Episode Highlights


[03:57] — Ron & Dovi explain the mission of CuraLife

• 
  CuraLife creates solutions for people living with chronic conditions to help them lead healthier and happier lives.
  
  
• Their main product is CuraLin, a supplement for diabetics.
  
  
• The company started when Ron’s father was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
  
  
• 
  They help tens of thousands of diabetics with their product.
  
  

[05:14] — What are the sales channels of CuraLife?

• 
  CuraLife has a D2C business model, so their website is the main sales channel.
  
  
• 
  They are also exploring partnerships with professionals such as clinics and retail pharmacies.
  
  

[07:14] — CuraLife’s B2B Facebook advertising best practices

• 
  The company spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on Facebook ads.
  
  
• 
  They use a mix of static images and videos.
  
  
• 
  They let a specialist agency manage their social media campaigns.
  
  
• 
  At first, they focused on the R&D aspect of the product to develop a base they can scale.
  
  

[08:57] — How their top funnel works

• 
  The first ads aren't about diabetes and the product itself.
  
  
• 
  They focus on content that will pique curiosity and funnel traffic toward the long-form sales letters.
  
  
• 
  Essentially, they perform click-baiting and pay-per-click advertising by writing about unrelated topics that lead you to their product.
  
  
• 
  The company is currently experimenting with static one-image ads.
  
  

[11:41] — CuraLife’s unicorn ads

• 
  They use Harmon Brothers’ formula for Facebook video ads.
  
  
• 
  They are currently looking at metrics to see if video sales letters are effective.
  
  
• 
  Testimonial ads create organic engagement and social validation.
  
  
• 
  They have seen plenty of success coming from both these B2B Facebook advertising best practices.
  
  

[14:26] — Dovi’s lessons on video advertisements

• 
  Their video sales letters last 30 minutes.
  
  
• 
  Their ad landing page has only about 30 seconds of video for variety and impact.
  
  
• 
  Authenticity and organic testimonials make an ad more powerful.
  
  
• 
  Test variations of your content to find the best one.
  
  
• 
  Their calls to action focus on people who can commit to an upfront sale, but they don’t have one formula for it.
  
  

[19:24] — CuraLife’s sales & order strategy

• 
  Their average order price is $133, and they are profitable on the first purchase.
  
  
• 
  CuraLfe wants to improve how they upsell products.
  
  
• 
  The company is currently exploring partnerships with related products to generate more sales.
  
  

[22:26] —  Practical advertising advice for D2C companies 

• 
  Know what you are doing; otherwise, you will be wasting money on social media.
  
  
• 
  Learn how to generate and convert traffic using advertisements.
  
  
• 
  Hire experts instead of doing in-house advertising work.
  
  
• 
  Don't go cheap; the low-quality output will cost you more in the long run.
  
  

[24:33] — Content marketing for CuraLife

• 
  Their blogs are a central part of the value they provide their customers.
  
  
• 
  Their organic content marketing is mostly educational.
  
  
• 
  They advocate for easily applicable lifestyle changes to improve health quality.
  
  
• 
  They work with both internal and outsourced writers.
  
  

[28:21] — Finding the right freelancers

• 
  Test the freelancers to segregate the good ones from the bad ones.
  
  
• 
  Freelancers can surprise you with how effective they are.
  
  
• 
  The amount of direction you give to freelance writers depends on what your goals are.
  
  

[31:33] — Advice for hiring writers

• 
  Don’t get starstruck with “A-list” copywriters because they might not be worth it.
  
  
• 
  Give small writers a chance to prove themselves.
  
  

[33:51] — CuraLife’s buyer persona and other marketing strategies

• 
  To create a buyer persona for the company, they had to understand the goals, hopes, challenges, and fears of diabetics.
  
  
• 
  If you own a D2C company, ask yourself: “What drives your customers to a decision?”
  
  
• 
  CuraLife gathers information from surveys, interviews, and online communities.
  
  
• 
  CuraLife currently has 50,000 subscribers on Facebook and 12,000 members in their private community.
  
  
• 
  Their group has been experiencing tremendous growth, and they provide information, emotional support, and peer networks for customers to live a healthier life.
  
  

[40:28] —  CuraLife’s structure & processes

• 
  Curalife recently tripled in size, so they need more structure to support such rapid scaling.
  
  
• 
  They adopted a more project-based structure with agile marketing to provide individual ownership and ensure accountability.
  
  
• 
  They automated more processes using business software.
  
  
• 
  Figure out the best practices, especially when you’re a start-up.
  
  

[44:06] — Future plans for CuraLife

• 
  As a consumer healthcare start-up, they aim to build their clinical position by strengthening their roots in the healthcare markets.
  
  
• 
  Their biggest challenge is how to scale and find the right price point for their product.
  
  

Episode Highlights


[04:39] — Richard introduces Sellgo

• 
  Sellgo is an e-commerce catalog tracker. It started as a wholesale tool to help Amazon sellers find profitable products to sell.
  
  
• 
  It has transitioned into an intelligent data platform to provide better catalog experience to maximize Amazon sellers' growth.
  
  

[06:04] — Sellgo’s unique selling proposition

• 
  Its core feature is automating the process of filtering and sorting out a seller's products and tracking their profit potential.
  
  
• 
  With a software like Sellgo, sellers can look into which products could work now that didn’t work before.
  
  
• 
  The goal is to help sellers grow their market dominance on and outside Amazon.
  
  

[13:04] — Other Sellgo features

• 
  Sellgo is working on presets that can filter by sales velocity, sales equity, and number of sellers.
  
  

[13:55]  — Selling on Amazon is tactical

• 
  Sellgo provides automation that sellers can leverage to apply tactical strategies in their business.
  
  
• 
  They are trying to build supertargeting and “The Wholesale Formula” into their system so that sellers can find their niche product at the inventory level.
  
  
• 
  They can process millions of data, introducing a new way of doing product research.
  
  

[17:10] — Starting a SaaS company

• 
  Sellgo is a bootstrapped company.
  
  
• 
  Before Sellgo, Richard was an Amazon seller who wanted to expand his wholesale business.
  
  
• 
  Although he could have just physically expanded, he had a bigger idea of providing software that gives value to other sellers.
  
  

[18:11] — Raising capital

• 
  To get funding, he presented the idea of Sellgo to a group of angel investors. He was able to raise a million dollars.
  
  
• 
  While living in the Bay Area, Richard learned to tap into the right startup investor community.
  
  
• 
  He formed a team, built a prototype, and pitched to investors.
  
  
• 
  He found that investors tend to invest in the same company types.
  
  

[20:00] — Making the prototype

• 
  Rather than spending so much time on coding the prototype, he instead developed the business concept.
  
  
• 
  He focused on the wireframe and did little coding.
  
  
• 
  Richard says you only need to make sure the prototype works.
  
  

[21:08] — Developing the software

• 
  He has been developing the software for less than a year.
  
  
• 
  The core functionality of the app has developed since then.
  
  
• 
  Competitor analysis affects Sellgo’s positioning.
  
  
• 
  Initially, Richard was thinking big. He only wanted to build a product that can scale.
  
  
• 
  However, he realized it was better to start small and focus on a specific audience.
  
  

[22:57] — Has Sellgo achieved product–market fit?

• 
  Richard meets Amazon sellers at conferences.
  
  
• 
  He informally interviews them to ask about their problems and needs.
  
  
• 
  Through these conversations, he gets an idea of their product–market fit.
  
  

[24:14] — On tapping other audiences

• 
  The other segments of Amazon sellers are the private label sellers and those who do retail arbitrage.
  
  
• 
  Sellgo is focused on Amazon resellers first.
  
  
• 
  However, private label sellers can use Sellgo’s product tracker. They’re not serving arbitrage and dropshipping at the moment.
  
  

[25:29] — Competitor analysis

• 
  Everyone has the same solution in the market, and Sellgo wanted to come up with a different approach. 
  
  
• 
  You don’t want to come to the market late and offer the same thing.
  
  
• 
  Richard can evaluate the products of competitors through the eyes of an Amazon seller.
  
  
• 
  Richard also learns about the competing team because every founder brings their DNA to the product.
  
  

[27:55] — On testing the product

• 
  The company has not aggressively launched Sellgo in public.
  
  
• 
  Sellgo is working with a core group of about 30 beta users who were selected organically from their internal network. Some were sourced from past conferences.
  
  

[28:28] — Content marketing

• 
  Sellgo has started blogging and copywriting.
  
  
• 
  They used both gut and data to compose their first few pieces of content.
  
  
• 
  Sellgo emphasizes the importance of analyzing data to make business decisions.
  
  

[31:30] — Creating a strong SOP

• 
  Richard quotes James Clear: You don't rise to the level of your goal, but you fall to the level of your systems. 
  
  
• 
  Flowster provides users an easy way to manage SOPs through documentation of processes, task delegation, and KPI tracking.
  
  

[32:58] — How Flowster helps SaaS companies

• 
  Flowster aims to get SaaS users up to speed so that they get the maximum benefit of the software in the shortest period. 
  
  
• 
  This allows quick revenue expansion because the companies can add other users.
  
  
• 
  Rather than sending training videos, workflows are provided to make it easy for new users to learn their software.
  
  

Episode Highlights

[03:53] — Joe Welstead introduces Motion Nutrition

• 
  Motion Nutrition sells organic protein powders and natural nootropic products.
  
  
• 
  The benefits range from managing stress and helping customers sleep to improving their daytime energy.
  
  
• 
  It has been four years since Joe started the company.
  
  
• 
  They are currently only based in the UK, but they are interested in expanding to other countries.
  
  

[05:23] — How did Motion Nutrition 10x its revenue?

• 
  The company first specialized in organic sports supplements, but they were not capturing their target audience.
  
  
• 
  Without altering the ingredients of the product, they rebranded their company's identity by making changes in packaging.
  
  
• 
  Instead of emphasizing the technicalities of their ingredients, they employed simple designs and messaging to highlight the benefits of their products.
  
  
• 
  Over the past 18 months, their online sales have grown to $1.5 million without launching on Amazon.
  
  

[07:33] — Motion Nutrition’s D2C marketing strategy

• 
  Joe used in-store sampling to get raw feedback from customers.
  
  
• 
  They made their packaging more environmentally friendly and improved the convenience of their products.
  
  
• 
  Their D2C marketing strategy yielded results, to the tune of 4x to 5x online sales, in three months.
  
  

 [12:49] — Motion Nutrition’s sales channels

• 
  Approximately 40 to 50% of their sales come from their website, 20% from Amazon, and another 20% from other retail stores.
  
  
• 
  They launched on Amazon only a year ago.
  
  
• 
  Their D2C marketing strategy directs their customers to make purchases on their website.
  
  
• 
  Joe views retail stores as passive acquisition channels.
  
  
• 
  Their sleep score quiz, coupled with Facebook advertising, entices people to buy from their website.
  
  

[16:39] — The role of partnerships in Motion Nutrition’s growth

• 
  Their most profitable partnership is with Thrive Magazine. It landed Joe a speaking gig, where he met a student who would later work at a challenger bank with 10 million customers.
  
  
• 
  Establish relationships with people whether they are in a position of power or not. You’ll never know what benefits you will get from it.
  
  
• 
  This practice got him connections in big magazines without advertising with them.
  
  

[22:35]  — Tips to build human relation skills

• 
  Human relations is not about extraversion.
  
  
• 
  Give people your full attention and actively listen.
  
  
• 
  Start a conversation in a non-threatening way.
  
  

[27:07] — Motion Nutrition’s website traffic acquisition

• 
  They have a static ad on Facebook promoting their sleep score quiz. The data comes from the National Sleep Foundation.
  
  
• 
  After the quiz, an offer to purchase an Unplug trial pack for six nights will come up.
  
  
• 
  They also send daily emails based on your answers.
  
  

[29:22]  — Using unicorn ads and brand ambassadors

• 
  Their unicorn ad for Unplug has 15,000 comments and over 1,000 shares.
  
  
• 
  A unicorn ad is an ad you use without changing it. It picks up engagements over a long period.
  
  
• 
  Because of the post’s high organic engagement, more people are discovering Motion Nutrition.
  
  
• 
  As the unicorn ad generates more social proof, the company’s cost per click and cost per mile decrease.
  
  
• 
  The company also works with real-life influencers, such as nutritional therapists.
  
  

[37:59]  — Motion Nutrition’s top funnel

• 
  The company’s competitors are mass-market products, but the way they market themselves is too niche.
  
  
• 
  To differentiate themselves, Motion Nutrition doesn’t use jargon in their messaging. 
  
  
• 
  They create long-term brand equity by being benefit-focused and emotionally driven.
  
  

[40:39] — Converting leads into customers  

• 
  1 week to 10 days — daily emails with tips based on the quiz answers
  
  
• 
  Then, they tell the leads how they will feel in the long term if they buy their products.
  
  
• 
  They’re also careful to manage their leads’ expectations.
  
  

[45:12] — The Motion Nutrition team & processes

• 
  The company has seven full-time employees and three freelancers.
  
  
• 
  Their most repetitive processes concern fulfillment. Their biggest issue at the moment is providing tracking information for customers abroad.
  
  
• 
  Joe says delegating repetitive tasks can free up a quality of work that you wouldn't acquire by hiring someone.
  
  
• 
  They use Capsule as their funnel tool.
  
  
• 
  Joe advises to be careful in working with an outsourcing agency.
  
  

[50:31] — Future of Motion Nutrition

• 
  Their priority is to reach a $2 million run rate and raise significant funding at Series A.
  
  
• 
  Their products will focus on energy, stress and sleep, and longevity.
  
  

Episode Highlights


[03:45] — Kent introduces himself and Neuro

• 
  Neuro was formed in 2013 and officially launched its first product in 2015.
  
  
• 
  Neuro turns supplements into gums and mints you can carry around wherever you go.
  
  
• 
  Their product is the ideal solution for mid-afternoon drowsiness without the undesirable side effects of energy drinks and coffee.
  
  
• 
  The company has sold close to 15 million pieces now.
  
  

[09:32] — What’s the revenue split of Neuro?

• 
  Brick-and-mortar sales used to make up about 20% but dropped to 10% because of COVID-19 restrictions.
  
  
• 
  Sales from Amazon account for 60%.
  
  
• 
  Affiliate sales contribute to 8%.
  
  
• 
  The rest comes from their website.
  
  

[10:25] — Kent explains how they sell on Amazon

• 
  They work with an Amazon Launchpad manager and their in-house manager.
  
  
• 
  The company is seller-central, meaning, they ship from their manufacturing plant to the Amazon fulfillment houses.
  
  
• 
  If they run out of products, they could easily switch to merchant-fulfilled from their third-party logistics.
  
  
• 
  This setup gives them flexibility they wouldn’t have if they had a vendor-central account and inventory runs dependent on Amazon.
  
  

[14:14] — The importance of product images

• 
  A lot of brands don’t shoot enough images.
  
  
• 
  Pictures are valuable in the mobile shopping experience.
  
  
• 
  Convey critical information such as product size, ingredients, and social proof to build credibility.
  
  

[17:02] — How does Kent build momentum for new products?

• 
  Funnel reviews from existing products to new ones.
  
  
• 
  Provide samples.
  
  
• 
  Build your own customer base on your website; develop a brand outside Amazon.
  
  

[18:32] — How do you leverage your email list?

• 
  Neuro segments its email list.
  
  
• 
  After reaching a threshold of repeat purchases, customers are invited to go on Amazon and leave reviews.
  
  
• 
  Some customers are lost to Amazon, but many come back to buy on the website.
  
  
• 
  Reviews on Amazon have long-term benefits of increased visibility compared to the short-term advantage of extra margins from website sales.
  
  

[21:19] — How does Kent steer customers from Amazon to Neuro?

• 
  Incentivize purchases on your website.
  
  
• 
  Neuro offers limited-edition stickers, prizes, and better unboxing experience.
  
  
• 
  Previously, they used Facebook ads to drive customers into a messenger bot sequence that promised them a rebate or refund for purchases on the website.
  
  
• 
  The messenger chat flow strategy brought Amazon to the losing end. As a consequence, Amazon slashed Neuro’s reviews from 1600 to around 1200.
  
  

[26:06] — PR as the best source of traffic

• 
  Kent and his co-founders started sending emails to every media outlet that talked about consumer packaged goods.
  
  
• 
  Currently, Neuro has automated the process of sending emails through Mixmax.
  
  
• 
  Neuro now works with a PR firm, which helps them reach out to high-level influencers and magazines.
  
  

[30:18] — What’s the most effective call to action?

• 
  Social credibility is essential.
  
  
• 
  Being featured on media outlets like Time, Fast Company, BuzzFeed, Shark Tank, and New Yorker has significantly increased their conversion rate.
  
  

[31:29] — Neuro’s conversion rate optimization

• 
  Neuro uses Hot Jar, which allows the company to see how visitors are navigating the website.
  
  
• 
  A digital operations employee manages optimizations on the website and Amazon.
  
  

[32:27] — Do you have documented procedures for your processes?

• 
  Everything is a systemized process in Neuro, such as using Google Data Studio for tracking KPIs.
  
  
• 
  The company also implemented a “rise score” to determine the amount of effort and costs needed for maximum impact.
  
  
• 
  They also work with a digital ads agency to evaluate the company’s performance, study CPA and CRM, and optimize conversions.
  
  

[34:39] — Neuro’s SEO

• 
  SEO is not as effective for Neuro because no one is directly searching for energy gum.
  
  
• 
  They would try targeting within the energy drink sector or people looking into brain health, but SEO won't drive the same traffic as directly targeting someone.
  
  
• 
  Search engine marketing, coupled with PR and direct ads, has instead been performing well for Neuro.
  
  
• 
  Kent estimates their website has an average of 250,000 visits per month.
  
  

[36:32] — Kent explains how to get press coverage

• 
  Most start-ups are not connected with any PR agency.
  
  
• 
  When Neuro was just starting, the founders religiously emailed every media outlet they could.
  
  
• 
  Dr. Oz reached out two weeks after their launch. Shark Tank, on the other hand, reached out to Neuro three months into the business, after their appearances on Time Magazine, CNN, and Dr. Oz.
  
  
• 
  Eventually, they hired virtual assistants and automated the process of sending emails.
  
  

[40:42] — Venturing into podcasts and vlogging

• 
  They have two podcasts. One is a personal project of Kent and Tyler, Neuro’s CEO, called Rethink Everything. The other show aims to destigmatize mental health as Neuro offers products that enhance the mind.
  
  
• 
  On YouTube, they reached out to fitness influencers to create workout videos with them.
  
  
• 
  Podcasts and YouTube are great avenues for finding people who can potentially be a lifetime-value customer or a brand ambassador. 
  
  

[45:22] — Creating an email funnel

• 
  There’s an exit-intent email pop-up on Neuro’s website.
  
  
• 
  Emails are also captured when someone makes a purchase on the website.
  
  
• 
  They also acquire emails during sampling programs like Wodapalooza and Expo West.
  
  
• 
  For email segmentation, they use Retention Science. The platform smart-categorizes people based on their open rates. Once categories are established, customers are not bombarded with unnecessary e-mail.
  
  

[48:56] — Are there changes to Neuro’s business plan as a result of COVID-19?

• 
  All changes are based on how Neuro pushes toward digital optimization and digital operations.
  
  
• 
  The budget for physical sampling programs was reallocated to influencer programs and digital marketing campaigns.
  
  

Episode Highlights

[03:30] — David introduces ScreenCloud

• 
  ScreenCloud is a SaaS digital signage company launched in 2015. They help companies control their content across multiple screens.
  
  
• 
  Digital signage is both advertising and content.
  
  
• 
  From being a side project of their previous agency, they funded it to become a start-up.
  
  

[06:52] — How they established the product-market fit

• 
  Before they got to a point where people were buying the software, they launched a series of side projects. By doing so, they were able to gauge customers' feedback better.
  
  
• 
  Instead of being hardware vendors, they completely went the other way by focusing on the software aspect.
  
  
• 
  Their initial product didn't work because they didn't consider how it would work outside their studio.
  
  
• 
  They created a basic first version of their product to know where they needed to make adjustments.
  
  

[12:08] — ScreenCloud’s biggest challenge

• 
  ScreenCloud's biggest challenge is moving upstream. It is because a lot of their current customers are small and medium businesses.
  
  
• 
  However, for them to clinch more prominent companies, they have to increase their ACV.
  
  
• 
  To get to a million dollars, they have to reach 100,000 customers. Looking at their cohorts’ behavior, they found that what would help them achieve this feat is their bigger customers who are more likely to expand and less likely to churn.
  
  

[15:41] — ScreenCloud’s niche

• 
  Their niche is spread over different industries.
  
  
• 
  They’re making inroads into companies who use screens for “internal comms.” What ScreenCloud does is provide them with an effective means of sharing dashboards.
  
  

[18:54] — Filtering out customers

• 
  Self-serve — They are pushed down the funnel through webinars.
  
  
• 
  Big customers — They are pushed to a sales team.
  
  

[19:07] — ScreenCloud’s marketing route

• 
  They haven’t found success yet in outbound marketing.
  
  
• 
  Their enterprise customers had come in through inbound content marketing. ScreenCloud makes sure they’re producing content specific to them.
  
  
• 
  What works for them is speaking to the right people and giving them an easy way to sign up.
  
  
• 
  Their products primarily require people to be in the office.
  
  
• 
  They have come up with different use cases of getting information. For example, they created a version called Embeddable Channels that you can embed on the intranet or open as a tab on your browser.
  
  

[25:31] — Finding success in inbound content marketing

• 
  Right from the very start, they have invested in content.
  
  
• 
  They use long-tail content that incorporates smaller details.
  
  
• 
  They also use video marketing to showcase various use cases.
  
  

[28:34] — Building a matrix of use cases

• 
  Keyword research
  
  
• 
  Guesswork
  
  
• 
  Talking to customers
  
  
• 
  Automation
  
  

[31:51] — Driving leads down the funnel

• 
  They first introduce the idea of a digital signage solution.
  
  
• 
  Then, they do lots of retargeting and make them understand what ScreenCloud is.
  
  
• 
  At the bottom of the funnel conversion, they explain how companies have used ScreenCloud to engage their people.
  
  
• 
  They have a hybrid approach in their funnel conversion through a newsletter, free trial, and email sequence.
  
  
• 
  The biggest focus is on making free trials a success.
  
  

[33:59] — ScreenCloud’s sales process

• 
  They split the sales process into three depending on the customer size.
  
  
  • 
    Small customers —  website content 
    
    
  • 
    Middle group — semi-automated 
    
    
  • 
    Large customers —  sales teams
    
    
• 
  They document and automate these different sales processes.
  
  

Episode Highlights 


[03:13] — Phil introduces himself 

• 
  He is an email marketer.
  
  
• 
  He helps companies grow their audience and build their email lists.
  
  
• 
  Phil is the founder of Tetra, an email marketing consultancy.
  
  

[04:08] — 2 challenges on digital marketing funnels for Trent

1. 
   He wants to categorize his Bright Ideas audience to provide relevant content for each category and drive them to try out Flowster.
   
   
2. 
   He needs to come up with new strategies to make more people sign up for Flowster’s services.
   
   

[09:04] — Self-segmenting Bright Ideas audience

• 
  An email asks the user to pick and click one out of the three links that’s most applicable to them.
  
  
• 
  After self-segmenting, a follow-up email is sent to offer free resources that are specific, useful, and relevant to the user. 
  
  
• 
  Self-segmenting provides more relevant content for the audience.
  
  
• 
  For Phil, self-segmenting does not have to be complicated.
  
  

[14:52] — Breaking down the digital marketing funnel for Bright Ideas 

1. 
   Self-segment through email links
   
   
2. 
   Provision of specific and targeted free resources
   
   
3. 
   Offer to try out WEBS (Wholesale eCommerce Business System) and gain freemium users.
   
   

[16:12] — Activating people to avail paid services

• 
  Flowster’s freemium model allows users to make up to five templates, hoping they would pay for more templates.
  
  
• 
  Trent shares their struggle with user engagement and getting users to pay for their services.
  
  
• 
  Phil comments about the threshold of five templates for freemium users. It might be too much.
  
  

[22:50] — Designing Flowster’s user experience

• 
  You want people to keep using your app until they upgrade to paid features.
  
  
• 
  For Phil, you have to ensure that your actions will lead to getting users active on the app itself.
  
  
• 
  Including new users in a community group can help build a relationship with them. However, ensuring that they are actually using the different features in the app should be the priority.
  
  

[27:46] — Phil’s tricks on activating people

• 
  It is best to ask users why they are using your product or app to know how to serve them better.
  
  
• 
  Find out the features or services users gain value from.
  
  
• 
  Curate a clean user experience to get people more involved.
  
  

[31:42] — Prioritizing digital marketing funnel efforts

• 
  Phil suggests that Flowster prioritize efforts on the 20% that are actually using the app.
  
  
• 
  Watch out for the completely unengaged audiences who have probably checked out.
  
  
• 
  A win-back email campaign may work to get them to reactivate. If they don’t, Phil suggests cleaning these unengaged audiences from the list and moving on.
  
  

[33:12] — Tetra’s business model

• 
  His company’s model is agency style, where they conceptualize a strategy and build and run it for their client.
  
  
• 
  Tetra can also work alongside their client to teach them how to conceptualize and strategize themselves. 
  
  

[34:46] — Some advice from Phil

• 
  When sending email campaigns, especially with marketing messaging, don’t use something as generic as [email protected] or [email protected].
  
  
• 
  Come up with an alias or avatar to make it sound like it comes from a human, not from a computer.
  
  

Episode Highlights 


[3:47] — Brian introduces Dozuki

• 
  Dozuki is a content management system primarily focused on manufacturers.
  
  
• 
  It is a purpose-built tool that serves as a replacement for Word, PowerPoint, and other related software.
  
  
• 
  Founded in 2011 as a spinout company of iFixit, Dozuki now has 55 employees.
  
  
• 
  The corporate spinout occurred because of the difference in company goals and overall mission.
  
  

[6:56] — Tips on developing your product

• 
  Find a niche and be specific.
  
  
• 
  It’s hard to market a generic product that tries to meet everyone's needs.
  
  
• 
  Create a tool that your customers can't live without.
  
  

[8:33] — How Dozuki took advantage of iFixit’s user base

• 
  Being a content management system for engineers, iFixit allowed engineers to notice Dozuki.
  
  
• 
  Manufacturing companies such as Tesla reached out and became one of their early customers.
  
  
• 
  Dozuki leveraged the large user base of iFixit in marketing and advertising.
  
  
• 
  Dozuki eventually scaled its marketing and sales team, albeit at a much slower pace than a traditional VC-backed company would.
  
  

[14:41] — Brian’s SaaS marketing examples

• 
  Content marketing built Dozuki’s brand to the point that some are interested solely in their content.
  
  
• 
  Referrals from customers are also vital to them.
  
  
• 
  Dozuki uses SEO and SEM as well. Around 50% of their efforts are organic.
  
  
• 
  The company focuses on writing about the current industry challenges and how companies are solving them.
  
  

[17:52] — How Dozuki establishes relationships through free services

• 
  Dozuki has a free SOP template with calls to action that entice the user to dig deeper.
  
  
• 
  It creates an entry point for them to begin a conversation with the potential customer.
  
  
• 
  The goal of the free service is not to pitch a demo right away. It’s to build and nurture goodwill.
  
  

[21:11] — Dozuki’s pricing strategy

• 
  Pricing starts at $200 a month. It's based on their experience selling to the industry and what the market can bear.
  
  
• 
  Dozuki has a per-user model; the larger the company, the more expensive it gets.
  
  
• 
  They are trying to find ways to use the trial period as a way to generate leads.
  
  
• 
  They serve a broad spectrum of companies in terms of size. Sales cycles tend to be longer in large companies given their strict IT policies around security.
  
  

[24:34] — Why Dozuki hasn’t done much partnership

• 
  Brian found that partnerships have become a little bit of a distraction.
  
  
• 
  Nonetheless, there are a lot of opportunities there, particularly amid the COVID-19 crisis.
  
  

[29:37] — Tips on converting leads into sales

• 
  Marketing-qualified leads are scored based on the actions they take.
  
  
• 
  For example, SOP templates weigh more compared to blogs.
  
  
• 
  Sales reps should try to be helpful from the very start.
  
  
• 
  Dozuki uses sales engagement software such as Outreach and Salesloft to assist the sales representatives in structuring the follow-ups.
  
  

[37:35] — Onboarding & churn

• 
  Dozuki segments customers according to company size. The larger ones get more attention.
  
  
• 
  There is a 30-day structured pilot for the users to understand the software better and for the decision-makers to find value in it. It costs less than the monthly subscription.
  
  
• 
  Dozuki converts 75% of the pilot users into paying customers. Those that did not convert did not have the top management onboard.
  
  
• 
  Churn rate is unexpectedly low even for smaller manufacturers.
  
  

[45:03] — Why SaaS companies should practice dogfooding 

• 
  Dogfooding is using our own product for quality control and marketing.
  
  
• 
  Dozuki documents every single sales process so that they can build a training curriculum from it.
  
  
• 
  This also builds accountability among the employees.

