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Maria Seidman. She is the CEO and co-founder of Yapp, the top platform for event applications. Prior to Yapp, she was the GM for mobile and VP for Warner Bros. Digital Distribution. She has her MBA from Stanford and her BA from Yale and resides in New York City.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \\u2013 How
• What CEO do you follow? \\u2013 Stewart Butterfield
• Favorite online tool? \\u2014 FullStory and Slack
• How many hours of sleep do you get?\\u2014 5-7
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \\u2013 \\u201cTake more risks\\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:41 \\u2013 Nathan introduces Maria to the show
• 02:29 \\u2013 Yapp already has 85K apps published on their platform since they started
• 02:28 \\u2013 Yapp was founded in 2011 and launched in 2012
• 02:56 \\u2013 Maria left Warner Bros in 2010, then she met her co-founder for Yapp and they started in 2011
• 03:40 \\u2013 Yapp\\u2019s market is professional events or the \\u201cmice industry\\u201d
• 03:54 \\u2013 Yapp provides event technology for organizers who are in corporations or associations
  • 04:25 \\u2013 Yapp isn\\u2019t for casual events
• 04:56 \\u2013 Yapp is a SaaS business and charges monthly fees
• 05:17 \\u2013 Nathan shares how his former business, Heyo, was seasonal and the churn was difficult to manage
• 05:40 \\u2013 Maria shares how Yapp attracts customers because of its affordability and its ability to adapt to different types of events
  • 06:10 \\u2013 Yapp has an internal communications tool
• 06:44 \\u2013 Most customers are having multiple events per year
• 07:00 \\u2013 Yapp\\u2019s pricing starts at $400 up to their volume pricing which is annual
• 07:32 \\u2013 Small organizations tend to avail of Yapp more
• 08:34 \\u2013 Team size is 5, all remote
  • 08:48 \\u2013 3 are engineers, 1 in marketing and Maria is in charge of other tasks
• 09:12 \\u2013 Yapp started with a small debt round for capital, but was bootstrapped after the growth
• 10:19 \\u2013 The investors were supportive of Yapp
• 10:45 \\u2013 Maria aims for Yapp to be a group of tools targeting marketing and events
• 12:14 \\u2013 Yapp is in a competitive market and can\\u2019t share their numbers
• 12:42 \\u2013 Yapp is focused on their ARPU and is going deeper on the enterprise
• 13:16 \\u2013 Maria shares the weirdest thing she did to get customers was sneak into tradeshows
• 15:45 \\u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

1. The seasonality of the business affects churn drastically so having a second revenue stream is a must.
2. Smaller groups are having more events than corporations are having within the frame of a year.
3. Applications that are versatile get more users, especially from the business market.

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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