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Rob Nelson, founder and CEO of Grow \u2013 a business intelligence platform. Nathan came across Rob when he was doing research in the intelligence space and Grow provided a lot of good feedback. Rob is a listener of The Top and happily accepted Nathan\u2019s invitation to be a guest on The Top.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \u2013 The ONE Thing
• What CEO do you follow? \u2013\xa0 Aaron Skonnard

• Favorite online tool? \u2014 Calendly
• 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 \u201cDon\u2019t ever quit\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:25 \u2013 Nathan introduces Rob to the show
• 02:00 \u2013 Grow is a powerful business intelligence platform and made specifically for SMBs
• 02:13 \u2013 Rob founded Grow in 2014
• 02:25 \u2013 Rob had a software company which was bootstrapped
• • 02:34 \u2013 Rob struggled pulling up data from different platforms
  • 03:29 \u2013 Rob sold the company and had a great exit
• 04:10 \u2013 Grow is a SaaS model and has subscription based pricing
• 04:20 \u2013 Grow doesn\u2019t charge based on the number of users
• 05:10 \u2013 Grow charges based on the number of metrics used
• 05:20 \u2013 Grow\u2019s RPU is $600 a month
• 05:30 \u2013 Users pay monthly but there\u2019s a 12-month commitment
• • 06:06 \u2013 \u201cIf we can\u2019t get them hooked with the product in the first 3 days, they can walk away\u201d
  • 06:18 \u2013 75% of the people continue after the 30-day trial period
• 07:05 \u2013 Rob doesn\u2019t know their exact churn
• 07:29 \u2013 Grow\u2019s usage stats
• • 07:44 \u2013 Half of their customers log-in everyday
  • 07:50 \u2013 92% of the customers are logging in at least twice a month
• 08:00 \u2013 Grow is currently serving 600 customers
• 08:08 \u2013 Rob started with the concept in January 2014
• 08:30 \u2013 Rob hired a technical co-founder and gave him 20% of the business
• 09:00 \u2013 Rob and his team are based in Utah
• 09:45 \u2013 Team size is 70
• 09:58 \u2013 Grow raised a series A round and seed round
• • 10:12 \u2013 Total amount raised was $13 million
  • 10:14 \u2013 Total of $9 million was raised in series A
  • 10:25 \u2013 Both are priced equity round
• 10:44 \u2013 Rob is a huge fan of bootstrapping during his first venture
• 11:28 \u2013 Rob decided to raise for Grow because bootstrapping just wouldn\u2019t work
• 11:50 \u2013 Total 2014 revenue is about $80
• 12:20 \u2013 2015 revenue is $150,000
• 13:00 \u2013 Goal for 2016 revenue\xa0
• 13:33 \u2013 Rob closed the series A in July
• 14:03 \u2013 Fully-weighted CAC is about $3,500
• 15:00 \u2013 Why do you think Dasher didn\u2019t work out?
• • 15:20 \u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s hard to build a company on $20 or $30 a month\u201d
• 16:35 \u2013 Connect with Rob through his website
• 18:05 \u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

• USE your experience to IMPROVE your business.
• Explore other options\u2014if bootstrapped worked first, that doesn\u2019t mean it will work again.
• Don\u2019t EVER quit.

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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 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.
• Grow.com \u2013 Rob\u2019s business website
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives