Ep 170 Landon Ray, the founder and CEO of Ontraport, an award winning web-based sales, marketing, and business automation software platform. Listen as Nathan and Landon talk about how the latter went from selling flowers, to Wall Street, to running his own wildly successful business.

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3 Key Points:

1. Ontraport stays true to its mission by lowering the cost of their services after they became well established to aid small business owners.
2. Landon pivoted his old assets in the SEO business to create Ontraport – he also used some of his personal savings to keep the business going before it blew up.
3. It’s hard to pull yourself out of career mode once you’ve settled into it. Whenever possible, it’s beneficial to expand your horizons by traveling.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:00 – Nathan’s introduction to today’s show
• 02:05 – Landon joins the show.
• 03:25 – When he was 25, Landon wanted to find something meaningful to do and was attracted to the technological renaissance in Silicon Valley at the time.
• 03:20 – The main reason businesses in the info-marketing space don’t go into software is that the development side can be intimidating.
• 04:22 – Landon bought and sold stock for himself on Wall Street – he stopped after 2001.
• 05:30 – Being in the SEO business was a bad move because Google would eventually take away all the search results.
• 07:19 – Before Ontraport gained traction, hundreds of thousands of dollars went into the company from Landon’s own pocket. He didn’t take a salary either because he had savings.
• 08:04 – The business has about 10K clients and made about 500K four years in a row.
• 10:36 – Ontraport’s mission is to remove the burden of technology for entrepreneurs so they can focus on building the business they love.
• 11:21 – Ontraport’s services have gotten cheaper because they can afford to do it.
• 12:07 – The average customer pays 400$ a month, but the current value is now offset by a free service the company offers.
• 13:09 – Ontraport has about 6K customers paying about 200-300$ and 100 employees.
• 13:50 – Between 14-20 million dollars in annual returning revenue.
• 16:40 – If Oracle offered to buy Ontraport for 100 million, Landon would decline. Though the money would guarantee stability, the business is in a very favorable position right now.
• 18:17 – Landon would consider 50 million for a portion of Ontraport.
• 19:00 – Famous Five

Resources Mentioned:

• Edgar – Nathan uses Edgar instead of other scheduling tools for Twitter because Edgar cycles through content over and over (buffer/others you have to re-input content over and over – time consuming). In the last several months, Edgar has driven Nathan over 3728 clicks that he didn’t have to work or pay for. Here isNathan’s Edgar Content Calendar:

• Ontraport – Landon’s business.
• LinkedIn – Landon’s LinkedIn
• The Obstacle Is the Way – Landon’s favorite book.
• Gary Vaynerchuk – CEO Landon follows
• Google Keep – Landon’s favorite online tool

Famous 5

• Favorite Book?— The Obstacle Is the way by Ryan Holiday
• What CEO do you follow?— Gary Vaynerchuk
• What is your favorite online tool?— Google Keep
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be?—Once you get into career mode, it’s hard to pull yourself out of it. Remember to travel and expand your horizons.

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