users install on their phones. Tammy Haldeman, the developer, tells Geordie about it.  What You'll Learn How Tammy came up with the idea Lessons Tammy learned along the way Challenges Tammy and her team faced during the development process In This Episode Tammy Haldeman believes the You Shield app can protect users from sexual harassment, sex trafficking, kidnapping, bullying, and domestic violence. After activating it, users need to program a secret word they can remember easily, which comes in handy in an emergency. If you ever experience an attack, your attackers will never know about the app. All you need to pre-program your secret word on the app is shout your preferred term. The app will notify everybody you have programmed, begin tracking your location, and record audio. Tammy gives out an example in the podcast to better understand how the app works. Tammy describes, coming up with the idea as a gift. She narrates how a bullying incident where the victim, a 10-year-old girl, committed suicide affected her. Suddenly the thought of a security application hit her brain. She says aspects of designing and improving her idea kept flooding her mind, and that's when she decided to actualize it. Investing in application development can be a costly practice. However, Tammy mentions that her heart was ready to go over and above to catch attackers or prevent them from violating other people's rights. With zero experience in software, Tammy admits that venturing into the industry was intimidating. She struggled with finding the right people to trust with her idea and reputable professionals she could work with. Tammy narrates how she met Geordie, with whom they had an easy conversation. She says Geordie made her comfortable even though she was not conversant with software-related terms. Find out how Tammy and Geordie's development team collaborated to build the app.  Geordie highlights how they struggled with finding the ideal sequence because they needed to configure the iOS operating system. At some point, they encountered particular regulations that barred changes on iOS. How did Tammy navigate that phase? She remembers one specific week when accessing her account on App Store was impossible for two weeks. However, despite the challenges, Tammy says everything worked satisfactorily because it allowed their developers to focus on the complexities of the application. That phase gave them sufficient time to prepare the app for launch.  Every entrepreneur struggles with the fear of the unknown, and Tammy was not an exception. Sometimes she feared that the app would never go live. However, she was certain she could keep pushing until her dreams actualized. Tammy quickly mentions that developing an application is a long, tedious, and time-consuming process. When it comes to app development, a celebration of the last day never comes because you are always thinking about what to improve to enhance the user experience. What's more, customers keep demanding new features. Still, Tammy describes two moments when her persistence seemed to be bearing fruits. Listen to the podcast to learn about it. When Tammy started developing the You Shield idea, she had not emphasized sexual harassment. However, her niece was recently harassed sexually at school, which made her regret for not activating her niece's Shield activated. In today's world, where insecurity is rising exponentially, every teenager can benefit from using the You Shield app. Do you have privacy concerns regarding this app? Tammy says only app users can playback recordings from their devices. Further, they don't collect the user's information. Such data is only necessary for activating the app. She also discussed their payment plans in the podcast. If you are interested in the app, do not miss this podcast section.  This app is meant for both teenagers and adults as well. Tammy says you can never predict when something happens to you and insists that having the app can rescue you from risky situations. One of the most interesting features of this application is that victims can call out for help without their attackers knowing.  If you are an aspiring app developer, Tammy says documenting your dreams about the project is crucial. She says potential app developers should create recordings, draw their plans, and write down their expectations. Collaborating with trustworthy people with whom you can easily communicate is also crucial during the development process.  Your Shield app is only available on iOS, but Tammy says they are working on availing it for Android users soon.  Resources Tammy Haldeman Tammy Your Shield App Your Shield website  

Eric Frankel, CEO, and founder of AdGreets, talks about coming up with his MVP, funding it, and gaining his first customers to find product-market fit. Listen in for the insights. AdGreetz is a leading video personalization technology platform that helps brands build robust customer relationships. It also increases engagement between five and seven times by generating and deploying thousands of smart ads by machine learning and Artificial intelligence in real-time. He talks to Geordie about his journey.  What You'll Learn Why did Eric choose to work with younger people What strategy do Eric and his team use to retain clients? Lessons Eric learned during his search for clients In this Episode Traditional advertising involves creating a generic message or ad for everybody even though people are different. Eric and his team are committed to changing that narrative by making hundreds, thousands, and even millions of advertisement versions customized to speak to and meet individual customers' needs. He says they leverage data to create multiple versions of messages and ads on different advertising platforms across the globe.  Eric's passion for advertising started when he was President of Warner Brothers. While there, he spent years trying to make the world understand that television did not have to be about appointments. He believed that the on-demand approach was the idea of the future. Listen to the podcast for more details about Eric's idea. Unfortunately, some people dismissed it as the worst in the industry, but still, he did not give up. With time, people started embracing his idea. Eric decided to transform the 100 billion dollar worth of advertising business and left Warner at some point. He collaborated with a group of colleagues to focus on AdGreets, a company he has been running for the last decade. Today, the world is fast catching up with the streaming concept.  Eric did not leave Warner without a plan. He took his time to strategize and consider various things he wanted to do before settling for one. He would later develop a business plan before approaching investors. He says convincing the investors was easier because he already had money to kickstart his project. He explains how he hired a team of professionals to work with and the number of errors he made along the way.  Building a platform that works and meets customer demands is an ongoing process. Eric says they spent more than a year in the development process, and they bore fruits. Still, they learned from each client and kept improving the platform. One of the core problems that Eric faced was how to make the platform user-friendly. Listen to the podcast to find out the strategy they used. Eric also gives comprehensive details of how their system works and got his first customers. You don't want to miss this informational part of the podcast. As the business grew and the cost of running it became unbearable, Eric had to make a tough decision to let people go. He says that was one of the hardest times he has ever had to go through during his entrepreneurship journey. Find out why from the podcast. For Eric, becoming cash positive happened by chance. He says while the investors he spoke to loved his idea, he stopped asking them for money. The business continued running smoothly even during a bad week or month when clients had delayed payment. Today, Eric has not written a check in months and doesn't see the need to do so, which is a sign that he is breaking even.  The company has evolved tremendously, and investors are reaching out to Eric and his team seeking collaborations. In Eric's sentiments, what you own is not as crucial as winning in the end. He says he is becoming smarter and believes that having more people on board will make the company better. He looks forward to getting more people to help him push his dream to actualization.  In every business, there are numerous competitors to deal with. How does AdGreets set itself apart from competitors? Eric says they do so by being an effective omnichannel solution. He mentions that they devised unique selling propositions, which they highlight when conducting presentations or comparing themselves with their competitors.  If Eric were to turn the hands of time, he would raise more money initially. He explains his reasons in the podcast. He also mentions that having your own money helps you attract investors.  Resources AdGreetz Eric Frankel LinkedIn  

David Perry, CEO, and co-founder of GetCarro.com, talks about developing successful games and transitioning into the eCommerce world. Listen in for more Insights.  GetCarro.com is a platform that collaborates with other companies to help brands increase their visibility. Brands can reach more customers, increase sales, and gain attention by offering innovative solutions. David Perry, the CEO, talks to Geordie about his journey.  What You'll Learn Impact of influencers on brands How David and his team countered competitors Why David moved to eCommerce Components you need to make a video game work and what they mean Importance of a verification system In this Episode David believes that attention is one of the most critical needs for a company, so much so that some brands are buying Google clicks to get more attention. According to David, that is a costly strategy. As a result, he started thinking about a better way of helping brands get more attention by associating with famous people on social media. David came to this realization at a point when he had sold his company. To keep himself busy, he started building a fantastic man cave that he describes as ridiculous. Among the things he had was a photo studio, and he noticed that people only cared about his pictures when he photographed social media influencers.  At some point, he engaged some of the influencers who had a wide following on social media to determine how life as an influencer was. David was confident that the influencers enjoyed all the attention from the answers he received. However, they would have been comfortable working with their preferred brands instead of being harassed by random brands from various parts of the world. David made up his mind to help the influencers accomplish their dreams. He thought of determining a strategy to match influencers to brands they liked. Together with his team, David developed a technology that figures out available influencers, identifies their preferred brands, and pairs them to the brand. David says the response they received for the idea was overwhelming. They would later develop a technique to circulate their products to the relevant influencers. In this case, influencers would shop free of charge. David says they have developed more than 8,000 homepages to manage that process and ensure influencers request products for free. He explains how brands benefit from that technique in the podcast. He also talks about how they integrated different eCommerce platforms and facilitated cross-selling to help them increase sales.  David discusses how he ventured into the world of streaming video games, and you cannot afford to miss this part of the podcast. He later sold his video streaming company to venture into the eCommerce world. According to David, the actual cost of eCommerce is how much it costs to get customers to walk in your store and how much they spend on average. He notes that the average order value is a critical metric because it determines your survival rate and position in the market.   Suppose the average order size is high, an entrepreneur can invest more in their marketing strategy to acquire customers. What constitutes the average order value? David says many brands restrict themselves to selling only one product instead of diversifying based on their niche. If you are an entrepreneur, listen to this part of the podcast for comprehensive details on this subject. You will understand why adopting a transformational way of thinking about your brand helps you increase your average order value.  David says they had to work hard to prove their worth and get special placement on Shopify. Together with his team, they focused on eliminating all hurdles along the way to convince Shopify of their competence. They also did the same with Facebook, and you can learn about it from the podcast.  While some businesses struggle to raise money, David says doing so is easy, especially when engaging in innovative activities. He mentions that they achieved product-market fit multiple times because their platform comprises numerous solutions. What strategy can platform owners use to charge subscribers? According to David, the most effective method is allowing them to pay what they can afford. He explains their price points in this podcast. Shopify store owners willing to connect with David can click on getcarro.com, install the Shopify application and email the team at hello@getcarro.com. David promises you excellent treatment and attention if you mention that you listened to this podcast.  Resources David Perry LinkedIn Carro  

Bob Miles, CEO, and founder of Salad Technologies, talks about venturing into the SaaS and web three world, funding his MVP, and gaining the first customers to navigate from zero to product fit. Listen in for more insights. Salad Technologies is a firm that collaborates with numerous computer gamers in their inactive PC resources to develop distributed cloud computing infrastructure. Bob Miles, the CEO, tells Geordie about his journey.  What You Will Learn How Bob stumbled on his company's idea  Who does Salad Technologies target? What makes cryptocurrency a trustless monetization system? What are the Folding@home and Seti@home concepts? How the Salad Technologies reward program works Why some people are frowning upon the proof of work concept How will the proof of stake model affect Salad Technologies operations? Challenges Bob and his team experienced before launching their MVP Why influencers are crucial for pushing your marketing strategy and building trust In This Episode: Bob says Salad Technologies is committed to solving the rising demand for computing resources. Based on their findings, up to 90% of resources remain idle even though they are connected to the internet. Salad Technologies introduces a concept that encourages people to share their computer resources whenever they are not using them. In return, the individuals will receive gift card subscriptions, games, and various digital purchases. Listen to the podcast to understand their plan for their infrastructure.  Salad Technologies is introducing a new incentive model that fixes the human challenges of distributed computing that resonates with numerous individuals. While their model is not unique, Bob says they recognized the opportunity in collaboration with his old boss. He explains this opportunity, and you can find all the details in the podcast. At some point, Bob mentions the sudden rise in crypto prices which occurred in 2017. How did the increase affect the gaming industry? They would later identify the massive latent resources and the increasing demand for the same in terms of proof of work mining. They also identified a disconnect where a significant percentage of gamers were not mining crypto. Bob says three core hypotheses formed around their findings were instrumental in forming the company and developing the initial product. He explains this concept in detail. One of Bob and his team's challenges was the two-sided market issue, which crypto fixed. However, they struggled with fraud, forcing the team to work harder into introducing a loophole-free model.  In a bid to test the three hypotheses, Bob and his team compiled their MVP as fast as they could and released it in the market regardless of a few popular loopholes. They intended to receive feedback from the users, which they would then use to improve it to meet customer needs. Bob explains how fraudsters invaded their system. Bob spent eight months fundraising for his MVP, where he raised enough capital to hire a few developers to help launch the MVP in the market and test it. Bob and his team found the MVP when the crypto market was crumbling. He admits that it has taken a miracle for the firm to survive those turbulent times. Still, he was optimistic that better times were coming. Bob mentions that theirs is a reward program and explains how it works. Get the details from the podcast. Even then, Bob is quick to say that theirs is not a cryptocurrency firm but a cloud computing organization. He explains this concept extensively in the podcast.  Introducing a difficult value proposition in the market is one of the critical challenges the Salad Technologies team has struggled with. Bob gives an example of the Airbnb and Uber concept, saying that nobody would have thought they were achievable years ago. Today, however, those approaches are some of the most popular worldwide. Bob mentions the different marketing strategies they tried in vain at the beginning. They would later leverage Discord to market their product. Find out how they actualized the deal.  Bob envisions a future where the web becomes peak centralization, and their online interactions vary from what they are today. The emergence of advanced technologies like web three and peer to peer communication protocols introduces a different incentive model. As a result, Salad Technologies will change its relationship with the web. The team sees a future where many people will be willing to surrender their computers and servers to web three's varying ecosystems and protocols. The emergence of an interconnected digital world is one thing that Bob is scared about. Find out why from the podcast.  Resources Salad Technology Bob Miles LinkedIn

Ashutosh Garg, CEO, and co-founder of Eightfold.ai, talks about building his team, developing  the MVP,  and finding product-market fit to hit seven-figure MRR. Listen to the podcast and learn.  Eightfold.ai is committed to enabling the ideal career for everybody across the world. The platform facilitates inclusion and diversity, eliminating bias from hiring and assisting American citizens in returning to work via the department of labor in the US. Ashutosh Garg, the CEO, and co-founder talks to Geordie about his journey.   What You'll Learn  Why finding the right job or skilled talent is becoming harder every day Why the company has its focus on the US Why hiring should be based on a candidate's potential instead of what they have done Lessons Ashutosh learned from attending an interview at Google How did Ashutosh convince his co-founder to join him? How Ashutosh and his team executed the pitching process Why Ashutosh and his team are particular about building matches  In This Episode  Finding a job can be a daunting task, as Ashutosh learned during his time as an employee. Ashutosh realized that people were struggling to get the right job while employers had difficulty finding the right talent.   As technology advances and the world evolve, skills also change and become outdated very fast. Any skill you have today will be phased out in the next few years, explaining why there is a significant supply and demand mismatch in today's job market. Ashutosh says that employees should upskill themselves constantly to stay relevant to their client's needs and remain competitive. The supply and demand issue is triggering challenges in society, which drove Ashutosh and his team to establish Eightfold.ai. Organizations must stand out in today's highly competitive world to thrive. How was Ashutosh's AI hiring platform different from others? He explains in this podcast. At some point, Ashutosh talks about an interesting scenario when he had attended an interview. Listen to the podcast to find out what happened then, and the lessons both employers and employees can learn from the same.   Working at Google was an eye-opener for Ashutosh. He says some of the things he learned while there were that; companies are losing out on good candidates due to the lack of knowledge. He also realized that a company's success is highly dependent on hiring the right talent.   Those lessons were instrumental to Ashutosh when he embarked on launching his company. His core goal was to determine what he could do to help people grow. While he started the business independently, his talented co-founder would later join him, and they both collaborated to form a robust platform. Ashutosh speaks fondly about his co-founder, and you can get all the details from the podcast.   One thing Ashutosh has realized about the job market is the emphasis on long interviews, which he is against. At Eightfold.ai, they have adopted a different strategy based on three factors. First, they analyze a candidate's career, assess their journey, and use their findings to determine what the candidate can learn fast, and the roles they can thrive in. Ashutosh talks about the other two factors, and you can learn about then from the podcast. If Ashutok had a chance to re-execute his pitching process, he would do it differently. Listen to the podcast to find out why.   Having worked at Facebook and Google, Ashutosh and his co-founder were conversant with crawling the web. They leveraged any data they could obtain and developed models based on it. They also involved their potential customers from the first day, which saw some of them investing. They later collaborated with a large corporate company from India, their flagship customer today.   In identifying their target niche, Ashutosh says they realized that different companies would be hiring for various roles. Further, each position would change based on the industry, with some firms having more professionals than others. Together with his team, Ashutosh embarked on a research process to identify patterns and learn from data regardless of the language or role, a strategy that worked for them. Listen to the podcast for comprehensive details on this strategy.  Eightfold.ai has evolved and today has customers in different niches, including mining, logistics, insurance, financial institutions, and tech firms. Ashutosh is unaware of when they found product-market fit, but he gives some examples in the podcast. He says they strive to work with organizations with 2,000 or more employees, even though the market often drives their decision. Ashutosh's plan for the future is to continue building and defining excellence. They are committed to offering better services every day.    Resources  ai

Alexandra Gamarra, co-founder, and CEO of Clowd Work, talks about building the MVP, finding their first customers, and navigating their product-market fit to achieve growth. Listen in for more insights.  Cloud Work is a fully automatic time tracking system for organizations that need to track, manage, and report time. Through this system, users can keep their projects on track and budget. It comes with an automatic employee time tracking software and various features like reporting timesheets and screenshots. Alexandra Gamarra, the CEO, talks to Geordie about her story.  What You'll Learn Why did Alexandra choose to work with a remote team? Why Alexandra and her team were keen to find out what their employees were up to How Alexandra and her team improved their product to make it saleable to other companies Why did Alexandra sell her eCommerce business? How much did Alexandra sell the eCommerce for, and how much did they invest in the software development venture? Why Alexandra and her team redeveloped their software Challenges Alexandra faced during the MVP's beta testing phase  Importance of determination and patience in entrepreneurship  In this Episode  Alexandra kicks off the podcast by narrating her story to let listeners understand why she founded the platform with the help of her co-founder. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, this section will help you understand how much effort you should invest in building a successful entity.   Alexandra could not afford employees in the UK as a startup, which pushed her to hire a remote team from Colombia, paying lower salaries. She was convinced that the team would make her competitive, but that did not happen. Instead, Alexandra struggled with productivity issues, with the team unable to finish tasks on time. Alexandra mentions how she could not figure out why the team was not delivering while her competitors were more productive even though their workforce was costly. At some point, she thought about doing away with the remote team and hiring someone in the UK before her husband intervened. Listen to the podcast to find out how her husband reacted to the idea.   Even after investigating the team, Alexandra and her husband could not identify the problem. Her husband decided to hire a software developer to develop a system to help them understand what was going on. Alexandra says that was the initial version of Clowd Work. The software could be installed in an employee's computer regardless of location. They could then rely on it to track what their employees were up to. Was the software effective? Alexandra says the software helped them solve a huge problem. Listen to the podcast to understand their findings.   Alexandra later informed her team about the software, which became the wake-up call she had wished for. The team became so competitive that the company could not stop growing. According to Alexandra, the company surpassed the $ 1 million daily turnovers in less than one year.   From their software's success, Alexandra and her team felt that other companies with remote employees would gain major benefits. However, they were overly busy at the eCommerce business to think about expanding. At the suggestion of Alexandra's husband, they decided to travel the world and see if they could run the business on the go. They did, and it turned out to be successful.   Alexandra talks about how they sold their eCommerce business to focus on software development. They would later work with a renowned global accelerator, who played a major role in the business growth. Alexandra and her team had to redevelop their software to make it saleable to other companies. Listen to her extensive explanation on why they invested in software, and the features they added to improve its performance. If you are thinking about venturing into the software industry, you cannot afford to miss this insightful section. Covid-19 was a blessing in disguise to Alexandra and her team because that is when they found product-market fit after a long time of struggling. She discusses the challenges they went through in the podcast. What lesson has Alexandra learned along the way? She says, had she heard her users more, they would not have spent lots of time and money developing features that users were not asking for. Alexandra also mentions that free demos are not valued everywhere, and sometimes they can be a time-wasting approach that bears no fruit.  Resources  Clowd Work Alexandra Gamarra LinkedIn  

Todd Larsen, CEO of Tech Leaders, talks about growing SaaS businesses and how his coaching program helps founders better their products. Listen in for the insights. Tech Leaders is a company that helps technology startups enhance their products and become people leaders. Todd Larsen, the CEO tells Geordie about his journey. What You'll Learn What makes a Micro SaaS plug and playable? How Todd's model works How do Todd and his team execute the sales process? How much equity are companies willing to surrender to Todd and his team? How do Todd and his team assess startups before accepting them into the program? What is the 12-point assessment? Why do Todd and his team prefer real stack instead of no-code tools Challenges Todd and his crew face in their line of work In This Episode Todd narrates how his stint at Groupon helped him understand how to do and maintain things at scale and achieve growth at a particular phase. He would later transition to the startup world to experience what it was like moving from nothing to something. Todd says he did a significant amount of his work remotely. Listen to the podcast to learn how he collaborated with his startup colleague, the CEO of digit.co, an early FinTech firm, and how they grew the team. He explains what the company was all about, and you can get the details from the podcast. Todd's passion for small companies saw him leave digit.co at a point when the company had grown to nearly 100 employees. Todd says he derives joy from starting because doing so is exciting, and he wanted to experience it once again. How did Todd execute his exit at digit.co? He gives Geordie comprehensive details that you can learn about from the podcast.  After leaving digit.co, Todd took a sabbatical to figure out what he wanted to do before settling for a micro SaaS. He identified an already existing niche because he did not want to go through the hassle of building a market. Todd says he invested in reading lots of stuff on social media during his sabbatical. He spent a considerable amount of time on Twitter, where he would later identify his niche, which he calls money Twitter. At some point, Todd joined a course that one of the popular influencers on Twitter was offering to experience what was happening. While there, he realized that nearly everything was happening manually. He was surprised to see people discussing making money yet using an inefficient process.  Todd went ahead to develop a simple app around that niche. Before then, he built lots of trust in the community, which helped him understand their pain points extensively. He also befriended people who were prominent within the community. He would later use them as affiliates to help him promote the product, allowing him to achieve 1,000 MRR in the first two months after launching. Social media is a powerful tool that Todd and his team use to generate leads. They also leverage paid processes for market testing purposes. Cold email, Todd says, still works wonders. The team maintains complete control over the technical stack as the servant leaders during engagements with their customers. He reiterates that they strive to lead excellent decisions while defining what should happen. One thing that sets Todd and his team ahead of their competitors is that they are order writers and not order takers. Hiring the right people can be challenging, but Todd says they ensure employees have fun working with them on exciting projects. When it comes to the kind of equity companies are willing to surrender, Todd says it depends on how established they are. Listen to Todd as he explains how they use the 12 assessment factor when analyzing companies. So far, Todd has worked with various entrepreneurs in different niches. He narrates how he collaborated with a surgeon to develop a CRM platform for plastic surgeons. Listen to the podcast for more details. Todd concludes the podcast with some words of wisdom for anyone planning to start a SaaS. He says: Focus on distribution in the market. Understand the conversations in the market. What do customers need now and in the future?    Do not embark on building a program without a ready market. Developing a product and waiting for clients to come is not a suitable plan.    Obtaining feedback from the actual users will help you develop a product that meets customer demands.  Resources Sales and Software Todd Larsen  

Dawn Verbrigghe, CEO of Jottful, talks about coming up with the idea, funding the MVP, gaining first customers, and navigating the zero to product fit journey. Listen and learn.   Jottful is a SaaS company that allows small and medium-sized businesses to create and manage affordable, professional, and easy to navigate websites to eliminate the need to hire an agency. The company encourages small businesses to market themselves better online. Dawn Verbrigghe, the CEO, and founder, tells Geordie about her entrepreneurship journey.   What You'll Learn How working in a family business inspired Dawn to build the MVP How Dawn reached out to potential businesses Why the Jottful niche is horizontal-based Why people were afraid of referring Jottful to their friends How a mentor can help you make the best decision The perks of being an entrepreneur How early-stage business funding has evolved over the last few years Why Dawn and her team don't use their product on their website What is the difference between direct response and brand advertising?  In This Episode  Online marketing plays a core role in the success of businesses. With a robust online marketing strategy, small and medium-sized businesses can accelerate their growth, attract more customers, and increase revenue. Jottful understands the importance of marketing which is why they collaborate with small businesses to help them increase their presence online through their websites. Hiring an agency to build your website can be costly, especially if you are a small business entrepreneur. With technological advancements today and the availability of easy-to-use tools, small businesses can quickly build their websites. However, to leverage some of the available tools, you need technical skills that many small business entrepreneurs do not have. This is where Jottful comes in through their “do it together” initiative. The company gets content from their customers, creates, launches their websites, and helps them maintain the site on an ongoing basis. Listen to the podcast for extensive details on how the company works. Dawn also explains how their pricing model works.   While Dawn is a qualified graphic designer, a business background played a significant role in carving her entrepreneurship journey. She gained tremendous experience and insight from working in a family business. Listen to her story to understand how she came up with her MVP. Dawn signed up her first few customers in unlikely circumstances. She explains how a national bridal event paved the way for her to exhibit her website development skills. Get the details from the podcast.   Dawn says her core focus at the event was to determine whether or not her idea had a viable value proposition. After that, she would focus on building the MVP and ensuring that it worked before figuring out their initial target market. At first, Dawn and her team focused on bridal shops. They would later enroll in an accelerator program linked to the University of Michigan, which was accepted. Dawn says the University is among their most prominent investors. The accelerator program helped them realize that their niche is not industry-based but company size-based. She explains this concept in the podcast. How did Dawn fund her MVP? Even though she was in between jobs, she was looking forward to assuming a powerful CMO position in a full-time company that was planning to go public. She was torn between joining full-time employment and becoming an entrepreneur at some point. She shared her dilemma with her mentor, who advised her that entrepreneurship was her calling. Dawn has no regrets for giving up employment for entrepreneurship. Having a qualified engineer during the MVP development stage is critical. Dawn explains how she met, what she considered when hiring her engineer, and how they collaborated to build a powerful platform. She also talks about funding the MVP. According to Dawn, their product is easy to use, and customers can easily make necessary changes on their websites in record time.   Many entrepreneurs struggle with identifying and defining their niche. Dawn gives comprehensive details on how they went about the process. Listen to the podcast to understand how they struggled trying to get their product to their target audience. If you are a new entrepreneur or aspiring to become one, you cannot afford to miss this section of the podcast. Dawn concludes the podcast with some words of advice for aspiring SaaS entrepreneurs:  Start building an audience as early. Many entrepreneurs focus on product development before determining how to sell it, derailing their growth.   Social media channels can help you reach your target audience better than an email list. Dawn says LinkedIn is a great audience funnel. Resources  Jottful Dawn Verbrigghe Twitter Dawn Verbrigghe LinkedIn  

Terry Kyle, CEO, and Co-founder of WPX.net talks about starting the company, building his MVP, and how he sets himself apart from competitors. Listen and learn.   WPX.net is a WordPress hosting platform that specializes in providing excellent customer service and speedy services. Terry ventured into the hosting industry as an entrepreneur in 2013 even though he had already been using hosting companies for approximately 15 years. Terry Kyle, the CEO and co-founder, tells Geordie about his journey.  What You'll Learn How Planet Hosting evolved to WPX How WPX discovered its product-market fit Why WordPress site owners should audit their plugins Why you should get rid of plugins you no longer use Challenges Terry and his team faced along their journey Why Terry started a non-profit organization  In This Episode:  After using hosting services for many years with little satisfaction, Terry decided to venture into the industry as an entrepreneur. He noticed that many things needed fixing in the entire hosting industry, and knew he could fix them and offer better services. In 2013, Terry collaborated with his business partner, and together they formed Planet Hosting. He explains why they chose that name and their vision at the time.   Many entrepreneurs and marketers often dread product launch days for fear that their websites will crash. Experiencing a website downtime during a critical event is one of the worst things an entrepreneur can experience. Apart from rendering you ineffective, it can demonstrate your incompetence, forcing potential customers to lose trust in your brand. Such unfortunate scenarios are what Terry and his team are trying to save marketers and entrepreneurs from by guaranteeing maximum website speed and reducing downtimes as much as possible. Listen to the podcast for comprehensive details about this concept.     Different businesses discover their product-market fit in various ways. For Terry, delivering excellent services marked their turning point. He talks about how his interaction with a particular SEO blogger bore fruit for his company. The blogger had a bad experience with another provider before engaging WPX, who fixed his website problem. He was happy and decided to write about WPX and its services. The blogger had a high following and out of that post, WPX gained lots of traction.  The pricing model you choose for your company can make or break it. Terry says they chose a cost-friendly and reasonable pricing model that nearly every potential customer could afford. He talks about their model comprehensively. You can get all the details from the podcast. At some point, Terry talks about WordPress plugins, saying they are both good and bad. How do these plugins affect the effectiveness of your website? Terry talks about it in the podcast.   Terry explains an anomaly that, according to him, was unique to the hosting industry, where firms hired non-technical staff. In this case, customers would have a rough time if their websites crashed because all they received were long technical articles that struggled to read and understand. He gives an illustration to demonstrate the complexity of such a scenario. Learn about it from the podcast. To overcome such occurrences, Terry and his team introduced the “Fixed for you guarantee” approach, where they would fix offline websites free of charge. Review websites can be instrumental for your business, and Terry seems to agree. He says Trustpilot, their core review portal has been an instrumental innovation in building their reputation. Terry recognizes the people who write reviews and those that create video testimonials for them as what sets WPX apart from its competitors. The team has overly invested in live chat so they can respond to inquiries or complaints fast.   Challenges in business are inevitable. Terry talks about a time in late 2021 when their website went offline for six hours in what he describes as Armageddon. Find out what triggered this problem and the consequences they suffered.   Every Dog Matters is an NGO that Terry and his team founded. WPX is a key sponsor. Their main goal is to rescue and give each homeless dog a spacious and comfortable shelter with sufficient food, water, proper healthcare, and freedom to socialize with people. Terry explains the strategies they are using to fix this problem in the podcast. In the future, Terry hopes to rescue horses and donkeys too. He concludes the podcast with various quotes that could benefit aspiring and established entrepreneurs.   Do whatever matters as long as you can but start as early as possible The most appropriate time to start is always now Time flows unbelievably fast. Waiting should never be an option Be ambitious and ask yourself how far you can push whatever it is you are doing Never give up. You can accomplish incredible results by knowing what you want and doing everything possible to achieve it.  Resources  WPX Terry Kyle LinkedIn Terry Kyle Website WPX Instagram Every Dog Matters Instagram WPX Facebook    

Brian Casel, founder of ZipMessage discusses his transition from Audience Ops to a new venture and what he has learned along the way. Get more insights from the podcast.  ZipMessage is a video messaging tool that facilitates asynchronous conversations with remote teams and customers. Brian Casel recently sold his content marketing company to focus on ZipMessage. He talks to Geordie about his journey.   What You'll Learn Why Brian sold Audience Ops The difference between a productized service and an agency How did Brian conduct the Audience Ops sale process? What was Brian's initial idea for ZipMessage? Why the asynchronous approach is ideal for teams working across time zones Why is ZipMessage viral?  In This Episode  Brian has sufficient experience in web and front-end development, and design. He has also spoken about productized services for many years. Over the years, Brian has created a course and developed audience applications. His interest in software, SaaS, and product design and the need to improve his full-stack skills with Ruby on Rails started in the last few years. Brian says he sold Audience Ops to focus on building ZipMessage.   Knowing what you can or cannot do is crucial when starting a business. Brian says he relied on a few rules for guidance during the beginning and running of Audience Ops. While he is a good writer, Brian did not want to complete writing tasks for his clients. Instead, he hired a team of professionals from the beginning, with whom they collaborated to grow the company into a five figures MRR. Apart from being sustainable and profitable, the company gave Brian lots of liberty to focus on SaaS ideas. Brian explains how Audience Ops operates and the tools they use. Get all the details in the podcast.   Brian also touches on his first SaaS idea, Process Kit, and highlights some of the challenges he experienced with onboarding new customers and convincing them to adopt a new tool. He says Process Kit is still operational and sustainable. However, when the ZipMessage idea came along, he focused all his energy on the new venture. At some point, he mentions shiny objects, saying they often solve many of the challenges he may have encountered in the previous project. Brian's sentiments are enough to conclude that he suffers from the shiny object syndrome, where he gets distracted by new ideas easily, abandoning his current venture to focus all his attention on a new concept.   Audience Ops was already successful, but Brian says the idea of selling it had crossed his mind in the first four years of running it. He decided to delay the plans until 2021 came, and he could no longer continue running it. Brian explains what was running through his mind before he finally sold Audience Ops. He also provides comprehensive details of the sale process, picking the buyer, and why he did not use a broker. Listen to the podcast for the details.   Brians's previous SaaS experience came in handy to help him build the initial ZipMessage prototype in less than a month. His developer would then come in to help him transform the prototype into a version one MVP, and within three months they had their first paying customers.   During the ZipMessage MVP development process, Brian watched the market closely for patterns and trends. He says he has worked remotely and been asynchronous throughout his career, an experience he leveraged when dbuilding ZipMessage. Brian explains how ZipMessage works in an extensive section that you do not want to miss. The ZipMessage solution is available in three plans which you can learn about in the podcast. ZipMessage features a viral aspect and Brian explains why in the podcast.  With the world adopting remote work, various agencies are using ZipMessage to cut down calendar calls, facilitate team and sales conversations, and offer customer support. Coaches are also using it for student conversations and coaching. Brian explains what the team is doing to market ZipMessage and get more partners on board. According to Brian, the shiny object syndrome has played a core role in his growth. He believes he would not have achieved tremendous success had he stuck with one business concept. Brian concludes the podcast by advising entrepreneurs to learn along their business journey, determine what worked and didn't, and establish strategies to improve their upcoming products. He also believes that entrepreneurs do not just stumble on ideas. Instead, there is always some form of luck in everything they discover.  Resources  ZipMessage Brian Casel LinkedIn Brian Casel Twitter Brian Casel Website  

Jessey Kwong, CEO, and founder of REI Conversion talks about inventing the idea, building and funding the MVP, and bootstrapping from zero to 30,000 MRR. Listen in for more details. REI conversion is a SaaS company that helps users automate and systematize their land buying business. Jessey Kwong, the founder, and CEO started off as a vacant land investor before upgrading his operations. He tells Geordie about his journey.  What You'll Learn Why did Jessey's first WordPress theme flop? Why the current 50/50 equity split agreement between Jessey and his partner complicates planning Lessons Jessey has learned from the 50/50 equity split How Covid affected the business In this Episode While being a vacant land investor paved the way for Jessey's success in the land investing business, he no longer focuses on the venture. Instead, he is scaling REI conversion to meet growing customer demands. Jessey says his digital background came in handy to help him develop websites fast. At some point, he helped other people build their websites, and before long, he realized that more and more people wanted websites to market their properties. Launching his website played a core role in helping him scale and systemize fast.  After helping various people build their websites, Jessey and his team saw an opportunity to create a product. However, the process was not short of challenges. Jessey says their premier WordPress theme flopped, forcing them to go back to the drawing board, where they redesigned everything and focused on marketing. Jessey explains why their WordPress theme was unsuccessful in the podcast.  Jessey talks about meeting his fellow investor, who was already using a system he had developed for his land management operations. He explains how they partnered in improving the user experience and user interface for the whole system. The team faced various challenges along the journey but later launched the CRM part of the system in mid-2020.  REI conversion, Jessey says, has multiple products, like CRM and marketing websites that help investors systemize and streamline their businesses. Get detailed of how Jessey and his partner split the equity.  Launching a product can be exciting, but predicting how people receive it can be difficult. However, Jessey and his team were lucky to have an existing user base making it easy for them to tap into their audience who were already using their themes. In their first month after launching their MVP, Jessey says they had up to 20 new users coming through their email lists, a Facebook group, WordPress, and lots of feedback. That number grew over the months, and at the end of their first year, they had approximately 200 users. They are planning to double that number in eighteen months.  Taking up investment can open many doors for businesses, and Jessey and his partner are contemplating it. At this point, Geordie talks to Jessey about the cons of taking up investment and why opting for a business accelerator could be a better option. Are you bootstrapped but considering taking up an investment? You do not want to miss this insightful section of the podcast. It will open your mind, helping you to understand why bootstrapping is a good idea regardless of the challenges involved. Business can be challenging, and every entrepreneur can benefit from the mentorship that business accelerators offer.  Jessey says they have figured out that their CRM is incapable of doing everything. As a result, they are considering various integrations in the future to expand their business. For example, they want to venture into a different market like the housing sector. However, Jessey feels like they still have a lot to do in the land industry. Currently, they are focused on adding the most value to land investors.  Mastering the art of marketing takes time. What did Jessey and his team do differently to increase conversions? They partnered with a prominent influencer in the land investing space who guided them on land investing. They formed an affiliate relationship with the influencer, who had a massive email list, giving them a big running start. Jessey and his team leveraged the influencer's authority to build their user base and an email list.  Content is also a powerful marketing component, and Jessey says they have benefited from running podcasts and webinars. If he had a chance to turn back the hands of time, Jessey would plan for the future, prepare for scale, have a planning structure, and define his standard operating procedures Resources Jessy Kwong LinkedIn Rei Conversion   

Andrew Butt, CEO, and co-founder of Enable, discusses how he gained interest in Enable, raising his initial funding, building the MVP, and navigating zero to product-market fit to hit 25 million ARR. Listen to the podcast for more insights.   Enable is a cloud-based collaboration platform for boosting the performance of B2B deals. It also improves operational efficiency and financial transparency. Enable was launched in 2015 and is used in various industries to evaluate, negotiate, and perform intricate trading agreements to push for profitable growth. Andrew, the CEO and co-founder talks to Geordie about his journey.   What You'll Learn  How Andrew came up with the Enable idea How Andrew and his team transitioned from customized software to a genuine product What problem was Andrew attempting to solve from the beginning? Importance of pivoting to a SaaS model early Andrew's experience of raising capital in the US While Andrew and his team decided to raise cash Difference between Enable's series A and series B funding Why Silicon Valley is ideal for entrepreneurs seeking to grow their SaaS companies In This Episode:  Enable works with different companies along the supply chain who join efforts to deliver products to consumers. Andrew says their end customers are wholesalers, distributors, and eCommerce retailers. Enable also collaborates with manufacturers.   Having a robust software development background was instrumental in helping Andrew navigate the industry with ease. He has built and grown various software development companies that develop software for a wide range of companies. Everything Andrew does is an opportunity to learn different businesses and their requirements, and identifying existing gaps in the market. Listen to Andrew as he narrates how increasing customer demands pushed them into coming up with the Enable idea. At some point, they had to develop custom software to meet the growing customer demands. Their customers kept growing, and that is when they realized the need to build a genuine product instead of customizing software every time. Shifting from customized software to an authentic product can be a complex task. However, Andrew says they experienced fewer struggles. Find out why from the podcast. To fund the MVP development, Andrew says they used cash flow from their core business, an act he says helped them bootstrap for a while.   From the beginning, Andrew and his team were keen on solving business-to-business rebates problems. He explains this problem comprehensively in this podcast. Having numerous customers flowing your way in search of a robust solution is uncommon in many businesses. Andrew attributes this to the fact that he and his co-founder are in the distribution industry. Dennis, his co-founder, runs DCS group, the biggest distributor in the United Kingdom. The two collaborated to form their software development company, through which they met many prospects every day. Andrew says their first rebate management solution customer came from Dennis's industry. He mentions how someone they knew referred them to a different sector. Find out what happened next from the podcast. Andrew also narrates their experience with their first customer and how they collaborated to build their solution. You will also learn how they finally pivoted along the way.   Transitioning from an agency to a SaaS was exciting and challenging because they were bootstrapping. As a result, focusing on their SaaS product entirely at that stage would have been impossible. Learn how they navigated that period from the podcast.   Marketing plays a significant role in business. Andrew says they had a small sales team whose work was to find customers through outbound marketing. They were also performing well on organic Google search, and potential customers were finding them under rebate management software. As their business grew, Andrew and his team decided to raise capital in the US instead of the UK. What challenges did they face during this phase? According to Andrew, raising funds in the US is different from the UK. He highlights some of these differences, and you can learn about them in the podcast. Businesses encounter numerous challenges, and Enable is no exception. Andrew talks about some of the challenges they faced along the way. One of the key challenges is ensuring that everyone is happy and that the team is positive and engaged. Andrew says. Finding excellent engineers and onboarding them can also be a daunting task. Andrew discusses their strategy of hiring and retaining a team of professional engineers. Andrew concludes the podcast by highlighting the importance of bootstrapping and finding product-market fit before investing colossal sums of money.   Resources  Andrew Butt LinkedIn Enable

Leo Bernstein CEO and co-founder of LineSlip Solutions, talks about funding his MVP, acquiring the first customers, and moving from zero to product-market fit. Listen to the podcast for more details.   LineSlip Solutions leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to obtain and design insurance data to automate essential tasks and control data vital to corporate insurance companies and commercial insurance brokers. He talks to Geordie about his journey in the entrepreneurship world.   What You'll Learn What is structured data? How Leo went about analyzing the market and building his MVP Why many insurance businesses were unwilling to adopt technology What's the initial problem that Leo and his team were trying to solve? How Leo started the company Challenges Leo faced while searching for a CTO Why Leo decided to adopt full-time online operations When did Leo realize product-market fit? Importance of marketing and creating brand awareness  In this Episode:  The creation of commercial insurance has been a manual process in many companies for many years. Leo says he made this discovery when he was a real estate investor responsible for acquiring commercial insurance for the company's properties. Nothing could have prepared him for how manual the entire process was. He would later spend close to one year wondering and interacting with people in the insurance industry. During that time, Leo realized that many players in the insurance industry struggled with the manual operations problem. Commercial insurance companies dealt with structured data without treating it as structured data. Leo explains the meaning of structured data in this podcast.   Leo narrates the story of how he had attended an insurance renewal meeting and sought to review a few proposals from the carriers. During discussions with his broker, he (the broker) suggested a particular package and Leo sought to see the available alternatives. Unfortunately, the broker could not do so because he could not access the data. Leo found that strange, especially coming from a data-driven industry. Listen to the podcast for the discussion Leo had with the agent and how thought-provoking it turned out to be for him.  Leo would later spend lots of time talking to people in the insurance industry and trying to understand why the problem existed in the first place. He could not figure out why the data-driven sector could not access its data. Later on, Leo discovered the insurance industry had good reasons for that. He explains in the podcast. Leo would later understand why the problem existed, and he explains in the podcast.   While on his inquiry process, Leo met different people, one of whom he had known through a close friend. He ended up meeting another person who happened to be a senior call producer at Marsh McLennan who introduced him to someone at AIG. The team of three brainstormed the problem and tried to figure out whether technology could or could not fix some of these problems. Leo convinced his team that technology could help solve the issues. Apart from Leo, his colleagues were technically co-founders even though they did not join the company full time.   In 2018, Leo met Glen, someone he knew socially through his real estate partner. Through their interaction, Glen, an insurance guy, told Leo about a problem he was facing. It turned out that one of Glen's largest customers wanted to see the entire commercial insurance data of their portfolio companies. Leo explains the problem comprehensively, and you cannot afford to miss this part of the podcast.  Leo knew he could help Glen, and he told him so. Listen to the podcast to understand how Leo helped Glen fulfill his customer's demands and how he would later become one of his biggest customers. He also discusses industry lines of business. What are they? Get extensive details from the podcast. Leo talks about the initial idea the team had. This is a comprehensive section that requires your total concentration.   Leo and his team spend a long time trying to figure things out. If he was to do it all over again, Leo says he would have gone full-time from the beginning. His advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is not to spend lots of capital before realizing product-market fit. Leo reiterates the importance of focus for entrepreneurs looking to succeed in the business industry. Leo says recruiting experts from the industry is the best thing he has ever done.  Resources LineSlip Solutions Leo Bernstein LinkedIn LineSlip Solutions LinkedIn  

Marko Hozjan of Taia Translations talks about funding his MVP, finding the first customers, and navigating his zero-to-product fit journey to hit €1 million ARR. Listen to the podcast and learn. Taia is an artificial intelligence platform that gives clients fast translations with assistance from human services. Marco, the CEO, is passionate about business processes and leadership. He is also a serial entrepreneur who has founded and exited numerous companies. He talks to Geordie about building Taia Translations. What You'll Learn How automation has helped Taia Translate How the Taia pricing works How does Taia guarantee accuracy? Why finding the first investment can be a daunting task Importance of mindset for entrepreneurs How did Covid affect Taia? In this Episode: Taia targets medium-sized and big B2B companies to ensure they get excellent quality human translations executed by professional translators. Marco says companies have varying needs, and they (the Taia team) combine everything possible to deliver satisfactory services. For example, they have optimized the ordering of translations, allowing clients to drag and drop any form of document. The Taia Translate platform supports approximately 70 file types. Listen to the podcast to find out how the optimized process works.  Marco says they have developed a tool that enables their clients to execute translations on their own. He explains how the system works in the podcast. Taia's unique selling proposition is formatting, simplicity, speed, file types, and security. While files are sent through emails, they are always available on the client's cloud. Accuracy is a crucial factor when it comes to translations. Marco explains what Taia does to ensure clients get accurate translations. Get all the details from the podcast. Before Taia, Marco and his partner were running a language school in Slovenia. They then started receiving translation requests, which pushed them to begin a traditional translation agency. However, they quickly realized there were no unique selling benefits and that the market was outdated. Marco says over 80% of conventional translation agencies in the market today still run their companies in an old-fashioned manner. He supports his sentiments with an example, and you can learn about it from the podcast.  Once Marco and his partner realized that running a traditional agency was not what they wanted to do, they started considering other options. They wrote the entire process from receiving to returning a file. Then, they realized the core unique selling proposition they had to solve was speed and efficiency. The team deliberated on how to optimize and accelerate their translation process. Listen to the podcast for a detailed explanation on this concept. Marco and his partner founded the company in 2017 and hired a CEO to run it as they focused on other projects. Unfortunately, the company performed dismally, and in 2018 Marco took over, marking the conception of the MVP. The team received their 200,000 euro pre-seed funding during summer and launched the MVP in autumn. Their second pre-seed funding of 1.2 million came in October 2020, pushing their growth further. The company has since moved from a team of three to 34 full-time staff spread across various regions in Europe. The team plans to generate one million Euros in revenue in 2021 and 3.5 million in 2022. Every business goes through challenges, and Taia is not an exception. According to Marco, one of their biggest challenges happened when their first investment cash ran out, forcing them to bootstrap, which was difficult to deal with. He explains some of the difficulties they faced during that period. If you are currently struggling as an entrepreneur, this section will motivate you to keep pushing amid the challenges.  As an entrepreneur, having goals helps you define where the company will be in the future. Marco says they want to become the go-to platform for overall business translations. The team is currently working on various projects to make their dream a reality. Learn about these projects from the podcast.  If Marco could go back to 2017, he could be more persistent and develop winning habits. He would also focus on reading, and he recommends a few books such as The Never Split the Difference, The Power of Habit, and Atomic Habits. Reading is vital and a powerful habit. Marco reads 50 books annually. He prefers listening to their audio versions. He also says exercising is good for your health.  Resources Taia Mark Hozjan LinkedIn  

Michael Epstein of PostPilot talks about building their MVP, gaining first customesr, and navigating their zero-30,000 MRR journey. Get more insights from the podcast.  We live in a digital overload world, where cost-per-click (CPC) is fast overtaking email and email engagement. Today, customers are looking forward to getting real and tangible interactions with brands. PostPilot makes these expectations a reality via direct automated mail drives. Through PostPilot, customers can send handwritten and personalized postcards as conveniently as email campaigns. This technique generates excellent ROI (return on investment) and engagement. Michael Epstein shares critical details with Geordie in this podcast.   What You'll Learn  What problem does PostPilot solve for customers? How much equity should companies set aside for potential employees? How did Michael and his team get their initial customers? Why entrepreneurs should strive to engage with their customers and understand the problems they face one on one Challenges Michael and his team faced when building their MVP What requirements do Michael and his team look for in customers before onboarding them? At what point did Michael and his team find product-market fit? Why companies should have an ideal customer  In this Episode:  Michael has been in the eCommerce industry for more than two decades, during which he started a company, grew it to millions in sales, and departed to join the private equity world. Having interacted with numerous companies and used direct mail to develop their eCommerce presence, Michael understands how challenging the process can be. Together with his business partner, they figured there had to be an easier and trackable way of sending direct mail drives. They would later meet their third co-founder, who was already building an MVP to solve this problem. Michael and his co-founder invested in their third co-founder, and they all became partners. Together, they developed the product, launched it, and started growing it.   In today's overly competitive digital world, companies need to go the extra mile to offer unique services and stay ahead of their competitors. One thing Michael and his team did differently was their ability to do granular segmentation, offer individual personalization and track elements that enabled them to determine groups of customers that were responding best. The team also focused on helping their customers track performance and improve their campaigns like they would with any digital-based marketing drive. Michael explains this concept extensively. He also talks about meeting Matt, the third co-founder, and convincing him to come on board.    Michael talks about how the team worked together to ensure the MVP met their standards. What changes and initial investments did they make to prepare the MVP for the Shopify app store? Listen to the podcast to find out. According to Michael, their messaging addresses problems that customers face. It is not an attempt to engage in postcard marketing. The team strives to help their clients reach customers who don't read emails and those not on their email list. How do Michael and his team get their messaging right?   Michael says Andrew (co-founder) and himself are the target customers. Apart from understanding customer pain points, the team also meets regularly with other CEOs and founders, where they listen to the same pain points.  Together with his team, Michael uses a wide range of strategies to understand the problems their target customers are facing. Engaging customers one on one is a key strategy that entrepreneurs should adopt. It helps them understand customer problems from a personal point of view. Find out more details from the podcast. Every business faces challenges along the way and PostPilot were not an exception. One of the main challenges that Michael and his team faced during the MVP's initial stages was teaching people about their products. Convincing potential customers to try their product was also a daunting task.  Michael talks about the two pivotal moments the company had. These, he says, did not happen until after some years. The first one was implementing a concierge-level free trial service, and the second was getting the design right. Apart from the free plan, Michael says they have other paid plans and discusses them in detail. Do not miss this part of the podcast if you want to try this service. Are you are a beginner in the SaaS industry? Michael has some tips to help you determine what your target market wants. Listen to the podcast for the details. If he had a chance to do things differently, Michael says he would have made some crucial decisions earlier. Resources PostPilot Michael Epstein LinkedIn Michael Epstein Twitter

Cosmin Costin of Coaches Console talks about managing the project with limited experience and propelling the company to a 7 figure ARR SaaS firm. Get all the details from the podcast.  Coaches Console is an application that enables coaches to establish their coaching businesses. It also helps them manage their clients and business. When he ventured into the industry, Cosmin and his team were building websites for different trainers and people in the personal development industry, such as trainers. He talks to Geordie about his journey. What You'll Learn How Cosmin joined Coaches Console Challenges that Coaches Console founders faced when developing their MVP Why businesses should strive to offer value Lessons Cosmin learned at the web summit in Dublin Importance of maintaining up to date software Why clients benefit from the Coaches Console training  In this Episode: Before joining Coaches Console, Cosmin was running a web design agency which exists to date. After developing websites for his coaching clients under Coaches Console for two years, the projects started to feel repetitive. Everybody wanted the same type of functionality, website, and service. Again, the people Cosmin and his team worked for took a longer time to execute projects with very few launching businesses. As developers, the lack of progress was heartbreaking, and they were unmotivated. Cosmin and his team wanted to transition to something more interesting that would survive amid challenges. He mentions that then, there was a massive financial crisis. Even though they collaborated with big companies, budgets had been slashed, and many people were looking for free services. That's when Cosmin decided to only work with the right clients and strive to deliver value. He explains how he went ahead to create an internal product that would give clients more functionality. Learn about it from the podcast.  Cosmin joined the Coaches Console team by chance after a client he was working with mentioned his name and how knowledgeable he was in the coaching niche. Listen to the podcast to understand how he met the Coaches Console team and how their first meeting went. He also explains how they planned and launched their operations from there. When Cosmin joined Coaches Console, the MVP already existed. However, it was in its initial stages. While clients were using it, the MVP had limited functionality. Cosmin gives a short illustration of the challenges Coaches Console founders experienced when developing the MVP. Get all the details from the podcast. Cosmin is an optimistic person who believes that everything can be executed. To add value to the business, he encouraged the team to work on one project at a time and monitor its performance before moving to the next. Success and value accordion to Cosmin means a win for everybody involved in a project. These include developers, clients, agencies, and users.  To make Coaches Console more effective, Cosmin and his team kept on integrating more features and functionality. He also became more involved in the business by training customer support people to enhance efficiency. He would later focus on the company and client's requirements. Along the way, he wanted to develop a wide range of services for his clients. Cosmin's previous agency's experience came in handy to help him execute his tasks accordingly. The team would later develop and launch the second part of the Coaches Console in 2020. The new platform had better functionality and more features. Cosmin explains how he would later become the CTO at Coaches Console due to his technical knowledge. He also talks about attending a web summit in Dublin and how life-changing the experience was. At some point, Cosmin felt that he needed equity in Coaches Console to give his best. Determine how he discussed his wishes with the entire team, the outcome, and the transition process.  Cosmin's interest in the project was not money-oriented. He wanted to do something he was passionate about, participate in growing the company, and have a feeling of ownership while at it. He talks about his role as part of the management team and controlling the company finances. One of the unique things Cosmin and his team did was combine training, coaching, and software support which facilitates their client management activities. Listen to the podcast to understand this concept better. Cosmin concludes the podcast with the following words of wisdom to aspiring SaaS entrepreneurs. Invest your entire energy in projects you are passionate about.   Collaborate with people you enjoy spending time with   Developing software is just the tip of the iceberg. Think about customer acquisition, attracting investors, getting financing, and growing your team.   Do not build a product and expect a miraculous type of success. You have to go to the people, interact with them and tell them the existence of your product. Resources   Coaches Console  

JD Graffam, digital agency owner, tells Geordie what he considers before choosing businesses to buy and the direction he hopes to follow in the future. Listen to the podcast for more insights.   Purchasing three SaaS products within a year and running them successfully can be a difficult task. How has JD Graffam navigated challenges and risks to emerge victorious? He tells Geordie about his journey in this podcast. What You'll Learn  The acquisition process of Recharge Why JD does not do outreach What type of business does JD avoid? Importance of delegating  In this Episode  JD Graffam recently acquired Audience Ops, a content marketing service from the previous owner who wanted to spend his energy and time on a new business venture. JD says he has been working with the Audience Ops team to create new services, optimize and propel it to the next level. Before Audience Ops, JD had bought Delegated, a dedicated virtual admins service business. Delegated is ideal for individuals and organizations looking for executive admins, executive assistants, or personal assistants. Delegated collaborates with customers to discharge dedicated virtual admins who engage with customers and become a part of the company and business. Listen to the podcast for more details on what Dedicated does. JD gives a brief narration of how he started buying software businesses. He mentions that every moment he buys a new business is a learning experience.  Over the years, JD was afraid of purchasing something that did not work out because he was investing crucial funds into the businesses. According to JD, a business that has been in operation for three to four years with no customer acquisition cost, revenue churn, or shrink, and still attracts the same number of customers as it loses and gets some traffic can sell itself. By converting such a business into SaaS, you expose it to more people where it will sell itself and things will work out right. JD has always yearned to have a great product, and when he came across ARPU, he knew that was his defining moment. ARPU is a Recharge app for Shopify which merchants can use to sell subscriptions. JD describes Recharge as a grand app with massive growth. When he learned that ARPU was up for sale, it had not yet met his requirements. As a result, he took time to understand it and figure out whether it was worth investing in and the risk factors. JD says he had to learn everything about ARPU, and you can find the details in the podcast. He would later buy the business after a long time of doing due diligence. He talks about the acquisition process and how he continued working with Recharge. When did ARPU and Recharge go separate ways? JD talks about what they have been doing to make ARPU a success. Word of mouth is a powerful tool for marketing and acquiring deals as JD mentions in this podcast. He says he has acquired most of his best deals through human connections. JD and his team are looking forward to buying an influential signature business with a massive following.   JD says his digital agency has evolved from having eight people to approximately 100 people currently. As a result, he believes focusing on what they have right now is the best thing to do, at least to build more experience, learn how to navigate potential risks, and do an excellent job. JD is not planning to buy any new product anytime soon. Instead, he will take it slow to avoid incurring huge losses. For ARPU, he says they are considering acquiring more eCommerce add ons they can utilize to ease communication. For example, ARPU could consider venturing into the gifting or SMS industry. While the team believes they have the momentum to build a robust tool from scratch, JD says that purchasing a well-developed product would speed up their operations. On the other hand, buying as poorly built product could slow them down. Together with his team, they are looking forward to building a robust product that works well to eliminate the trouble of patching systems together. So passionate is JD at what he does that he analyzes every business portfolio keenly. At some point, he was evaluating SaaS businesses that would complete an agency model. As the agency evolves, JD says he analyzes every SaaS platform independently. He mentions how he wanted to venture into eCommerce and email businesses at some point because he saw lots of value and potential in the area. Having a great team is crucial in running a company successfully. JD talks about his team passionately and highlights some insights on running an effective team that aspiring entrepreneurs can learn from.  Resources ARPU JD Graffam LinkedIn JD Graffam Twitter

Rob Walling, entrepreneur, investor, CEO of Tinyseed & Microconf, and godfather of bootstrapping SaaS tells Geordie what he considers in his SaaS investments. Listen and learn.   Apart from building and selling different startups, Rob has been collaborating and assisting non-venture backed startup founders for nearly two decades now. He also hosts a popular podcast for bootstrappers, boasting 500 five-star reviews and over 10 million downloads. He talks to Geordie about his journey.   What You'll Learn What does Tinyseed & Microconf entail, and how do they work? What makes Tinyseed different from other accelerators in the market? Why SaaS founders choose Tinyseed and Microconf over their competitors Importance of having an audience before launching your idea Why pricing is a critical factor in SaaS Why an entrepreneur's goals determine the type of product they build  Why raising your prices too high is never a good idea  In This Episode Rob highlights podcasting for startups, working on Microconf, an in-person and online community for bootstrap founders from different parts of the world, and Tinyseed, the inaugural startup accelerator that strives to facilitate success for SaaS bootstrappers as his key roles. He says he spends most of his time on the latter two. How does he manage? Find out from the podcast.  Unlike other accelerators in the market today, Tinyseed is remote, and its terms enable people to operate a profitable company. He gives extensive details about Tinyseed in this podcast which you cannot afford to miss. Together with his team, Rob has started numerous investments with their 59 launching in the next few weeks. How does Rob identify these startups? Doing due diligence is a crucial part of ensuring that you are dealing with reliable people. Both Tinyseed and Microconf come with an application process that customers should fill before becoming part of the accelerator program. Rob says they do interviews, make offers, and give their applicants a terms sheet to fill. Once SaaS founders agree to the terms and conditions, they become part of the accelerator. Rob and his team then fund them.  Rob mentions that many of the companies they deal with are not interested in funding but want mentorship, guidance, advice, and the proper SaaS network. Before investing in a potential company, Rob's team considers various factors. However, he only focuses on the three P's, people involved, product fit, and price sensitivity or pricing. Potential companies have to answer questions about their businesses and competition. Listen to the podcast to figure out some of the questions that companies must answer before being considered. During the application process, aspiring companies must describe their unique advantage over competitors and their average revenue MRR per user. It is at this point where Rob begins his rating on a one to five scale. Rob mentions the importance of MRR for companies, and you can learn about it in the podcast.  To qualify for the accelerator program, applicants should have at least $500 in MRR, but Rob says they prefer SaaS founders with between $800 and $1,000 on the lower end. He insists that they can still fund people with lower amounts.  Running a business comes with various challenges, and Rob says there is no blueprint for doing it right. While entrepreneurs may have numerous ideas, they are never sure they will work, making it one of the core challenges for entrepreneurs on their zero to 5000 MRR phase. Apart from needing guidance, SaaS founders require reassurance to counter challenges along the way and work towards success. The Tinyseed Playbook defines funnels and guides SaaS founders, helping them understand the importance of pricing their products right. This playbook is ideal for -entrepreneurs in their 5,000 to 15,000 MRR phase. In this case, the entire team collaborates to identify what works best for the companies and ensure they are doing things right. Content marketing is a critical factor that Rob and his team consider before collaborating with SaaS founders. However, he mentions that the strategy is ideal for companies within the lower price range. He also discusses the role of LTV (Lifetime value) and SEO.  Pricing is one of the factors that Rob holds close to his heart. He says that a huge percentage of his candidates admit that their pricing is either overly low or off in a way. Listen to the podcast for a more elaborate explanation of why pricing can be a difficult task and what entrepreneurs can do to get it right. Businesses that have a higher price tend to grow faster, according to Rob. Find the reason why from the podcast. Rob concludes the podcast by talking about launching Tinyseed in the UK.   Resources  TinySeed Rob Walling LinkedIn Rob Walling Website Rob Walling Twitter

Greg Lim, co-founder of Persosa, talks about coming up with the idea, funding the MVP, finding his first customers, and finding market fit twice. Listen in for the insights. Persosa is an experience and data platform that enables businesses to boost website conversions by directly speaking to each customer using personalized internal experiences. The platform also leverages connected campaigns to display customers' needs when they need them. Such efficiency increases conversions, reduce bounce rate, and improves sales. Co-founder and founder Greg Lim talks to Geordie about his journey.   What You'll Learn Why brands should personalize their websites  Why Persosa has two products Who is the ideal Persosa customer? How Greg and his team priced their product  In this Episode: When businesses understand their customers, they can utilize that awareness to increase revenue. Greg says they have two key products one of which allows customers to track their customers across different channels. Listen to the podcast for more details about this product. The second product involves knowing how to convert the understanding you have for your customers into revenue. Greg says they have a personalization medium that enables their customers to utilize the data they collect to; personalize experiences for people visiting their mobile app and website. Persosa also solves two problems in the marketplace, which he explains in depth in this podcast.  In the beginning, Persosa was one comprehensive platform, but the team realized they were almost losing it at some point. They then decided to separate their products to serve their customers better. How do Greg and his team introduce their products to customers? Understanding the customer and their needs is one of the team's most effective strategies. They always use it before talking about their products which helps them determine the right product that best fits the customer's needs.    Greg narrates how he became the chief marketing officer of a company by chance and without any marketing experience. During his stint, he had numerous questions but no concrete answers until one day, someone he had met earlier, who also happens to be his co-founder at Persosa, called him and shared with him an idea he had. That was a defining moment for Greg, seeing that he had been seeking a similar solution and even had a ready client. He quit everything else and joined hands with his co-founder. Listen to the podcast for some background story about Greg's co-founder. His co-founder has tremendous experience in data usage tracking. At some point, he worked for a small startup company whose product was good. However, they (the company) struggled to discuss and sell their product. When Greg's co-founder came on board, he worked out a solution for them which he later realized was some form of an MVP which could become an entire product and whole platform. It was then that the two colleagues connected. There are some misconceptions surrounding personalization in today's world, especially in terms of privacy. How does Greg's system work while guaranteeing customers of their privacy? To deliver a personalized and engaging experience, all the team needs is to understand what attracted a potential customer to the website. Greg supports his answer with an example that you can learn about from the podcast. Together with his team, Greg tracks website performance through geo-location, UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters, and collecting data first, meaning new users only get a personalized experience after a few interactions. Greg's co-founder enjoys building products. When he was starting, the buzzwords in the industry were real-time data, a term that was frustrating to him but one he relied on to unlock value in real-time. Greg says his co-founder did not do any market research during the development of his MVP. However, when they crossed paths, the MVP was working, save for a few elements, but they still tried it on Greg's client. Greg explains the concept of the MVP in relation to what the client wanted and what they did to deliver an exceptional experience.   The lack of a repeatable sales process threw Greg and his team in disarray even though they had already found a product fit. Greg illustrates some of the challenges they faced along the way and what they did to redeem themselves. The team first pivoted in web personalization before shifting tact after realizing that consumers interact with brands in different places. Greg's co-founder altered the platform to include personalization API, data tracking, and personalization to make it more accommodating. Find out how the system now works.   Along the way, Greg experienced some significant failures. For example, he did not focus on customer acquisition, finding product fit, and learning his customers. Instead, he spent time worrying about how much he would spend on marketing when he was losing huge sums in the real sense. If Greg were to turn the hand of time today, he would invest more in marketing. He speaks about another important lesson that you can learn from the podcast. Greg concludes the podcast by highlighting the importance of being confident as an entrepreneur. Trust your gut feeling, talk to your customer, know them and find out how they interact with your product, then align that with your vision, says Greg. Resources  Persosa Greg@persosa.com

Andrew Warner, founder of Mixergy, talks about mastering interviewing skills, his book, and lessons he has learned from interviewing founders. Listen to the podcast and learn. Mixergy is a platform where SaaS founders can listen to startup stories and learn from experienced mentors through courses and interviews. Andrew talks to Geordie about the progress he is making with the company. If you are considering venturing into the SaaS industry, this is a must-listen-to podcast.  What You'll Learn Why chat messages are more effective than email Why surveys don't generate sufficient data Importance of being focused Why techniques are crucial when it comes to interviewing Importance of a personal/social touch during interviews Why storytelling is crucial during interviews In this Episode Andrew's entrepreneurship journey started with an online greeting company which was also an email newsletter company. While the company was successful, he decided to take a break and focus on non-work-related stuff. When he finally went back to entrepreneurship, he started doing interviews, and it has been 14 years and counting now. The core of Mixergy is the podcast, but Andrew says he integrated an educational component in the form of a master class. Get details of how the educational element works from the podcast.  Together with his team, they sold the master class on a membership basis. Andrew talks about getting ridiculed during the inaugural part of the master class project with the online community claiming that he could only sell software and not information. Still, the information courses continued to grow amid the challenges. Andrew learned one big lesson from interacting with and interviewing from the membership space. Learn about it from the podcast. SaaS entrepreneurs can learn numerous lessons about their audience by attempting to sell them something. He supports his sentiments with a detailed explanation. How does the pricing component work? Andrew says the first step of doing it is; not knowing what you have. Sometimes you may run ads even though you wouldn't know how much income they would bring in. Andrew seeks to understand his audience's worth and maximize value from what he is offering. At some point, Andrew discovered Fresh Books and sought to learn more about advertising. He says Fresh Books played an integral role in helping him come up with pricing. How can entrepreneurs leverage interviews to grow their businesses? Andrew starts by giving out an illustration that you can listen to from the podcast. He then mentions that developing a personal connection with the person you are interviewing is critical. It allows you to remain in touch with them regardless of where they are. Andrew illustrates some techniques that interviewers can use to develop closeness with their interviewees. Anyone can be become a good interviewer, says Andrew. He mentions how being different as he grew up helped him build a strong foundation for what he does today. Do not miss that captivating part of the podcast. Paying close attention to detail is one of the skills Andrew mastered from the start. From spending thousands of dollars transcribing his interviews to evaluating the transcriptions, figuring out what he said that made a difference, and hiring producers, Andrew has gone over and beyond to give his customers the best. He discusses some of the techniques he uses to understand the other person better during interviews. You can learn about them from the podcast. Many interviewers want to listen to the successes only without paying much attention to the failures. However, Andrew is always interested in learning about the failures involved. Discussing failure not only eliminates some of the pain of failure but also normalizes failing. By discussing failure, interviewers understand what people who fail have in common with their counterparts who succeed. Discussing challenges is critical because it enables people to understand that interviewees are human. Listen to Andrew talk about one of the best failure stories he has ever done. What makes a good interviewee? According to Andrew, that would be a relatable person who has done something the team aspires to do themselves. Andrew says he would appreciate it if readers of his book pointed out any issues with it. He mentions that they already made some sales before releasing the book, something which occurred unexpectedly. Listen to the details in the podcast. Some readers have already started implementing lessons from the book as Andrew narrates and gives examples in the podcast. How can you get people to open up with you? Andrew says he does that by opening up about himself first. That way, he creates an environment where interviewees feel free to open up. Resources Mixergy Andrew Warner LinkedIn Andrew Warner Twitter

Michael Cardamone, CEO of Forum Ventures, talks about what he considers in potential SaaS investments and his lessons from the industry. Get more insights from the podcast. Form Ventures is a leading B2B SaaS focus accelerator that helps early-stage businesses grow and scale. They have invested 50 million USD in over 250 companies, with their portfolio hitting an approximate valuation of 3 billion USD. Join the podcast and listen to Michael as he tells Geordie about his journey.  What You'll Learn How the Forum Ventures seed fund works How to know a great founder What companies need to succeed during the accelerator program The framework that Forum Ventures use to help companies track KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) Why do companies join accelerator programs Which is the ideal place to source a SaaS company? In this Episode: Forum Ventures was recently rebranded from Acceleprise, an accelerator B2B SaaS which has been in existence for close to seven years. Michael says they come in at the early stage of a business and run a four-month associate-based program acting as a continuation of the founding team. Forum Ventures helps companies devise the right market strategy to identify their ideal customers and edge closer to getting funding. Forum also has a seed fund where they invest in institutional seed rounds. Listen to the podcast to understand how the seed fund works. The core part of the business is to invest $100,000 to each company that joins the accelerator program. While they may not have enough capital to invest in every company that sets up a seed round from the accelerator program, they strive to invest in companies outside the accelerator. Michael and his team consider various factors when deciding who to recruit in the accelerator program. First, they look for companies that are in the earliest stages of their operations. To understand a company's product and vision, Forum works closely with the founders whose product may be in the early stages but not fully developed. Some of them may have customers while others may not. Michael defines that stage in detail, and you can learn all about it from the podcast. Much of what Forum Ventures does is focus on the team and the market opportunity. When looking for a team, Forum considers their founder market fit and tries to understand what they know about the problem they are solving or their target market. They also seek to determine how great the founders are; a term Michael says he detests. Find out his reasons from the podcast. According to Michael, you do not know a good founder. Instead, he says they determine the characteristics that a great founder and leader would have. Listen to Michael as he gives an in-depth explanation of these traits. How big or small should a team be to qualify for the Forum Ventures accelerator program? Michael says they do not have complicated rules regarding the team's size as long as they have an excellent market fit and understand their products extensively. Michael mentions some common traits that make companies successful during the accelerator program in this podcast. Forum Ventures has a structure that helps companies track their KPIs, which Michael says is different for each company. Get details of how the structure works from the podcast. To acquire the $100,000 funding, companies give up 7.5% equity to Forum Ventures. This arrangement may not make much sense to all companies, but it works for a significant number of companies, according to Michael. Forum has carved a niche in the industry as a reliable provider capable of acquiring more funding for the companies after the accelerator program. Michael gives some practical examples in the podcast. Michael says the $100,000 capital that companies joining the accelerator program get should last for the entire four-month program. He also mentions what a company should achieve at the end of the program in terms of performance. Get all the details from the podcast. The SaaS industry is fast becoming overly competitive. What criteria does Forum Ventures use to determine a company's potential for success? Michael says they focus on five things: vertical SaaS, the future of work, supply chain logistics, and FinTech, insurance, and tech-based stuff. Michael explains these concepts in detail, complete with illustrations. He concludes the podcast by mentioning that while angel investing can be great, it's one industry where being connected to the ecosystem is critical. Investors should also know that some of the companies may not work. If you are new to angel investing, consider doing it in angel groups where you can learn and gain experience before risking your money, he says. Resources   Forum Ventures Michael Cardamone LinkedIn Michael Cardamone Twitter  

Saroj Ativitavas, CEO of Wisible, talks about funding his MVP, gaining his first customers, and navigating his zero to 30,000 MRR journey. Get more insights from the podcast. Wisible is a sales intelligence platform that enables B2B firms to reduce sales cycles, increase conversion rates, and enhance sales prediction accuracy. Listen to Saroj as he shares his exciting journey with Geordie. What You'll Learn The core problem Wisible solves for customers Why the Chinese market is not ideal for the Wisible concept How Saroj transitioned from the corporate world to a startup job How Saroj and his team transitioned from an agency to a SaaS platform The impact of content marketing for businesses In This Episode: According to Saroj, many customers who approach them seeking a tangible solution often have a leaky sales funnel. The team behind Wisible strives to help their customers determine the critical spot and underlying bottlenecks. They work together to provide a robust solution based on their needs. Wisible focuses on CRM tools while tracking any interactions and data that may have been generated during the sales procedure. The platform also features a dashboard and an analytic report that can display in the sales funnel interface. Customers can also track their conversion rate, determine their average deal amount, and sales cycle.  Saroj has been in the B2B sales sector for 20 years, during which he encountered a wide range of challenges and learned crucial lessons. He was a salesperson for a mobile telecommunication operator in Thailand before graduating to become a sales director. During his stint in the sales industry, Saroj tried numerous tools and software but could not identify the ideal option to meet his needs and those of his customers. The quest for an effective solution pushed him into developing a platform they could rely on to solve their problems. Saroj explains why he left his job at the mobile telecommunication company, and you can learn from the podcast. Currently, there are numerous click funnel options in the market. Why did Saroj feel the need to develop a new one? To answer this question, Saroj begins by defining what B2B businesses do and why they need aggressive salespeople. Get all the details from the podcast. Saroj reiterates that their system integrates with their customer engagement's business channel. This feature relieves salespeople from having to feed data into the system manually. He gives an illustration to help listeners understand this concept better. Nearly 100% of Wisible customers come from the Southern Asia region, but Saroj and his team plan to expand their business to other regions. He explains why they are not yet ready to venture into the Chinese market.  After leaving his job, Saroj first launched a robust product that focused on giving software developers a healthy platform to exercise their talent. They later quit the market to launch the sales intelligence agency. Saroj and his co-founder had worked together in the telecommunications company for ten years and were conversant with their customer's pain points. They also knew there was a ready market for their idea in Thailand. Saroj and his team would spend an entire year developing the Wisible MVP and another year before acquiring their first paying customer. At first, Saroj says they gave out the system for free and explains how they finally won their first paying customer. Find out the details from the podcast. Promoting a startup can be a difficult task. How did the team reach their target audience? Saroj says they run a blog where they share content about their services before sharing it on different social media platforms. The journey from zero to 5,000 was easier after winning their first paying customer; Saroj says and explains the phase further in the podcast. Did you know you could make money from customizing customers' platforms to meet their specific needs? Listen to Saroj as he discusses this concept and explains how it worked for their business. Apart from content marketing, Saroj and his team engage in teaching as a marketing concept, where they create courses and train their staff. Saroj mentions their go-to content marketing strategy that aspiring entrepreneurs can benefit from. While some online businesses grew tremendously at the peak of Covid, Saroj says they experienced slow growth rates. What would Saroj do differently if he had an opportunity to go back in time? He would be more focused. He concludes the podcast by explaining why he thinks Wisible is the best in the industry.  Resources Wisible Saroj Ativitavas LinkedIn

Eugene Kruglov, cofounder and COO of AppFollow, talks about funding the MVP, gaining his first customer, and navigating his 0-30,000 MRR journey. Listen in for more insights. AppFollow is a platform that enables you to assemble your mobile app data from diverse sources into a centralized place. Join Eugene Kruglov the cofounder in this podcast as he tells Geordie how they navigated various challenges to build this app. He also discusses lessons they have learned along the way.   What You'll Learn   The problem that AppFollow solves for its customers Three key things that Eugene and his team offer through their service Importance of visibility for app developers  Why tracking your competitors is crucial How did Eugene and his team know that users would appreciate their app? Why video marketing can be an ideal concept for increasing visibility How did Eugene and his team come up with the pricing model in the early days? Why product developers should manage their customer support department The importance of search optimization on product visibility   In this Episode:   Eugene has been passionate about mobile for a long time. Previously, he was involved in the entrepreneurial space, where he helped launch companies in the mobile industry. He has also worked with mobile operators in the value-added services divisions, where he gained tremendous experience.    With the launch of App Store, Eugene got excited about the possibility of developing applications. He has been involved in developing products for other companies, which they used to pitch in the beginning. Find out how Eugene met his cofounder and how he (the cofounder) shared an idea with him which they would later bank on to start a company.     Eugene says they collaborate with teams and help them navigate app stores with ease. The team is committed to offering solutions from the product perspective because they have encountered the same problem before. AppFollow helps developers navigate through customer feedback. It also intensifies the customer's voice and provides numerous tools to work with reviews and feedback in the app stores.   AppFollow increases your visibility in app stores. Eugene says they understand how the algorithms function and use unique keywords to ensure users are visible in search. Through AppFollow, users can track their competitors with ease. Listen to the podcast for a detailed explanation of these features.   Developing a product that target users will appreciate can be a challenging journey. Eugene discusses what they did to ensure users would love the product. Listen to the podcast for the details. Eugene says they spent between 15 and 20 thousand dollars building the MVP in six months. All that time, Eugene was still running a different business while helping to set up AppFollow.    The platform was operating under an acceleration program that gave them some visibility. However, they needed to do something to popularize their brand, and this is where word of mouth and video came in. The team started shooting short videos of them navigating the acceleration program and distributed them in various platforms like Twitter and Facebook. They forwarded links to their friends and did everything to make the videos funny, irresistible but still relatable context-wise.    Determining the ideal pricing for an app can be difficult, especially when you are just getting started. Eugene says they are still trying to come up with the best pricing model. As beginners, they had three basic payment plans, which Eugene admits was relatively low.   Eugene says they needed to accommodate as many users on the platform as possible in terms of the pricing. As a result, they ended up giving out the app for small amounts expecting a high adoption which would translate into a high ROI. That was not to happen, and they had to go back to the drawing board.   What is their pricing currently? Find out from the podcast. Eugene also talks about the features they have added to the app to make it more effective for users. Eugene says the team was committed to handling every operation independently, seeing that they had no money to pay staff.   As a founder, he was tasked with handling customer support and answering user queries round the clock. He adopted this strategy as a way to encourage users to love their product. He was also convinced that doing demos was an effective strategy for promoting their product, mainly because they understood its features better.   AppFollow experienced tremendous growth from increased visibility. Listen to the podcast to find out some of the techniques they used to become more visible. Eugene gives a detailed explanation of how they achieved product-market fit, and you cannot afford to miss this section. The AppFollow platform has evolved over the years, and Eugene explains what they have done to improve it. Eugene concludes the podcast by mentioning the things he would have done differently when starting. Get these crucial lessons from the podcast.  Resources   AppFollow Eugene Kruglov LinkedIn Eugene Kruglov Twitter

Co-founder, Ching Goh talks about building Piktostory, navigating challenges to hit a 7 figure ARR, and founding Piktostory later on. Listen to the podcast and learn.  Piktochart is a web-based communication platform that enables less experienced users to develop professional-level visuals with the help of themed templates. Piktostory is a transcription-based video content creation tool. Ching, the co-founder, strives to help passionate entrepreneurs increase their knowledge in bootstrapping, culture shaping, and talent management. She talks to Geordie about her journey.  What You'll Learn Why video editing can be complex Ching's entrepreneurial journey Ching's marketing strategy Mistakes Ching and her team made that cost them the number one position for infographics on Google Why ranking number one on Google is no longer good enough Importance of talking to users In This Episode: Storytelling and videos are two compelling forms of communication that businesses can leverage not only to scale but attract more customers. Piktochart is a renowned infographic creation tool. Together with her team, Ching realized the rising adoption of infographics in different departments and industries by experts seeking to promote their projects. From their research, they concluded that all those individuals had a story they needed to communicate visually.  After being in the industry for nearly ten years, the team was confident that storytelling was getting better, bigger, and more popular. They then sought another effective storytelling medium apart from infographics and settled on video due to its portability. They were also hopeful that video would be an excellent medium for conducting and transmitting stories. While they made all these decisions before the pandemic, many people considered the team opportunistic after the pandemic hit the world. Ching explains what they are doing to make the two platforms valuable for users. Ching says Piktostory was designed to ease video editing, without which users would need between three and four tools to get their work done. She talks extensively about these tools in the podcast. Do not miss this comprehensive part if you are an aspiring video editor, webinar developer, social media manager, or podcaster.  Why would entrepreneurs, consultants, and coaches need a video editing tool? In today's pandemic times, webinars, podcasts, and zoom calls have become the order of the day. It's worth mentioning that convincing people to watch long videos can be a difficult task. However, shorter videos get more traction, and this is where Piktostory comes in. Ching agrees that they leverage their tool for marketing purposes as well.  Every entrepreneur has an exciting story. Ching narrates her journey and you cannot afford to miss it. Find out how she transitioned from the UK to Malaysia, her first job, and her passion for organizational development and marketing. Ching also talks about suffering burnout so much so that she had to undergo surgery. Find out why together with her husband, they settled for infographics and her role in their venture then. How did they navigate the business industry without prior experience? Ching explains in the podcast.  Ching admits their product was ugly in its initial stages, but that changed after doing demos and pitches, and getting coverage from media and news institutions. They recorded high traffic, which Ching also attributes to the fact that people realized there were more storytelling and video editing tools apart from the common ones.  A robust marketing strategy is critical for business growth and revenue generation. Ching explains their preferred marketing plan in detail. She mentions that they had retained the number one position in infographics for a long time before some of their competitors overthrew them. She also discusses the mistakes they made that cost them the number one position on Google. Listen to the podcast for more insights.  The quest to break out in business and move deeper into storytelling pushed Ching and her co-founder into developing Piktostory. She mentions that while they have done little to promote Piktostory, they have seen people opting in. What are their conversion rates? Find out from the podcast.  In every story, there is a lesson to learn. Ching says she has learned various lessons along the way. She believes in the bias for action concept, which defines that it does not matter how great your plans are. You will only know their potential and what can happen once they hit the market. Ching supports this approach with a detailed explanation which you can learn about from the podcast. She also says having and maintaining a small team has been valuable. Clarity is another critical lesson, and Ching achieves it by experimenting with different tools available in the market to gauge their position. Interacting with users is an activity Ching takes seriously. Listen to the podcast to find out how she engages every new user. Getting to profitability can be a difficult task, especially for startups. While the team is yet to achieve profitability on Piktostory, Piktochart gained profits six months after launching. Find out strategies the team used to market Piktochart and achieve massive growth. Ching concludes the podcast by explaining the workweek approach they adopted to spare staff from burnout.   Resources Piktochart.com  Piktostory.com  Ching Goh LinkedIn Ching Goh Twitter

Jon MacDonald, CEO of Powered By Change, talks about coming up with his idea, funding the MVP, his first customers, and navigating his 0-30,000 MRR. Listen in for more details.   Powered By Change (PBC) is a comprehensive, advanced, and robust business growth SaaS platform. It is based on the book powered by change, a Sunday Times Bestselling publication. PBC provides an integrated outlook of an enterprise's product, people, purpose, and process components. Jon McDonald, the founder, talks to Geordie about his journey.   What You'll Learn  The concepts of Powered By Change How companies started implementing powered by change as a SaaS way before the introduction of the SaaS platform What impact did Covid have on the Powered By Change platform? The Powered By Change pricing model.  In this Episode:  Being in the business industry for nearly 30 years is no mean feat. Apart from gaining tremendous experience, Jon says he has interacted with some of the biggest and fastest-growing companies across the globe. During his interactions, he helped the companies increase their turnover from 30 to 40 billion. Jon says he is delighted and blessed to have had the opportunity to watch how some of the highest-performing organizations operate. As an entrepreneur, Jon has founded nine startups where he has applied much of his lessons. Jon would later become a speaker, an entrepreneur, and an author. At some point, Jon started journaling all the lessons he had learned along the way into what would become the book; powered by change. He explains how they would convert the book's concept into a SaaS platform. The platform contains practical tips that no one teaches in business school.    Before writing his book, Jon says the entire business setting was similar to the Chinese proverb: "when the winds of change are blowing, some build a wall, and others build a windmill." During his years as an entrepreneur, Jon has learned that while there are numerous wall builders, few are willing to build a windmill. Many people, especially startup entrepreneurs, often look at larger businesses and wonder: how did they achieve such growth? What do they do differently? Do they have a big brand or colossal amounts of money in their bank accounts? Such businesses succeed because they focus on constructing a robust and functional windmill. Jon says. In his book, the term powered by change is based on the four different blades of a windmill. To facilitate change as a sustaining technique, you need four different blades of a windmill, Jon says. This observation is something he has noticed from assisting up to 45% of Fortune 500 companies and his startups. He explains the four concepts/blades of his book; powered by change in this podcast.  Powered by change includes numerous case studies. Jon and his team distributed the first publications to the people who had been featured in it. All the companies that received the book would then start applying it as a toolkit before a SaaS platform was founded. Later, those companies chose to utilize the book as a SaaS, which pushed Jon and his team to work hard to get to where they are today. What was the process of converting the powered by change book into a SaaS platform like? Jon says his co-founder played a massive role in developing the product. He gives more details in the podcast. They would later hire a developer, making him the third team member to date.  While some sections of the book were not applicable as an online platform, Jon says they released the MVP as a beta for people to test. They would then make changes on the go. He admits they have changed approximately 10% of the MVP so far. Even then, they have discovered that clients have a wide range of iterations they did not consider. Building the self-funded MVP took Jon and his developer approximately one year. Another crucial lesson that Jon has learned along the way is accomplishing your plans will cost more than you had planned for, and you will make half of your expected amount. He recommends running your MVP on half the income where possible. He expounds on this subject in the podcast. Jon also talks about their plans and expectations when they were starting, the challenges they encountered along the way, and how they countered them. He describes the pricing model that they later had to change. Get more details from the podcast. It took Powered By Change nine months to hit the 30,000 MRR. Jon explains how the journey was from 0-5,000 MRR and beyond. The team is considering angel investors to accelerate the company's growth. Jon concludes the podcast with the following nuggets of wisdom for aspiring SaaS entrepreneurs. Everything you know is wrong. Consider learning on the go Launch quicker and lighter (with fewer features) Ignore detractors, especially those coming from competitor platforms Do not raise capital if you can avoid it  Resource  Powered By Change Jon MacDonald Website Powered By Change LinkedIn

David Davies of AgUnity tells Geordie how he came up with his idea, and how software and SaaS founders can identify and solve complex problems. Listen to the podcast and learn. David boasts more than 30 years of experience in innovative applications design. He has served as CEO for SaaS (Software as a Service), Fintech, and mobile companies during his career. In 2016 Davis founded AgUnity, a Blockchain for Good establishment leveraging smartphone and blockchain technology to enhance the lives of small-scale farmer cooperatives in developing countries. The venture has won numerous awards since its inception.  AgUnity developed the AgriUT utility token built on the Celo blockchain network as an independent charitable entity. It complements the AgUnity smartphone blockchain for smallholder farmers' platform. He talks to Geordie about his journey.  What You'll Learn Why every solution provider must think big Importance of record-keeping Why having an identity and proof of income is crucial How do organizations determine deserving individuals? Why teaching disadvantaged people how to do things better is critical. In this Episode: While agriculture is a vast global industry, some farmers live in overly remote areas and below the poverty level. AgUnity is a specially designed platform that aims at providing cost-friendly strategies for supporting and connecting people living in remote areas. The company recently launched the only Smartphone operating system for the people that technological advancements have bypassed. David grew up in a massive sheep and wheat farm in Australia, where he gained his farming experience. However, he has spent all his working life in technology.  Working for UNESCO in West Africa allowed David to interact with low-income earners and discover their challenges. Together with other founders, David had established a company specializing in Blockchain for Good technology for the market data scope in banking. At some point, they received an invitation to attend a hackathon in London, but David could not attend, so he sent one of his co-founders. In the process, John, the co-founder, discovered there was a prize to be won as part of the conference. David and his team worked hard to develop a winning product, and win they did to the amazement of many people in attendance. Listen to the podcast for more details.  Record keeping is critical in David's niche market. He mentions that recording every transaction creates clarity, promotes trust, and eases the payment process. How did David and his team come up with the AgUnity idea? Find out from the podcast. David says they understood the importance of smartphones in transforming various processes. Further, working for UNESCO exposed him to low-income farmers who, while they had smartphones, were not using them to do valuable stuff.  According to David, they source their smartphones from China and customize them to meet the farmer's needs. The phones, he says, come with the applets only, which you can learn about from the podcast. Before David started working with the farmers, many of them had nothing to show as proof of income. Apart from lacking an identity, they had no record of their land ownership. Lack of proper records denied them the opportunity to get credit from any financial institution.  David admits that penetrating the blockchain for agriculture industry can be a difficult task. He says they usually collaborate with various organizations such as NGOs to ease the process. Doing so facilitates a smooth provision of blockchain for the last mile communities. David says one of their key goals is collaborating with authentic and ethical companies who then introduce them to corporative societies and farmers. Collaborating with corporatives allows them to convert it (the cooperative) into a financial venture capable of scaling faster and larger. Often, David and his team start off working with smaller groups who later grow in their hundreds. According to David, once farmers have more money the entire community benefits. What does it take to create a new cooperative? David says the initial investment can be quite costly, even though big organizations pay for the pilot program. He explains that concept extensively in the podcast. He also discusses the stack and explains things farmers are capable of doing with their smartphones.  AgUnity has experienced tremendous growth over the years, with David saying they solve unique problems farmers face. Currently, the team deals with 17,000 farmers in remote areas. Together with his team, David is considering launching a project to reward farmers who do extraordinary things like planting trees to help with climate change. He also talks about other projects they have in the pipeline. The team focuses on creating an opportunity for people in a developed market to connect with their counterparts in developing markets and create something positive.  Resources AgriUT Foundation Farmer Reward Platform Marketing, Business Development, and Token Gateway AgriUT Discord Server David Davies LinkedIn David Davies Twitter

Santi Bibiloni, co-founder and CEO of COR, talks about his entrepreneurship journey, building the MVP, and navigating his 0-30,000 MRR journey. Listen, learn, and share. COR is a SaaS platform that provides effective solutions for professional service organizations. It also helps the firms determine how to run their projects, resources, and finances in a single platform. Apart from being an entrepreneur, Santi Bibiloni, the CEO, is also a mentor specializing in startups. He talks to Geordie about his journey. What you'll Learn How COR operates What is profitability? How did Santi come up with the COR idea? What strategy did Santi and his team adopt to scale his MRR? Why do entrepreneurs need a mentor How COR acquired its first customers How effective is the COR platform in terms of ROI? Challenges that affected COR's growth What are Santi and his team doing to improve COR in the future? In this Episode Many businesses today struggle to earn profits from their projects, and this is where COR comes in. Santi says COR is an end-to-end solution targeting the billable hour's industry. The platform encourages time tracking, allowing project managers to understand, and predict their profitability per client, per project, and in real-time. Santi says a big percentage of his customers have switched from other project management platforms to COR. What differentiates COR from other project management platforms? Santi explains in the podcast. Running a project comes with numerous challenges like collaboration, but Santi says the biggest of them all is spending money on the project. He supports his argument with an eye-opening illustration that you cannot afford to miss. COR is a robust platform that collaborators can use for their collaboration, project, and task management needs. It can determine where people are spending most of their time and matches every task with the suitable project and client. COR multiplies the time spent on a project with an individual's hourly rate and subtracts all expenses from the client's budget. It calculates profitability in real-time. Service providers can leverage the COR platform to renegotiate fees, forecast, and send accurate proposals. Santi gives more details about the platform and how it works in the podcast. Profitability, Santi says, is more than earning dividends. It is what entrepreneurs require to be able to compensate their employees better. Listen to the podcast to get a more extensive explanation of the term profitability. Santi talks about strategies different entrepreneurs use to increase profitability. He says every new project comes with unique demands. For example, some projects call for more employees, but some entrepreneurs choose not to hire more workers to evade extra expenses. In that case, your employees will need to work extra hours to deliver the project on time. Such a scenario not only results in burnout but also triggers a high employee turnover rate. Santi explains this concept in depth. He also mentions that their agency struggled to make profits in the beginning. What did they do to manage the problem and pay their employees better? Research is critical in any industry. Santi and his team sought to determine what big companies were doing to deal with non-profitability, and to their surprise, there was no solution. They would then embark on developing an internal minimum viable product before proceeding to Silicon Valley. It took Santi and his team nine months to develop the MVP. They would later try it for their agency first before introducing it to some of their family members and friends in Argentina. Their first consumers thought the product was ugly even though it was functional. That feedback is all Santi, and his team needed to hear. However, he agrees the product's UX and UI needed lots of improvement. COR's first customers were small and medium-sized businesses. What was their payment model in the beginning? Santi explains in the podcast. Acquiring the first customer for a new business can be challenging. Santi says they started by understanding the critical pain potential customers were facing and the specific people that were directly affected. They would later send cold emails or give them cold, and discovery calls before scheduling a demo to show how their product worked. Listen to Santi as he explains the challenges they faced while negotiating contracts. Many companies today would pay anything to manage their time well. According to Santi, time management and its impact on profitability are the key points they are currently using to approach new customers. The team plans to invest more in time estimation and time span; that is, determining where people are spending most of their time and how long a task takes. If Santi were to turn back the hands of time, he would not second guess thinking big. To aspiring entrepreneurs, he says, think big, practice resilience, and think longer term. Resources COR Santi Bibiloni LinkedIn Santi Bibiloni Website Santi Bibiloni Twitter Santi Bibiloni Instagram  

Dennis Kelly, the CEO and founder of Postalytics, talks about building his MVP, attracting customers, and navigating his 0-30,000 MRR journey. Get more details from the podcast. Dennis Kelly has tremendous experience in sales, marketing, HR, and finance. He started his career journey as a sales representative and spent time running data centers, developing products, and being the CEO of venture and angel sponsored startups. During his career, Dennis has developed numerous self-financed businesses. He talks to Geordie about his journey. What You'll Learn What triggered the creation of Postalytics? How the Postalytics concept works Importance of research before venturing into a similar project How Dennis and his team handled technology-agnostic challenges Marketing avenues that Dennis and his team are currently focusing on What is it that Dennis would have done differently when starting? In this Episode: Technology has evolved tremendously over the last few years. With more advanced communication options available, no one would ever think direct mail would become relevant again. While traditional direct mail is no longer effective, the automated version is what many marketers are reaping huge benefits from. Dennis says their direct mail automation software solution solves three crucial problems with traditional direct mail marketing. These problems are production speed, integration, and analytics. Listen to the podcast for his detailed explanation of these solutions. Starting a business can be challenging. Dennis gives a brief explanation of how he started his Postalytics journey out of chance. He says he has been developing software companies for the past 30 years. At some point, he collaborated successfully with a young architect, but they would soon lose touch. When they later reconnected, they discovered they were close neighbors. The architect introduced Dennis to some technology he had developed as a side project to help direct mail marketers digitize their marketing channels. Dennis and his team saw potential in the project and pitched it. Listen to the podcast and learn how they developed the software together and the struggles they faced along the way. However, the project did not work according to their expectations. Find out how some customer's problems came as a wake-up call to the team. Postalytics offers a cloud-based SaaS solution where marketers can log in and create a letter or postcard. It allows users to import data from lists directly in their marketing automation tool, spreadsheets, files, and CRM (customer relationship management) platform. Dennis says they have incorporated a model to accommodate direct mail. Listen to the podcast for his extensive explanation of how that system works. More people today are using email marketing than direct mail. Dennis says they leveraged email marketing as a model for their project. The team came up with a concept to develop an email experience that people would use to send direct mail. They were armed with email marketing software for their first product and knew what people wanted in an email marketing experience. How did they execute the business model? Find out from the podcast. As Dennis and his team pivoted their product, they focused on developing their website and producing marketing materials. Upon launching the product, they realized their ideal customer profile overlapped with the Hubspot customer profile. Still, they went ahead with the launch while targeting the Hubspot customer setup. Dennis mentions one unique thing that helped them get off the ground, and you can learn about it from the podcast. He also explains further about the Hubspot platform and customer profile. Should you want to venture into a project similar to the Postalytics platform, Dennis says, you need to research and focus on one platform at a time. Did they use the same approach when starting? Dennis says their first product gave them an advantage. Find out how from the podcast. Dennis mentions their response rate has doubled recently and attributes the growth to reduced competition in mailbox currently, unlike in the past. He adds that there is better targeting today, which leads to better technology, data, and reduced competition. Dennis explains another use case that you can learn about from the podcast. You will understand how to leverage direct mail to target people who often ignore email and convert them to increase ROI. Dennis talks about leads and outlines strategies they use to attract leads. While competitors have emerged in the market; Dennis reiterates they have maintained a targeted approach towards the technology-enabled small and medium-sized businesses as their primary audience. He discusses some of the things they do that their competitors don't. Get all the details from the podcast. Having a unique business model has been instrumental in helping Polystatics remain ahead of its competitors, Dennis says. He concludes the podcast with some wise words to people considering introducing a SaaS tool in the market. He says: you cannot be all things to all people. Focus on building something that a specific audience will find value in. Resources   Postalytics David Kelly LinkedIn David Kelly Twitter

CEO and founder of Lemonpie and Hatch talks to Geordie about how he built the two MVPs and navigated his zero to 30,000 MRR journey. Listen in for valuable podcasting tips. Erik Jacobson is a firm believer that podcasting is a fast-growing industry. In a bid to help brands get in front of a wide audience of podcast listeners per month, he built Lemonpie and Hatch. The former is a podcast production and PR agency that helps brands achieve growth via podcasting. Through Hatch, Erik creates original podcasts for companies seeking to connect with potential customers directly, develop authority in their industry, and ensure their team understands the company's mission. He talks to Geordie about his journey. What you'll Learn How Erik ventured into the podcasting world Importance of research before venturing into the podcasting world What is the value of a podcast How to best track the performance of your podcast How do Lemonpie and Hatch work for SaaS customers? Importance of sharing expertise in a non-salesy way Why a podcast can be a saleable asset to a company Erik's outbound strategy What the five-minute favor rule entails Hatch's onboarding process In this Episode:  Currently, having a podcasting channel is fast becoming a must-have for companies that want to reach a wider audience and scale their businesses. Erik says Lemonpie is a comprehensive podcast agency that helps companies considering starting a podcast to attract customers. It also enables them to develop an audience, brand awareness, and a deep connection that triggers higher conversions. The team at Lemonpie helps your brand create a podcast from scratch, produces it, and promotes it continuously. Listen to the podcast for more details on how Lemonpie helps you along your podcasting journey. Hatch is a platform that provides an entry point into podcasting for teams who plan to DIY lots of podcast pieces but require someone to edit them. Through Hatch, interested parties enjoy unlimited podcast editing services for an affordable flat rate. The team works on one podcast at a time with a turnaround time of two working days. Get more details on how the Hatch platform works from the podcast. Erik says they discovered an opportunity in the market during Covid, which indicated that 100,000 new podcasts were being created monthly. According to Erik, both Lemonpie and Hatch are equal. He says there is considerable potential for both enterprises to solve a wide range of pain points. None of the two ventures is superior to the other. Erik discusses the pricing model for both platforms in this podcast. He says they believe in not charging more for something customers can get for less as a company. They also live by the mantra that creating the wrong podcast is one of the most costly things you can do. The team has developed a strategy to ensure they create the ideal show that helps customers achieve their goals and strike key performance indicators. If you want to venture into the podcasting world, Erik and his team will help you develop the right strategy that works best for your audience. He gives a comprehensive explanation of how they go about it, and you can get all the details in this podcast.  For many people, the success of a podcast depends on the number of people that watch it, something that Erik disputes. Find out his reasons from the podcast. A podcast, Erik says, comes with numerous benefits. He highlights some of the ways businesses can benefit from having a podcast. Brands can leverage podcasts to market their brands. However, podcasters should be skilled, and possess excellent storytelling skills to succeed, and stay ahead of competitors. Erik and his team believe that expertise can be the reason why one person would choose your SaaS platform over your competitor. One of the methods of displaying expertise is through a podcast and not a blog, Erik says. Listen in to find out why they hold that belief. When you start a podcast, focus on creating a podcast that listeners are compelled to listen to. Your podcast should be irresistible enough to convince listeners to listen to the entire session, subscribe to your channel, and keep coming back for more. Erik mentions that they opt to invest more time in podcast creation to increase their chances of achieving success. Hatch, Erik says, is founded on a company structure, but it's fulfilled through SaaS. He concludes the podcast by explaining how they pair the platform with expertise. Listen to the podcast for more valuable insights.  Resources Erik Jacobson LinkedIn Erik Jackobson Twitter Lemonpie Hatch

David Rosa, CEO, and co-founder of Neat, talks about coming up with his company's idea, funding the MVP, acquiring his first customer, and navigating the 0-30,000 MRR journey. Listen closely.  The internet has transformed the world into a global village, allowing shoppers to purchase goods from various parts of the country. However, making online payments can be a huge challenge, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. Neat, a fintech company based in Hong Kong specializes in giving small and medium-sized businesses an alternative to conventional corporate banking. The company offers access to traditional banking services, credit cards, and customized startup solutions. Through these solutions, customers can make payments locally, efficiently, and conveniently regardless of their jurisdiction. Join David, the CEO, as he discusses his journey with Geordie.   What You'll Learn  The role technology and compliance played in the founding of Neat The amount David spent on the MVP How David and his team survived after their bank account was closed Challenges Neat faced during Covid Importance of working with like-minded individuals  In this Episode:  In today's world, where eCommerce is becoming more popular by the day, the availability of flexible payment networks is necessary. However, this is hardly the case. Neat, David says, seeks to solve the existing payment networks split in various parts of the globe, to make them more accessible for SMEs.  Large banks and multinational corporations often take care of this split, making it difficult and costly for small businesses to link to such payment networks. David talks about his previous experience working at Citibank before co-founding the Asian branch of integral Capital Management, a company he would later sell in 2014 to focus entirely on Neat. Listen to David as he talks about the challenges that pushed him into founding Neat. He also talks about meeting his co-founder and how they invested in the know your customer (KYC) concept that the Hong Kong government would later award.   After developing their MVP, David and his co-founder searched for early adopters, and settled on University students. He says University students had sufficient time to test and interact with the product and give them feedback. They would leverage the feedback to make any necessary improvements on the product. However, the time students had, and which David had leveraged turned out to be a liability. How was that? Find out the details from the podcast.   David and his team went back to the drawing board. They later found product-market fit from young professionals brought to Hong Kong for training, who experienced challenges opening a bank account. While the market was very shallow, everything changed within 12 months. At some point, David realized the young professionals were running side hustles, and they (the young professionals) urged them to develop an SME payment network solution. That was the first time David and his team identified a pain point in the market. David gives more details in the podcast. The young professional's demands pushed David to transform his business into an SME solution. David says that point marked the beginning of their growth. David has some advice for people who are considering venturing into the startup world. Listen to the podcast for the details.  David invested lots of money in the MVP, most of which paid salaries and other fixed costs like acquiring infrastructure and making deposits. Pivoting into the SME space was a significant move that prompted massive growth. David mentions one incident when their first banking partner closed their bank account because they could not handle their rapid growth. The incident almost killed their business, and David gives an extensive explanation of why the bank closed their account in this podcast. After that incident, David and his team came back stronger with even more significant shareholders.   When Covid hit the world, many companies struggled to survive while others experienced tremendous growth. At the onset of the global crisis, David says, there were a few challenges but they managed to sail through and even grow five times. One of the biggest challenges Neat had to navigate is managing the team, keeping them focused and motivated. Some of Neat's competitors include modern banks and challengers, which David mentions in this podcast. Businesses should watch out on the competition without obsessing over it in David's words.   Suppose David could turn the hands of time based on his experience in the fintech industry today. In that case, he would first raise a considerable amount of money before venturing into the market. He says obsessing about making ends meet as a beginner is not necessary. David concludes the podcast by inviting interested parties to reach him should they need his assistance.   Resources  Neat David Rosa LinkedIn

Vijay Krishnan, CEO, and CTO of turing.com, talks about how the company developed and funded their MVP, acquired the first clients, and navigated the 0-30,000 MRR journey. Listen in.   Turing.com is a platform that pairs companies with verified global remote talent and facilitates success in the resulting collaborations. Vijay Krishnan, the CEO, is a machine learning entrepreneur and researcher. He talks to Geordie about his journey.   What You'll Learn  How Vijay came up with the Turing idea What problem does Turing solve for their customers? Remote work-based problems that Vijay and his team had to solve How to make remote work effective How Turing attracted its first clients Why Vijay and the team decided machine learning was ideal for their platform How Turing developed tests Problems machine learning solves with ease Tools Turing uses to operate machine learning Strategies Vijay and his team are using to accelerate growth  In this Episode:  Before venturing into the machine learning world, Vijay worked in academia, industry research, and the startup sector. During that time, he gained tremendous experience dealing with a wide range of initiatives such as data science and art. At Turing, Vijay and his team specialize in sourcing software developers from across the globe before interviewing and testing them extensively. That strategy allows Turing to develop a comprehensive profile of different developers. According to Vijay, over 600,000 software developers from more than 10,000 cities worldwide are already registered on their platform. All of them have been pre-vetted and are ready for the job market. Vijay explains how they go about matching companies with the relevant software developer based on their needs. Listen to the podcast for the details. Hiring the right team can be a challenging process that Vijay and his business partner faced before starting Turing. He talks about what they did to counter that challenge in this podcast.  Vijay says they had sufficient experience from their previous startup when building the Turing MVP. Listen to the podcast to find out how they funded the MVP. While working remotely is fast becoming popular, many companies are yet to embrace it. Turing's main goal was to eliminate some of the challenges hiring managers faced. Vijay sought to ensure clients enjoyed excellent quality talent, collaboration, and value. When they ventured into the market, Vijay and his team realized that they could solve a significant percentage of hiring managers' problems. They decided to take their venture a notch higher by devising a robust global solution. Get all the details from the podcast. He also highlights various challenges in the development industry today. Vijay says they adopted all standard marketing methods like posting ads to reach potential customers. Building an MVP and acquiring your first customer can be a prolonged process. Vijay says they first focused on building their platform, an experience that directly exposed them to pain points which they improved over time. It took them nine months before signing in their first customers. What is Turing's pricing model? Vijay says their standard model involves companies engaging with a pre-vetted software developer.  The platform, he says, allows companies to hire developers on a full-time basis after paying a fixed fee. Choosing the ideal candidate manually can be a long, frustrating process that many hiring managers are unwilling to struggle with. However, with machine learning, they have managed to ease the process. He explains why machine learning is appropriate in solving the hiring process. With machine learning, Turing has developed an extensive profile of their software developers more robustly than what potential employers would get from a resume. While machine learning facilitates the matching process, it also assists with the test design. Vijay gives a detailed explanation of how the platform works. You cannot afford to miss this part of the podcast. The prevailing pandemic has affected nearly all businesses across the world in various ways. Vijay says the market experienced shock with people not knowing what was happening at the beginning of the pandemic. A few months in and Turing started experiencing massive growth. He mentions that some of the people who had resented remote work previously started embracing it. Developers do not pay to join the Turing platform.  Resources  Vijay Krishnan LinkedIn Vijay Krishnan Twitter Turing.com

CEO and founder of Horizen Capital talks about his expectations when making investments and what to include or eliminate in your SaaS pitch. Get all the details from the podcast. As the SaaS industry advances, many entrepreneurs are looking for opportunities to venture into the market. Akeel Jabber, an expert in growing SaaS companies, tells Geordie about what you need to invest in a SaaS business. What You'll Learn Why outsourcing the technical part of your SaaS business can be a huge mistake Why investors should avoid hurried decisions Why Akeel and his team picked 500 thousand MRR as their cut off line for their potential SaaS companies Why Akeel targets companies with a big LTV (lifetime value) What is seller earnout? In this Episode:  Horizon Capital works with B2B SaaS companies whose MRR is between 500 thousand and 5 million. Akeel says they come in when the businesses have already identified product-market fit. He explains two things that the company does at that point to accelerate growth. Get all the details from the podcast. Akeel is neither a marketer nor a technical or product specialist. He is a petroleum engineer turned entrepreneur who worked in the white-collar industry for many years. His entrepreneurship journey began during his days in the University when he ventured into the stock market and learned the mistakes that come with investing. He discusses some of these mistakes in the podcast. Akeel would later invest in the real estate industry before venturing into other businesses where he gained tremendous experience. Listen to him as he narrates his entrepreneurship journey. He also discusses SEO, email marketing, and affiliate marketing. Akeel bought his first startup company before joining a different company to become the CEO. While working as a CEO, Akeel says he doubled the company's earnings within five months. The growth earned him another project that would land him in California, where he worked as a CEO for all the SaaS companies in the group. He highlights some of the lessons he learned during that phase of his life. How do Akeel and his team go about handling deals? He says they collect all the necessary information to ensure it meets their investment framework before doing extensive due diligence. He also mentions valuation, saying some people expect more than the actual value of their companies. How do they handle such cases? Find out from the podcast. Akeel mentions three key factors you should consider to determine your valuation. These are churn, growth rate, and lifetime value (LTV). However, he mentions numerous other things to look out for, which you can find from this podcast. Which is Akeel's ideal company? To answer this question, he gives an illustration that you can learn about from the podcast. Akeel says they target companies that have been in operation for a minimum of three years with a 1.1% churn rate and a minimum LTV of between 1500 and 2000. Reaching people looking to sell their SaaS businesses can be a difficult task. However, Horizen Capital has an inbound strategy where they generate lots of high-quality content and SEO. He opines that many people find them after reading their articles. He explains this strategy further in the podcast. They team also reaches potential customers directly via LinkedIn. Here, they get powerful founders from different databases who share their experiences. Apart from cash, Akeel says there are numerous ways of financing a company based on where you are. In Canada, for example, there is a system where investors can acquire a small business administration loan from a bank. He explains how the system works. Akeel mentions the seller financing system as another viable company financing strategy. Listen to the podcast to find out how it works. Akeel also highlights other financing methods in this podcast. Listen and learn. Horizon Capital strives to offer quality instead of quantity. According to Akeel, they are comfortable doing fewer deals and doing them exceptionally well than handling more deals hurriedly. If you are looking to invest, Akeel breaks the process into three parts: do a great deal, do nothing, or do a bad deal. Doing nothing, he says, is better than doing a bad deal. He advises potential investors to peruse through deals and understand what is on offer before committing themselves. Akeel concludes the podcast with some advice to investors wishing to buy their first SaaS Company; invest in something you are passionate about and prepare to study and understand how the industry works.     Resources    Akeel Jabber LinkedIn Akeel Jabber Twitter Akeel Jabber YouTube Horizen Capital

Kyle Roof, founder of PageOptimizer Pro, talks about inventing his idea, building his MVP, and navigating his entrepreneurship journey from zero to 30,000 MRR. Listen for more insights.   Like many entrepreneurs, Kyle Roof struggled with SEO before finally devising a robust strategy to rank websites. His strategies help marketers, and business owners eliminate their SEO challenges, accelerate their goals, and save money. Join the conversation as listen to Kyle as he tells Geordie about his journey.   What You'll Learn  Specific areas that Google checks on your website Who is Kyle's ideal customer? Challenges that Kyle and his team faced during the software development stage At what point in the business did Kyle and his team start developing the SaaS tool? The testing concept and how Kyle executes it Most effective areas to position your keyword How to get your SEO right How Kyle handled the MVP development process  In this Episode:    In his quest to understand Google's algorithm, Kyle co-founded and acquired a patent for high voltage, an agency to facilitate his efforts. Through the agency, Kyle and his team develop controllable environments to regulate all web pages before it (the agency) evolved to become a SaaS platform. Kyle and his team have mastered identifying what can or cannot be a ranking factor, and factors that could be stronger than others. Kyle mentions one lesson he learned from testing the Google algorithm, and you can learn about it from the podcast.   According to Kyle, Google analyzes various sections of your website by searching for critical terms, your target keyword, or the main keyword. He would later realize that the Google algorithm is math-based. Identifying and granting the algorithm the correct math, helps you develop the best content to rank better than your competitors.   Previously, the agency did everything manually, which Kyle admits was terrible. They later changed to Google Sheets before writing a script. Find details of what happened once Kyle had a script in the podcast. Are you looking to rank better on Google? Kyle says you are his target customer.   Before venturing in the tech world Kyle was a lawyer. However, he quit and moved to South Korea. While he had intended to remain there for a year, his stay stretched to five years, during which he launched a business, a school. At some point, Kyle needed a website, but the process was slightly complex even though he had some website development experience from his college days. While building his team took a while, he ended up with a strong team. Kyle later figured he could contract websites and went ahead to do so. Kyle collaborated with his brother, a web development and design expert, with whom they opened a company in India before he (his brother) was thrown in jail. Find out why the police raided their small company in India and how they freed Kyle's brother from the podcast.  They say necessity motivates you to invent, a phrase that applies to Kyle's situation when he had no option but to learn SEO immediately. He, then acquired SEO clients from his failed company marking his entry into the world of algorithm testing. Kyle mentions that everything they incorporate within their strategies is tested and data-driven to guarantee results. Following the need to automate their processes, Kyle and his team decided to develop software. He explains some challenges they faced before finally getting the software right. Get all the details from the podcast. Kyle also gives a detailed explanation of the testing and SEO concept. Do not miss this informative part of the podcast. What problem does Kyle's platform seek to solve? It helps users figure out how to generate excellent content that helps them rank better than their competitors. For example, if you have a target keyword, the platform helps you determine the number of times it should appear in your paragraph and the number of times you should include it in your age tags. Listen to the podcast for extensive details on how the platform operates. He also breaks down their MVP development phase and pricing model since inception to date. Working with a development team can be challenging, especially if you are doing so virtually. Kyle talks about some of the challenges he has had with his development team. One of the most effective strategies that Kyle and his team used to navigate from 15,000 to 30,000 MRR was attending conferences, appearing on YouTube shows, and doing podcasts. Kyle concludes the podcast by discussing some of the lessons he has learned during his journey. Resources PageOptimizer Pro.  Kyle Roof Twitter Kyle Roof LinkedIn  

CEO and Co-founder of Tithe.ly talks about founding Tithe.ly, how they funded, built it, and evolved from zero to 30,000MRR and beyond. Listen and learn.   Dean Sweetman spent over 30 years in ministry before launching Tithe.ly. The platform is designed to give you the tools you require to engage, stay connected, and ease the lives of your congregation and staff. He tells Geordie about his journey. What You'll Learn How Dean collaborated with his son to develop Tithe.ly How Dean transformed his business from an app to SaaS What problems do Dean and his team solve? The problem Dean's platform seeks to solve for the congregants Importance of content marketing How Dean and his team integrated other software into his platform Why company missions should be well-aligned to customer's missions What does Dean attribute their success to? How Dean and his team handled tremendous growth during the onset of Covid In this Episode: In his childhood, Dean was a passionate surfer who did not grow up in church. He gives basic details about his life from birth, growing up, and how he ended up being a youth pastor. Dean describes his journey to tech as the "30 years of preparation". At some point in his life, Dean had an encounter that he discusses in this podcast. Listen in for first-hand details.  The advent of the iPhone in 2012 was pivotal in catalyzing Dean's idea of transforming giving in the church into a smooth process. He sought to ensure that people could do it through a mobile gadget, anytime and anywhere. Dean describes a particular incident in Starbucks where he bought coffee and paid through his mobile phone. Listen to the podcast for this exciting story.  After the Starbucks incident, Dean tasked his oldest son, an engineer, with developing an App through which congregants could contribute directly to the church bank account.   Nine months later, the app was approved on the App Store, and Dean stood in front of his church with his MVP in hand. Dollars started trickling in through the App from the first month. How did Dean market the product? Being well connected, he encouraged his congregants and friends to download the app and utilize it in their churches. Listen as Dean explains his son's role which he continues to play in developing and running the platform. Dean and his team offered the App free of charge initially, but their business model changed as they evolved. Listen to the podcast for more details. Dean maintains that they strive to price their products fairly, and as the platform evolved, their vision moved from being an endpoint giving solution only, to an entire technical stack that churches require. The team continues to develop more products, and Dean illustrates them in this podcast. He talks about the problems he and his team solved for the church, and you can learn about them in the podcast. How do congregants benefit from Tithe.ly? Unlike in the past when credit cards were commonly used, many people are now transacting through mobile devices. Dean says nearly every industry has adopted mobile technology apart from the church, which limits their potential. He explains this concept further in the podcast. In a world where competitors are increasing every day, entrepreneurs need to devise strategies to remain ahead. Dean explains how they have managed to beat the competition. If you are an upcoming entrepreneur, listen to this section and gain the lessons. What pricing model does Dean use on big churches? He says they have a SaaS fee affiliated with larger churches and admits that 80% of their revenue comes through payments. Should you develop or buy software? Dean mentions that integrating different software into their platform was one of the biggest challenges they faced. He recommends developing software from scratch and explains how fortunate they were to acquire great technology from a small company. Listen to the podcast for comprehensive details. According to Dean, they experienced explosive growth during Covid. He explains how they execute their vetting process to ensure they are dealing with authentic churches. SEO plays a critical role in business growth, and Dean explains that most of the churches found them due to their powerful SEO. Before COVID, Dean and his team had devised a robust SEO strategy that came in handy to help them attract the right audience. He concludes the podcast by explaining what they are doing to reduce churn rate. Resources Tithe.ly Dean Sweetman LinkedIn Dean Sweetman Twitter  

Michael Ashford of the Receptionist talks about changing the company's marketing and growing amidst economic challenges triggered by Covid. Get insights from the podcast. Michael has navigated various fields before getting to where he is today. He started in the engineering field before transforming into a sports writer and plunged into project management along the way. He would then end up in the sales and marketing industry. Michael admits that his vast experience in different fields has prepared him to thrive in any field. He tells Geordie about his journey in this must-listen-to podcast. What you'll Learn Importance of working together as a team The best approach to adopt as a marketing manager Strategy Michael and his team used to identify highly valuable leads How to get a precise picture of your marketing activity Importance of reviews What to do after getting a bad review How the visitor management system works In this Episode While some organizations experienced hard times at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, others like The Receptionist thrived. However, it took a change of strategy to navigate through the hard times. Michael talks extensively about the concept behind The Receptionist. He gives an illustration of walking inside a company building as a guest or visitor, where you have to sign in to inform the authorities of your presence. Listen to the podcast for more details.  Michael joined The Receptionist some years back to help build the marketing team. The Receptionist works with numerous businesses that deal with walk-in visitors and have no front office staff, probably because they cannot afford to pay them. How the system works is that; you are a health practitioner for example, handling a client and your next client is waiting at the front office. The system lets you know that someone is waiting in the line and eliminates the need to keep walking to and from your office to find out whether you have clients waiting. Michael describes his experience when he first joined The Receptionist, which you can only understand by listening to the podcast. Regardless of the team's efforts to boost the organization's performance, none was designed under the go-forward strategy umbrella. Michael's first task was to outline everything the company was doing and bring it under one cohesive go-forward approach. Working together as a team is critical even when you are the overall manager. According to Michael, collaborating with the entire team played a significant role in boosting the organization's performance. Acquiring traffic and leads as a new company can be a difficult task. Michael says that a big percentage of their leads and traffic was from referrals and organic traffic. He mentions that the company was already excelling from an SEO point of view, and the team needed to focus on getting paid search. Michael also discusses another area they needed to focus on building, and you can get the details from the podcast. Michael explains how to get started as a marketing manager in detail. If you want to enter the marketing world, you cannot afford to skip this part of the podcast. Breaking down data and separating valuable and non-valuable leads was a straightforward process, in Michael's words. He explains how they did it, and you can get the comprehensive details from the podcast. Data is critical when defining the direction a company is taking and what the team should do to boost performance. However, Michael admits that he did not appreciate data before he ventured into the marketing field. Still, he mentions that other factors are critical for performance enhancement. Listen to the podcast to learn some of the surprises that Michael encountered along his marketing journey. When Michael joined The Receptionist, they did not have a robust strategy to get reviews. Instead, they relied on natural and organic traffic. He highlights the company's only strategy then was the post-customer drip campaign. The Reception has since evolved and adopted an advanced traffic generation approach. He talks about this concept in detail in this podcast. To acquire reviews, Michael and his customer experience representatives had to work hard and implement a solid strategy. Listen to the podcast to learn more about it. The Receptionist team values reviews and usually incentivizes clients that leave honest reviews with an Amazon gift card. Michael talks about how they address negative reviews, and you can learn about it from the podcast. He also discusses how the company operated during the onset of the pandemic down to the peak of things. How did they navigate the challenges? Listen to the podcast to find out. Michael also explains the strategy they used to keep the business afloat in detail. It would be best to listen to this part of the podcast whether you are a startup or an established entrepreneur. Resources The Receptionist Michael Ashford LinkedIn

Brian Casel of Restaurant Engine tells Geordie about working as a restaurant web designer and evolving to become a website SaaS owner. Listen to the podcast for more insights. Brian Casel is an experienced software developer and website designer with many years of experience. Over the years, Brian has evolved from being a freelance web designer into developing a products business. He talks to Geordie about his journey.  What You'll Learn What it takes to move from freelancing into productizing What problems do Brian and his team strives to solve? Which strategy does Brian use to attract customers? Why valuable content is critical Importance of being intentional in decision making How a productizing service works In this Episode Starting a business has never been easy. As a startup entrepreneur, learning from experienced people who have been in the business world for years can be beneficial. Apart from setting websites for restaurants and related businesses, Brian blogs about productized services, bootstrapping and moving from a freelancer to a fully-fledged entrepreneur. If you are considering venturing into the entrepreneurship world, then this podcast is a must-listen.  Brian says moving from freelancing to productizing did not happen overnight. It took him many days of working extra hours, during the weekends, early mornings, and late nights to get his business up and running. Currently, Brian says he is working with a small team of professionals, and the business is doing well. Listen to the podcast to find out why Brian chose to venture into the hospitality field.  While many restaurants today have websites, some of them are still stuck with outdated versions. In today's fast-evolving world, numerous people rely on their mobile gadgets to get information. As a result, every business needs a mobile-optimized website to attract the right clients and scale. Businesses that lack this feature risk losing a significant percentage of potential customers. Together with his wife, Brian introduced online ordering to their client's websites some years back. While this feature has been around for some time now, it has just started getting momentum, with many customers preferring it for its convenience. Restaurants are also appreciating the feature due to its impact on sales, according to Brian. Find out how the online ordering method works from the podcast.  Finding clients interested in Brian's service is not easy, but he has devised the right strategy to reach his target audience and attract customers. Listen to the podcast to learn about this strategy. Apart from Restaurant Engine, Brian also runs Hotel Propeller and a podcast where he talks about everything to do with running a business. Why did he start podcasting? Get the answer from this podcast. Brian is a passionate writer who expresses himself better in writing. He explains why being passionate about something is crucial. In the future, Brian hopes to be waking up every morning and loving his work. Leaving a full-time job was borne out of a passion for pursuing valuable things. Brian explains that he is currently doing what he loves while building things he wants to pursue in the future. Given a chance, would you follow your passion for no pay, or would you opt for something that makes you money first? There is no right or wrong answer to this question. Brian says you can use some opportunities as a stepping stone to get where you want to be. He explains his concept further in this podcast. Brian learned a few lessons after breaking from the freelancing world and venturing into entrepreneurship. He mentions that having the business run on autopilot has freed him to venture into other interests. He also talks about other lessons which you can learn from the podcast.  Over the years, Brian has learned through self-teaching and reading widely. He mentions one book that has been a game-changer in his journey. Learn all about it from the podcast. Whether you are a startup or an established entrepreneur, Brian says you should strive to work on your business instead of working in your business. He mentions that working on what will propel your business forward is critical. You do not have to focus on things you get paid for, according to Brian. Brian says every person should strive to build something for the future and gives an example to illustrate his sentiments. Not many people would delegate their duties to other individuals, but Brian opines that doing so frees you to concentrate on other valuable tasks.  Resources Restaurant Engine Brian Casel Website Brian Casel LinkedIn Brian Casel Twitter E Myth Revisited Book

Michael Mandel, CEO and co-founder of Compstak talks about building his MVP, meeting his co-founder, and building the company from 0-30,000 MRR. Listen for valuable lessons. Compstak is a marketplace that is based on a crowd-sourced framework. Users can leverage the framework to find hard to get data. Michael Mandel, the co-founder, and CEO of this marketplace, talks to Geordie about his journey.  What You'll Learn Who is the ideal Compstak customer? What data does Compstak offer? How Compstak members earn Where do Compstak members get data, and how do they submit it? Importance of granular information Importance of having a technical expert What does credit mean, and how does it benefit Compstak members? Comparison between getting funding and bootstrapping In this Episode The real estate industry is broad, and sometimes finding detailed data can be a difficult task. Compstak, a real estate data company, promises to give you ample experience by providing comprehensive data you would otherwise have difficulties finding. Michael says they collaborate with approximately 30,000 commercial real estate appraisers, brokers, and research experts who share on the Compstak platform. What information do these experts share? Listen to the podcast to find out.  As the team of professionals shares data on the Compstak platform, they give Michael and his team a comprehensive database comprising all deals in the market. Compstak then sells subscription access to allow their clients access to the data. According to Michael, the company is popularly known for its lease comps, and he explains what these are. Get details from the podcast.  Michael says sharing unique, recent, and comprehensive data on Compstak earns clients attractive credits. If they (clients) want to retrieve the data, they can leverage their credits to do so. Listen to the podcast for more insights on how this approach works. 50% of people who give Michael and his team data are brokers, while the remaining 50% are people working in real estate brokerage firms. Compstak members can use a wide range of methods to submit data, which Michael talks about in the podcast. The team has also devised software to ease the process of uploading data while making it as efficient as possible.  Michael's stint as a commercial real estate worker gave him massive experience which played a major role in founding Compstak. He says their mode of operation was inefficient and that pushed him into devising an easy to use and more effective platform. Michael gives a detailed explanation of how clients leverage their data to achieve results. Listen to the podcast and learn.  Compstak has evolved over the years and Michael says they have learned the importance of leveraging crowdsourcing to collect data. He mentions another crucial crowdsourcing lesson, which you can figure out from the podcast. Michael's co-founder who is also the technical expert was working for Compstak full time before Michael joined him even though the company was inexistent then. He (Michael) mentions the process he went through before finally getting a technical person he could partner with. Get the details from this podcast. According to Michael, collaborating with a technical expert is critical, especially if you do not have the technical know-how. He supports his sentiments with an example, which you cannot afford to miss. Starting and building a company can be a tedious and time-consuming process. Michael explains how his initial days looked like as he sought data from every broker he knew. Every startup entrepreneur needs to listen to this part of the podcast. Earning your first customer is not a walk in the park. After launching Compstak in January 2012, it was not until nearly 10 months later that Michael and his team got their first paying client. How did Michael and his team come up with the pricing? While Michael does not remember the details, he says they researched around to determine what their competitors were charging.  Raising money to fund the business was not an easy process. After a year of trying to figure out how to raise money, Michael and his team got angel investors before working with micro venture capitalists. At some point Michael joined the 500 startups accelerator which he admits was a great experience. Listen to the podcast for more details on the accelerator experience. Collaborating with big companies can be both a good and a bad idea. Michael talks about his experience working with a big company. Listen to the podcast for more insights. He also discusses a few mistakes they made along the way. This part is a must-listen for startups and already established entrepreneurs. Michael concludes the podcast by telling listeners to appreciate the small breaks as much as they do big ones.  Resources Michael Mandel LinkedIn Compstak.com Michael Mandel Twitter

Chris Daigle, founder and M & A advisor, talks to Geordie about his passion of the digital marketing industry and how he helps businesses scale. Listen in for the details.  Chris Daigle boasts many years of experience in M & A digital marketing, business development, and business management industries. Today, he is a leading strategic advisor and growth architect. Chris is committed to helping entrepreneurs scale their businesses. He talks to Geordie about his journey. Listen to the podcast and take away some valuable lessons.    What You'll Learn  Why rapid growth can be chaotic for companies How the entrepreneurial operating system (EOS) works Importance of planning in business Importance of thinking in entrepreneurship What does Chris look for in potential clients? What strategy does Chris use to help clients increase the valuation of their companies? Why every entrepreneur should know their conversion numbers  In this Episode:  Chris always knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur from his fifth-grade days when he sold candy bars from his locker. He says that experience opened his eyes to the world of possibilities. At the age of 20, Chris was already running a restaurant, but he was yearning to go to Silicon Valley and learn about technology. Chris would later land in Silicon Valley, where he had an excellent time. Listen to the podcast and get more details about his experience and the lessons he learned.   Amidst business growth, Chris says, entrepreneurs should devise ways to maintain sanity and prevent chaos. A chaotic situation not only stalls development but also may result in business failure. Chris mentions that he has spent the last 20 years enhancing his methodology and devising new strategies to scale companies while ensuring that the scaling is valuable. He highlights a specific quote in the podcast that every entrepreneur should listen to. Chris also explains how he collaborates with company owners to help them recognize opportunities. Together with his team, Chris leverages this strategy to propel companies from seven to nine figures within a record 36 months. Listen to him as he illustrates his magic methodology in this podcast. EOS (entrepreneurial operating system) is designed to give businesses a robust framework to assess their day-to-day operations. Chris talks about the system in depth in this podcast and you cannot afford to miss it. Why do you need a plan for your business? It allows you to achieve your target goals fast, and will still be available when you are not. At some point, Chris discusses the shower time concept, in relation to having a plan, an idea that he got from his friend Justin. Get details of this exciting story from the podcast. Who is Chris's ideal client? He says, his perfect client is someone who is looking for more than just money. He breaks down the components of his ideal client, and you need to listen to the podcast to understand them clearly. Chris also talks about thinking and why doing so is critical. Asking critical questions is crucial for business success. Chris says the quality of your questions determines the quality of the results. He gives an example of growing a business double forth. To achieve valuable growth, entrepreneurs must work as hard as their anticipated growth. Listen to the podcast to understand Chris's perception of how this concept works. How does Chris's strategy accelerate business growth? Results depend on the business level. For example, he says, if your business has already hit seven figures, that indicates the market has identified something valuable from your enterprise. A lot goes into growing a business, and while Chris will not tell entrepreneurs what to do, he assists them in asking the right questions to facilitate growth. Are you an upcoming entrepreneur? Get some examples of those questions from the podcast. Chris explains the strategy he uses to encourage entrepreneurs to ask the right questions that facilitate businesses growth. How does he tell whether a system is working or not? Chris has mastered the art of asking specific questions. He supports his answer with an example which you can listen to from the podcast. Instead of focusing on scaling the business only, Chris says he strives to help entrepreneurs evaluate and stabilize their successful strategies. He explains this method further in the podcast. Affiliate marketing is still significant in today's world. Chris mentions that he collaborates with affiliate marketers and describes how he executes the process. If you are considering affiliate marketing, you do not want to miss this section of the podcast. Chris concludes the podcast by giving listeners some advice he has acquired from working with diverse clients. These are; watch your language and monitor the questions that run through your mind. He expounds on this advice, and you can get valuable insights from the podcast.  Resources  Chris Daigle Website Chris Daigle LinkedIn Chris Daigle Facebook  

Adrian Tobey of Groundhogg talks about coming up with his business idea, building his MVP, and how he propelled his SaaS from poor performance to 30,000 MRR Adrian Tobey is the CEO and sole founder of Groundhogg, a market automation and customer relationship management WordPress Plugin that offers users a comprehensive integration in their WP environment. He talks to Geordie about his journey. What You'll Learn How Adrian discovered CRM How did Adrian's first product operate? Why developers should focus on building their own products The shoemaker's son's syndrome Lessons Adrian learned while working in the agency How Adrian funded his MVP How Adrian and his team launched Groundhogg Advantages of partnering with other professionals Why cheaper solutions hardly solve significant problems What strategy did Adrian use to attain his big break? In this Episode Groundhogg software is specially designed to cater to WordPress and digital marketing agencies. Adrian says he gained experience working as a WordPress developer. His primary focus was building WordPress websites for his clients, complete with layout design and page builders. He would also integrate the websites with effective marketing automation and CRM products such as Hubspot, Active Campaign, and Infusionsoft. Having worked with numerous small businesses, Adrian understands how much small companies struggle with implementing practical strategies with marketing automation software. Groundhogg does not handle small businesses. Find out why from the podcast.  Groundhogg's core business focuses on areas where they are likely to make the most profit margins, that is, WordPress and digital marketing agencies. Apart from requiring minimal support, Adrian says already established agencies are high spenders and always renew their licenses whether their clients thrive or not. Agencies are both persistent and consistent, making them easier to work with. According to Adrian, his business found him, and he gives a detailed explanation why. Listen to the podcast for this exciting story. Many businesses struggle with attracting the right audience to their websites and converting them into paying customers. At some point, Adrian and his dad were working to identify the right strategy to initiate and maintain a conversation between visitors and the business until they finally become paying customers. Adrian explains the most common method that many firms used in the past (some still do) to start conversations which you can find out about from the podcast. He also explains the method he and his dad used to start conversations with potential clients.  At 18 years old, Adrian was already a certified partner of Infusionsoft. During that period, he worked with numerous small businesses and companies. Apart from building thousands of campaigns, Adrian attended the funnel hacking conference to horn his skills. He would then develop his first product while still in University. Adrian learned to code from YouTube and later quit the university. Working on your own product is crucial for creating wealth and establishing yourself in the industry. According to Adrian, working for agencies is similar to the shoemaker's son's syndrome. Listen to the podcast to learn what the syndrome is all about. What is Adrian doing to improve his product? He says a combination of building features and listening to customer demands works for him. Working with the agency exposed Adrian to numerous lessons, which he uses to build his business. He narrates some of these lessons in the podcast.  At some point, Adrian realized that he was getting a raw deal from working for the agency and decided to quit. He gives details of this realization in this podcast. While he is no longer involved with the agency, he agrees that he can identify with most agencies' problems.    Quitting employment can be an easy process, but surviving after that and running a personal business can be difficult. Adrian borrowed some money from his grandfather, which he intended to depend on until his business stabilized. Being at the right place at the right time is crucial for an entrepreneur. Adrian says he spent lots of time in areas where small businesses and agencies were, like Facebook groups. Here, he noticed the frustrations many companies were facing. Listen to the podcast to find out what these were. Adrian knew he could offer solutions for all those problems without fail.  When Adrian and his team launched Groundhogg, they faced numerous challenges. He explains the strategy he used to attract regular customers. This is a long and detailed process filled with multiple failures that you cannot afford to miss. He would later devise the right strategy to develop an audience and create a constant flow of customers, which he would later convert into revenue. Listen to the podcast and learn about it. At some point, Adrian attended an event where he discussed his cash flow and revenue problems. Listen to the podcast to find out the solutions he got from the professionals in attendance. He also explains how he leveraged those lessons to get his big break. Adrian concludes the podcast by encouraging listeners to reach him with any questions they may have. He says he's very reachable and ready to assist where possible.  Resources Ygroundhogg.io Adrian Tobey LinkedIn Adrian Tobey Twitter

Running a SaaS in the very Competitive Space of Online Scheduling with Bridget Harris of Youcanbook.me Bridget Harris, Co-founder and CEO at YouCanBook.Me talks about inventing the scheduling tool and building a  SaaS to 30,000 MRR. Learn more from the podcast.  Before launching YouCanBook.me, Bridget was an advisor in government, parliament, and politics. Apart from running her company, she speaks in tech-related conferences and is passionate about various topics like building businesses from scratch, hiring processes, remote working, understanding the company culture, and bootstrapping. She talks to Geordies about her journey.  What You'll Learn The idea behind Youcanbook.me Problems that Youcanbook.me seeks to solve How Bridget and her team got their first customer What was Youcanbook.me's pricing process in the beginning? The effects of competition on Youcanbook.me Challenges Bridget and her team faced during the initial stages of the company. Strategies Bridget and her team used to facilitate growth in the early days When is the right time for investors to quit full-time employment and focus on their businesses? How do Bridget and her team structure their plans? Phases Youcanbook.me has undergone to achieve the current growth In this Episode: Project management tools facilitate the configuration of tasks, milestones, and calendars. With the right scheduling tool, entrepreneurs can cut down waste, save money, and enhance productivity. What makes Youcanbook.me different from other scheduling tools available today? Bridget says the platform which is one of the oldest in the market is based on a meeting scheduler they had developed in 2007. Development is a continuous learning process, and Bridget says they have worked on multiple projects for many years together with her cofounder. Listen to the podcast to learn about some of these projects and how they have evolved. Today, scheduling is widespread, and this has led to an influx of tools. To stand out from the crowd, Bridget says their tool is specially designed to ease team management processes. The tool facilitates overall scheduling for numerous people across an organization, allowing them to link, pool, and share their calendars. The platform has evolved fast over the last few years. Apart from offering educational data through Youcanbook.me, Bridget says they also deal with small businesses. Currently, the platform has become a robust tool with numerous customers and monthly bookings. Find out the actual numbers from the podcast. Customer feedback plays a major role in the running of a business and often determines its level of success. Bridget says Youcanbook.me is a product built out of customer feedback from their old platform. There are two key types of problems today, Bridget says and illustrates them in this podcast. Listen in to find out. How has the ongoing pandemic affected Youcanbook.me? Bridget mentions that the pandemic has introduced some of the systems people use today. Learn about these systems from the podcast. Bridget explains the idea of having free and paid versions. She also explains the company's current pricing model. Get the details from the podcast. Youcanbook.me is a bootstrapped company and Bridget admits it has not been a smooth journey. Together with her co-founder, they did not receive payment from the business for years. However, they were still working full time which gave them sufficient funds to cater to basic needs. Bridget talks about other strategies they used to survive the difficult financial times which you can find out from the podcast. Quitting full-time work can be a difficult decision, especially in the midst of financial constraints. Get Bridget's nuggets of wisdom on this matter. She talks about considerations you should make before quitting. For Bridget, quitting helped her devise a strategy to earn income from the company. Learn about it from the podcast. Taking risks is critical for success as Bridget explains. However, she mentions risk-taking may not be ideal for everybody and explains the concept further. At some point, Bridget tells the “elves and the shoemaker” story which you cannot afford to miss. According to Bridget, building software products is easy but managing the business, acquiring customers, retaining them, and guaranteeing their happiness can be difficult. Listen to the podcast to find out what Bridget is doing to facilitate the company's future growth. The hiring process can be complex and time-consuming, especially when you hire the wrong people who keep on leaving the company. She explains what Youcanbook.me is doing to make the process much smoother. Bridget shares things she wishes she knew about hiring from the beginning. Aspiring entrepreneurs should listen to this part of the podcast keenly. Bridget concludes the podcast by discussing some of the most important lessons she has learned during her entrepreneurship journey.  Resources YouCanBook.Me Bridget Harris LinkedIn Bridget Harris Twitter

Ertan Can of Multiple Capital talks about his passion for micro funds, investment expectations, and the components that make way for success in his investments.  A fund of funds is an investment approach that involves investing in a collection of funds instead of directly investing in bonds, stocks, or other securities. Ertan Can has devised a new strategy that facilitates varied access to early-phase technology. He has invested in a collection of more than 500 initial-phase technology companies in Europe. Further, he prides himself on having developed a robust international network of founders and venture capitalists. He chats to Geordie about his journey.   What You’ll Learn  Why investing in tech companies can be a complex idea Importance of conducting a market study How to become an investor in Multiple Capital What are rolling funds? Why the Multiple Capital portfolio is less affected by heart downturns, unlike other portfolios Reasons why Ertan would choose one fund over the other  In this Episode  Unlike other VCs and angel investments, Ertan says their strategy does not involve making direct investments into companies. Instead, he says it is a chain that consists of investing in venture capital before getting into the company level. Ertan has a finance background, and living in the financial center in Germany played a huge role in molding him into the person he is today. After completing his late MBA, Ertan secured a job in a family office, where he was tasked with initiating investments into technology organizations. Along the way, he realized that to invest in tech companies, one required specialized expertise. Ertan explains more about his realization, and you can get all the details from the podcast.   It was not long before Ertan approached his employer with a proposal to do things differently, investing with specialists. He would later develop the thesis where he determined realistic specialists. His thesis focuses on investing regionally, and he illustrates his concept in this podcast. Listen and learn. Ertan says his idea has been working for him since he launched it in 2013 to date. He has invested in numerous micro funds, small funds, and mutual funds. Apart from betting fund managers, Ertan says he is getting pitched by companies and as a VC fund. Listen to Ertan as he explains the lack of transparency in the funds market and how you can achieve transparency as an investor.   Conducting market study is critical, and Ertan says he does so often in search of prospecting opportunities. However, Ertan mentions that reaching out to startups through LinkedIn and direct mail can be a significant struggle. Find out why from the podcast. While Ertan sees a need for a match-making SaaS data platform in the fund industry, he says some of the existing platforms are ineffective. How does Ertan go about determining the ideal funds to invest in, or investors he can work with? Listen to the podcast and get his detailed explanation. Ertan says he has adopted a robust selection concept that involves the fund size when it comes to choosing funds. He only invests in small funds because, according to his experience, they perform better than bigger ones. Ertan describes his opinion of small and more significant funds. Is there value in what Ertan is doing? He says the team has always anticipated reaching the top quartile, or two to three times the overall money over the fund’s lifespan. In this case, it is 25% of the best-performing funds. Value, according to Ertan, comes from screening the market and having a thesis to choose his ideal funds. To achieve his goal, Ertan and his team have been sourcing more funds and enhancing their theory. As a result, they are currently at the top decile level. Ertan explains the top quarter returns concept, which you can learn about by listening to this podcast. Has Multiple Capital been affected by the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic? According to Ertan, some businesses have reaped significant benefits during the pandemic, while others have suffered losses. However, he says their portfolio has not been affected. Ertan mentions the company has gained from the current influx of capital in the market. Multiple Capital is now experiencing increased ABC rounds that have surpassed their expectations. Ertan says that while the market is now healthy, it is subject to fluctuate. Many markets are correlated; Ertan says and supports these sentiments with extensive details, which you can figure out from the podcast.  Resources Multiple Capital Ertan Can LinkedIn Ertan Can Twitter

James Ontra, founder and CEO of Shufflrr talks about coming up with his presentation management company idea and navigating challenges to build a six-figure SaaS platform  What began from two phones, a borrowed desk, and cold-calling clients is today a robust sought-after slide presentation solution. Clients can leverage this solution to shuffle, share, and display their content. He talks to Geordie about his journey.  What You’ll Learn How James moved from consultancy to SaaS How corporates can leverage video and graphics to create interactive advertisement content that converts What James and his team did to keep the business afloat amid advancing technology Why having expertise in a specific field is critical for attracting large companies. What makes Shufflrr more of a communication management system How James got his first Shufflrr client The primary content creation tool that Shufflrr uses Who is the key Shufflrr client? Why every entrepreneur needs a LinkedIn account Why a SaaS business is a workflow that needs articulation  In this Episode  James was passionate about presentation long before the internet blew up. He says he acquired a big chunk of experience working in a tech company that manufactured CD ROMs or content slides, where people discuss issues interactively. As technology, evolved and the internet became popular, James held on to his passion. Together with his team, they collaborated with big companies to help them integrate video into content to create advertising presentations. However, with the standardization of video production and the evolution of advanced video platforms, their value equation dropped immensely. Not to be deterred by the turn of events, James and his team would divert their focus into building software. Their clients would use the software to enhance the quality of their presentations. What was the software’s basic function then? Listen to the podcast to find out. With continued technological advancements, the team later converted the software into a comprehensive content management system. James tells the story behind his consultancy job and how it influenced his move into SaaS. Find out all the details from the podcast. James talks about an exciting moment that triggered an instant change in their business model. Do not miss this jaw-dropping section of the podcast. According to James, they built a piece of software at the time, which they sold and settled some of their bills. However, they later realized they had not done things right, a realization that left James frustrated to the point of not wanting to develop the software further. He then embarked on building Shufflrr from scratch. Even with their new software development, James and his team were committed to taking in their new clients whenever they (the clients) were ready. James says it took him 13 months before he could sign up his first paying client on Shufflrr. He mentions that presentations have been critical since the advent of time and gives some convincing examples that you should listen to. James also discusses how companies can use numerous slides to tell their story. He talks about how they got their first client who has been with them to date. Listen to the podcast for the comprehensive details. James has some advice to give to small SaaS companies that are struggling to penetrate the market. If you are a first-time entrepreneur in the SaaS industry, you cannot afford to miss that piece of advice. Pricing is a crucial part of any SaaS platform, and James gives a breakdown of their pricing versions. As an entrepreneur, patience is of the essence, and this gets clearer when James explains that they only started experiencing consistent growth four years after signing their first client. While Shufflrr has salespeople currently, James says most of their sales come from inbound marketing. James talks about a book they have written in collaboration with his sister. He explains the book’s concepts and how they will help readers solve specific problems in this podcast. James is a firm believer in the grandness of content marketing, and he gives his detailed explanation in the podcast. Do not miss this informational part of the podcast. How has presentation impacted the modern world? James talks about this subject in detail and gives practical examples. He mentions that presentations follow a conversation. Previously, people read in a vertical format, unlike today when they read in a slide format, James says. As an entrepreneur, he continues, writing a book gives you authority ahead of your competitors. He concludes this insightful podcast by discussing Shufflrr’s conversion rate from their freemium plan to payment plans.  Resources  James Ontra LinkedIn Shufflrr

Zack Naylor of Aurelius Labs talks about establishing his MVP, co-founding a company, finding the first customers, and building his SaaS product to its current state. Zack Naylor, Co-founder and CEO of Aurelius Labs, has been assisting entrepreneurs in researching customer insights to facilitate the development of excellent products. He talks to Geordie about his journey.  What You’ll Learn The meaning of research, according to Zack How Zack came up with his SaaS company How did Zack come up with his MVP? How Zack and his co-founder structured the company How Aurelius Labs acquired its first customers Why word of mouth marketing is an effective strategy Strategies that Zack and his team have used to achieve growth Importance of remaining active on social media platforms Why Zack and his co-founder were against the idea of acquiring venture capital In this Episode: Market research plays a critical role in helping companies understand the needs of their target customers. Getting feedback from your audience enables you to manufacture the ideal goods that meet customer demands. Zack says his company specializes in user experience, people, product, and market research. The SaaS Company is often defined as an analysis tool or research repository. According to Zack, Aurelius Labs is an all-inclusive platform that allows entrepreneurs to capture feedback, notes, and data from calls, customers, and usability testing. Zack and his team help entrepreneurs to evaluate such data and convert it into core insights. Further, you can leverage the Aurelius Labs platform to search, share and reuse the data based on your needs. Zack gives his definition of research which you can learn about by listening to the podcast.    The ideal Aurelius Labs customer is medium-sized businesses and user experience teams. Zack’s background lies in product strategy and user experience. It is no doubt that he ventured into a related industry. Zack says he spent 15 years of his life working in this industry. Together with his co-founder, they worked at a consultancy firm and would be hired to work on SaaS projects as a team. Zack says he learned a specific lesson and identified a particular challenge from interacting with different clients. What lesson and challenge was this? Listen to the podcast to find out. Zack tells the exciting story of how he came up with his MVP. Find out all the details from the podcast. After Zack shared the MVP idea with his co-founder, they started building it immediately. The platform was bootstrapped for approximately five years, during which they also had full time jobs. They were later laid off at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. From there, they decided to focus on Aurelius Labs full-time. Building an MVP can be a long time-consuming process, as Zack explains. He says they redesigned and redeveloped their application a record three times. Listen to the podcast to find out why they scrapped the app three times. Launching a company can be a challenging process but acquiring your first customer is equally hard. Zack recalls how Aurelius Labs got their first lot of customers in this podcast. What started by charging customers per project is today an established company complete with three plans that customers can choose from. Zack gives a detailed explanation of how the payment plans work and how they help customers choose the right plan for their needs. You will get all the details from the podcast. Zack runs a podcast which he says does not market his SaaS Company. He mentions why he launched the podcast, and you can find the reasons in this podcast. Navigating through the COVID season has not been an easy task for different companies globally. Zack says they have adopted various marketing strategies to push the growth of their company. However, they have experienced a decline in some of their marketing strategies over the COVID season. Still, he is confident that things will get better soon. According to Zack, his team has been occupied with product development, leaving minimal time to apply a wide range of marketing strategies. He highlights some of the techniques they have used before to push for growth and you can determine them from the podcast. When did Zack and his team get their big break? Zack has an interesting answer to this question. He mentions that regardless of how good your company is doing, there is always a risk ahead. Sometimes you may be excited that you are finally making it. However, the feeling doesn’t last as often a cloud of uncertainty engulfs you, and you start wondering where you should go from there. Zack and Joseph, his co-founder, were against getting venture capital from the beginning. Find out his reasons from this podcast. Zack concludes the podcast by saying you do not have to incur considerable risks to start a business that you are passionate about.  Resources Zack Naylor LinkedIn Zack Naylor Twitter Zack Naylor Aurelius Lab

Curtis Boyd, CEO and founder of Objection Co tells Geordie about coming up with the idea for his SaaS company, getting his first customer, and growing it to 30,000 MRR As technology grows and many businesses move their operations online, reputation becomes critical. Curtis Boyd, a skilled online reputation management professional, talks to Geordie about his journey. Listen to the podcast for some insights on protecting your business reputation online.  What You’ll Learn What Objection Co does for its customers How Objection Co deals with churn How much is the Objection Co license? Why reviews are critical for business progression and increased profits What sets Objection Co apart from its competitors? How did Curtis transition from an agency to SaaS? Why offering low prices for your product is not a good idea.  In this Episode:  Technological advancements come with challenges and limitations. For example, adopting digital processes for your business helps you reach a wider audience. However, sometimes you will have to struggle with fake reviews, often from malicious competitors. If you have been facing similar challenges, Curtis, formerly a nursing assistant, is here to help.  Curtis says Objection Co specializes in building technology that helps identify and contest fake reviews on websites like Yelp and Google. The ideal Objection Co customer is the entrepreneur who is struggling with illegitimate or fake reviews written by malicious competitors or customers, disgruntled employees, or even bots. At what point does Objection Co come in to assist your business? Find out from the podcast. Curtis also explains how they go about identifying fake reviews.  Churn can be a significant problem, especially for a business like Objection Co. Curtis agrees that they had struggled with churn before, which left him frustrated at some point. However, he had to develop a robust strategy to address this matter, and he talks about it in-depth in the podcast. Listen and find out the technique he used, and whether it was successful.  Pricing is one of the main factors that customers consider before paying for a service. Curtis talks about their license charges and expounds on what the price covers. If you are considering Objection Co services, you do not want to miss this part of the podcast.  Many entrepreneurs are willing to pay any amount to maintain a good reputation online if Curtis’s interesting background story is anything to go by. He tells Geordie how a doctor approached and requested that he have his (the doctor’s) negative reviews deleted. Having zero experience, Curtis called every company he knew would assist to no avail. At some point, he spent nearly half of his savings to travel overseas in search of a solution. You should listen to this part of the podcast to understand the importance of a good review and the impact of a bad review.  After struggling to get a solution, Curtis finally met someone who took him through the process of removing bad reviews. He later managed to assist the doctor, who paid him a whopping $32,000 and introduced him to other clients. At this point, Curtis quit nursing to venture into the reputation management industry.   Curtis would later go back to school, where he studied computer science and learned how to code. He then built software, marking the birth of Objection Co. Curtis used the software to read reviews, eliminating the need to do so manually. As Curtis became more conversant with artificial intelligence and machine learning, he realized that fake reviews hurt consumers more than entrepreneurs. He explains this concept in the podcast. Listen in and learn.  Curtis sought help in writing and building the Objection Co MVP, a team he says was a total nightmare. Find out why from the podcast. He would later find a different great team which he liked. Listen to the podcast as Curtis narrates the exciting details of how he flew to Ukraine and ended up acquiring a development team. Transitioning from an agency to SaaS can be a daunting task. At some point, Curtis and his team lost some of their clients. Listen to the podcast to understand strategies that Curtis used to facilitate the transition process. During Covid, Curtis says they lost a chunk of customers, seeing that everything shut down. He explains how they coped with the situation before online reviews became critical. According to Curtis, 2020 was one of their best years. He concludes the podcast by explaining the structure of Objective Co financing. Resources Curtis Boyd LinkedIn Objection Co Curtis Boyd Twitter

David Hollander of Order Desk talks about launching his SaaS platform and leveraging his passion for development to grow the company to over 30,000 MRR David Hollander is the CEO and founder of Order Desk, a platform that allows merchants to save time in eCommerce order fulfillment. The business that he started as a side-project has since evolved to become an entirely bootstrapped company with more than five employees. He talks to Geordie about his journey.  What you’ll Learn The story behind the Order Desk platform How Foxy cart works What triggered David to restart his operations? How does David’s new platform differ from his old one? Did the relaunch help boost Order Desk’s performance? At what point did David quit the agency (Foxy cart), and how did he go about it? How David’s customers find him Why David thinks that word of mouth is more effective than affiliate marketing When did David get his big break with Order Desk? Importance of teamwork In this Episode: Order fulfillment is a critical part of the eCommerce industry, and Order Desk strives to make the process smooth for their customers. David says Order Desk is a SaaS platform that mainly deals with merchants. The merchants bring in their orders into the Order Desk platform from different eCommerce channels. They (Order Desk) then dispatch the orders based on the merchant’s request to their preferred fulfillment locations. David tells Geordie how the Order Desk idea was born. Listen to the podcast to figure out how David’s association with Foxy cart led him into meeting different customers with varied needs. He also discusses how he leveraged one customer’s needs to come up with an order fulfillment platform. So robust was the platform that some customers advised him to start charging for his platform. David says he was not ready to start charging for his services, but he thought it was a great idea after some time. According to David, the MVP did not cost him real money, but he spent lots of time building it. David continued working for the agency while building and advancing his SaaS platform. Listen to the podcast to figure out how he added his order fulfillment platform to other main eCommerce channels. Soon, David says, he started receiving different demands from different people, which forced him to consider going back to the drawing board. Listen to the podcast to find out how David started rebuilding his order fulfillment platform and the effort it took to achieve success.  During the rebuilding process, David’s old platform was making $1,000 every month, but customers could not wait for the new platform. Often, all you need to take action is one trigger word which is what happened to David. He says a customer approached, and encouraged him to release the advanced platform. Something then hit him, and he realized he had to release it as soon as possible. David went ahead to launch the platform even though it was not ready. He admits that the platform can be complicated for users and highlights measures he took to make it simpler. Find out the details from the podcast.  David mentions that the platform kept growing, and he added numerous integrations regularly, which increased his income tremendously. He worked long hours based on how excited he was, a feeling he admits was triggered by customer excitement and satisfaction. David says he built integrations upon request from customers. He explains how the process worked, and you can figure the details out from the podcast. At some point, Order Desk was evolving fast, and David realized that he needed to hire even though he was skeptical about it. Why did he struggle with hiring? Find out from the podcast. He also explains how he conducted the hiring process. His first hire turned out to be successful, and by the end of that year (2016), they had significant progress. David would later hire more staff from outside the USA who he says has done a great job. However, he mentions that his first developer left after a few months, which he blames on his (David’s) inability to onboard him accordingly. Did David finally get an effective developer? Find out from the podcast. Order Desk has experienced a particular trend, which David explains further in the podcast. If you are an aspiring eCommerce platform entrepreneur, you should not miss this part of the podcast. David says he prefers email support as opposed to phone support. Find out why this is so from the podcast. His big break happened back in 2019 when he and his five employees went for a retreat. He concludes the podcast by mentioning that successful people should work hard towards their goal. Resources David Hollander Twitter David Hollander LinkedIn

Aaron Ross of Predictive Revenue talks about his startup adventures, being an author, and an entrepreneur. Listen to the podcast to get the best outbound marketing tips.  While many people call it an outdated strategy, outbound marketing remains a popular form of persuasive communication for approaching customers. Marketers can use it to inform customers about their services and products. The main idea of outbound marketing is to generate sales: Aaron Ross, an outbound marketing expert, talks to Geordie about his journey. What You’ll Learn Difference between organic growth and proactive growth What are the different cold calling techniques available? How does Predictive Revenue operate?  Importance of targeting the right companies Data cleaning strategies Why knowing your prospects is crucial In this Episode: The journey to successful entrepreneurship can be challenging, based on Aaron’s story. He talks about starting a tech company that would later fail despite his engineering background. He later opted to learn sales, out of which he formed a team which he says executed outbound prospecting in a very predictive way. While he struggled to help his team achieve double growth, something good came out of his effort. Find out about it from the podcast. He would later start a successful consulting company.  According to Aaron, hitting 30,000 MRR is not proof enough that an entrepreneur has established a product-market fit. He opines there is a difference between organic growth and proactive growth, explains these concepts, and talks about product channel fit. Listen to the podcast and learn. Aaron says his specialty is outbound selling and prospecting. In the outbound prospecting approach, humans are involved in deciding the companies you want to target. How do marketers identify suitable companies? Aaron mentions three crucial channels, which you can figure out from the podcast. He talks about the process of handling customers from the beginning to the end. According to Aaron, many clients may not beware that they do not need outbound prospecting in the first place. Listen to the podcast for his explanation of this concept. When it comes to outbound prospecting, getting your target company right is critical. Aaron opines that what you say on the phone, Email, or LinkedIn does not matter if you target the wrong companies. Are you looking for the ideal strategy of getting your outbound prospecting and marketing right? Aaron speaks about three steps you should follow, which you can learn from the podcast. To get a good return on investment from outbound prospecting, you must have a specific type of customer. What’s more, that customer must pay you otherwise you will hardly make any money. Aaron gives an illustration in this podcast that you must listen to.  What tools can you use to understand your customers? Aaron says there are numerous tools in the market today, and choosing the right one can be difficult. He recommends identifying three suitable tools and testing them to see what best meets your needs. Outbound marketing strategies can lead you to find the ideal customer, but you will also need the right tools to build your lists. To determine the effectiveness of your lists, you will need to send messages through your preferred communication channel. For example, Aaron says you could send 100 emails that do not bounce. If you receive no response at all, that could indicate that the strategy does not work. However, if you receive even one positive response, that would be a good start. Aaron says that the testing process is more time-consuming than many people realize as he breaks down the process in the podcast. Listen to this section keenly to grasp the details. Getting an outbound prospecting email right is not an easy task. Aaron talks about the different factors you should consider before you can start writing. He also discusses strategies you should use to figure out the effectiveness of the Email and recognize mistakes before sending it to your target customers. Listen to the podcast for all these comprehensive details. According to Aaron, an effective cold email should be between 300 and 500 characters. Focus on delivering a short and precise email that the target people will not find boring. Aaron says there are various effective calls to action you can use and gives examples in the podcast. He reiterates that the number of cold emails you send per day varies. However, Aaron recommends between 6 and 8 cold emails, but you can still send more. Cold calling is another outbound prospecting strategy that marketers can use. However, it takes lots of learning to get right. Listen to Aaron’s cold calling tips on this podcast. Aaron concludes by talking about practical SaaS books you should read. Resources Fromimpossible.com  Aaron Ross LinkedIn Predictable Revenue

Colin Gray, CEO, and founder of Alitu, talks about launching his startup and combining it with SaaS to hit $60,000 MRR. Listen to the podcast and grasp the lessons.  The popularity of podcasting has been growing rapidly in recent years. Whether you are currently a podcaster or planning to become one, Alitu.com will come in handy. This efficient tool is ideal for podcasters who want to achieve excellent sound without being audio experts.   Alitu allows you to automate complex audio aspects and features user-friendly drag and drop components to facilitate easy editing. Listen to Colin Gray in this podcast as he tells Geordie more about Alitu.   What You’ll Learn  What does Alitu do for its clients?  How did Colin navigate the startup during its earlier stages?  How Colin came up with the idea of an automated podcaster maker  Importance of content as a marketing concept  Why has Colin and his team maintained the same pricing package since they launched?   How did Colin acquire customers when they first launched?  Importance of affiliate marketing  How Colin and his team identifies affiliates and their revenue share  How is the conversion rate on Alitu from affiliates?  How did the pandemic affect Colin and his team?  In this Episode:   Content is powerful, and Colin demonstrates this when he mentions that Alitu grew from the content they produced. Together with his team, they started writing blog posts to teach their readers how the platform worked and how they could create an excellent podcast. They would later venture into assisting people in creating podcasts on their own before developing the software.   Colin ventured into podcasting through education. He tells Geordie that he was a trainer of lecturers in learning technology at the university for nearly six years. His main goal was to ensure that lecturers understood how to leverage technology to aid their students.   Podcasting was one of the popular technologies then, and Colin’s team encouraged him to consider it. He would later love everything about it and incorporate it into his curriculum at the university. At the same time, he documented what he was learning on his blog, giving birth to the host.com podcast. Colin admits that podcasting back in the day was not as smooth as it is today.   Find out his reasons from the podcast. Editing can be a time-consuming procedure that many people detest. Colin explains how the idea of starting Alitu.com crossed his mind, and you can find the details from the podcast.   Colin says that he spent an entire year developing a plan for his primary business. He also focused on other aspects like content, agency, and affiliate. While Colin had a robust plan for the software at the end of the year, he was yet to start the development stages.   At some point, he applied for funding to support his MVP, which he got and indulged in building the software. Still, Colin says he had to pay a third of the initial MVP cost and explain how he budgeted for the funding. Listen to the podcast to learn.   Colin and his team got some regular clients from the MVP but continued growing content, which he says was their main income. Colin explains this concept further, which you can learn about from the podcast.   What were the components of the MVP? Colin gives a comprehensive explanation of his MVP and the tools behind it, which you can only learn about by listening to the podcast. He says working on the MVP was not only exciting, but it also exposed him to coding even though he had no prior coding experience.   Colin talks about how the MVP operates, and you can get all the details from the podcast. Platforms evolve with time and based on client needs. Sometimes clients may request specific features. How do Colin and his team handle such a situation? He answers this question in the podcast.   According to Colin, most of their traffic was going to their blog, but they worked a way to direct it to the podcast. Find out how they did it from the podcast.   At some point, Colin and his team experienced a surge in traffic on Alitu, and after that, they started growing tremendously. He explains the strategy they used. Every entrepreneur or marketing professional cannot miss the details in this part of the podcast.   Colin highlights the months of November and December 2019 as the moment when they experienced their big break. There were multiple signups, and their client base grew in the first three months of 2020.   He mentions that they are considering introducing higher pricing tiers soon. In conclusion, Colin says that podcasting is an excellent way of selling products because it develops trust among clients and entrepreneurs.  Resources  Alitu.com   The Podcast Host  Colin Gray LinkedIn

Na'ím Anís Paymán of Zeevou talks to Geordie about discovering the Zeevou idea, developing software successfully with zero experience, and funding the MVP.    Na'ím Anís Paymán is the founder and CEO of Zeevou, a customer relationship management platform. Zeevou allows entrepreneurs and managers in the vacation rentals industry to manage their property with ease. He talks to Geordie about his journey.   What You’ll Learn  What prompted Na'ím to launch Zeevou?  What problem did Na'ím experience with his project management software?  How Na'ím navigated the problems he faced in his capacity as the property manager  How did Na'ím fund his MVP when the company was transitioning into the SaaS model?  How the direct booking system works  How the freemium package works  What outbound marketing strategy does Na'ím and his team use?  In this Episode:  According to Na'ím, Zeevou is not an ordinary startup, but what he calls a spin-off startup business. Initially, Na'ím says he had a property management enterprise specializing in managing short-term rentals. Along the way, they faced issues and struggled to determine the right software online.   After days of searching without positive progress, they decided to develop software to help solve the problems existing in their system. Out of this quest, Zeevou was born. Na'ím says while they launched the business recently, his project management company has been in existence for many years.   At some point, they had to discontinue their operations because everything was not working accordingly. He gives a detailed explanation in the podcast. Listen in for details on how they spend six months without a system, instructed his developers to replace the entire system, and how the developers misunderstood its core.    Na'ím says the project management system they were using before was developed for hotels and property managers struggled to make it work effectively. He explains the system in this podcast, and you need to listen to understand. He also mentions a range of issues that hindered the proper functioning of their software. Listen to the podcast to find out how the system Na'ím and his team was initially using operated.   Today, Na'ím says they have advanced their system to accommodate various features, which you can learn about from the podcast. Unlike their previous project management system built for hotels, their advanced system is specially designed for property managers. Na'ím says the system that they launched just when the COVID-19 pandemic hit has experienced significant growth.   He mentions that offering direct bookings has been instrumental in their continued growth and explains how it works. Find the details from the podcast. Na'ím notes that they developed the software as a matter of urgency to handle their issues.   As a result, and seeing that he had not developed software before, they missed some details, which you can learn about from the podcast. He mentions that some of their clients say the software is overly complicated, making it non user-friendly.   Pricing is a critical part of any business when it comes to conversions. Na'ím says the fact that their paid plan is slightly pricey discourages clients from converting. However, they have decided to maintain their prices without competing with other players in the market.   Listen to the podcast to understand why Na'ím and his team keep that principle. How then does Na'ím monetize the platform? He gives comprehensive details to explain this concept in the podcast. You can only understand it better by listening.   Marketing plays a massive role in business continuation. What strategies have Na'ím and his team been using to stay afloat amid the pandemic? Where have they been getting their users? Na'ím says they have done little marketing using funds they received from sponsors. They won most of the sponsorship awards through applications.   A big part of their marketing has been through word of mouth and ensuring that customers are happy. Previously, many of their customers came from Facebook groups and Instagram. They have recently incorporated content development in their marketing strategy. They also have an outbound marketing strategy that you can learn about from the podcast.   According to Na'ím, their property management services and software are currently working well together. Startups need lots of support to thrive, and Na'ím is committed to establishing the right solutions. Together with his team, they are currently working on a tool that startups can leverage to manage all their requirements, including development, marketing, and sales. Listen to the podcast to learn more about this tool.  Resources  Zeevou.com  Na'ím Anís Paymán LinkedIn  Na'ím Anís Paymán Twitter  Na'ím Anís Paymán Facebook

Alex Zerbach, co-founder of carrot.com, tells Geordie about founding the platform's idea, building the MVP, and growing from 0-800,000 MRR. Listen for more details. Carrot is a SaaS platform that streamlines property websites' development to help clients manage investor's assets. While Alex and his team deal with larger enterprises, he mentions that they mainly deal with single clients. Listen to Alex as he shares his story with Geordie.  What You'll Learn The story behind the carrot.com domain How Alex and Trevor converted the agency into a SaaS platform com pricing plans What was the MVP, and how much did it cost? How did Alex go about the SaaS marketing process? When did Alex and his team get their big break? The latest carrot.com development and the story behind it How Alex and his team executed their content marketing strategy SEO strategies that Alex and his team were using Importance of content as a marketing strategy Importance of case studies Strategies Alex and his team used to achieve success from their cold traffic. What strategy did the team use when raising prices? How did Alex and his team manage their finances? In this Episode: When Alex was schooling, a mutual friend introduced him to Trevor, who later became his co-founder, who was launching a SaaS business. According to the mutual friend, Alex needed to contact Trevor for a chance to work together. However, when Alex called, Trevor claimed the project was still in its inaugural stages, but they could still collaborate when everything was ready.  Trevor loved Alex's ambition and was sure that something good would come out of his expertise. Alex maintained contact with Trevor until one day; he proposed collaboration between them. They would later launch Carrot. Alex tells Geordie the story behind acquiring the carrot.com domain. Listen to the podcast to find out.  While in college, Trevor had purchased his inaugural rental property in partnership with a family member. This step marked his entrance into the real estate investing world. Trevor had developed a website through which he could generate leads for tenants. He also used the platform to search for discounted properties. At some point, he became a consultant. Out of sharing about his experience and work on social media platforms, many people became curious, and they started approaching him in search of solutions for their websites. It is from these inquiries that the Rei conversion theme was born. Please find out how Trevor implemented the Rei theme on his customer's websites before Alex joined him. When Alex later joined Trevor, the business was still an agency seeing that he (Trevor) was running his operations manually. Alex left at some point and rejoined the team later on. During his (Alex's) absence, Trevor was struggling to upload themes and contracted out Chris (the other co-founder) to help him out. Surprisingly, Chris completed the massive work in less than half an hour. Impressed, Trevor invited Chris to help him automate the agency into a SaaS platform. Find out how the team executed the process from the podcast. Alex would later rejoin the team as a marketing expert, which he has outgrown to become the director of operations. Alex talks about the platform's pricing plans and the services clients received on placing an order. He gives a detailed explanation about the platform and what set them apart from their competitors then. Listen to the podcast for this informative section. He also talks about the transition period from an agency to a SaaS platform you cannot afford to miss.  After converting the agency to SaaS, Alex and his team needed to market it to reach a wider audience. He mentions that they did not have a hard time achieving that, seeing that Trevor was already famous on social media platforms. According to Alex, Trevor played a massive role in marketing the platform to multiple industry partners. He talks about other strategies they used to promote the platform that you can learn about from the podcast. Alex tells Geordie about their big break moment, which you should hear to grab the details.   Alex talks about navigating their content marketing and the effort they invested in getting things right. Why did the team spend a lot of time on content generation? Did they achieve growth from content marketing? Listen to the podcast to find out. Alex says they experienced growth from investing in paid ads, affiliates, and adding members to the team. He mentions that a significant percentage of their growth came from organic traffic. What impact did COVID have on the company? Alex says they were not adversely affected. Listen to the podcast to figure out how they survived the period. Alex finalizes the podcast with some tips for aspiring SaaS entrepreneurs. Listen to the podcast to figure these out.  Resources Carrot.com Alex Zerbach LinkedIn Alex Zerbach Instagram Alex Zerbach Twitter Alex Zerbach Personal Website