726: This $500k/mo+ Entrepreneur Says Key is Minimizing Expenses
Heather Marie. She\u2019s the founder and CEO of Shoppable, a technology company that helps media companies, brands and retailers bring the checkout experience to anywhere a consumer discovers or engages with their products. While with Shoppable, she won the 2013 Women in Digital Award from L\u2019Oreal, was named 1 of the 10 Most Powerful Millennials in Manhattan by Gotham Magazine, and 1 of the 11 Tech Gurus Changing the Luxury Game by Refinery29. The company was a 2014 Webby Award Honoree for Online Shopping, a 2016 Webby Honoree for Technical Achievement and named one of the 100 Brilliant Companies by Entrepreneur Magazine.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? \u2013 Never Eat Alone
- What CEO do you follow? \u2013 Jennifer Hyman
- Favorite online tool? \u2014 Boomerang for Gmail
- How many hours of sleep do you get?\u2014 6
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \u2013 \u201cJust how long everything takes\u201d
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Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:07 \u2013 Nathan introduces Heather to the show
- 02:07 \u2013 Shoppable creates a technology that helps people buy what they see online
- 02:37 \u2013 People see products in every place
- 02:50 \u2013 Shoppable created a patent pending technology that provides different locations to shop that is outside the traditional retail shop
- 03:20 \u2013 Heather started the company in 2011
- 03:36 \u2013 Heather pitched Shoppable to a number of different retailers
- 03:49 \u2013 Shoppable launched a technology with The Wall Street Journal
- 04:00 \u2013 The Wall Street Journal branding was able to bring in a bunch of retailers and advertisers
- 04:40 \u2013 Shoppable has grown to under 30M products across the whole platform
- 05:28 \u2013 Shoppable brings the technology to where the consumers already are
- 05:40 \u2013 com uses Shoppable on their website and customers can buy directly from the website
- 07:24 \u2013 Shoppable brings the technology to different types of companies
- 07:40 \u2013 Shoppable is also integrated with publications such as WSJ, Cond\xe9 Nast and others
- 07:58 \u2013 Shoppable is a SaaS company and charges annually for licenses
- 08:20 \u2013 Average customer pay is 5 figures
- 09:11 \u2013 Prior to Shoppable, Heather was at post acquisition of com
- 09:26 \u2013 Heather was a founding member of Affinity Labs
- 10:21 \u2013 Heather got into Affinity right after college
- 10:39 \u2013 The exit with Monster was all cash with an additional incentive
- 10:49 \u2013 Heather made it for 2 years after the acquisition, doing research on Shoppable
- 11:45 \u2013 Heather had to make Shoppable work
- 12:01 \u2013 Heather knew that she would start her own company
- 12:21 \u2013 Heather had debt that she was able to pay off after the acquisition
- 12:55 \u2013 Heather kept a part of the money for Shoppable
- 13:40 \u2013 Heather also had to downsize her condo to keep her expenses low
- 15:13 \u2013 There are ways you can increase your buffer
- 15:33 \u2013 Heather had to change her habits
- 16:22 \u2013 Shoppable has raised $5M
- 16:33 \u2013 The last round was a year ago
- 16:43 \u2013 Heather isn\u2019t selling to Shopify
- 16:55 \u2013 Shoppable is above breaking even
- 17:24 \u2013 Team size is 20 and they are all based in New York
- 17:53 \u2013 Heather went on a business trip to NY and on her second day, she thought that Shoppable was made for NY
- 18:31 \u2013 Shoppable has around 438 merchants and 2000 brands
- 18:38 \u2013 One merchant could have hundreds of brands
- 19:15 \u2013 Average ARR
- 21:13 \u2013 The Famous Five
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3 Key Points:
- As an entrepreneur, you need to know how to manage money well.
- Building a company requires research and an action plan\u2014especially if that company is your first and last shot at building one.
- Be aware that things in business and in life may take longer that what you\u2019re expecting.
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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
- 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\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
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives