BROADCASTS.com

Jon Ferrara. He\u2019s been recognized for pioneering innovation in the customer service management category for many years. Prior to founding Nimble, he was the creator and co-founder of the award-winning customer management product GoldMine. In 1999, Goldmine got acquired by FrontRange and he left to pursue other interests. During those years, he continued to watch the CRM market grow. He saw that most CRMs in the industry that were serving small businesses moved up market and became way more expensive and more complex\u2014leaving the small business market totally underserved. It was at that point that Jon decided to create the next generation CRM product for small businesses called Nimble.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \u2013 Think and Grow Rich
• What CEO do you follow? \u2013\xa0 Marc Benioff
• Favorite online tool? \u2014 Buffer App
• How many hours of sleep do you get?\u2014 Around 8
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \u2013 \u201cStart a business earlier\u201d

\xa0

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 00:44 \u2013 Nathan introduces Jon to the show
• 01:42 \u2013 Jon was on Episode 643 of The Top
• • 01:55 \u2013 Nimble has around 10K paying customers with a monthly RPU of $20
  • 02:08 \u2013 3% monthly churn
  • 02:14 \u2013 CAC is around $5
  • 02:24 \u2013 Team size is 25
• 02:43 \u2013 Nimble has recently closed a $9M round
• 03:07 \u2013 Acquiring SMBs is the exact same way they\u2019ve scaled Goldmine
• • 03:20 \u2013 The problem with most CRMs today is that only sales and marketing people use these systems when in fact, everyone in the company should use it
  • 03:56 \u2013 Jon cold called every Novel reseller in the country when Goldmine was just starting
  • 04:00 \u2013 \u201cPeople sell what they know and know what they use\u201d
• 04:15 \u2013 When Jon started Nimble, no one knew that social media would be the way to grow a business
• 04:30 \u2013 Jon looked around for influencers for Nimble\u2019s launch
• • 04:48 \u2013 Nimble is the early pioneer of influencer marketing
  • 05:08 \u2013 Nimble was getting 100K website views with 0 marketing spend
• 05:25 \u2013 As a company scales up, it should also touch the customers in different ways
• 05:43 \u2013 Nimble doesn\u2019t pay influencers
• 05:45 \u2013 To find influencers, you have to know the core influencers around your product
• • 06:00 \u2013 You find ways on how to build a relationship with influencers
• 06:32 \u2013 Nimble will now try to get around with ad spend
• 06:41 \u2013 Jon always believed that there was another way to get access to customers
• 06:44 \u2013 Jon is going to replicate the strategy they used with Goldmine by partnering with people similar to Microsoft and Google and get their VARs to use Nimble and start recommending it
• 07:01 \u2013 Nimble just signed a deal with Microsoft where they can be a reseller of Nimble
• • 07:12 \u2013 Microsoft can now give their VARs Nimble so their VARs can be better, smarter and faster in sales and marketing
  • 07:33 \u2013 Nimble will work on top of Office 365 as the operating system of a business
• 07:57 \u2013 Microsoft is currently passing their revenue to the VARs
• 08:11 \u2013 The VARs are the one making the MRR which is 20%
• 08:30 \u2013 Nimble\u2019s average RPU is now around $30
• 08:41 \u2013 If you can help a business person with their sales and marketing needs, you\u2019re now opening yourself up to other functionalities for that customer
• 08:53 \u2013 Every business struggles with sales, marketing and relationship management
• 09:20 \u2013 Nimble just rolled out new pricing and marked on automation add-on
• 10:13 \u2013 March MRR is around $225K
• 10:25 \u2013 Nimble now has around 10.5K customers
• 11:31 \u2013 Without relying on the VARs, it\u2019s going to be a long term strategy for Nimble
• 11:48 \u2013 Microsoft has bundled Nimble inside of Outlook mobile, Office 365 and Outlook desktop
• • 12:07 \u2013 It is like a free acquisition
• 12:32 \u2013 Jon won the deal with Microsoft because of their relationship
• 12:42 \u2013 In every business relationship, you want to know how the other person answers and what success looks like for that person
• 13:21 \u2013 Nimble is now a free plug-in with Office 365
• • 13:37 \u2013 Users can use Nimble for free without paying $30 a month
  • 13:42 \u2013 Nimble is like Rapportive on steroids
  • 13:48 \u2013 Nimble has a limited feature for free users
• 14:14 \u2013 Business people are the ones who usually convert to paid users
• 14:33 \u2013 The market of Nimble is a very fragmented market
• 14:37 \u2013 Nathan mentions the people in the same market that were on The Top:
• • 14:39 \u2013 Hatchbuck
  • 14:55 \u2013 Pipedrive
  • 15:02 \u2013 Close.io
  • 15:08 \u2013 Contactually
• 15:29 \u2013 In a fragmented market, you need to be top of the line with your customers, influencers and with business products that people use
• 15:52 \u2013 Nimble continues to be rated as No. 1
• 17:00 \u2013 The way Nimble wins is how it executes the distribution channels
• 17:13 \u2013 Team size is currently 32 and based in Santa Monica and Ukraine
• 17:44 \u2013 You don\u2019t go to raise with a particular value in mind
• • 17:53 \u2013 Let the market determine the value
• 18:06 \u2013 The last round raised was a series A
• • 18:22 \u2013 Nimble has talked to a number of VCs and with this deal, they\u2019re bringing in a seasoned CEO
• 19:18 \u2013 What people are vetting for Nimble is the future
• 19:41 \u2013 \u201cWe\u2019re definitely going for a large exit with Nimble\u201d
• 20:14 \u2013 Office 365 is now dominating the email cloud productivity space and they\u2019re just starting
• 20:48 \u2013 \u201cAnd Nimble, I believe, is positioned today to dominate in this space\u201d
• 22:05 \u2013 The Famous Five

\xa0

3 Key Points:

• In a fragmented market, you need to be TOP of line\u2014a product that people will always recommend.
• You have to know how a potential client answers a question and how they define success when making a deal.
• Nurture your business relationships\u2014this is KEY to your success.

\xa0

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
• Klipfolio \u2013 Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Hotjar \u2013 Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you\u2019re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
• 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
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives