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Laura Behrens Wu, the co-founder and CEO of Shippo. Listen as Laura talks about how a laundry list of shipping obstacles with her previous e-commerce store birthed the idea for Shippo.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \u2013 The Hard Things About Hard Things
• What CEO do you follow? \u2013 Patrick Collison
• Favorite online tool? \u2014 Slack

• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?\u2014 \u201cI wish\u201d
• If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? \u2013 \u201cTrust that things will turn out right\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:45 \u2013 Nathan introduces Laura to the show
• 02:13 \u2013 E-commerce business Laura had
• • 02:27 \u2013 Started at Shopify
  • 02:40 \u2013 Sourcing unique items from NGO
  • 03:07 \u2013 Shipping problem
• 03:32 \u2013 Revenue with the e-commerce business
• 03:50 \u2013 Laura was 21 when she started her business
• 04:13 \u2013 Financing with Shippo
• • 04:17 \u2013 Drop shipping
• 05:08 \u2013 Typical shipping pricing
• 05:30 \u2013 Shippo shipping rates
• • 05:58 \u2013 Volume metric
  • 06:07 \u2013 Doing millions of packages a month
• 06:30 \u2013 Negotiation with shipping providers\xa0
• • 06:44 \u2013 Based on projected volumes
• 07:00 \u2013 Shippo is a pay-as-you-go; not SaaS
• 07:20 \u2013 Sample price per package shipped
• • 07:30 \u2013 What if I\u2019m shipping a 10 lbs. dumbbell?
  • 07:44 \u2013 \u201cWe only provide the software\u201d
• 08:06 \u2013 How Shippo works in an e-commerce website
• • 08:10 \u2013 Will compare different shipping providers
  • 08:30 \u2013 Not a standard shipping rate
  • 08:47 \u2013 How the shipping providers get the package from the seller
• 09:07 \u2013 Why clients use Shippo\u2019s service
• 09:37 \u2013 Shipping providers are not tech company
• 09:55 \u2013 Number of unique customers
• 10:12 \u2013 Average shipping volume per month
• 10:29 \u2013 Memebox
• • 11:10 \u2013 Nathan\u2019s proposed deal for Shippo and Memebox
• 11:54 \u2013 They raised $9M in 2014
• 12:20 \u2013 Team size
• 12:50 \u2013 Use of the extra money
• 13:23 \u2013 Minimum monthly revenue
• 13:33 \u2013 Upselling
• • 13:50 \u2013 Shipping insurance
  • 14:11 \u2013 Tracking as a product
• 15:28 \u2013 Bigger revenue stream
• 15:37 \u2013 $ 7 million in series A round, March 2016
• 16:00 \u2013 How to keep the balance when you have a big account
• 16:38 \u2013 Travel expenses last month
• 17:25 \u2013 Will you sell the business for $ 47 million?
• • 17:45 \u2013 Ideal exit assuming there\u2019s a good fit
• 18:03 \u2013 Built an app on top of Shopify
• 18:11 \u2013 Connect with Laura through her Twitter, LinkedIn and email
• 20:00 - The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

• Keep your customers updated and excited.
• Spend money on the right things and appreciate what you have.
• Don\u2019t get upset on your first try \u2013 everything falls into place given patience and time.

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Resources Mentioned:

• Toptal\xa0\u2013 Nathan found his development team using Toptal\xa0 for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn\u2019t have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal\xa0 developers.
• Host Gator\xa0\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
• Freshbooks\xa0\u2013 The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
• Leadpages\xa0 \u2013 The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
• Audible\xa0\u2013 Nathan uses Audible when he\u2019s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
• @LauraBehrensWu \u2013 Laura\u2019s Twitter handle
• LinkedIn \u2013 Laura\u2019s LinkedIn account
• laura@goshippo.com \u2013 Laura\u2019s email address
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

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