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Gary Guseinov, an investor, operator, and advisor in various technology companies including Business Hangouts, InCast, Playsino and Revenue.com. During his career, he has over $100 million in growth capital and structured complex financial transactions. He\u2019s also acquired over 300 million users for global technology product and services.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \u2013 Power the Mind
• What CEO do you follow? \u2013\xa0 Mark Zuckerberg

• 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 \u201cI knew how to start a business with very little capital\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:26 \u2013 Nathan introduces Gary to the show
• 02:08 \u2013 Business Hangouts is a web-conferencing and webinar platform
• • 02:17 \u2013 It is specifically designed for Google apps
• 02:47 \u2013 Gary has raised capital for USTechSupport in 2003
• • 03:07 \u2013 Private from 2003 to 2007
  • 03:15 \u2013 From September 2007 to 2012, it became public in Nasdaq
  • 03:22 \u2013 It was bought out by a big marketing company in LA
  • 03:29 \u2013 Gary was the co-founder and left the company because he needed a break
• 04:24 \u2013 \u201cIt takes a lot of processes when it comes to legal and accounting when you shift from private to public\u201d
• • 05:05 \u2013 SDC reviews the applications and processes
• 05:20 \u2013 Gary was in his mid-thirties when he started USTechSupport and didn\u2019t have any experience running a company
• • 05:29 \u2013 Gary is now 46
• 05:40 \u2013 Gary acquired Business Hangouts from the previous owner
• • 05:51 \u2013 Business Hangouts had 1.7 million enterprise users when it was acquired
  • 06:02 \u2013 Over 700,000 registered users and 70,000 enterprise users
  • 06:40 \u2013 Number of paying users
• 07:10 \u2013 Business Hangouts\u2019 competitors usually separate web conferencing and webinar leading to 2 different subscriptions
• • 07:48 \u2013 Consumers wouldn\u2019t know what their monthly expenses were going to be
• 07:54 \u2013 Business Hangouts is not as complicated as their competitors
• • 08:10 \u2013 \u201cOur pricing model is very simple\u201d
• 09:07 \u2013 Average monthly RPU is $70
• 10:40 \u2013 Business Hangouts is currently getting offers from investors
• 11:45 \u2013 \u201cWe try to build a business based on purely economics\u201d
• 12:06 \u2013 \u201cWe think that we are a strong contender to multi-million dollar entities\u201d
• 12:54 \u2013 Gary does not wish to disclose their MRR because they are not looking for capital at the moment as they are still a small company
• 13:57 \u2013 Gary\u2019s goal is to stay \u201cat the radar\u201d
• • 14:18 \u2013 \u201cYou want to be good at what you\u2019re doing and you want the market to recognize that\u201d
• 14:55 \u2013 Churn is less than 10% yearly
• 15:32 \u2013 Gary acquired the company for less than $10 million
• 17:00 \u2013 Gary can afford to put inside sales representatives in the demo
• 17:36 \u2013 Business Hangouts is completely bootstrapped
• 18:15 \u2013 Current CAC is zero
• 18:55 \u2013 Team size is less than 10
• 19:16 \u2013 Connect with Gray through LinkedIn
• 20:42 \u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

• Choose a business that is viable in the marketplace.\xa0
• Staying \u201cat the radar\u201d while doing an excellent job at what you do will help you become recognized by the marketplace.\xa0
• You CAN start a business without raising capital.

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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.
• LinkedIn \u2013 Gary\u2019s LinkedIn account
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives