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Jessica Lee. Nathan met Jessica a few months ago and Jessica toured Nathan in 500 Startups\u2019 office in San Francisco. She\u2019s the founder of Bitesize. She helps companies drive revenue with text message conversations.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \u2013 #GIRLBOSS
• What CEO do you follow? \u2013 Sophia Amoruso
• Favorite online tool? \u2014 Trello
• How many hours of sleep do you get?\u2014 6-8
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \u2013 \u201cEverybody has the same kind of challenges and overcoming them is the REAL WORK

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:37 \u2013 HandStack and Bitesize are the same company
• 01:49 \u2013 Bitesize helps brands drive revenue through interactive text messaging
• 02:00 \u2013 A new movie studio has a new movie and wants to reach a million movie goers
  • 02:10 \u2013 Bitesize will reach people by text message
  • 02:20 \u2013 The messages will be from a movie character and the approach is interactive
  • 02:42 \u2013 Bitesize will drive the person to a download link at the end of the conversation
• 03:01 \u2013 Building a list for text is the challenge for Bitesize
• 03:25 \u2013 Bitesize uses manual texting tool
  • 03:40 \u2013 There\u2019s a law that\u2019s protecting consumers where you can\u2019t randomly message people with algorithms or without human intervention
  • 03:56 \u2013 Bitesize helps client send text with manual human intervention
• 04:27 \u2013 Jessica shares how an actual message happens
  • 04:30 \u2013 The company will create a group chat, add people, and click send manually
  • 04:39 \u2013 People\u2019s reply will go to your app and you can continue to interact with them
• 05:08 \u2013 The difference with the usual group text and from Bitesize is, you don\u2019t get to see other people\u2019s messages
• 05:34 \u2013 Bitesize charges per text and data
  • 05:42 \u2013 Per text charge is .25\u20b5
• 06:11 \u2013 Most of Bitesize\u2019s costs is from data
  • 06:16 \u2013 Twilio is at .02\u20b5
  • 06:45 \u2013 Data charges can go up to .16\u20b5
• 06:58 \u2013 BiteSize\u2019s clients pay them for their marketing skills too
• 07:15 \u2013 For a thousand new messages, an average of 6% will reply which a lot higher than social media ads
• 07:45 \u2013 A lot of Bitesize\u2019s customers will send millions of texts
• 08:13 \u2013 Revenue is measured by campaigns: 140 for the last 6 months
• 08:41 \u2013 Bitesize has raised $125K from 500 Startups
• 08:56 \u2013 Team size is 6
  • 09:03 \u2013 3 in the bay area and 3 elsewhere
• 09:26 \u2013 Average MRR
• 09:58 \u2013 50% of the campaigns are paying quarterly and some campaigns are daily
  • 10:20 \u2013 Each campaign pays an average of $10K to $100K for the .25\u20b5 per text messages
• 10:43 \u2013 10% of Bitesize\u2019s customers are from referrals
  • 10:50 \u2013 Initially, Bitesize was focused on outbound sales
  • 11:08 \u2013 \u201cBecause our product was so unique, people like to know what it is\u201d
• 11:38 \u2013 Bitesize originally started with political campaigns
  • 11:49 \u2013 Because of Jessica\u2019s background, most campaigns are for the democrats
• 12:29 \u2013 Jessica believes that Bitesize is a tool that is meant to connect people in a more meaningful way than ads
• 13:05 \u2013 2013 revenue is around $250
• 13:17 \u2013 2016 revenue is $300K for 6 months
  • 13:30 \u2013 They pivoted to a more commercial use case in the final 6 months
• 13:40 \u2013 2017 target
• 13:59 \u2013 \u201cMy hope is to grow organically\u201d
• 16:05 \u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

1. Texts can be very spammy but if done right, the return is better than with online ads.
2. Messages should connect people in a more meaningful way.
3. Growing organically is cheaper, and it creates more resonance, but it\u2019s harder to do.

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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
• GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
• 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