810: SaaS: With $70m Raised, White Board Videos Secret to VidYard 2x YoY Growth

Published: Oct. 12, 2017, 9 a.m.

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Michael Litt. He\\u2019s the co-founder and CEO of a leading video marketing platform called Vidyard. While he\\u2019s not bringing leading video-based technologies to market, he serves as general partner at Garage Capital, a seed stage fund focused on supercluster companies looking to expand their networks in the Silicon Valley. He also sits as Communitech\\u2019s board of directors, a KW-based organization designed to help companies start, grow and succeed.\\xa0

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? \\u2013 N/A
  • What CEO do you follow? \\u2013 Shannon Stubo
  • Favorite online tool? \\u2014 Coinbase
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?\\u2014 5
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \\u2013 You need a big support network and focus your energy into building a business

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:41 \\u2013 Nathan introduces Michael to the show
  • 02:16 \\u2013 Michael was in Episode 414 of The Top and back then, they only had 132 people on their team
  • 02:30 \\u2013 Vidyard now has around 250 employees
  • 02:38 \\u2013 Vidyard has 3 offices
  • 02:44 \\u2013 Vidyard has launch multiple products including a self-serve product called Viewedit
    • 03:13 \\u2013 Vidyard just had 100K users sign up after launching Viewedit, which is free
    • 03:33 \\u2013 It\\u2019s currently a chrome extension
  • 04:22 \\u2013 Michael shares how they spent their last amount that was raised
    • 04:51 \\u2013 Vidyard had their series C in January of 2017
    • 05:30 \\u2013 Michael believes that the CFO should be the \\u201chouse of no\\u201d
    • 06:00 \\u2013 Everybody should be accountable for their finances and Vidyard uses Adaptive Insights for budgeting
    • 06:43 \\u2013 Vidyard has to be very careful with their lifeline and maintain their cash flow
  • 07:23 \\u2013 Michael\\u2019s goal as the CEO
  • 08:39 \\u2013 Vidyard\\u2019s RPU has grown over time
  • 08:53 \\u2013 Target for upsell is 30% of net new revenue
  • 10:03 \\u2013 Annual logo churn
  • 10:13 \\u2013 Net retention
  • 10:42 \\u2013 Over thousands customers are using Vidyard\\u2019s platform
  • 10:57 \\u2013 Viewedit is being used in tons of organizations
  • 11:46 \\u2013 Michael believes Vidyard will double, year over year
  • 13:00 \\u2013 Streaming cost for Vidyard
    • 13:11 \\u2013 Vidyard streams over 50M videos a day
    • 13:15 \\u2013 Vidyard subscribed on the Netflix model
  • 14:41 \\u2013 Weirdest strategy Michael employed to get new customers
    • 15:08 \\u2013 The strategy was inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk
    • 17:17 \\u2013 Michael shares how they were able to get customers from companies in other countries
    • 19:10 \\u2013 New CMOs in a company are one of the best target customers, so Michael looks out for new CMOs announcements
  • 19:54 \\u2013 Payback period is usually 18 months
    • 21:02 \\u2013 Payback period reflects your company\\u2019s status
  • 21:20 \\u2013 CAC
    • 21:35 \\u2013 Michael is also looking into zero-cost marketing
  • 22:09 \\u2013 Michael won\\u2019t sell Vidyard to Salesforce, even with a $300M offer
  • 22:55 \\u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

  1. Use your funds conservatively and make everyone accountable for budgeting.
  2. How your company is doing reflects on your payback period.
  3. Make sure you have a big support network in place.

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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
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