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Keegan Peterson. Keegan is a technology entrepreneur blazing a trail in the legal cannabis industry. He has worked for many software and services companies. He founded Wurk which helps cannabis businesses pay their employees while adhering to the Federal and State Regulations. Keegan is also a former division one athlete from Florida Atlantic University.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \u2013 Stealing Fire
• What CEO do you follow? \u2013 Elon Musk
• Favorite online tool? \u2014 Asana
• How many hours of sleep do you get?\u2014 5 to 6 hours
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \u2013 \u201cI wish I would have started something earlier in my lifetime\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:19 \u2013 Nathan introduces Keegan to the show
• 01:53 \u2013 Cannabis is a fascinating industry that is a great place for technology to play a big part in it
• 02:31 \u2013 For a year, Keegan financed Wurk but they\u2019ve now raised $3M from venture capital (VC)
• 03:09 \u2013 Cannabis businesses include growing, selling, and extracting the plant
• 03:29 \u2013 \u201cMarijuana\u201d and \u201cWeed\u201d have a negative stigma, unlike \u201cCannabis\u201d
• 03:46 \u2013 Wurk makes profit by selling a service to their clients
• 03:56 \u2013 Wurk ensures cannabis businesses\u2019 taxes are paid correctly and calculated correctly
• 04:33 \u2013 Payroll companies being backed by national banks cannot touch cash made from cannabis
• 04:54 \u2013 Wurk is a SaaS company and is in 17 legal cannabis states
• 05:17 \u2013 They sell their services directly to business owners
• 05:30 \u2013 They have hundreds of users on their platform
• 05:39 \u2013 Keegan launched Wurk 2 years ago, in August 2015
• 06:10 \u2013 They currently have 18 employees in 3 offices
• 06:28 \u2013 It\u2019s NOT a requirement to smoke cannabis to work for Wurk
• 06:40 \u2013 They do look for people who believe in cannabis as a progressing industry
• 07:13 \u2013 Wurk provides a whole difference face to the industry
• 07:30 \u2013 \u201cWe are not the traditional cannabis business\u201d
• 07:45 \u2013 A large portion of Wurk\u2019s clients are in cannabis, but there are some clients that are not
• 08:12 \u2013 Most business owners in the business pay their employees in cash
• 08:27 \u2013 \u201cWe\u2019re trying to help solve that issue\u201d
• 08:42 \u2013 The average client payment per month ranges from $10 to $30
• 09:03 \u2013 Number of employees and number of states the business is in are factors in a client\u2019s metrics that determine how much they pay to Wurk
• 09:55 \u2013 Wurk doesn\u2019t charge per customer; they charge per employee
• 11:00 \u2013 They don\u2019t have a lot of competition
• 11:16 \u2013 They have a low churn of 2 customers in 2 years
• 11:41 \u2013 Currently, they don\u2019t have an average Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) because they mostly get referrals
• 12:01 \u2013 They have 5 full-time sales reps with 1 chief revenue officer and other employees are on implementation
• 12:18 \u2013 Their sales reps earn through salaries and incentives
• 13:40 \u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

1. There are still industries that are not saturated.
2. If there\u2019s hole in an industry, there\u2019s a market for a business that can fill that hole.
3. Referrals or word of mouth is still one of the best ways to get a customer.

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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