Episode Highlights 


[02:25] — Justin introduces Boostopia

• 
  Boostopia is a software for customer support managers that come up with ways to improve eCommerce customer experience.
  
  
• 
  Three of the four co-founders worked with Justin at an eCommerce company he founded before Boostopia.
  
  
• 
  At first, the company relied on the first batch of customers and their referral networks. Now, they’re developing a lead generation program through cold sales and business development.
  
  
• 
  Their focus has been companies with one full-time agent and between 1 and 20 customers.
  
  

[09:45] — Boostopia's positioning

• 
  Their processes improve support operations so that it’s not only a cost center but something that creates revenue. The end goal is to improve the overall customer experience.
  
  
• 
  As a result, the solution they found was in enterprise products requiring multi-year contracts. 
  
  
• 
  They designed the software to have an accessible modern design that is intuitive and easy.
  
  

[13:40] — The #1 problem that Boostopia solves

• 
  Boostopia helps companies scale and grow without spending money and hiring people more than they need to.
  
  
• 
  Boostopia’s tools and add-ons help scaling organizations understand how they can improve their support department system.
  
  
• 
  On average, Boostopia helps companies decrease their support volume by 30% and make the existing team 20% faster.
  
  
• 
  By improving their processes and treating their teams better, companies serve their customers better as a result
  
  

[16:43] — The job of a support team role

• 
  One of the highest turnover roles in an eCommerce company is the support role. It’s because oftentimes companies are not engaging the team.
  
  
• 
  Without improving the processes of the support operation, customer experience will suffer.
  
  
• 
  Customers prefer not to have problems in the first place instead of talking to people about the issues they have.
  
  

[21:10] — Boostopia’s customer acquisition categories

• 
  Outbound or cold sales development
  
  
• 
  Customer referrals
  
  
• 
  Paid advertising campaigns
  
  

[25:09] — Justin explains how they pull leads

• 
  They create an outbound sequence of email varieties to start conversations and eventually get customers on an initial call.
  
  
• 
  They clinch two to three appointments from about 300 emails per week, a 1% ratio.
  
  

[27:29] — The bottleneck in the system

• 
  They were having intermittent deliverability challenges, and they couldn’t get out of that slump.
  
  
• 
  The solution they’re testing for this is bringing a third party to improve their domain reputation.
  
  

[28:49] — Justin shares what their messaging looks like

• 
  Boostopia cites some of the hallmark brands they have worked with.
  
  
• 
  They then give a preview of their support operation solution when it comes to scaling.
  
  
• 
  They offer free in-depth support operation audits.
  
  
• 
  They’re also stacking around intent, signal-based programs.
  
  

[35:00] — What their referral program looks like

• 
  They're intentional about asking existing customers to refer other potential clients to them. It is a 100% manual outreach.
  
  
• 
  Concerning their partnerships, their clients send them referrals who have questions about ticketing systems. If they close the deal, Boostopia gives the referring client a referral fee.
  
  

[38:02] — A look into Boostopia’s processes

• 
  The initial work — build the process, optimize, and figure out what the best process is.
  
  
• 
  The next is to identify what the best tool or resource is for automating that process. The goal is to minimize the amount of human input.
  
  
• 
  Boostopia is in the spectrum of automating to outsourcing. Their onboarding specialists handle all the onboarding work with customers, which is a checklist-heavy and well-documented process.
  
  

[43:08] — Ways to improve eCommerce customer experience

• 
  Customers want advisors, not problem-fixers. They care the most about customer experience.
  
  
• 
  Hence, it is crucial to focus on the operation side of things to free them from answering repetitive customer questions.
  
  
• 
  More and more companies are moving their support operations from a cost center to a profit center.
  
  

Resources

• 
  Boostopia — Learn more about Justin’s all-in-one support operations platform and how it can transform your team and customer experience.
  
  
• 
  Flowster — Discover the platform that will make hiring, delegating, and training your team an absolute breeze.
  
  
• 
  ConvertKit
  
  
• 
  Zendesk
  
  
• 
  Allbirds
  
  
• 
  Pumba
  
  

Episode Highlights

[02:39] — Aki talks about MarketMuse
● Aki launched MarketMuse, a SaaS company using AI to help content marketers, creators, and strategists to optimize their content and make better planning decisions.
● He started working on it as a science project around 2014. It eventually became a commercial enterprise in 2015 when his co-founder Jeff Coyle joined him.
● They raised around $10 million to launch the company.
● MarketMuse's ideal customers are marketing managers, content strategists, SEO specialists, managing editors, and publishers.

[08:04] — How AI helps you make a content marketing plan
● AI can be used to automate or semi-automate the research behind your content strategy.
● Content strategy involves the new articles you need on your site and the existing articles you can improve, optimize, or repurpose.
● Machines are good at reading a lot of information quickly; humans are better at analyzing, storytelling, and opinionating.
● You can get the essence of a topic using AI, but it’s up to you to inject your expertise and create better content.

[13:33] —  MarketMuse’s customer growth
● MarketMuse currently has about 200 paying companies and 5,000 new and trial customers.
● Originally labeled as an enterprise platform, they lowered their price point to start servicing startups and SMBs.
● Making the product free for 3 months during the pandemic helped the company gather more user data.

[15:51] — Influencer and content marketing
● Getting their first customers were challenging because they were describing a concept and service that do not have much terminology. It eventually got easier as time went by.
● Influencer marketing significantly contributed to attracting users. Aki reached out to influencers who, in return, gained value from MarketMuse and referred to them for a time.
● They eventually hired a content strategist who wrote articles for and about MarketMuse.

[24:55] — Leveraging partnerships for lead generation and customer acquisition
● Aki uses both referral and agency partnerships to gain more customers.
● Referral partnerships have no cost and no risk.
● Agency partners use the software for attracting prospects and generating better in-house content marketing plans.

[31:46] — Why inbound marketing is a better fit for MarketMuse
● Outbound marketing, such as cold-prospecting and email blasts, does have its place, but not for customer acquisition in their industry.
● Most of their customers are content specialists who are inbound-oriented.
● They also avoid paid marketing as they see no value in it at the moment.
● Aki and his team focus mainly on conferences as they provide deeper conversations and connections.

[36:41] — How Aki determined his pricing model
● Initially, he got random inputs.
● Customer feedback is essential to determine your price.
● MarketMuse moved on to a more data-driven pricing model in 2018.
● They realized they would need varying prices catering to companies of different sizes.

[41:19] — Reducing churn rate
● For VCs, a low churn rate is a better indicator of a successful SaaS company than a high revenue. It means that you have a good retention rate and expansion.
● With an inbound-led funnel, you end up selling to various types of customers. Outbound, on the other hand, allows you to focus on your ideal customer profile.
● Track customer success (CS).

[46:09] — Revenue expansion
● In terms of revenue expansion, MarketMuse tracks product usage to look at the ROI and value.
● They also recently came up with data-driven CS health scores.
● They use a model to analyze categorical data. If the score is too low, they conduct a remediation.

[49:12] — MarketMuse’s systems & processes
● They are currently hiring at a slower pace.
● To streamline their recruitment process, MarketMuse utilizes an applicant tracking system. They also post ads on Stack Exchange to attract engineering talent.
● They use various tools to document their work processes. As much as possible, Aki tries to experiment and learn from remote companies.

Resources links can be found at https://brightideas.co/content-marketing-plan/

Episode Highlights

[00:23] — Rand introduces SparkToro and gives a brief background about himself 

● Rand started a new SaaS company called SparkToro that helps with audience intelligence and market research. 
● He co-founded a company with his mom called Moz. He worked there for 17 years before putting up SparkToro with his long-time friend Casey Henry. 

[03:28] — How Rand views SaaS debt funding 

● The SparkToro funding method does not follow the usual path to venture funding.
● He wants to raise funds without the expectation of becoming a unicorn startup and without giving full control to investors.
● He thinks the venture model is unhealthy and detrimental to the survival of many small and medium businesses.

[10:19] — Tips before looking for SaaS debt funding 

● Build your expertise. 
● Help a lot of people and build your network through that.
● Once you’ve established a good network, start your SaaS debt funding.
● Prepare a pitch deck with the necessary information.

[16:41] — Rand shares how they determined valuation

● Before SaaS debt funding, they set a structured valuation and picked a number that is standard for a company at its early stage.
● They had conversations with their lead investors to determine a comfortable price range for both parties.

[24:22] — Rand explains the LLC as his chosen business structure. 

● As an LLC, the investors own units of distribution, not units of ownership.
● This gives founders more control over decision-making in the company’s operations and growth.
● The management team can choose whether to distribute profits or reinvest those profits. 
● They get a fixed salary until they pay back their SaaS debt funding. 

[29:43] — How did Rand make sure his investors are accredited?

● He mentioned in his email request that he could only take money from accredited investors. 
● He also sent a link to the US rules for accredited investors.

[30:47] — Rand shares some takeaways on SaaS debt funding

● Think really hard about what you want to build in the long term.
● There are intense hours and relaxed hours as a startup founder.
● You can achieve what everyone would consider a financial success and not have a successful outcome.
● Think small and sustainable.
● Only a few founders realize how unlikely exits are.

[36:25] — How did you build the business after fundraising? 

● There was no real prototype, but they had a proof of concept and some information that could produce some results.
● The first year of development involved a lot of market research through a medium-scale survey and face-to-face interviews.

[42:01] — How the pandemic has affected SparkToro’s survival and growth

● They had to come up with new strategies to make up for the setbacks brought by the pandemic.
● They saw fewer subscriptions, and the bounce rate was high.
● However, they continue to find new ways to thrive.

[44:51] — What are your business strategies during this pandemic?   

● Make the free account more generous and promote it more.
● Build future demand to have a more successful business in the long term.
● Believe that there will be future demand for the product.

Resources links can be found at https://brightideas.co/saas-debt-funding/