Published: June 21, 2017, 9 a.m.
Scot Wingo. He\u2019s the CEO of Spiffy. He\u2019s also a 4-time serial entrepreneur and industry thought leader in ecommerce and on-demand economy realm. He\u2019s appeared on CNBC\u2019s Today\u2019s Show and contributed his expertise to The Wall Street Journal, New York Times along with many other publications. He previously founded Stingray Software which he sold to Rogue Wave Software, AuctionRover which was sold to GoTo/Overture, and ChannelAdvisor that went public in 2013, under the stock symbol ECOM.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? \u2013 The Hard Thing About Hard Things
- What CEO do you follow? \u2013\xa0 Jeff Bezos
- Favorite online tool? \u2014 LinkedIn
- How many hours of sleep do you get?\u2014 4-6
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \u2013 \u201cTo trust your instincts and invest even more in your own companies\u201d
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Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 00:44 \u2013 Nathan introduces Scot to the show
- 01:29 \u2013 Spiffy is an on-demand car wash and detail company
- 01:33 \u2013 Customers pay for car washes and Spiffy is full-stock
- 01:59 \u2013 Spiffy is a pay-as-you-go model
- 02:02 \u2013 Some customers would request to have their car cleaned on a regular basis so they\u2019re currently working on a subscription plan
- 02:30 \u2013 Having your car cleaned is addicting
- 03:02 \u2013 Spiffy started in 2014
- 03:17 \u2013 Scot was 46 in 2014
- 03:26 \u2013 Scot loves building a company
- 04:00 \u2013 In 1999, AuctionRover started
- 04:14 \u2013 AuctionRover is a search engine for auction sites
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- 04:16 \u2013 Scot always had a plan to develop software for sellers
- 04:20 \u2013 After getting acquired, they developed the software which turned into ChannelAdvisor
- 05:43 \u2013 They\u2019ve raised $3M for AuctionRover
- 05:53 \u2013 AuctionRover started to get acquisition offers
- 06:16 \u2013 Scot was a fan of Goto
- 06:45 \u2013 Stingray put Scot in a position where it had to work
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- 07:32 \u2013 Scot had accumulated personal debt to run Stingray
- 07:55 \u2013 Scot was 25 when he founded Stingray
- 08:03 \u2013 Scot had Stingray for 3 years before selling it to Rogue
- 08:11 \u2013 Acquisition price was around $7M
- 08:27 \u2013 It was software and Scot had a 30% margin
- 09:07 \u2013 Scot added $3M through fundraising
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- 09:55 \u2013 Tim Draper was on Episode 129
- 10:17 \u2013 AuctionRover\u2019s acquisition price was $20-50M
- 10:43 \u2013 The negotiation with Goto to buy back AuctionRover
- 11:18 \u2013 Scot bought back AuctionRover for around $1M
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- 11:37 \u2013 They bought it back in 2001
- 12:00 \u2013 When Scot IPOd ChannelAdvisor, everything was new to him and he had never taken a company that big before
- 12:07 \u2013 Scot\u2019s dad was a business person and was on Fortune Magazine
- 12:58 \u2013 Scot always has a higher goal
- 13:37 \u2013 \u201cIf you\u2019ve raised a venture capital, you\u2019re going to have an exit\u201d
- 13:47 \u2013 Scot wanted to see what an IPO process looked like
- 14:02 \u2013 Scot raised capital for ChannelAdvisor
- 14:14 \u2013 ChannelAdvisor helps retailers and brands sell on eBay, Amazon and other channels
- 14:26 \u2013 ChannelAdvisor raised a total of $90M before the IPO
- 15:08 \u2013 ChannelAdvisor\u2019s market price on Day 1
- 16:03 \u2013 Scot brought in a COO to help him
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- 16:11 \u2013 After going public, the COO was promoted to president
- 16:20 \u2013 Scot felt he wasn\u2019t learning much more and the president wanted to step into the CEO role
- 16:27 \u2013 Scot felt it was a great time for the president to mature and take on the CEO position
- 16:47 \u2013 Scot just simply sent a letter to the board about him leaving
- 17:35 \u2013 Scot is more of a tactical entrepreneur
- 17:47 \u2013 \u201cI just really like solving hard problems and scaling businesses\u201d
- 17:55 \u2013 Everytime Scot would have a career change, it was in a different space
- 18:05 \u2013 Since Spiffy is consumer oriented, Scot believes he can scale it faster than ChannelAdvisor
- 18:27 \u2013 Scot\u2019s goal for Spiffy
- 19:35 \u2013 Scot had 2 physical car washes after selling his 2nd company
- 19:44 \u2013 Spiffy was an MVP in 2014 when it was launched
- 20:09 \u2013 There are reasons why customers don\u2019t like detailing
- 20:40 \u2013 70% of Spiffy\u2019s revenue is from out-work consumers
- 21:11 \u2013 Spiffy just crossed the $200M runaway and is growing annually north of 100%
- 21:33 \u2013 Team size in the office is around 20 and around 60 technicians
- 22:06 \u2013 Spiffy has raised $7.5M on their series A
- 22:18 \u2013 Scot still gets excited raising funds
- 22:38 \u2013 Scot\u2019s aspiration for Spiffy is bigger than his checkbook
- 23:55 \u2013 The Famous Five
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3 Key Points:
- Always aim higher when it comes to your goals.
- Going through multiple exits boosts your learning and experience.
- Always trust your instincts.
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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
- 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