BROADCASTS.com

Venkat Nagaswamy. He\u2019s the CEO of Mariana IQ. He brings a long and diverse background in high technology to apply artificial intelligence and deep learning to help marketers make account-based marketing at scale a reality. "Big Kat," as he was nicknamed by friends and colleagues, has led teams in creating analytics, technology and business development solutions at McKinsey, Juniper Networks and GE Plastics, among others. He's worked in enterprise and digital consumer hardware, SaaS, corporate and business unit strategy, market entry strategy, and product development. He's a proud graduate of the University of Michigan and the Georgia Institute of Technology. He holds an MBA and a Master's in Aerospace Engineering.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \u2013 Good to Great
• What CEO do you follow? \u2013 Marc Benioff and Mark Zuckerberg
• Favorite online tool? \u2014 Calendly and Feedly
• 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 \u201cBeing diligent and hard-working counts for a lot more than being smart and clever\u201d

\xa0

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:54 \u2013 Nathan introduces Venkat to the show
• 02:54 \u2013 Venkat was in Juniper trying to implement account-based marketing
• 03:14 \u2013 Venkat is trying to solve the problems in account-based marketing
• 03:27 \u2013 People buy a monthly subscription to Mariana IQ which will allow them to run campaigns targeting the same audience across different platforms
• 03:37 \u2013 Mariana IQ is a SaaS business
• 03:43 \u2013 Average pay is $4K a month per customer
• 03:55 \u2013 Venkat started Mariana IQ three years ago with his three co-founders
• 04:02 \u2013 Venkat also uses their technology
• 04:16 \u2013 Venkat and his co-founders felt that marketers need more tools to be successful in the field
• 04:36 \u2013 First year revenue was zero
• 04:45 \u2013 Late 2015, Mariana IQ made $155K and $550K in 2016
• 04:59 \u2013 Venkat is expecting to get 5x more in annual revenue this year
• 05:17 \u2013 MRR in June was $70-80K
• 05:45 \u2013 Mariana IQ has around 20 customers
• 06:00 \u2013 Zendesk is one of Mariana IQ\u2019s clients
  • 06:13 \u2013 Zendesk wanted to target larger companies and so they gave Mariana IQ their data
  • 06:30 \u2013 Mariana IQ used their API to find the targeted companies for Zendesk
• 06:54 \u2013 Venkat shares their success rate at Mariana IQ
  • 07:27 \u2013 \u201cWe got better quality, 4x the volume while keeping the cost the same\u201d
• 07:36 \u2013 Mariana IQ has raised capital
  • 07:39 \u2013 First seed round was in 2014 which was led by Blumberg Capital
  • 07:58 \u2013 David Blumberg owns Blumberg Capital and Bruce Taragin is who is on Mariana IQ\u2019s board
  • 08:05 \u2013 Blumberg Capital has been around for 34 years
  • 08:19 \u2013 The first round was a convertible note round with $6M capital
  • 08:47 \u2013 Mariana IQ did another round in 2016 which was a priced round
  • 09:10 \u2013 Mariana IQ has raised a total of $4M
• 09:48 \u2013 Venkat doesn\u2019t worry about growing into their valuation
• 12:00 \u2013 In Mariana IQ\u2019s first year, they were only getting beta customers
• 12:41 \u2013 Venkat shares the unconventional way he attracted more customers; a video of him in the shower, singing
  • 13:05 \u2013The video was posted on Twitter and got a million views
  • 13:38 \u2013 \u201cI\u2019m the worst singer on the planet\u201d
• 13:57 \u2013 Gross margin is around 80%
• 14:10 \u2013 Gross customer churn is quite high, at 3%
• 14:22 \u2013 Revenue churn
• 14:55 \u2013 Full weighted CAC is $22K per customer
• 15:06 \u2013 Customer LTV is $200-250K
• 15:40 \u2013 Venkat is looking at increasing their CAC by spending more on sales and marketing to increase their volume
  • 15:54 \u2013 They will add two more salespeople
• 16:23 \u2013 Last month, they spent $2k on marketing alone
• 17:20 \u2013 The Famous Five

\xa0

3 Key Points:

1. Marketers are constantly looking for alternative ways to become more effective and successful in their industry.
2. A business shouldn\u2019t worry about its valuation\u2014as long as their confident with their product and continue to add value to their customers; it will work out in the end.
3. It\u2019s necessary for companies today to invest in their sales and marketing to increase that engagement with their audience.

\xa0

Resources Mentioned:

• Simplero \u2013 The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
• 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