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Tobyn Sowden. He\u2019s the CEO of Redbrick, the second fastest growing software company in Canada and the birthplace of a product called Shift.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \u2013 How to Win Friends and Influence People
• What CEO do you follow? \u2013\xa0 N/A
• Favorite online tool? \u2014 InVision
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?\u2014 6
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \u2013 \u201cI would tell myself technical, all the way\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:39 \u2013 Nathan introduces Tobyn to the show
• 02:00 \u2013 Profit Guide named Redbrick as the second fastest software company in Canada, by measuring revenue growth
• • 02:25 \u2013 Profit Guide measured a whole 5 year period
  • 02:30 \u2013 Redbrick had $200K revenue in 2010 and $10-20M in 2015
• 03:00 \u2013 Redbrick was launched in 2010
• 03:15 \u2013 Redbrick started from an app distribution perspective
• • 03:38 \u2013 Redbrick has developed their own tools to track
  • 04:20 \u2013 Redbrick\u2019s main software is Deskmetrics, which is integrated into Shift
  • 04:31 \u2013 Deskmetrics currently has 500K active users
• 05:00 \u2013 Not all who downloads are active users
• • 05:08 \u2013 The number of downloads are tracked
  • 05:34 \u2013 SDK is a software development kit
• 05:59 \u2013 Deskmetrics provides consulting services
• 06:06 \u2013 Facebook is one of Deskmetrics\u2019 sources for customer acquisition
• • 06:40 \u2013 Redbrick is currently spending around $30K for Facebook paid acquisition
  • 06:54 \u2013 Redbrick is working with a team on Facebook and is committed to growing their spending into millions of dollars for growth
• 07:33 \u2013 Tobyn shares the idea of Shift
• • 08:07 \u2013 Shift had a preview in September and people liked it
  • 08:12 \u2013 Shift allows you to switch around your Gmail and google accounts
• 08:51 \u2013 Tobyn increased their team size and hired more developers
• 09:08 \u2013 Shift is a SaaS business with $20/year subscription fee
• 09:31 \u2013 Shift primarily uses Facebook for advertising
• 09:49 \u2013 Shift has around 30K installs and 10K active users
• 10:00 \u2013 Shift\u2019s free-to-paid conversion rate is around 4-5%
• 10:23 \u2013 Shift is 3-months old
• 10:48 \u2013 Tobyn needed to decide if they will launch Shift on December 20th or wait until 2nd week of January
• 11:16 \u2013 Shift is doing great at the moment and there\u2019s definitely a market for it
• 11:40 \u2013 Tobyn shares why they decided that Shift be a desktop download
• • 12:53 \u2013 Tobyn wants to avoid integrations that will make Shift look like a browser
• 13:15 \u2013 Redbrick has 3 parts: the app distribution side, Deskmetrics and Shift
• • 13:35 \u2013 The app distribution side is the major revenue stream
  • 13:45 \u2013 Tobyn believes that their path is the app distribution side
• 14:16 \u2013 Team size is 37 and they\u2019re based in Victoria BC in Vancouver, Canada
• • 14:31 \u2013 There are small teams in Poland and Brazil
• 15:12 \u2013 Deskmetrics is primarily a desktop software analytics platform
• 16:15 \u2013 An average customer pays $500 monthly
• 16:36 \u2013 Tobyn was charging per number of users, but they changed it
• 17:14 \u2013 Deskmetrics was launched in 2016
• 17:45 \u2013 Redbrick has a lot of predictive models that they used in terms of CAC
• 19:20 \u2013 The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Facebook is one of the best places, at the moment, for paid advertising.
• You can always go and develop more products, but recognize when it\u2019s wise to stick to the path you\u2019re already on.
• Charging per head can at times restrict your customers from using your product to its fullest potential.

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Resources Mentioned:

• The Top Inbox\xa0 \u2013 The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• Organifi \u2013 The juice was Nathan\u2019s life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
• Klipfolio \u2013 Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Acuity Scheduling \u2013 Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Host Gator\xa0\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible\xa0\u2013 Nathan uses Audible when he\u2019s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
• Freshbooks \u2013 Nathan doesn\u2019t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives