Published: Nov. 1, 2016, 9 a.m.
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Amit Shanbhag, co-founder of RocketReach.co, a company that allows users to lookup email addresses, phones, social links, etc. for over 250 million professionals worldwide. Amit bootstrapped to RocketReach from zero to over a hundred thousand customers including Apple, Google, and Morgan Stanley to name a few. He has more than a dozen patents and started his professional life writing code for geo-stationary satellites. He loves open water swimming, watching cricket, and spending time with his 4-year old son.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? \\u2013 N/A
- What CEO do you follow? \\u2013\\xa0 Marissa Mayer
- Favorite online tool? \\u2014 Google Drive
- Do you get 8 hours of sleep?\\u2014 No
- If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? \\u2013 \\u201cLive the moment and enjoy what you have\\u201d
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Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:53 \\u2013 Nathan introduces Amit\\xa0 to the show
- 02:33 \\u2013 RocketReach is a sales management tool
- 02:54 \\u2013 RocketReach was founded in 2015
- 03:03 \\u2013 Amit and his co-founder used to work for a SaaS business
- 03:15 \\u2013 They tried to get information from www.data.com for user acquisition
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- 03:25 \\u2013 They realized that the data is 85% inaccurate
- 03:31 \\u2013 They tried different tools
- 04:25 \\u2013 Team size
- 04:40 \\u2013 Completely bootstrapped
- 04:51 \\u2013 They tried to raise a small round
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- 05:18 \\u2013 Went to institution investors
- 05:27 \\u2013 The terms were not profitable
- 05:40 \\u2013 Amit stopped fund-raising after 6 months
- 05:58 \\u2013 They had 10,000 customers in March
- 06:40 \\u2013 Companies that are the competition
- 07:35 \\u2013 RocketReach is SaaS and has monthly subscription
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- 07:40 \\u2013 Plans are $ 49, $ 99 and $ 299
- 07:46 \\u2013 Salespeople and recruiters are the biggest user base
- 08:30 \\u2013 Most of the users are from the $ 99 plan
- 09:10 \\u2013 MRR
- 09:40 \\u2013 They were doing a lot of outbound in January
- 10:04 \\u2013 Most of their users now are from SEO
- 11:18 \\u2013 Customers who buy access to RocketReach API
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- 11:38 \\u2013 They are considered as competition
- 12:29 \\u2013 First year revenue
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- 12:45 \\u2013 Total of $ 15 from October 2015 to December 2015
- 13:02 \\u2013 March 2016 is when the growth started
- 13:40 \\u2013 Did a deal with 500 startups companies
- 14:40 \\u2013 Gross monthly churn
- 16:40 \\u2013 Lifetime value
- 17:17 \\u2013 Company expenses
- 18:09 \\u2013 The quality of data that RocketReach has sets them apart from their competitors
- 18:30 \\u2013 Comparison of RocketReach and Email Hunter
- 19:50 \\u2013 Goal for 2016
- 20:53 \\u2013 Decent offer in the SaaS space
- 21:15 \\u2013 2-digit percentage average monthly customer growth
- 22:15 \\u2013 Connect with Amit through his website and Twitter
- 24:00 \\u2013 The Famous Five
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3 Key Points:
- First year revenue is not always what you\\u2019re expecting.
- Improve your product to the point it makes your competitors, your customers.
- Live for the moment and enjoy what you have.
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 the 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.
- Assistant.to \\u2013 The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
- Drip \\u2013 Nathan uses Drip\\u2019s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel.
- RocketReach.co \\u2013 Amit\\u2019s website
- @RocketReachco \\u2013 Amit\\u2019s Twitter handle
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
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