Big Break Software Podcast

Michael Brown is the CEO of nDash, a company that provides content creation SaaS to some of the leading agencies and brands. Before establishing nDash, Michael was a freelance writer, sports, and news reporter. He also had a stint working with crowdsourcing SaaS companies. These tasks shaped his passion and understanding of content creation, especially written content. Listen to Michael as he shares his journey with Geordie Wadman. 

• Michael’s journey as a writer, reporter, and freelance content creator
• How Michael started nDash
• How Michael charges for his services
• How Michael sources for writers and how he pays them
• Challenges that Michael and his team faced when transitioning to SaaS
• How do Michael and his team use the platform?
• When did Michael establish the agency, and when did he launch it online?
• Importance of a landing page when it comes to reaching your target audience
• How does Michael vet his writers?
• How long did Michael and his team take to build their MVP, and what did it involve?
• Why You need an in-house technical advisor
• What was the revenue situation after the agency was launched?
• Why Michael and his team recently introduced a managed services plan
• Importance of having an SEO mentor
• How has Michael’s keyword strategy affected traffic to the platform? 
• How to optimize conversions

Crowdsourcing allows you to choose the ideal result from a pool of talents. By using this service, you can be sure of receiving results way faster than you would with conventional methods. 

Crowdsourcing enhances both the creative process and boosts productivity. While Michael was working for Crowdsourcing SaaS companies, he saw a chance to apply Crowdsourcing differently. It is this idea that pushed him into starting nDash with his main goal being to provide high-quality writers. 

Michael was also committed to improving the quality of freelancing platforms. According to Michael, their main customers are market leaders and market decision-makers. Michael tells Geordie that when he started nDash it was just him handling the freelancing work and a few core clients. 

The agency would later evolve to accommodate around ten in-house writers. Then, they neither had a platform nor software. Michael used funds from the revenue and profit they made from the agency to create a platform. He mentions that for the initial two years, they were running the agency on the side, but their customers noticed it the most. However, on the back end, Michael and his team were developing a platform that would help them scale. 

Michael opines that the agency started making a profit right away. He tells Geordie that the agency had to be profitable, especially seeing that they had no funds in the bank. What’s more, Michael says he noticed that many bootstrapped companies started this way. Listen to Michael as he shares how he sources for his writers, how he pays them, and the strategies he uses to charge for his services. 

Transitioning from SaaS, as Michael says was not easy. He mentions one good thing that happened during the MVP phase. You will need to listen to the podcast to figure it out. During the agency years, Michael says he worked with different writers who played a role in launching the community part of the platform. 

Michael tells Geordie that at some point, they realized their MVP was overly advanced. It comprised many things that were not necessary. Listen as he shares more information about the MVP process and the challenges they faced down the line. Michael explains that the journey from zero to 30,000 did not happen during the first month. It took them a lot of effort to reach there, and he explains it all in detail in this podcast. 

Michael also talks about the managed service plan and upselling. Has the current COVID-19 pandemic affected the performance of the platform? Yes. Michael says that their sales have been fluctuating as a result of the Pandemic. He is happy that they have not seen any drop-offs yet. 

Michael explains the SEO strategies they use to promote the platform in a bid to increase their reach. He also highlights that while he does not follow any SEO mentor religiously, he is always striving to learn something new. Michael is quick to mention that his keyword strategy has triggered an increase in traffic to the platform. 

Has the platform evolved? Michael says while he does not have the exact numbers, he is sure that his traffic has increased tremendously since they first started. Further, he shares some critical conversion tips that can help your business grow. 

nDash.com

Michael Brown LinkedIn

In his own words, Mark Thompson says he had been an ordinary entrepreneur for close to 10 years before co-founding PayKickstart. During that time, Mark created different software, mainly focusing on SaaS. He also developed information products that he sold to his target audience, with PayKickstart as their core business.

The ideal PayKickstart customers are; digital entrepreneurs, people who specialize in selling software solutions, people running membership sites, online course creators, coaches, and consultants. Listen in as Mark shares his journey with Geordie Wardman. 

• What prompted Mark and his team to offer their PayKickstart shopping cart tool to their vendors?
• What happened to the previous applications that Mark and his team built over the years?
• Does Mark have any plans to develop a SaaS platform?
• Niches that PayKickstart focus on
• What sets PayKickstart from its competitors?
• How did Mark transform the PayKickstart tool into a product?
• Pain-points that Mark and his team relied on to build the PayKickstart platform
• How PayKickstart leveraged their sister company to make their first $10,000 in MRR
• How PayKickstart found their customers
• What growth strategy did Mark use after opening the platform to the public?
• How giving bonuses helps drive traffic to your site
• How long was it before PayKickstart got brand recognition?
• Why companies should have a blog
• The impact of SEO on companies
• How affiliates can help companies increase revenue

Mark founded PayKickstart out of necessity. After selling many products over the years, he and his team realized that many of the shopping carts their customers used were archaic. Not only were these carts rigid, but they were also not adaptable to their business.

After consultations, Mark and his team decided to develop an internal tool that would help them sell their products. They were determined to use the PayKickstart tool to promote their affiliate partners. After around two years of using the tool in-house, it evolved to become a system that the team had not envisioned.

Listen in as Mark explains how people would call them endlessly to enquire about their cool checkout page. Mark and his team released the PayKickstart tool to the public close to three years ago. Today, the PayKickstart tool has evolved into a fully-fledged platform complete with robust functionality.

The PayKickstart tool helps eliminate the technical hurdles that come with managing recurring revenue. Mark says that over the years, they have realized it is not easy to become the best providers in the market for a single product. He and his team only focus on ensuring that PayKickstart is running smoothly.

PayKickstart strives to evolve with the times to ensure customers get the best, up to date services. Mark and his team have devised numerous advanced tools that help maximize conversions. Listen to Mark as he shares more reasons with Geordie on what sets PayKickstart apart from their competitors.

Mark shares his journey and the events that preceded the development of the PayKickstart platform. At some point, they offered the tool for free to a specific number of people, after which they started charging a small fee per month. Mark mentions that their sister company played a role in helping PayKickstart penetrate the market.

A growth strategy is critical for companies, especially when starting. Apart from working with affiliates, and inviting people to webinars, PayKickstart gave its customers a free post-shopping offer. Mark tells Geordie how he and his team went about it. Listen in to find out what other methods PayKickstart used to attract more customers and attract more customers through word of mouth.

Like any other business, PayKickstart has faced some challenges along the way. Mark says their biggest challenge so far has been people canceling. To prevent this, Mark and his team have worked hard to revamp the site, improved the signup flow, and improved the in-app onboarding experience to give people value.

Mark explains that PayKickstart still runs different challenges in a bid to introduce customers to their services. Mark has some sales conversion and retention tactics to share that you need to hear. He and his team are committed to retaining costumers, a tactic he calls 'overcoming objections to save the sale.'

With significant advancements on the PayKickstart platform, Mark has managed to offer customers a smooth experience and minimize cancellations. Customers can now navigate through the website with ease. Further, Mark strives to convince customers to stay. Listen to find out the strategies he has applied to achieve this. Mark mentions that while PayKickstart has experienced challenges, they have leveraged them to grow the platform. 

Mark Thompson

PayKickstart.com

Mark Thompson LinkedIn

Mark Thompson Twitter

PayKickstart Facebook

We interviewed Sean Fulp on his company's experience with SaaS. Listen now to understand why advanced technology is essential for the smooth running of your business.

Sean Fulp is the executive managing director for Newmark Knight Frank, a publicly-traded international full-service real estate company. The company strives to facilitate real estate transactions without teams or agents. Sean recently collaborated with Geordie Wardman and his team in a bid to understand how SaaS works. He shares the entire experience with Geordie. 

• Why companies need to adopt advanced technology practices
• How businesses can leverage SaaS to achieve more with a small team
• Importance of data in different industries
• Why companies should consider outsourcing their services
• Why companies should engage decision-makers that control the product in their industry
• Importance of automating certain functions in your business
• Why communication is critical for any business project
• How to identify a great team to work with
• Why you should opt to engage professionals instead of doing things on your own

Times have changed, and nearly every industry today has transformed from analog to digital practices. Companies that are not innovative are likely to drag when it comes to productivity and return on investment. It is this realization that prompted Sean to approach Geordie and his team in search of a viable solution.

Apart from selling commercial real estate, Sean admits that the company specializes in various other things. He says the organization is diverse, and he only leads a particular revenue stream within the company. Sean and his team are in agreement that they need technology to scale their practices both from an automation and marketing point of view. In his words, he refers to himself and his able team as market makers.

Listen as Sean explains why and how they plan to accomplish more with fewer people. Sean tells Geordie the reason they need the SaaS technology is to help facilitate smooth transactions from a marketing and workflow point of view. He mentions that the structure of the company allows for effectiveness when they are dealing with their customers face to face. However, they are hardly doing so currently. Instead, they are adopting virtual practices.

Sean says they do not see themselves going back to running the business physically. Technology will play a role in propelling their efforts to the next level. He tells Geordie that they strive to increase their revenue. To achieve this, they spend a lot of their present engaging decision-makers who control the commercial real estate industry.

Sean says he chose to work with Geordie’s team to get help in automating things that hardly generate revenue to enhance workflow. He and his team are happy that adopting SaaS has helped them reduce the duration it takes to complete tasks. Listen as he expounds on this topic.

Sean admits that they have achieved a lot from working with Geordie. You will need to listen to understand how much Geordie and his team have helped Sean automate their reports. From working with Geordie, Sean and his team have connected with people from different backgrounds.

He says they now have an effective system that allows them to collaborate with their consumers smoothly. He is pleased about the consistent use of a vast range of applications and tools that Geordie and his team use. He admits that they always receive recommendations on how to enhance the efficiency of their services from Geordie’s team.  

Listen to Sean as he narrates the tremendous benefits he and the company have gained from working with Geordie. Sean has excellent things to say on what his company has achieved from working with Geordie’s team. He says before the collaboration, they were achieving okay results. However, they wanted something better.

They were looking to collaborate with a passionate and committed team of professionals. He admits that Geordie and his team have surpassed his expectations. You can only get a clear essence of his satisfaction from listening to the explanation in his own words.

Sean is happy with what Geordie and his team have managed to do on the design and engineering part of their website. Listen to learn more about what Geordie’s team did and how Sean and his team are handling the site to maintain its user-friendliness. Sean shares tips on his experience so far.

Listen to him as he explains his utmost appreciation to Geordie for what they have managed to do within a short period. If you are a business owner, Sean reiterates the importance of understanding your scope of business. What are you developing? How long will it take? Do you have qualified in-house staff to do it to perfection? According to Sean, sometimes you just have to stop what you are doing to ensure the entire team understands the scope. From there you can work together towards success.  

Sean Fulp

Sean Fulp LinkedIn

Newmark Knight Frank

Spiffy is an online platform that creates appealing auto forms to increase revenue from your online purchases. Michael Hunter, the co-founder says the company evolved from a marketing agency they had started ten years ago.

The company deals with anybody in the entrepreneurship field like authors, coaches, speakers, personal brands, and top leaders. Spiffy works for both startups and established entrepreneurs. Listen as Michael shares his journey with Geordie. 

• How Spiffy transitioned from an agency to SaaS
• What prompted Michael and his team to switch their business model to SaaS
• How Michael and his team came up with ideas regarding the running of the business
• The eight-step process that Michael worked with to determine what they wanted to achieve
• How Michael and his team build their MVP
• Importance of Outsourcing
• How Michael and his team build their MVP
• How Michael funded the MVP
• How Spiffy got their first customers

Michael says that during his company’s journey, they had used a wide range of software. They later realized that many businesses were struggling with taking payments. Technology has evolved, allowing companies more options to receive payments remotely.

However, many entrepreneurs do not understand how to go about it, especially with the numerous payment options available. Michael is quick to explain that there are many user-friendly payment options available, but they are limited. He says Spiffy is committed to ensuring that non-technical people can receive payments easily.

According to Michael, advanced technology should not be a limiting factor when it comes to making payments online. When Michael and his co-founder started Spiffy, the company grew suddenly. They were working with some of the biggest customers in the industry, and this propelled them to the top.

Success did not come easily, as Michael and his team, were working long hours to beat deadlines and satisfy customer demands. Even though the results of their hard work were visible, Michael knew they could not continue working long hours in the future. He shares the challenges they faced before changing Spiffy to a SaaS platform. Michael tells Geordie how they had numerous ideas they thought were viable for the business.

Listen as he tells Geordie how they finally narrowed down their plans to come up with the right formula for the company. Michael speaks about the four-step process that they used as a guide to achieving their goals. For example, a service provider should strive to solve an existing problem. The target audience on the other hand, should understand that they have a problem that needs to be addressed. Michael discusses the remaining six steps with Geordie, and you cannot afford to miss them.

Launching a company may be easy, but getting customers can be a challenge. Michael says they had a marketplace from their consulting clients because they were custom coding the order forms in the beginning. He says this move helped Spiffy carve a name for themselves, and connected with some of the big names in the industry.

Even then, Michael says they managed to visit some of their clients, something which turned out to be pain-point. Michael explains that while they charged customers for their services, implementing the service took long.

One day Michael suggested that they needed a strategy to productize their process. Listen to find out what happened next, and how Michael walked from booth to booth during an event to market Spiffy. Some of the people Michael spoke to then were skeptical, claiming that numerous competitors were doing the same thing. Such comments did not break Michael’s desire to build a robust platform.

He mentions that they knew they would one day prove the naysayers wrong. Still, they also knew that the platform they had envisioned was not the one they had developed. To gain satisfaction and ensure that their customers were comfortable, Michael decided to transform it to make it more robust and effective.

Over the years, Spiffy evolved and even shot some how-to videos in a bid to solve customer problems. With Spiffy no longer an agency, Michael and his team decided to wind it down. However, they are still working with some consulting clients. Michael shares a lengthy and detailed conversation with Geordie, where he explains how building an app for one company increased their growth.

However, he admits that many of the calls they received regarding the app were from people wanting to know about the other company, and not Spiffy. Even then, the company (Spiffy) has evolved and managed to remain ahead of many competitors in the market.

Gospiffy.com

Michael Hunter LinkedIn

Spiffy Twitter

Spiffy Facebook

Michael R Hunter Facebook

Jetpack Workflow is a company that helps accounting firm owners track down all the recurring debts and due dates to avoid losses. Dave Cristello, The CEO and founder of Jetpack Workflow realized that many accounting firms have numerous customers. However, they lacked an efficient checklist management system. The ideal Jetpack Workflow customer is any accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, and tax firm in different parts of the world. 

• How Dave launched Jetpack Workflow 
• How Dave identified the pain points that accounting firms face
• Why did Dave start interviewing the accounting departments of various companies?
• How Jetpack Workflow bagged its first customer
• How Dave invested in website development
• How Dave navigated the industry with zero software experience
• Why accounting firms should upgrade from using spreadsheets
• Which platforms did Dave go searching for a technical co-founder?
• Why entrepreneurs should know how to pitch their ideas
• Find out why Dave opted to raise money
• The impact of well-written words on your website
• How businesses can benefit from summarizing podcasts into a blog post or even a book

Many accounting firms have a proper project management system. However, if they cannot keep track of deadlines, customer data, and due dates the system becomes irrelevant. Jetpack workflow helps accounting firms standardize their operations. 

Dave gives Geordie a comprehensive breakdown of the pain points that Jetpack Workflow strives to solve. Jetpack strives to eliminate pain points that accounting firms face to ensure they can beat deadlines. 

While Dave did not have a job before starting Jetpack, he had a strong feeling that he wanted to build something. Dave went ahead and approached different companies. He says that he began interviewing the accounting departments of these firms through trial and error. Dave wanted to establish the most time consuming, tedious, and painful problem the departments were facing daily or even weekly. 

From the responses he received, Dave was able to get reflection points. Listen in as he narrates the challenges he faced when developing a website. He also tells Geordie about the expenses they incurred. During the development process, Dave was working as a marketer and channeling all his earnings to the developers. The first year Jetpack managed 600 MRR, but Dave says their product was horrible. 

What kept them going is the fact that the earliest adopters appreciated the product because it solved their pain points. When Jetpack workflow was at 5,000 MRR, Dave was experiencing a crazy relationship with his developer. He also felt that his product was terrible, even though some people were still using and appreciating it. 

Many competitors were beginning to get into the market as well. To scale his company and stay ahead of competitors, Jetpack’s early investors advised Dave to bring onboard a technical co-founder. Listen in to find out how challenging finding a co-founder was. At some point, Dave’s advisors told him to hire somebody to drive the company, failure to which it would tumble down. 

Dave narrates to Geordie how he managed to raise money to hire a professional in 2016 who is still with the company to date. During one of the meet-ups with other entrepreneurs, Dave noticed that nearly everybody was talking about the importance of Facebook ads. He decided to invest some money in Facebook ads just to see the outcome. 

Listen as Dave narrates his journey with Facebook ads and how he pumped in more money on the project. In his opinion, Dave says companies that identify a reliable channel have a high chance of accelerating growth. However, he is quick to mention that there are downsides that come with accelerated growth. 

Between Jetpack’s 5,000 to 30,000 MRR, Dave’s product was doing well. They were deleting some features and doing everything they could to clean their website. The company was enjoying some visibility, Dave managed to post content consistently, and they even launched a podcast. The team was also writing blog posts, sharing content, doing webinars, and running ads to market the company. 

Geordie sought to find out what worked for Dave out of all the strategies he was using. However, he (Dave) was unable to pinpoint a single strategy that worked comprehensively. Instead, he says the company posted results from using a combination of all the strategies. Dave highlights the fact that he and his team were generating lots of content in a bid to develop a database. He is happy that this strategy worked to attract organic traffic to the website. His breaking point was when he discovered Facebook ads. Listen as Dave speaks about his breaking point at depth. Dave’s mantra is, “believe in yourself, and you will be able to achieve anything you want.” 

Dave Cristello Linkedin

Dave Cristello Twitter

Jetpack Workflow

Calvin Correli is the founder and CEO of Simplero. The company is an all in one online platform that strives to help coaches run and manage their online businesses. Simplero’s ideal customers are trainers, authors, educators, and speakers. 

In general, Simplero targets online business entrepreneurs and helps them scale their businesses through online courses. Listen in to find out Calvin’s journey into achieving his software big break. 

• Why Calvin established Simplero.com
• How Calvin transitioned from programming to entrepreneurship
• How your background can affect your entrepreneurship path in the future
• The importance of knowing what you want to do in business
• Find out what happened when Calvin finally figured out what he wanted to do
• What is the purpose of a CEO in the opinion of Calvin?
• Why entrepreneurs should have a coach who understands them well
• The importance of delegating
• How Calvin made money to support his business when starting out
• Importance of networking in business
• Why entrepreneurs should enroll in online courses regularly
• How Calvin got his first Simplero customers in various parts of the world
• Strategies that Calvin used to get his venture to $30,000 MRR in 2013
• Understanding traffic conversions
• Why entrepreneurs should build a personal brand

Before starting Simplero, Calvin took some time to think about what he wanted to do as an entrepreneur. At some point, he realized that he harbored so much knowledge that he wanted to share with the world. Then, Calvin says that he was a programmer and a terrible entrepreneur. He decided to invest in research to understand more about entrepreneurship and carve a niche for his interests. Listen in as he shares his journey when starting the company and how it evolved. 

Calvin says he had always been in the software industry, seeing that his parents owned a software company. He grew up around computers and programs that somehow shaped his future. Calvin tells Geordie how he spent many years trying to figure out what he wanted. He kept trying many things all at once. At some point, Calvin had to consult professionals to help him identify his niche. 

Calvin mentions that he was shocked when one of the professionals admitted that after spending hours with him, he too did not know what Calvin wanted. According to Calvin, that statement was his wake up call. However, he did not define what he wanted to do until one day, all his ventures dried up. Calvin discusses how frustrating that moment was and how it took him away from his comfort zone. 

Amid that moment, Calvin took the time to consider his passion, childhood dreams, and subjects that he studied in school. He was committed to establishing what he wanted to do, and this is how the thought of entrepreneurship crossed his mind. Calvin explains the events that led to him connecting with his company. You will need to hear how passionately Calvin explains the term Love as a Service as well. 

Refresher courses are critical, and this is something that Calvin discovered at some point in his journey. He shares his experience after enrolling for an online marketing course and the impact it had on his business. Calvin says that until recently, he did not know the effect of traffic conversions on a business. 

Someone introduced him to traffic conversions, which is how he discovered how essential the concept is. Calvin would later come up with a course to explain traffic conversions to his customers. Listen to Calvin as he tells Geordie what the course is all about and how entrepreneurs can benefit from the same. According to Calvin, getting a customer to use a product is one of the ways of retaining them. 

Running challenges is a strategy that companies use to reach a wider audience and potential clients. Simplero runs challenges through its Facebook platform that facilitates engagement with its customers. Calvin mentions that the company representatives try to answer as many questions from their followers as possible. 

After being an entrepreneur for years, Calvin learned that some customers want to interact with a specific brand because of the person behind it. In a bid to retain as many customers as possible, Calvin and his team have started building his personal brand. 

The company is also committed to giving back to the community, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have collaborated with experienced staff who can help people who have lost jobs learn new skills. 

Calvin’s mantra is “spreading love through software.” He also encourages everyone to go for what they are passionate about.  

Simplero.com

Calvin Correli

Calvin Correli Facebook

Calvin Correli Twitter

Calving Correli Instagram

Laura is a designer and entrepreneur who studied design. After completing her studies, she worked in an agency. She would later branch out from the agency to work as a freelancer. Laura worked from home for approximately eight years. In her quest to make design easy to understand, the idea of creating a course crossed her mind. 

Throughout her learning years, Laura had struggled with converting simple designs into attractive ones. She wanted a course that would help transform simple designs to make them professional and good looking. Listen to Laura as she tells Geordie how she created a portal for her clients. 

• What Laura disliked about working from home?
• What problem did Laura’s portal help solve?
• How Laura found out the impact of her portal
• How Laura handled the minimum viable product (MVP) process
• Navigating a WordPress hosted portal setup
• How long do aspiring developers take to master Laura’s design course?
• Importance of copywriting in design
• Leveraging Google Docs to come up with a landing page
• How to enhance your design skills
• How to design a compelling website with minimal struggle
• Why a minimal website is better than an eye-catching one
• Where to get good quality designs, illustrations, and icons for your website
• About design fundamentals
• What to consider when hiring a designer

Today, customers want the best website experience, and service providers have no choice but to satisfy them. Often, knowing how to offer the best services can be challenging as Laura found out. While she knew her needs, she did not understand how to articulate it until she created a portal for her clients. 

At some point, Laura spoke at a conference where she discussed her client portal to fellow freelancers. Listen as she explains what happened after the conference. The feedback Laura received from the conference compelled her to launch her product immediately. She still pursued her dream of creating a design course. 

How was Design Academy established? Laura says that during her time as a freelancer, she interacted with many developers. They wanted to venture into development but did not know how to go about achieving their dream.

What does Laura’s design course entail? She reiterates that she hardly teaches her students how to master the course. Instead, she strives to ensure that learners can move from novice level to a complete attractive website. Laura shares the strategy she uses to teach her students with Geordie Wardman in this discussion. 

According to Laura, developers can enhance their design skills through research and viewing other websites. She says the best way to gain experience is by saving sites that you like. Often, remembering sites you have encountered can be a difficult task. That is why developers should leverage tools that help them save sites for future reference. 

Minimal and simple website design works best, especially for beginners. Laura says developers can always change websites in the future. What about drawing? According to Laura, drawing can be challenging, and many novice developers may not be in a position to do it on their own. However, they can solve this by using an illustration set. Laura explains how to go about it in-depth in this podcast. She also talks about using icons and combining them with colors. 

What colors work best for a website? Listen in to find out how colors can transform the appearance of your site. Laura explains that at some point, you may need to hire a designer to handle your development needs professionally. However, she explains that there are various factors to consider before collaborating with any designer. 

One of the main things she recommends is taking a look at the designer’s website. You can be sure that a designer won’t outsource their website development as they would their portfolio. Listen to Laura as she explains to Geordie why you need a designer that can match their website development to copywriting. 

What approach does Laura use on a personal level when choosing a developer? Does she prefer developers from a specific region? What is the importance of hiring an all-rounded developer? Laura talks about all this comprehensively in this podcast. 

Laura discusses the importance of working with professional developers and designers. She also reiterates that she spends a lot of her time teaching on design academy than she does on her client portal. 

How Laura built it

Design Academy

Laura Elizabeth

Laura Elizabeth Twitter

Design Fundamentals

Client Portal

Huckabuy is an SEO software as a service (SaaS) company that helps consumers handle the structured data element of their SEO approach. The company understands that many businesses struggle with getting their SEO needs right. They are committed to solving any Technical SEO conversations between a site and Google. 

Generally, humans spend a lot of time and money on UIUX. Huckabuy handles the user experience design (UX) and user interface design (UI) for Google to give website users the ideal crawl experience. This approach allows users to understand the website with ease. 

Huckabuy deals with a wide range of customers from different sectors spread across eCommerce, travel, and enterprise. Huckabuy’s biggest customers are companies that specialize in software. Join Geordie Wardman and Geoff Atkinson as they discuss Huckabuy and what it has to offer. 

• Started on SEO, the importance of structured data and how Geoff  
• Understanding structured data and its impact on a website 
• How structured data helps website owners and internet users 
• Can website owners handle structured data manually? 
• The establishment of Huckabuy 
• How much did Huckabuy make from their first customer after being licensed as a software company?
• Investing in product development is crucial. However, you should be able to sell the product
• Importance of product pivot
• How the Huckabuy moved from their first customer to the next level
• When did Huckabuy land SAP?
• Importance of collaborating with other professionals to build your business
• What challenges did Huckabuy face along the way?
• Tools that Huckabuy uses to help consumers monitor progress on their websites
• What is the importance of a chief technology officer?
• Importance of networking in business

As an entrepreneur, you understand the importance of owning a website. Launching a website for your business is not enough to propel it to your desired heights. You need to understand the evolving world of SEO and how current advancements affect your business. 

In this episode, Huckabuy’s Geoff tells George Wardman about structured data in SEO. Join the conversation and figure out what you are doing wrong in your business and what you need to change to get things right. 

Before establishing Huckabuy, Geoff was Overstock’s Senior Vice President of Analytics and Marketing. He played a role in developing proficiency in SEO and handled content generation and pricing algorithms. Geoff gained tremendous experience at Overstock that was instrumental in launching and driving Huckabuy to where it is today. 

Huckabuy started as a business to customer (B2C) affiliate website that was similar to the Overstock model. Then, Google was opposing affiliate marketing websites. However, Geoff and his team had already developed good SEO software. Geoff would later change the business into a software company. At that time, he focused on generating revenue without realizing how critical software was. Huckabuy got some deals before finally licensing the software company. 

Geoff tells Geordie that their first customer was not structured data related. Listen to find out how a simple post on Instagram got Huckabuy their first customer. Like any other start-up business, Huckabuy faced various challenges before stabilizing. Geoff says their biggest test was being unable to show their consumers the actual product. What other difficulties did the company face? Listen in as Geoff shares with Geordie. 

Geoff also discusses the company’s transition from having one technical personnel to a team of in-house technical employees led by a chief technical officer (CTO). Find out why you need a team of experienced technical staff for your business. At some point, Geoff opined that Huckabuy needed extra cash, and this is where the idea of partnering with an investor came in. 

Geoff tells Geordie how they sailed through finding the right partner and the company’s position at present. Listen to Geoff explain how networking helped them find the right partner. Geoff is a firm believer in helping others without expecting anything in return because it comes back at some point when you need assistance. This belief is why he always strives to assist whenever he can. 

What is Geoff’s mantra? He says that some of the most successful partnerships begin with friendship. Helping and connecting with people has made a difference for both Huckabuy and Geoff. Often, you will never know who will help you, and many times the people you help will come back to help you willingly. 

Geoff concludes by explaining the importance of running a podcast. Should you embrace podcasting? Can it make a difference in your business? Listen in to find out. 

About Geoff Atkinson

Huckabuy.com

Geoff Atkinson Linkedin

Geoff Atkinson Twitter

Geoff Atkinson Crunchbase

Patrick Stiles is the founder of Vidalytics. He prides himself in having 11 years of experience in the entrepreneurship world. Vidalytics is a video hosting, analytics, and marketing platform. 

The platform specializes in hosting videos that customers post on their personal websites for marketing purposes. The ideal Vidalytics customer is a small business owner who owns a website and direct response marketers. 

Entrepreneurs who are interested in boosting engagement on their platforms will benefit from working with Vidalytics. 

Marketing can be challenging and it takes time before you can convert website hits into sales. Patrick Stiles founded Vidalytics in 2016 to help its customers monitor activity on their websites and improve their conversion rates. 

As an entrepreneur, Patrick operated many businesses, some of which are still running and profitable. At some point, he decided that he needed to put all his energy into one business. He used money from one of his companies to start Vidalytics. Unfortunately, the business did not do quite well and this saw Patrick sink deep in debt. 

After deliberations with his team, he decided that placing it in the public market was a good idea. Still, the company (Vidalytics) did not perform according to Patrick’s expectations and this is where he knew he needed to do something. Listen in to find out what happened next and hear Patrick as he discusses the components of a good video. What differentiates one video from the other? How long should the ideal video be? 

Patrick also shares what success in the marketing realm means from his perspective. He says, there are different ways of defining success in the marketing industry especially in terms of ads. He reiterates that increased ads on your website are an indication that your venture is doing well. 

Is there a defined method of making videos that convert? Patrick is certain that you only need to learn your audience and understand what they need. Once you collect this information you can customize videos that your audience wants to see repeatedly. Hear all about it as Geordie Wardman extracts valuable information from Patrick. 

Will your business venture pick up immediately? Patrick discusses how he struggled to finally bring Vidalytics to its feet. From trying webinars that bore little fruit to allowing people to sign up for free which later on turned to be a disaster. Listen in to find out how the situation went from zero sign-ups to many people registering for accounts. 

You will learn how to create videos that convince your customers to want to buy from you. Patrick says people tend to buy emotionally rather than logically. As a video creator, you want to speak to your customers' emotions in order to convert their clicks into sales and scale your business. 

Vidalytics performs case studies with their customers. This has been instrumental in helping them understand what their customers should do to improve the performance of marketing strategies. Patrick says that Vidalytics provides tools their customers need to figure out which part of their marketing videos is converting customers. 

This is a proper way of letting the customer establish areas they need to improve on to meet customer expectations. The platform allows customers to monitor how the platform works before they can invest with them. Vidalytics has no plans of expanding in the near future. Instead, they want to focus on growing their audience at the moment in a bid to scale the platform further. 

Chris Gimmer is the co-founder and CEO of Snappa.com. The company specializes in creating easy to use graphic designs. Snappa.com targets people with no experience in graphic design. 

Their main customers are social media managers, marketers, small business owners, and anybody else who is interested in creating graphics easily and fast. If you lack enough resources to either outsource or even hire professional graphic designers, then the Snappa.com tool is designed for you. 

Chris is a finance and accounting expert. The idea of creating online marketing graphics came up to him while he was on vacation. Listen in to understand how Chris met his co-founder and the journey behind the establishment of Snappa.com.

What do you need to build your online venture from scratch, to scale it, and finally succeed? This episode takes you through the hassle that the Snappa.com tool went through. Chris Gimmer realized way earlier that he was not meant for the public service even though he had worked for the government for more than five years. 

In his quest to do something different, he started researching about online business. He would later meet his co-founder Mark who had also been a government employee but had taken up programming on the side. 

Chris and Mark developed a connection and later founded various companies together while still working for the government before finally settling on Snappa. Without any experience in online marketing or SEO, Chris and Mark launched their first business, a student’s online dating website. 

Listen as Chris tells Geordie the strategies they used to operate the website and how it faired on. Chris agrees that while the business was growing they had no way of making money from it. This forced them to rethink their operations and in the process, they ventured into research with their main focus on SEO. 

In a bid to strategize, the two CEOs launched another website which became a market place for templates. Hear the ongoing discussion as Chris tells Geordie how much revenue they made from the website, the expenses they had to deal with and how much profit they eventually made. 

After lengthy deliberations, Chris and Mark decided to venture into another online business that would enable them to increase their earnings. Listen to how conducting surveys helped them along the way, how Chris and Mark managed to oversee the operations of their business while still employed. 

How did they navigate through the challenges they faced? Listen to Chris as he shares the story behind their app. With time, Chris mastered the power of keywords in enhancing performance. Listen to him explain how they leveraged keywords to reach a wider audience and boost the performance of their business. 

Chris explains how the business broke even and the point at which they managed to hire additional staff. He also discusses the content generation strategy they had in place to reach a wider audience and improve their ranking. Chris and Mark are preparing to launch a new bigger and better product soon.