BROADCASTS.com

b'

Rey Grainger, founder and CEO of Mavenlink, where he\\u2019s leading a mission to re-invent the way businesses do work. Ray brings over 25 years of experience in software and technology consulting to Mavenlink. He also invests in several technology companies through Accenture technology ventures including enterprise knowledge manager vendor InQuira.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \\u2013 Good to Great
• What CEO do you follow? \\u2013\\xa0 Marc Benioff

• Favorite online tool? \\u2014 Evernote
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?\\u2014\\xa0 I don\\u2019t
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \\u2013 \\u201cThat I would actually end up achieving what I have setup to do\\u201d

\\xa0

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:24 \\u2013 Nathan introduces Ray to the show
• 02:28 \\u2013 Ray likes corporate world more
• 03:00 \\u2013 How Accenture invested in AI Technology
• 03:20 \\u2013 Ray left Accenture in 2005 when InQuira started to get into the market
• 03:48 \\u2013 Ray already had an idea for Mavenlink
• 04:45 \\u2013 Mavenlink is SaaS business management solution
• 05:09 \\u2013 Mavenlink is a subscription based business model
• 05:50 \\u2013 First year revenue is zero
• 06:08 \\u2013 Product development was in February 2009
• • 06:25 \\u2013 Began monetizing at the beginning of 2010
• 06:40 \\u2013 Mavenlink was bootstrapped
• 07:05 \\u2013 Before starting Mavenlink, Ray sold some of his stocks of Accenture
• 07:40 \\u2013 Before they were able to monetize, Ray and his team already spent almost a million dollar
• 08:03 \\u2013 Mavenlink has a broad customer base in over a 100 countries
• • 08:13 \\u2013 From SMB to large public companies
• 08:55 \\u2013 Mavenlink has an inside sales team for each deal
• 09:30 \\u2013 Mavenlink partnered with Google
• • 09:38 \\u2013 Google promoted Mavenlink in their marketplace
• 10:45 \\u2013 \\u201cThe amount of money you have in your bank account influences you\\u201d
• 11:16 \\u2013 Ray had to look for creative ways to acquire customers
• 11:41 \\u2013 Mavenlink sponsored 2 technology conferences
• 12:35 \\u2013 It is difficult to say\\xa0 how much one is willing to spend to acquire a business
• • 13:30 \\u2013 \\u201cYou have to manage it by channel and see what you\\u2019re going to get for the payback\\u201d
• 13:48 \\u2013 Gross monthly customer churn
• 13:52 \\u2013 \\u201cWe offer a solution that directly impacts the profitability of the company\\u201d
• 14:18 \\u2013 Clients who stay with Mavenlink continues to grow
• 15:41 \\u2013 The upsell part of Mavenlink
• 16:06 \\u2013 Mavenlink target seat price
• 16:29 \\u2013 Mavenlink has taken a substantial amount of venture capital starting in 2011
• 16:52 \\u2013 Team size
• 17:18 \\u2013 Follow Ray on Twitter and LinkedIn
• 18:56 \\u2013 The Famous Five

\\xa0

3 Key Points:

• The amount of money you have in your bank account influences you.
• Corporate life can hone great entrepreneurs.
• Achieve what you have set up to do and aim for the big one.

\\xa0

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 the 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.
• Acuity Scheduling \\u2013 Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Drip \\u2013 Nathan uses Drip\\u2019s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel.
• @mavenlink \\u2013 Ray\\u2019s Twitter handle
• LinkedIn \\u2013 Ray\\u2019s business LinkedIn account
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives