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  

Big Break Software Podcast

How To Get Accepted Into A SaaS Acceralator and Get Funded with Forum VC founder Michael Cardamone

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 

Taking a Regional approach to build a B2B SaaS problem for the Thai market with 300k ARR platform founder Saroj Ativitavas of Wisible.com

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 

Zero to product market fit with mobile app competitor analysis tool SaaS COO Eugene Kruglov of AppFollow

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

How Ching Goh took lessons learned from running 7 figure ARR Piktochart to start videostory SaaS Piktostory

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

From 0 to 30,000 MRR in 2021 with Powered By Change author Jon MacDonald

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

Tapping into the One Trillion Dollar impoverished agricultural markets with $1m ARR AgUnity founder David Davies

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  

Solving His Own Agency Problem on Increasting Profitability To Agency Solutions AI SaaS with Santi Bibilioni of COR

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

How to position your product in Hubspot marketplace to achieve your SaaS Big Break with Post

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 

Why SaaS founders should podcast & writing killer outbound sequences with Erik Jacobson of lemonpie.fm & usehatch.fm

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

How to survive and thrive as a Fintech company when your banking partner shuts you down with Neat co-founder David Rosa.

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

How and when to use machine learning in your SaaS with CTO of $50m VC funded ML SaaS 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

How to buy your first SaaS company with PE CEO owner Akeel Jabber of horizencapital.com

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  

SEO Freelancer to Agency to 50k MRR SaaS with PageOptimzer.pro SEO Kyle Roof

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  

From Minister To 3m MRR with Tithe.ly founder Dean Sweetman

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

How to determine cost per lead per marketing channel and navigating COVID with Michael Ashford of The Receptionist

Welcome to the Big Break Software Podcast. This is the show where we will discuss the ins and outs of building software companies. Listen in every week as we talk with industry leaders and experts about what it takes to build a software company.

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Big Break Software Podcast

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