The Top Entrepreneurs In Money, Marketing, Business And Life

Darren M. Jer CEO and Co-Founder Darren co-founded MarketFactory in 2008 with a vision of providing clean, fast code to the FX market, and is currently CEO. Prior to founding MarketFactory, Darren led sales and operations in the financial services markets for over a decade. Darren was head of new business sales Americas for EBS / ICAP. Prior to that, he was sales executive for IBM wall street accounts. Darren earned a BA in English and political science from Duke University. Outside of MarketFactory, Darren is an active member of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York and All Souls Langham Place in London. When necessary, Darren can hurt a lot of people’s ears at karaoke.

Former consultant to MIcrosoft, GE, GM, American Express and others. Founder of Spokal.

Pierce started his career at Cognos, which went on to be acquired by IBM. Pierce then joined two start-ups that both went on to have successful exits where he led and implemented Marketo. He then founded Revenue Pulse, a Marketo consultancy and Knak, a SaaS application for enterprise email creation.

Girish Mathrubootham is the founder and CEO of Freshworks, one of the world’s fastest-growing SaaS product company, winning the Economic Times Startup of the Year in 2016, and the Business Standard Startup of the Year in 2017. Freshworks now has a suite of products for businesses worldwide - Freshdesk, Freshservice, Freshsales, Freshcaller, Freshteam, Freshchat and Freshmarketer. Girish is part of the Product Council for NASSCOM, the trade association of Indian software companies, and actively works to promote and nurture software product companies. He has invested in several early-stage startups and is passionate about building a global product company. Having set the vision and direction for the company since inception, his focus on Freshworks’ values and its culture have been instrumental in taking the organization to where it is today.

Nate Bolt is the Founder of Ethnio, a 5-person SaaS. Former research manager at Facebook and Instagram, CEO of Bolt | Peters, and faculty at the SVA iXD program. Co-author of Remote Research and once droned the NYPL. Based in LA with wife, son, and two dogs.

David Hassell is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of 15Five. David’s foray into entrepreneurship begun nearly 20 years ago, co-founding three companies in ad tech, kite surfing adventure travel, and leadership coaching before starting 15Five, where he sees the opportunity to help organizations and everyone in them reach their highest potential. David formerly served as the President of the San Francisco chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization and was later named by Forbes “The Most Connected Man You Don’t Know in Silicon Valley.” He’s been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, and Inc.

Chief Executive Officer of ClickDimensions, the leading marketing automation solution for Microsoft Dynamics 365. Mike joined ClickDimensions from PGi, a global provider of web conferencing software and collaboration technology, where he served as Executive Vice President of Strategy and Business Development. In that role, he developed partnerships with some of the biggest players in the technology industry, including Microsoft. Prior to that, he started PGi’s Global Collaboration Services division, growing it from $86 million to $240 million in revenue and serving as a trusted advisor to some of the most recognized brands around the globe.

John is the founder of GetCredo.com. They take a high touch approach to matching businesses with the right SEO and marketing agencies. John has a decade in SEO, primarily on the largest sites on the internet. He lives in Denver with his wife and their black labrador Butterbean.

Kim is the founder and President of Genoo. Genoo’s products and services over deliver what entrepreneurs, Small, and midsize businesses need to attract leads and grow new customers. Through a comprehensive software-as-a-service offering and “right-sized” professional service offerings, our customers compete and win.

Andy MacMillan is CEO of UserTesting, the leading Human Insights company. Prior to UserTesting he was CEO of Act-On Software and COO, Products at Salesforce. Andy is from the Detroit area and has a B.A. from Michigan State University and an MBA from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland).

I am an Israeli entrepreneur with a specialty in data science; after building several e-commerce sites, I recognized the tremendous need for personalization and the opportunity to fill a niche in the market, and so eventually I arrived at a venture that serves one of my chief passions, utilizing AI and digital automation to create an internet that is more personal and efficient. Since 2008, we at Personyze have been honing and perfecting the tools we use to accomplish that goal, and today I am happy to say we have created one of the most versatile and powerful personalization solutions on the market.

Neil Napier is a charismatic leader of people. He empowers people to spread their wings and develop their super-powers. Neil cares about his customers like nobody else and is available for them more than his wife would prefer. He loves to teach and goes the extra mile to enable success.

Randy Wootton is the CEO of Percolate. Randy has been a leader and strategic innovator in the marketing technology industry for over 20 years. Prior to Percolate, he served as CEO of leading predictive marketing platform Rocket Fuel, where he re-positioned the company and led its sale to Sizmek. During his career, Randy has held senior positions at Microsoft and Salesforce. He serves on the Board of Directors at Guidant Financial and Rally Point Networks and is a graduate of Harvard Business School, St. John’s College and the U.S. Naval Academy.

00:30 – How Kahuna focuses on customer engagement 03:05 – Why they price based on volume and usage 03:50 – How he made the decision to join Kahuna after they approached him 04:50 – Why both of Kahuna's founders are still involved in the company 05:10 – Their team of 40 full-time employees is based in Redwood City 05:40 – Why they've scaled to serve 100 total customers internationally 06:40 – How they have more than doubled revenue year over year 07:00 – Why they've raised close to $50M in outside capital 07:40 – How they are managing churn across 08:30 – Why Kahuna's net revenue retention is well north of 100% 10:30 – How they aim for payback on customer acquisition within 12 months 12:00 – Why computing power is their main expense 13:00 – How their margins are still well within the average SaaS range 13:30 – Why they did an inside round in Q4 2017 and not looking to raise at present 14:00 – How they are still burning cash today 14:15 – Why they are north of $3M in ARR and targeting 100% growth YoY again this

0:55 – How SaaS PayKickstart launched inside agency 1:25 – Why their average customer pays $99 per month 2:10 – How they've hit $50k in MRR today 2:40 – How $0 to $10k/mo in under 12 months 3:40 – Why they've bootstrapped to this point 4:15 – Tactic used to hit 20% gross revenue churn 9:40 – How they are landing customers through affiliates and cold outreach 10:50 – Why 10-15% of their revenue is coming from affiliate deals  

Time Stamped Show Notes: 0:55 – Why he spun the company out of his agency one year ago 3:45 – Average customer pays them $3,500 annually 4:15 – How they've scaled to 250 paying customers 4:35 – Did $9k in MRR last month 5:20 – Less than 1% gross revenue churn monthly 6:05 – They are raising $1m right now on $2.5m pre money value 7:10 – How they've scaled with just two full-time employees 8:00 – Why they are paying under $100 to acquire a new customer