POPULARITY
The First 100 | How Founders Acquired their First 100 Customers | Product-Market Fit
Rand Fishkin is the co-founder of Moz, SparkToro, and Inbound.org. When it comes to SEO and digital marketing, it's hard to find someone more knowledgeable than Rand Fishkin. His popular blog, hundreds of keynotes, and 2 hyper-successful SaaS businesses are a testament to his skill.Rand Fishkin was the founder and former CEO of Moz, a leading SEO software for marketers created in 2007 that grew out of the active followers of Rand's popular SEOmoz blog. Moz grew quickly to over $30 million in revenue by 2013, having raised $30 million in venture capital investment. This Post is Sponsored by ALL IN ONEPlay the Euro 2024 Predictor Game and beat the leader.Think you've got a crystal ball for the beautiful game? Can you sniff out surprise victories and predict the heart-stopping moments that make the Euros unforgettable?This is your chance to go beyond cheering from the sidelines and become a Euro 2024 champion (well, kind of).Introducing All in One Euro 2024 Predictor Game.Join for FreeWhere to find Rand Fishkin:• Website: (9) SparkToro: Overview | LinkedIn• LinkedIn (8) Rand Fishkin | LinkedInWhere to find Hadi Radwan:• Newsletter: Principles Friday | Hadi Radwan | Substack• LinkedIn: Hadi Radwan | LinkedInIf you like our podcast, please don't forget to subscribe and support us on your favorite podcast players. We also would appreciate your feedback and rating to reach more people.We recently launched our new newsletter, Principles Friday, where I share one principle that can help you in your life or business, one thought-provoking question, and one call to action toward that principle. Please subscribe Here.It is Free and Short (2min).
If you feel like the ‘unicorn or bust' playbook isn't for you, then this episode definitely will be. Rand Fishkin is a multi-time founder and published author of Lost and Founder. He founded Moz, raised $29M in VC, grew to $50M in revenue and exited for $70M. But he ultimately realized that the VC-backed life wasn't for him. So he went on to start SparkToro, a profitable 3-person startup that does $2M in revenue and takes only 30 hours a week of work. For those of us in the VC-backed startup world, it's a totally different way to play the game. It won't make you a billionaire. But it very well may make you $10M— with less stress, less work, and less risk. If you want a transparent account of the pros/cons of a venture-backed vs a bootstrapped startup, check this episode out.
Rand Fishkin is the Founder of Moz and author of the new book 'Lost and Founder.' He is also the Co-Founder of SparkToro. Rand's new book reads part handbook for founders and a documentation of Rand's journey going from working for his Mother's ad agency to starting, then ultimately leaving Moz. In this episode, Rand opens up about writing the book - we discuss how VC funding is not right for every company, his fight with depression as a founder and the different approach he is taking to funding his new company SparkToro. This episode was originally published in 2018.
➡️ Like The Show? Leave A Rating: https://ratethispodcast.com/successstory ➡️ About The Guest Rand Fishkin is cofounder and CEO of audience research software startup, SparkToro. He's dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through his writing, videos, speaking, and his book, Lost and Founder. In 2004, he created the SEOmoz blog, which, over the next decade, became the world's most popular community and content resource for search marketers. In 2007, the company (Moz) transitioned from consulting to software and Rand took the role of CEO. Over 7 years as CEO, Rand grew Moz to 130+ employees, $30M+ in revenue, and traffic to 30M+ visitors/year. He raised two rounds of funding, led three acquisitions, and a rebrand. Rand stepped down as CEO in 2014 during a rough bout with depression and left the company 4 years later. Rand was also the co-founder of Inbound.org alongside Dharmesh Shah. The site was sold to Hubspot in 2014. In 2018, Rand founded SparkToro and published, with Penguin/Random House, Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World. Rand previously co-contributed to two books: Art of SEO, and Inbound Marketing & SEO. He's been profiled in the Seattle Times, featured in Puget Sound Business Journal's 40 Under 40, named to BusinessWeek's 30 Under 30, written about in Newsweek, The Next Web, the Inc 500, and hundreds of other publications. ➡️ Talking Points 00:00 - Rand's story. 04:58 - Arbitraging Pokémon cards. 09:54 - How Rand built Sparktoro. 16:21 - You don't need to raise VC money. 24:18 - Bootstrapping vs. VC money. 40:40 - Product led growth, engagement and recidivism. 56:36 - The issues with startup culture. ➡️ Show Links https://www.linkedin.com/in/randfishkin/ https://twitter.com/randfish ➡️ Podcast Sponsors 1. True Bill—Control Your Subscriptions https://truebill.com/successstory 2. Express VPN — Protect Your Online Activity https://expressvpn.com/successstory 3. Get Abstract - Summarizes and Rates Thousands of Books https://getab.li/success 4. Hubspot Podcast Network https://hubspot.com/podcastnetwork
In this high-energy return to the subject of scaling your business, Ryan returns to share with you the empowering and insightful ways in which you can grow and develop your business and its capabilities, in order to meet the challenges of tomorrow. Ryan discusses the importance of revenue and why it is any business's lifeblood, why balance is crucial in work and life, and how he personally pulled himself back from failure in order to come back better than ever. KEY TAKEAWAYS The pressures upon founders to serve the needs of people, or to execute on really aggressive numbers, are very hard to achieve. If we do not strike the right balance between work and life, then the frustrations of one can negatively impact the other. If we employ the necessary startegy, and focus on attaining the mind-set required, we can pull ourselves back from any challenge, and achieve even greater heights. BEST MOMENTS 'I want to share some of the best stuff in the world that you can learn about revenue growth' ‘As you grow in life, there are different experiences that will make an impact on you' ‘Revenue is the oxygen – the lifeblood of every business' VALUABLE RESOURCES ABOUT THE SHOW How do you grow like a VC backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO's and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World's Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Sam Jacobs (Founder of Pavilion), Kris Rudeegraap (Founder of Sendoso) and Rand Fishkin (Founder of Moz and Sparktoro). This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less. ABOUT THE HOST Ryan is a Founder, Podcast Host, Speaker, Loving Father, Husband and Dog Dad. He is a 18x award winner and grew a business unit from 0-$30M in Annual Recurring Revenue while he adding $30M in capital revenue in less than 6 years. He did this all with only 4 sales people and without demand generation. Whether you are a new Founder, VP or CEO who is already generating 6, 7 or even multiple 8 figures annually, you are going to gain knowledge about sales you didn't know existed. CONTACT METHOD Ryan Staley - https://ryanstaley.io/podcast/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-staley/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ryanstaleysales Support the show: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-staley/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode of Sales & Marketing Talk Show, Rand Fishkin, founder of Moz & SparkToro shares his thoughts about audience intelligence: ✔️ Why should companies understand their audiences better & how you got excited about the topic? ✔️ What should every company understand about their audience? ✔️Rand's tweet from 2015: “Best way to sell something - don't sell anything. Earn the awareness, respect & trust of those who might buy”. Is this still working? ✔️ Previous guest question to Rand: Once you've nailed down who your ICP is, how can you use SparkToro to identify who your potential customers vs potential amplifiers are?
Rand Fishkin did not wake up one day and decided he was going to build one of the leading SEO software platforms. He has been on a mission to help people, whether it is search engine optimization with MOZ or making market research accessible to everyone through SparkToro. Rand shares his incredible entrepreneurial journey and is a living testament that nice guys don't always finish last. For more information: •SparkToro: https://sparktoro.com •Amanda Russell: https://amandarussell.co •Neal Schaffer: https://nealschaffer.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this episode, I chatted with Rand Fishkin - Founder, SparkToroTopic: The SparkToro StoryRand Fishkin is the co-founder and CEO of SparkToro. He's dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through his blogging, videos, speaking, and his book, Lost and Founder. When Rand's not working, he's most likely to be in the company of his partner in marriage and (mostly petty) crime, author Geraldine DeRuiter. If you feed him great pasta or great whisky, he'll give you the cheat code to rank #1 on Google.SparkToro is an audience intelligence platform offering a search engine to discover any target audience's influential publications, channels, and people. It is a perfect tool for marketing agencies, in-house marketers, PR agencies and SEO professionals. Discussion Topics How did Rand start his journey with Moz? The SparkToro idea - The Beginning What is SparkToro? Who is it for? Top features of SparkToro - for Marketers and SEO folks Rand's philosophy on SMBs, Personal Brand, and Brand Building And more.For more such episodes, follow The Thrifty Marketer Podcast at https://bit.ly/2EN15cJFor SMB Marketing tips, visit https://bit.ly/3hHaj8V Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
On this episode of the Jason Cavness Experience I talk to Rand Fishkin – Founder of SparkToro CavnessHR website: https://www.cavnessHR.com Jason's email: jasoncavness@cavnessHR.com @cavnessHR across social media @jasoncavnessHR across social media We talk about the following How he grew Moz from 7 to 134 people and was that the right thing to do. His new company SparkToro. His advice to marketers and founders in our new economic reality. Why HR is important to small business and startups. Rand's Bio Rand Fishkin is the cofounder and CEO of SparkToro. He's dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through his blogging, videos, speaking, and his book, Lost and Founder. When Rand's not working, he's most likely to be in the company of his partner in marriage and (mostly petty) crime, author Geraldine DeRuiter. If you feed him great pasta or great whisky, he'll give you the cheat code to rank #1 on Google. Rand's Social Media Company Website: https://sparktoro.com/ Rand's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randfishkin/ Rand's Email: rand@sparktoro.com Rand's Twitter: https://twitter.com/randfish Rand's Advice One of my big things that's proved valuable for me personally is if all the media and coverage and the environment you're swimming in and your peers around you are going in one direction. It can be really valuable to choose a different one. I'm a big believer in being the exception to the rule. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
This week the girls discuss why thinking about intent is important when writing content and how it can help you to rank successfully in search engines such as Google. In the words of Rand Fishkin (Founder of Moz), "Educate before you convert and find ways to filter for not right customers." There is of course a feature and this time we find out how good Hannah is at deceiving Sarah and our listeners...
Check in with us all week for recaps of #INBOUND19 from our host and Creative Director, Jon Sasala. Today's On The Road episode of 'Inbound & Down' covers the official opening day of INBOUND, including the exciting sessions Jon attended and the main events of the day: keynote sessions from co-founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. Show Notes Jon's Sessions: Marketing Then & Now: A Fireside Chatwith Kipp Bodnar (CMO, HubSpot) and Rand Fishkin (Founder, SparkToro) Discussed the evolution of marketing, and marketers today. A focus on how heavily data is relied on in marketing and how it's affecting creativity. Changes in data security are on the horizon and the industry needs to prepare for the new landscape with said changes. Examples: Chrome deleting cookies after 14 days Gmail following Outlook and disabling auto-load on images in emails Rand touched on what type of content works, and how it's ineffective to produce content for who you think your customer is. Rather, content should be produced for the people who will share your content and become influencers. The Robots Are Coming—How to Use AI to Make Smarter Marketing Decisions with Mike Lieberman (CEO and Chief Revenue Scientist, Square 2) A slight tie-in to Square 2's proprietary software, MAXG, this session discussed how to use data gathered from AI to make better marketing decisions. For example, AI can analyze a group of landing pages and decide which are worth optimizing. It can also be used to gather user data like best send times per individual person or overall industry (as well as much, much more). Agile for Marketing? Yes, It Really Works! with Wangui McKelvey (VP, Product Marketing, IBM Security) and Kate Reed (Vice President, Performance Marketing, IBM Security) Geared towards individual businesses, this session was an overview of how Wangui and Kate implemented Agile and Scrum into the marketing side of IBM. -- Keynote Sessions: Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah Spotlight with Brian Halligan (Co-Founder & CEO, HubSpot) and Dharmesh Shah (Co-Founder & CTO, HubSpot) New Species of Disruptor | Brian Halligan Halligan introduced a new type of disruptor that is different from the typical B2B-type. This new 'Experience Disruptor' lives in the B2C realm. They're different in that these B2C disruptors aren't claiming a better business model, but are focusing on better user experiences. Five things that qualify an Experience Disruptor Focus on experience-market fit rather than product-market fit Processes are frictionless rather than friction-filled Customer experience is personalized, rather than anonymous Sell through customers rather than sell to customers Bust the typical business model rather than follow Facing Fears: Growing Better By Growing Bolder | Dharmesh Shah Dharmesh used his keynote to share some personal stories and fears spanning from his childhood up until just this summer, where he conquered his fear of water for his son. Each fear represents a lesson learnt and they serve as a reminder to constantly grow and evolve in our day-to-day lives as well as in business. Five fears Fear of Commitment Fear of Differences Fear of Change Fear of Disappointing Fear of Inferiority Christopher O'Donnell Spotlight with Christopher O’Donnell (SVP of Product, HubSpot) Last year's big product takeaway was a new Hub. This year, HubSpot decided to focus on feedback and make its software easier and more accessible for the user. Using information collected from Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and the product forum, the team realized that requests were falling into two categories of "I need HubSpot to be easier," and "I need more." The updates are divided into those two categories: Easier Contact Deduplication Tool Find similar contact records using AI and merge Load speed Navigation loads immediately, and a contact record loads in 2.95 seconds up from 5.87 seconds Workflows If/then branch merging Folders in workflows Ecommerce Generate buy now links powered by Stripe More App marketplace redesign Showcases 300+ integrations and displays information more clearly Permission Sets You can limit access further within teams NPS Emails Now a part of workflows Adaptive page testing Test multiple different pages at once, and over time the highest performing page will be served. At the end of x time in the test you can proceed with the most successful page. Facebook Messenger Now fed into your shared inbox Attribution Reporting Better reporting on where people are coming in and converting Email on free CRM Connect: Facebook Twitter Instagram LinkedIn YouTube Blog
On Episode 27, Rand Fishkin (Founder of Moz and SparkToro) and Shiv discuss how to avoid the biggest pitfalls of being a SaaS founder, Rand's journey with Moz, his book "Lost and Founder" and the 5 things he is doing differently as a second time founder.
Rand Fishkin is the founder of SparkToro and was previously cofounder of Moz and Inbound.org. He’s dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through the Whiteboard Friday video series, his blog, and his book, Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World. When Rand’s not working, he’s most likely to be in the company of his partner in marriage and (mostly petty) crime, author Geraldine DeRuiter. If you feed him great pasta or great whisky, he’ll give you the cheat code to rank #1 on Google. Show notes are at: https://www.justgogrind.com/rand-fishkin-podcast/ Join the Just Go Grind community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/justgogrind/ Sign up for the Just Go Grind newsletter for insights on launching and growing a business: http://www.justgogrind.com/newsletter/
There are few people who know the worlds of B2B SaaS and B2B marketing as well as Rand Fishkin. Rand has worked in the field for over 15 years and throughout the course of his career he's founded two SaaS companies, Moz & SparkToro, co-founded inbound.org with HubSpot's Dharmesh Shah, published his book "Lost & Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World", is a renowned keynote speaker, and you might also know him as the star of Moz's ever so popular Whiteboard Friday video series. In this episode we draw on all those years of experience as Rand shares his field guide to B2B SaaS Marketing where we discuss: - The actual purpose of marketing and what it should achieve - The evolution of the SaaS space from 2003 to 2018 and what it means for marketers today - How to balance between long-term growth strategies and short-term growth tactics - How to develop your content marketing strategy and factors you need to consider - The importance for marketers and SaaS companies to be behaviour-driven and not goal-driven - Why Rand started SparkToro and some of the important lessons he learned from building Moz that he's applied to SparkToro - How Rand's developing the marketing strategy for SparkToro - The marketing strategies that worked for Rand back in 2003 and that still hold true today Links: SparkToro >> https://sparktoro.com/ Moz >> https://moz.com/ SparkToro Trending >> https://sparktoro.com/trending The Law of Shitty Clickthroughs >> https://andrewchen.co/the-law-of-shitty-clickthroughs/ Lost & Founder >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35957156-lost-and-founder The Billionaire Who Wasn't >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2842145-the-billionaire-who-wasn-t Indie Hackers >> https://www.indiehackers.com/ Typeform >> https://www.typeform.com/ Follow Rand on Twitter >> https://twitter.com/randfish --- Advance B2B >> www.advanceb2b.com Follow The Growth Hub on Twitter >> @SaaSGrowthHub Follow Edward on Twitter >> @NordicEdward
Rand attributes a majority of the success that MOZ, an SEO company, achieved to his WhiteBoard Friday's weekly vlog. Rand continues to share examples of how and why your content needs to be done with purpose in order for you to benefit from the power of this type of contact with your audience. To Reach This Guest Visit: https://moz.com/rand/ Follow on Twitter: @Randfish https://twitter.com/randfish --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/phillip-lanos/support
On this episode of Protect the Hustle, Patrick takes a closer look at the crucial topic of diversity, including why diversity is so important, why as a sector we're pretty bad at creating truly diverse teams, and ultimately how we can make sure we're holding the line when it comes to diversity to make sure we're creating the best environment for our teams. Our journey exploring and learning about diversity includes interviews from David Cancel (CEO and Founder of Drift), Julia Austin (Senior Lecturer, Harvard Business School), Rand Fishkin (Founder of Moz and Sparktoro), Sarah Hodges (Partner at Pillar VC), and returning commentary from Patty McCord, former Chief Talent Officer of Netflix. This episode also contains a preview to two studies conducted by ProfitWell - one on resume bias and the other on the different work preferences amongst different demographics.
#145: When Rand Fishkin was 25 years old, he carried $500,000 in credit card debt. Less than a decade later, Rand was the Founder and CEO of a company that grossed $35 million in annual revenue. In this podcast episode, Rand shares the story of hitting his financial rock-bottom and making the ultimate comeback. _______ The saga began in 2001, when then-22-year-old Rand dropped out of his senior year of college to grow a business with his mom. His mom Gillian owned a small marketing company that helped local businesses with tasks like placing ads in Yellow Pages. (If you don't know what that is, ask someone over 30.) Rand had an early entrepreneurial streak, and had spent the late 1990's and early 2000's working part-time for his mom's business. By his senior year, he was ready to dive in full-time. Gillian and Rand both realized the internet was more than a passing fad. Households were switching from dial-up modems to broadband connections. Clients were more interested in websites than Yellow Pages ads. The mother-son duo decided to start designing websites for local businesses. From 2001 to 2004, they hired contractors, rented office space, hosted booths at conferences, and purchased advertising. They paid for most of this with personal credit cards in Rand's name. By 2004, they'd accumulated $150,000 in credit card debt. Then they defaulted. They couldn't make the minimum payments anymore. The interest and late fees grew this balance to an astronomical $500,000. They decided not to declare bankruptcy. Instead, they took a two-pronged approach: Rand's mom spent the next three years negotiating with creditors, getting big chunks of the interest and late fees waived in exchange for making payments on the principle balance. Meanwhile, Rand focused on growing the business. Several of his clients needed help with a specific aspect of internet marketing called search engine optimization, or SEO. Rand began researching SEO tactics and started a blog to share his findings. This blog attracted new clients, and soon Rand developed a reputation as an SEO expert. He created a company called SEOMoz, later rebranded as Moz, to offer consulting services for businesses. After a few years, his company started developing and selling subscriptions to SEO software tools, as well. By the time Rand stepped down from his role as CEO, the company had raised multiple rounds of funding and was collecting $35 million in annual revenue. But there's a difference between a company's earnings and the personal income of its founders. Today, Rand and his wife still have a liquid net worth that's less than one million. How did Rand transition from carrying $500,000 in debt to becoming the founder and CEO of a successful eight-figure company? Why isn't he a millionaire yet? And what lessons about entrepreneurship and finance can he share with the world? Find out in this podcast episode. ___ P.S. Rand's wife, Geraldine DeRuiter, is a hilarious travel writer and an alumni guest of this podcast. You can listen to her interview in Episode 77. http://podcast.affordanything.com/9-years-nonstop-travel-geraldine-deruiter-everywhereist/ P.P.S. If you'd like to learn more about starting a blog, check out this free tutorial.
