BROADCASTS.com

b'

Jeroen Corthout. He\\u2019s the co-founder and CEO of Salesflare, the intelligent CRM that startups and small businesses love to use. Prior to Salesflare, he was helping companies to implement their new CRM, marketing and sales. Salesflare kicked off when he and his co-founder, Lieven, found a way to automate their CRM data. Salesflare\\u2019s mission is to automate everything in sales, but the irreplaceable human contact.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \\u2013 The Alchemist
• What CEO do you follow? \\u2013 Jeroen has been reading the biographies of Tony Hsieh, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos
• Favorite online tool? \\u2014 Zapier
• How many hours of sleep do you get?\\u2014 7-8
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \\u2013 Jeroen wished he had started these bigger projects earlier

\\xa0

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:38 \\u2013 Nathan introduces Jeroen to the show
• 02:16 \\u2013 Salesflare helps mostly startups to make their sales consistently productive, to have the right data, and to communicate and manage the pipeline better
• 02:28 \\u2013 Salesflare sells licenses
• 02:40 \\u2013 Salesflare\\u2019s price point is $30/month when you pay annually and $35 if monthly
• 02:58 \\u2013 Salesflare started halfway through 2013
  • 03:04 \\u2013 Jeroen and Lieven were working in a software company
  • 03:20 \\u2013 Jeroen knew there was no solution to keep files automatically
• 03:28 \\u2013 Salesflare basically pulls all the CRM data for you
• 03:49 \\u2013 On top of a lot of data, Salesflare is building automation and intelligence
  • 03:52 \\u2013 There\\u2019s an automatic to-do list and body temperature indicator
• 04:12 \\u2013 Salesflare is largely self-funded, some from accelerators
  • 04:24 \\u2013 Telenet Kickstart and iMinds are the accelerators from Belgium
  • 04:37 \\u2013 Salesflare got $25K from one accelerator without equity and the other one had a convertible loan of $50K
  • 05:10 \\u2013 Salesflare has raised a total of $700K
• 05:28 \\u2013 Jeroen was in the consulting field
• 05:49 \\u2013 Salesflare is currently building a convertible round with investors and has raised $250K; the target is $350K
• 06:57 \\u2013 Salesflare has over 100 customers
• 07:14 \\u2013 Jeroen believes that people don\\u2019t usually trust small companies, even if they have great products
• 08:00 \\u2013 Average revenue
• 08:19 \\u2013 Salesflare is based in Antwerp, Belgium
• 08:24 \\u2013 Team size is 6
  • 08:30 \\u2013 3 are building the product and the other 3 are sales and customer service
• 08:55 \\u2013 Jeroen likes people to think that they are bigger than they are
• 09:02 \\u2013 Nathan believes that some people like small companies because of their flexibility
• 10:40 \\u2013 Nathan tells Jeroen that his assumption of \\u201cit\\u2019s not good if it\\u2019s free\\u201d is a completely false assumption
• 11:28 \\u2013 Most people stick to Salesflare after the trial period
• 11:40 \\u2013 There\\u2019s currently a big market of CRMs
• 11:46 \\u2013 Salesflare is aiming at sales automation and there\\u2019s very little competition in that space
• 12:12 \\u2013 Salesflare is moving faster than their competition
• 12:17 \\u2013 Hubspot\'s distribution channel is huge and Salesflare won\\u2019t be able to compete with that
  • 12:23 \\u2013 But Salesflare can compete on the profit side
• 12:37 \\u2013 Salesflare has a low churn
  • 13:12 \\u2013 Salesflare got their first customer at the end of 2015
• 14:00 \\u2013 Salesflare has a blog, does outbound emailing and builds their online presence for customer acquisition
• 14:36 \\u2013 Salesflare does content distribution through Facebook\\u2019s paid advertising
• 14:47 \\u2013 Most of Salesflare\\u2019s recent customers are from Product Hunt
• 15:23 \\u2013 Jeroen has no idea of the number of trials they\\u2019ve had since the launch
  • 15:45 \\u2013 Jeroen tracks the conversion, instead
  • 16:05 \\u2013 In the past week, there were 250 new trial signups
  • 16:15 \\u2013 The conversion to paid customer is around 10-15%
• 16:30 \\u2013 Salesflare tries to show its value as quickly as possible
• 17:10 \\u2013 The Famous Five

\\xa0

3 Key Points:

1. If you\\u2019re still unsure of starting a new business, find other ways to get involved in that space to understand how it works.
2. Some businesses offer a free product to show their value to the customer right away.
3. Competing with a free product with a large distribution channel isn\\u2019t easy, but you can generate a higher profit margin.

\\xa0

Resources Mentioned:

• The Top Inbox \\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\\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible\\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