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Scott Clark. He\\u2019s the co-founder and CEO of SigOpt, a Y-Combinator and Andreessen Horowitz backed, optimization as a service startup. Scott has been applying after-learning technologies in industry and academia for years. He holds a PhD for applied mathematics and an MS in computer science from Cornell University and a BS degree in mathematics, physics and computational physics from Oregon State University. He was chosen as one of Forbes\' 30 under 30 in 2016.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \\u2013 The Hard Thing About Hard Things
• What CEO do you follow? \\u2013 Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz and Phil Knight\\xa0
• Favorite online tool? \\u2014 Gmail and Slack
• How many hours of sleep do you get?\\u2014 8
• If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? \\u2013 Scott would tell himself that it doesn\\u2019t get easier, so set up habits and processes to make things sustainable when you have the time and ability to do it because that will definitely help once things ramp up

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 00:44 \\u2013 Nathan introduces Scott to the show
• 01:25 \\u2013 SigOpt is optimization as a service
• 01:27 \\u2013 SigOpt helps companies build different, complex AI and machine learning pipelines
• 01:41 \\u2013 SigOpt is a SaaS model and the subscription is based on the number of models per month
• 01:53 \\u2013 Pricing starts at $2500 a month and enterprise starts at $10K a month
• 02:13 \\u2013 Average monthly RPU
• 02:33 \\u2013 SigOpt usually engages at the executive level
• 02:38 \\u2013 People wanted to use AI for their businesses but couldn\\u2019t find the right person to do the work so they go with SigOpt
• 03:23 \\u2013 One of SigOpt\\u2019s client is Prudential
• • 03:31 \\u2013 Insurance companies are augmenting their traditional methods to the new data that is being collected
  • 03:48 \\u2013 As their data increases, the need for the best possible performance increases
• 04:26 \\u2013 What SigOpt does is different from the traditional machine learning as a service companies
• 04:41 \\u2013 Scott shares a specific example of how SigOpt works with credit card companies
• • 04:44 \\u2013 Fraud detection has been around for decades
  • 05:28 \\u2013 SigOpt fine tunes different knobs and levers in the configuration parameters that makes the machine model work
• 06:15 \\u2013 SigOpt focuses on black box optimization
• 07:45 \\u2013 SigOpt relies on the domain expertise of the person at the specific firm to build a deep learning model
• 08:31 \\u2013 SigOpt applies an ensemble of global optimization techniques to the problem so they can efficiently configure the system
• 09:20 \\u2013 SigOpt suggests different curvatures
• 09:58 \\u2013 SigOpt has raised $8.8M to date
• 10:30 \\u2013 SigOpt never sees the underlying data
• 11:11 \\u2013 The entire system is designed to be hands-off
• 11:43 \\u2013 SigOpt was launched end of 2013
• 11:51 \\u2013 Number of paying customers is around a dozen
• 12:18 \\u2013 Average MRR
• 12:25 \\u2013 SigOpt prefer annual deals
• 12:54 \\u2013 No churn yet
• 13:14 \\u2013 Team size is 13
• 13:35 \\u2013 The capital raised was spent on the team and the enterprise sales efforts
• 13:54 \\u2013 3-4 of the team are in sales
• 14:05 \\u2013 CAC
• 14:22 \\u2013 They sometimes visit their customers
• 14:55 \\u2013 Investors like to make big bets on the new technologies
• 15:33 \\u2013 The goal for the series A money
• 16:33 \\u2013 Average expenses
• 17:40 \\u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

• The need for AI and machine-learning is growing fast and there\\u2019s not enough people who are qualified to develop these products.
• The headcount can eat up most of a company\\u2019s expenses\\u2014especially in the technology industry.
• Optimization services make a business more efficient leading to a less to none churn rate.

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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