Letting go can be extremely difficult. When you build something from the ground up and work on it for years, it becomes part of you. Today's guest, Rand Fishkin founded Moz, which has grown into one of the most massive SEO empires. Moz now has 36,000 customers, 160+ employees and does around $47 million dollars in annual revenue. Just recently, Rand Fishkin has stepped away from the day-to-day operations of the company and is ready for the next adventure. But what prompted him to leave the empire he built? In today’s interview, we discuss the pressure for entrepreneurs to fit within the Silicon Valley model of success, and how venture capital can be detrimental to a founder in the long run. We cover a lot from self-doubt to arrogance to the need to confront. Rand talks honestly about his difficult move out of the CEO position at Moz and into building his next venture, SparkToro. In This Episode, You Will Learn: How SEO is still the best practice for driving traffic to a site (03:10) Importance of trial & error and learning as you go (04:10) The vision Rand had for Moz early on (12:12) Why you don't need to build the next Facebook or Amazon (28:00) How arrogance and depression are connected (31:40) Stepping down from the CEO position (39:20) Rand's new book and promotion around it (44:35) Some Questions We Discuss: What's your background? (03:53) Did you enjoy raising capital for Moz? (07:07) Do you consider yourself an emotional or more logical person? (16:44) Why don't we talk enough about depression in the business world? (21:43) How do you define success? (27:06) Who are some of the entrepreneurs that you admire? (29:29) Links and Resources Mentioned (https://sparktoro.com/)
Super excited to add to the list of podcast guests who make me look uncool – Rand Fishkin joins me on the show this week. Rand goes by the weird and wonderful title, Wizard of Moz. He’s founder and former CEO of SEO software startup Moz, host of Whiteboard Friday, co-author of a pair of […] The post Rand Fishkin, founder, Moz appeared first on Reevoo.
Advertising Influencers: Conversations with Marketing Thought Leaders
Rand Fishkin, Founder of Moz on Ethics, Public Policy, and The Future of SEO by Instapage: The Most Powerful Landing Page Platform | Ander Frischer
Episode 13 of Leading Matters features the founder of Moz, Rand Fishkin. Rand shares how he built Moz by focusing exclusively on the community of marketers who wanted desperately to make sense out of Google’s search engine algorithms, and how the company was able to maintain focus on the mission of making marketers successful. The result is a strong and loyal customer base.
IMA Leader Audio Podcast | Leadership, Marketing, Content Marketing, Big Data, Social Media, Email
Rand Fishkin has journeyed from founder to CEO and now is a happy individual contributor of one of the fastest growing internet marketing related companies in the last five years. He shares his thoughts on learning from failures and knowing when to hand over the reigns.
Rand Fishkin started SEOmoz.org in 2004, while working with his mother in a small marketing company she'd started in Seattle. After years of languishing in obscurity, Rand's little site turned out to be one of the most respected sources for quality "white hat" SEO advice, and creator of a variety of SEO-related tools for businesses. Hitting 100 employees in 2012, the business continues to grow, and i working hard on expanding it's offerings to business owners and marketers everywhere. In THIS interview, Rand tells us what's new (and what's NOT new) about SEO today - and what companies he admires for phenomenal content marketing that any startup could learn from. For More Information, Visit the HUB of Startups / Business in Emerging Technology. From Robotic Limbs to Getting Angel Investment, from Biotech to Intellectual Property: www.TechEmergence.com Interested in the Future of Humanity and the Ramifications of Emerging Tech? Sentient Potential Covers the Ethical Considerations and Future Projections at the Crossroads of Technology and Consciousness: www.SentientPotential.com