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Alex Austin. He\u2019s the CEO and co-founder of Branch, a leading mobile deep linking platform with solutions that unify mobile user experience and measurement across devices, platforms and channels. He founded Branch back in 2014 while attending Stanford Graduate School of Business. Before founding Branch, Ale founded Kindred Prints, had engineering roles at NASA and holds many research papers under his name.\xa0

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \u2013 The Mistborn Trilogy
• What CEO do you follow? \u2013 Jeff Bezos
• Favorite online tool? \u2014 JMP Statistical Analysis
• How many hours of sleep do you get?\u2014 7
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \u2013 You have to start your own company, don't wait. There is never the right time.

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 02:04 \u2013 Nathan introduces Alex to the show
• 02:46 \u2013 Alex shares how he moved from NASA to a deep linking platform
  • 03:33 \u2013 Alex realized that he hated school and loves building instead
  • 03:57 \u2013 Alex still does building projects on his free time
• 04:33 \u2013 Alex started Branch when they were building the Kindred app
  • 04:46 \u2013 The problem they faced was discovery as it was hard for people to find the app
  • 05:36 \u2013 The only way people find Kindred is through the app store
  • 05:48 \u2013 Alex created an ability to link to their photobooks with the ideal model
  • 06:00 \u2013 They were able to do deep linking which is the ability to link to a page inside an app and have people discover the app for the content inside
  • 06:12 \u2013 Branch was then able to solve a general problem
  • 06:28 \u2013 Alex then decided to sell Kindred
  • 07:34 \u2013 They didn\u2019t see Kindred as a billion dollar company
  • 07:47 \u2013 When they started Branch, people were already asking them about the technology
• 08:30 \u2013 Currently, 40% of the app ecosystem is using Branch today
  • 08:42 \u2013 Airbnb is one of the apps that uses Branch\u2014if you use it to find a property, then send a link to a friend, that link would be a branch link
• 09:05 \u2013 The goal is to get 90% of the app ecosystem to use Branch
• 09:26 \u2013 Google will allow you to search data on the web and Branch will search through all the pages
• 09:37 \u2013 Branch charges through the usage of the link
• 09:41 \u2013 The ultimate goal is to build a discovery platform
• 09:47 \u2013 Branch is a SaaS business
• 10:19 \u2013 For big companies, the charge is actually by tier
• 10:47 \u2013 Average deal size for enterprise client is $55-60K annually
• 10:57 \u2013 Branch just started selling to enterprise
• 11:03 \u2013 Branch was launched in 2014
• 11:09 \u2013 The platform was initially being given away
  • 11:33 \u2013 They only turned on their paywall more than 7 months ago
• 11:39 \u2013 Branch raised $117M
  • 11:57 \u2013 It was a priced seed round and a carryover from Kindred
• 12:38 \u2013 Team size is around 120 with 65 engineers
• 13:40 \u2013 The weirdest marketing tactic they did was they went to Stack Overflow and answered questions back linking to their product
• 14:38 \u2013 Branch just started a meetup group where people can talk about mobile growth
• 15:22 \u2013 Over 26K developers are using the SDKs
• 15:33 \u2013 When they first started, they\u2019ve worked on different series of ideas that failed to work
  • 15:51 \u2013 It took a couple of months for them to gain momentum
• 16:40 \u2013 Number of paying customers
  • 17:18 \u2013 99% of the revenue comes from enterprise customers
• 18:35 \u2013 The app ecosystem is like Yahoo, in 1995
  • 18:53 \u2013 Google allowed the access to the information on the web
• 19:19 \u2013 Branch is built as SaaS because it keeps the lifeline long
• 19:55 \u2013 How Alex delivers his pitch
• 20:18 \u2013 Alex doesn\u2019t want to have competition and they always make sure to kill off those who start to compete
  • 20:57 \u2013 The platform is designed to have a network effect
  • 21:36 \u2013 EOCO is the company that closed after competing with Branch
• 22:20 \u2013 Alex\u2019s wife is a VC but she\u2019s not invested in Branch
• 24:28 \u2013 Alex isn\u2019t really doing Branch for the money alone
• 24:58 \u2013 Alex sees Branch as his contribution to make a great impact
• 26:00 \u2013 \u201cThere\u2019s always a big company to go after\u201d
  • 26:13 \u2013 Google launched a product last year which is a direct replica of Branch
• 29:00 \u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

1. Develop a solution to a problem and customers will flock to you.
2. As shady as your tactic may be, organic traffic is still the best source of traffic.
3. There will always be bigger companies than yours; don\u2019t let it stop you from improving and growing.

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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