BROADCASTS.com

Connor Gillivan. He\u2019s a 27-year old serial entrepreneur and published author. He started his first company out of his college dorm room and built it to sell over $20M in products on Amazon.com. After he became an expert on hiring online, he co-founded FreeeUp, an online hiring marketplace focused on connecting the top 1% freelancers with business owners. He\u2019s the author of Free Up Your Business: 50 Secrets to Bootstrap Million Dollar Companies.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \u2013 Shoe Dog
• What CEO do you follow? \u2013 Elon Musk
• Favorite online tool? \u2014 Jira
• How many hours of sleep do you get?\u2014 5-6
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \u2013 \u201cI wished I knew to stay focused on what I do best\u201d

\xa0

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 00:47 \u2013 Nathan introduces Connor to the show
• 01:32 \u2013 Connor makes 20% to 30% of the gross margin of a product on Amazon
• • 01:38 \u2013 Net profits end up being from 5%-15%
• 02:04 \u2013 It was 6 years ago when Connor started his business
• 02:15 \u2013 Connor earned on the first year of the business
• 02:51 \u2013 Connor has scaled up his first company
• 03:00 \u2013 The company still operates with $1-2M in revenue per year
• 03:08 \u2013 The team is composed of freelancers who are based around the world
• 03:27 \u2013 The 3 founders, including Connor, are getting their pay quarterly
• 03:40 \u2013 Connor now spends his time on his second business FreeeUp
• 03:52 \u2013 Connor\u2019s first company is Portlight
• • 04:05 \u2013 Average price point was\xa0 $75-100
• 04:25 \u2013 FreeeUp was launched in 2015
• 04:29 \u2013 Connor and his co-founder learned about hiring freelancers through Odesk and Elance, which merged and is now called Upwork
• 04:36 \u2013 They didn\u2019t like the process of posting job ads and going through every applicant
• 04:46 \u2013 FreeeUp has a better solution where the business owner doesn\u2019t have to do the upfront work
• 04:58 \u2013 FreeeUp finds the top 1%\xa0 candidates for the business owners
• 05:18 \u2013 Toptal is more focused on top developers and designers
• 05:23 \u2013 FreeeUp\u2019s freelancers are specialized on e-commerce business operations
• • 05:35 \u2013 There\u2019s no upfront free
• 05:43 \u2013 FreeeUp has a standard markup that they charge on their clients for hourly rates
• 06:06 \u2013 The minimum charge is $2 and 20% for the higher price
• 06:55 \u2013 There are over 500 freelancers on FreeeUp
• 07:28 \u2013 FreeeUp\u2019s system can measure the amount they\u2019re paying their freelancers
• 07:37 \u2013 The biggest metric is the hours billed to the client
• 08:01 \u2013 Average billing per hour is $10
• 08:18 \u2013 FreeeUp is keeping $60K-80K in revenue per month
• 09:11 \u2013 FreeeUp has around 1500 signups on the platform
• 09:16 \u2013 FreeeUp bills between 300-500 people who are utilizing their workers
• 09:45 \u2013 2000-2500 people have been billed since FreeeUp started
• 09:58 \u2013 FreeeUp has a referral program where clients can refer other people who would want to use FreeeUp and they receive $0.50 for every hour that has been billed
• 10:28 \u2013 FreeeUp is more hands on with their client
• 10:56 \u2013 Most clients start slow and when they see FreeeUp\u2019s benefits, they\u2019ll use it more
• 11:10 \u2013 Team size is 20-25 part-time people
• 11:51 \u2013 Connor is currently in Orlando, FL
• 12:11 \u2013 Both of Connor\u2019s businesses are bootstrapped
• 12:21 \u2013 Total transaction volume for 2016 is a bit over a million
• 12:33 \u2013 2016 average revenue
• 12:44 \u2013 2017 projected transaction volume is $3-4M
• 13:20 \u2013 Connor puts his money back into his businesses to scale them
• 13:47 \u2013 Connor splits the 20% from FreeeUp
• 14:32 \u2013 Since April, FreeeUp has grown 1000%
• 15:20 \u2013 FreeeUp started winning in the ecommerce industry
• 15:58 \u2013 FreeeUp now offers digital marketing as well and try to find different areas that will interest more clients
• 17:10 \u2013 The Famous Five

\xa0

3 Key Points:

• There are more business owners relying on outsourcing for their needs and share with others just how beneficial outsourcing is.
• Ensure you have backup funds for your company.
• Focus on what you do best.

\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