Demio Discover

Meet Josh Pigford. Maker. Dabbler. Founder of Baremetrics which provides subscription analytics & insights for an advanced understanding of your business. Purveyor of Cedar & Sail. Bearded. On this episode, David Abrams and Josh Pigford walk through the initial steps that Josh went through as he scratched his own itch to create the all in one SaaS analytic Dashboard. From the ups and downs, learn the major lessons (like financials and burn rates) that Josh sayus were crucial in their growth from 0 to almost 100k/ MRR in just a few short years. 01:10 - Josh's Story: Scratching Your Own Itch 04:20 - Validating With A Small Twitter Audience 06:30 - Getting The First Customers: Word Of Mouth 09:10 - Getting Offered Funds 13:00 - Hiring People And Founder Overoptimism 15:40 - Burning Rate And More Funding 16:25 - The Accounting Side of The Numbers 19:10 - Nasty Churn Rate, Burn Rate and Expense Metrics 21:10 - How Early In A StartUp Should You Really Focus On Expenses 23:00 - Getting Profitable: Payroll Cuts and Expenses Cuts 26:00 - Keeping Your Team Motivated During Hard Times 27:30 - Lowering Churn Rate 29:00 - Keeping Levels Of Usefulness And Value That Customers Expect 30:20 - Metrics Entrepreneurs Aren't Paying Enough Attention To: Profit 30:40 - Metrics Businesses Are Getting Stuck On: Churn and Conversion Rates On Trials 31:55 - Big Lesson From Failure: Not Paying Enough Attention To Expenses Like Hiring 35:00 - Q&A 36:40 - Entrepreneur Excitement Of Starting Things vs Moving To Stability 39:10 - Josh's Why: Making Things That Are Valuable To People 40:00 - Lightning Questions

Mike Hardenbrook is the Co-founder of Growth Geeks (a marketplace of vetted freelance-marketers or geeks) and Growth Hacker TV which is an educational resource for startups, to acquire, monetize, and grow a user base. Mike is also the Chief Strategist at Workify and a Mentor at Techstars with select founders and companies. His latest project is The Cold Email Academy. 00:30 - Mike's Journey 05:55 - Timing and Validation 06:40 - Building MVP and Audience 10:00 - Bootstrapping vs Funding 14:30 - Getting Chosen by Techstars 15:30 - The Marketing Plan: Outbound Marketing 17:30 - A Proven Process for B2B Cold Email 23:45 - The Next Steps After You Get Their Email Address 25:50 - How To Find Anyone's Email Address 28:00 - Recap Of Critical Concepts and Systems 29:10 - Just Get Started With The First Email! 29:30 - The 3 Components You Need to Nail 31:40 - Failures That Were Big Learning Moments 36:15 - The Lesson Learned With Freelancers 39:40 - Lightning Questions

In this episode, David from Demio will jump forward in the journey to current day Demio. We'll start talking about the current problems we're facing and what we are doing to really fine tune and understand who are perfect target customer is for Demio. In a conversation on churn, we recognized that we have to truly define the "perfect" avatar and why getting a better product-market fit is the fastest way to cut down churn and improve your product. Here's the lessons learned and the wins we've found along the way.

Sid Bharath is a marketer and previously the VP of Growth at Thinkific, an online course platform that he’s helped grow to the leader in the industry. He’s also a marketing consultant and has worked with other software companies to help them grow. In this episode, David and Sid discover his 5 step framework that Sid uses to start the growth marketing process for any Early-Stage startup and how they use an ROI calculator to determine their first marketing steps 00:10 - Sid's Journey into Growth Hacking 04:40 - The Thinkific Fast Growth Experience 07:55 - Best Channel, Swap Partnerships and Influencers 09:20 - The System to Identify The Best Channel To Invest 12:30 - Listening to Customer Support for Customer Feedback 14:20 - Collecting Data to Choose Best Customer to Focus On 18:00 - 5 Step Framework for Growth Hacking: Customer Persona, Customer Journey (Problem Unaware > Problem Aware > Solution Aware > Product Aware > Decision > Retention), Trigger Points Prioritization, Testing, Scaling The Channel That Works 29:45 - Big Failure Lesson: Focusing 35:15 - Sid's Why: A Fascination With Technology 36:50 - Quick Fire Questions

Brennan Dunn started as a freelance developer, then after starting, scaling, and exiting an agency, he decided to start a software company, Planscope which he sold in early 2016 and co-founded RightMessage, a software company that helps bring on-site personalization to the masses. He is also founder of Double Your Freelancing. 00:20 - Brennan's Journey 03:20 - Validation of Software With Feedback 04:20 - Finding His Co-Founder 05:40 - MVP: Building A Course Before The Software 07:15 - Learning What People REALLY Wanted 08:40 - The #1 Thing People Say: "What do I do with this?" 10:05 - Building A Direct Competitor To Something vs When There Isn't Much Out There 11:35 - Software: Start With Education and Let Outcomes of Education Dictate Product Strategy 13:05 - Marketing Strategy: Content (Free and Premium) and Educational Webinars To Strategic Partners' Audiences 17:50 - How to Approach Potential Strategic Partners: Detailed Plan of Value + Proof of Results 23:35 - Failures Turned Into Lessons: Trial & Error, Being Pretty Analytical and Marketing Assets 28:50 - Brennan's Why: "A Better Internet" 35:15 - Lightning Questions

In this episode, David from Demio will explain how on our journey, we entered free beta and recognized we had a big problem with our SaaS - customer usage. We realized that without usage we would get no feedback and no real understanding of our MVP hypothesis. We quickly understpood that we needed to create Activation Points for our users to get in, running a webinar, and getting feedback to us. This caused a spike in customer usage and reduced churn along the way. We opened valuable feedback loops with our users which also enabled us to create a better application. Here's the lessons learned and the wins we've found along the way.

Chris Brisson is CEO of Call Loop, the goto voice and text messaging software that over 45,000 business owners use to grow their business with mobile messaging and his latest venture Salesmsg turns texts into sales. 01:00 - The Story Behind Call Loop 04:45 - Building a Software Company Is Hard 06:20 - Validating The Idea 07:45 - The Next Step After The Initial Customers 09:45 - Breaking "The Magical Number" 10:50 - Churn Rate and Pay As You Go Model 14:30 - Big Lesson Learned: Sell Early and Often 16:20 - Getting Customers: SEO, Pay Per Click, JVs and Partners 18:20 - Packaging to Approach JVs 20:50 - The Fastest Way To Get Momentum: JV's Webinars 21:05 - Figuring Out The Audience 23:20 - Chris' Why 25:25 - "Is The Purpose Big Enough to Continue Doing What I'm Doing?" 26:50 - Lightning Questions

In this episode, David from Demio will explain how on our journey we learned the importance of doing things that don't scale early on. From a marketing perspective, we have heard from nearly every single one of our guest interviews the power of feedback from customers when doing manual process or talking to customers one on one. Although running things that scale can sound like a time-saving, energy efficient part of your business in the early days, you must do things that don't scale to get you educated on what will actually work. And of course, to make sales. You'll also learn our top method to getting our first 50 customers early on! Here's the lessons learned and the wins we've found along the way.

Serial entrepreneur, speaker, investor, former founder of Clarity.fm. Dan is a perfect example of someone who has overcome all odds to achieve massive success. Having built and sold 3 technology companies (first becoming a millionaire at 27), Dan now dedicates his time to coaching high performing SaaS entrepreneur to scale their businesses in a predictable way. 01:40 - Dan's Journey to Clarity.fm 04:30 - The Project Phase and the Business Phase 08:35 - Micro Version of Reality Distortion and Charities 16:00 - The Phases of Fundraising no matter how many times you've had it before 19:15 - How Dan got his First 1000 Experts on Clarity.fm 20:15 - Dan's Superpower 22:35 - Content Marketing should be Strategic in Nature 24:05 - The Relation between Hustle and Progress 24:35 - Product Hacks 26:20 - The Phases of Product Ideation 29:20 - A Big Learning Opportunity for Dan 33:05 - Marketplaces and Pricing 37:20 - Growth Hack: Always Go Manually First 41:00 - Positioning is Everything 41:30 - The Core Customer Framework 44:40 - Failures, Lessons and Restarts 51:30 - Lightning Questions 56:15 - Q&A

In this episode, David from Demio will explain how on our journey we learned the importance of Hiring Slow and Firing Fast to get the right people in your business. From an early stage hire, to filling an immediate role in your company you need to always be aware to make sure you are hiring for a cultural fit and someone who is willing to go on the journey with you. Here's the lessons learned and the wins we've found along the way.

00:35- Brian's Journey to SamCart 03:50- The Unique Angle They Chose and Avatars 09:35 - Getting the First Customers with MVP 14:10 - Favorite Marketing Strategies: Paid Traffic and Affiliates 17:40 - The One Thing Every Listener Should Be Doing for Marketing 18:30 - Budgeting for Advertising and Testing 24:40 - Failures turned into Lessons: Pricing and Customer Support 30:20 - CEO Type Mistakes 32:30 - Brian's Why 36:45 - The New Version of SamCart and The Vision for It 41:07 - Lightning Questions 45:15 - Q&A

In this episode, David from Demio will walk you through how lack of patience itself can be a killer to a founder or co-founder. Walking you through the Demio journey, David helps you learn how a long term vision and understanding of how micro hustle can save any business from burnout and self-sabotage. Here's the lessons learned and the wins we've found along the way.

02:00 - Todd's Story 09:00 - Not Giving Up 13:00 - It's a Numbers Game 19:00 - The Evolution of E5 CAMP Method 20:15 - Life, Impact and Legacy 25:15 - Big Key Lesson #1: Marketing is Different than Selling 29:20 - Big Key Lesson #2: We are In The Idea Business 32:00 - New Ideas: Seeing Combinations 38:45 - Big Key Lesson #3: The Power of The Unique Mechanism 50:00 - If Going Back, Would Todd Do It All the Same? 53:50 - Levels of Customer Acquisition Aggression and Maximum Allowance Acquisition Cost

Join David Abrams and Wyatt Jozwowski on the Demio Journey as we dive deep on our mistakes, lessons learned, and big wins along the way. Here at Demio we've got a story to tell, as well and our new Demio Discover format will overview just that. In today's episode, David Abrams gives a full overview of what an MVP (Minimal Viable Product) is and how important it is for your business to succeed.

Do you have the full story of the Demio Journey? No problem, here at Demio we've got a story to tell, as well and our new Demio Discover format will overview just that. We'll explore lessons learned, major breakthroughs, amazing wins, huge failures, and the best takeaways you can implement into your business. In today's episode, David Abrams gives a brief recap of the journey thus far and explains what's to come. Start here if you're just tuning in :)

01:25 - Nathan's Journey 05:30 - Finding your Passion 08:30 - The Importance of Design 13:50 - Podcasting, Instagram and Content Quality 21:10 - The Power of a Magazine and Amazing Guests 27:00 - Starting vs Scaling 29:00 - Big Lesson: Learn from smart people who have done it 31:35 - Q&A (SaaS, Memberships, Advertising, Facebook Free Groups...)

01:10 - Eric's Story 06:00 - Giving up, Gut and Unsolicited Feedback 07:30 - Growth Strategies - Consistency Over Time 12:15 - From 3 to 22 Million/Year - Hiring Great People 13:12 - Lessons from Poker: Controling Emotions to let go 15:05 - Content Marketing and Authority 16:50 - Podcasting - Building Relationships 18:45 - Staying on Cut Edge of Marketing 20:25 - A Day in the Life of Eric Sui... 22:00 - Systems and Processes 23:00 - Hindsight and Perseverance 27:10 - Charity of Choice 27:25 - What Eric would tell his Younger Self before starting

02:25 - The Live Chat: Pros and Cons and the Value of Great Customer Support 06:05 - Jack's Story: Coding and Discovering the Power of Deadlines 16:25 - Limiting Beliefs, Small Obstacles and Figuring it Out 20:45 - "Setting the Criteria" in Order to Reach the Conclusion You Want 30:05 - Urgency and Scarcity Principles Applied to Funnels 32:00 - Entrepreneurs: Working for Someone Else vs Working on Your Own Thing 33:30 - The Tactical Triangle Concept and Chapter 37:30 - Applying Past Lessons: Small Improvements on Stick Rate for Revenue Growth 38:55 - Growing Pains and Hiring Skills 40:45 - Management and Leadership through Empowerment 47:30 - What's Next 50:40 - Customer Support Training 52:50 - If Starting Today from Scratch...

01:40 Don’s Story 13:30 Creating a Saas Business 18:00 Getting Funding 20:55 The Pitch – Pop Pop 24:40 Motivation and Burn Out: Why You Do What You Do 29:15 Competition and Leadership in a Market 32:35 The Importance of Having Perspective on Hard Days 33:45 Key Lesson: Keep It Simple 37:35 Q&A

03:25 Joel’s Story – Engineer to Entrepreneur through Sales Presentations 16:05 Taking a Leap of Paith, Failures and Identifying THE big opportunity 23:45 The Missing link and Most Common Mistakes People do with Webinars 26:11 Pain Points and Key Desires 29:27 Metrics and Benchmarks for Webinars 35:24 Audience Targeting and Market Research 40:48 Marketing Awareness Pyramid and Content Marketing 50:40 Q&A

01:35 Sunglasses Spark, Shutdowns and Side Project Plug In Success 09:30 “Everything was a lesson in itself” Mindset 11:33 Painful First Lessons Hiring Developers 14:55 Finding a Big Partner to Launch a Product 19:42 User Interface Design 23:00 Big Lessons from Launches: Prepping, Timing and Backing Up Everything 31:15 Multi Projects, Launches and Teams 32:25 Upviral Story 36:30 Shooting to the Moon but also being Realistic 38:45 How to Value/Price your Product 42:00 Getting into a Recurring Business and Long Term Vision 44:20 Finding and Hiring Developers: Trial Projects 46:08 Hiring and Company Culture 47:50 “If you launch something you’re proud of, you’re launching too late” 48:50 Staying Motivated when Products don’t take off 51:05 Running a Software Company from Europe

01:38 – Jon’s Journey 07:23 – Big Takeaways: the right mindset – Tenacity, Will and Determination to stick with it and Always be Testing to Find the Winners 10:04 – The Importance of Understanding the Emotional Intent 11:40 – How to Research Customers and Buying Habits 15:02 – Baby Steps and Thinking Bigger 18:56 – Investor Mindset and moving to Shopify 20:25 – Managing also the Backend: Customer Service and Fulfillment 22:25 – Customer Service in Stores vs Customer Service in Saas 24:55 – Segmenting Customers and Messaging 26:54 – Developing an Ecommerce Platform, Customer Validation and Pre-Selling 37:05 – Balancing Having a Grand Vision and Executing it: Patience 38:55 – Emotional Support Systems and Business Partners 40:04 – Key Lessons from the Journey so far: Patience and Craziness 41:40 – Q&A

02:38 Matt’s Journey: Born an Entrepreneur, Crashing and Starting Over 11:35 Mindset Shifts: Doubts and Focus with an Entrepreneurial Mind 14:00 Looking Inward to Find Your Own Path 17:15 Key Lessons: the Goal should be figure out how to get life balance but to get there you start by getting unbalanced 20:15 Habits: “Miracle Morning”, Routines and Mind Hacks 30:00 Matt’s Software Startup Journey 33:10 Trusting and Upgrading yourself and Life Inventories 34:20 Measuring Growth and Life Visions 40:40 Q&A

01:18 Kevin’s Story 07:12 “Back to the wall” Moments and Outcomes 09:40 Finding your Big Goal and the 3 Reasons people become entrepreneurs 14:25 Sales Training Keys – Details, Results and Promises 20:35 Baselines, Trials and Conversion Rates 21:10 What Exactly to say when selling to a small business owner 25:00 Kevin’s Ninja Trick to gain immediate Trust from a business owner 27:00 Struggles, Wins and Computer Geeks 29:35 The importance of the right people in place to carry your vision/idea and ways to incentivize them 31:50 How to change the mindset “I’m saving the money by doing it all myself” and the Dangers of Burnout 37:50 Q&A

03:15 Joe’s Story and his Why 10:38 Service business and Software business 13:55 Finding the right pain points to solve and understanding the marketing angles 15:42 The need for a USP that makes a splash so you’re not a “me too” 20:55 Big takeaway: stay focused on serving the same tribe 22:16 Big takeaway: go deeper with your customers 24.40 Building systems & processes so you can keep inventing as an entrepreneur 26:03 A process to role out a new offer 34:00 Q&A

01:45 Zach’s Story 03:57 Past lessons applied to the new business and Scaling with Confidence 09:58 Recommendations for Testing Budgets 14:13 Zach’s insights on campaigns and landing Pages and Benchmark Metrics 19:55 How to best market FunnelDash benefits if you are an ad agency or freelancer consultant 23.30 Dashboard Templates design and business strategy 38:00 A big lesson learned from their first client 40:30 Q&A

02:50 Dave’s Story 09:15 How LinkedIn changed all for Dave and the big lesson: “Be where your market is” 11:08 The reality of starting out and the need for niching down 13:30 Doing work for free to build skills and feedback 15:20 How Dave got into software and building Proof 19:30 Developing products based on internal needs and software as a business 20:09 The marketing lessons Dave brought from his consulting experience to his software business and the importance of having a great product for longevity 25:42 The Agile Methodology: MVP and learning from users 33:00 Q&A

01:40 Kyle’s Story 06:15 How Kyle’s Dad planted in him Entrepreneurial Seeds 11:30 Thinking vs Action, Morning Routines and Tasks List vs Outcomes List 22:40 Validating: Minimal Viable Product and Minimal Marketing Funnel 35:40 Q&A

03:20 Luke’s Story 09:43 “Money is a By-product of Value” 10:55 Mindset during Scaring Periods and “that car” 13:43 The Importance of Mentorship Early On 14:36 Mental Shift: Fear of Failure vs What Happens if I Succeed 15.40 The Learning Bubble vs Going Out and Taking Action 16:50 Trait: Commit to Something and Actually Finish It. 18:47 “The Confidence Gap” book and Mental Fears 20:05 Perseverance as an Entrepreneurial Trait 22:40 Core Values, Goals and Dreams 25:40 Age is just a Mindset Block 27:30 More Value You Provide, More Financial Return You Get 33:55 The Advise Luke would Give to Himself Earlier On 40:10 Q&A

2:00 – Los’ Story 5:25 – Why and How Los got into webinars 12:00 – Big takeways from Los’ story 15:03 – The need for Mental Perseverence in entrepreneurs 16:00 – The Comparison Complex and identifying your Why 18:20 – The Mindset Upgrade needed for entrepreneurs and what David’s reading at the moment 21:00 – What advise would Los give to himself if he was starting out – Content Creation 22:00 – Building Relationships and Return On Relationships (ROR) 22:54 – One marketing and sales system that Los is doing right now and you can apply in your business 27:30 – Tricks from Los and David for people starting with webinars 29:45 – The one thing Los is excited for 2017 32:27 – “Perfectionism is the enemy to action” Q&A Session