BROADCASTS.com

Eric Rea, co-founder and CEO of Podium.com which is based in Utah. He\u2019s a software engineer at the International Atomic Agency and before that, the founder of FineGrain. He worked at Walmart as a software engineer and he has also interned at Orange Soda.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \u2013 Multipliers
• What CEO do you follow? \u2013\xa0 Phil Knight

• Favorite online tool? \u2013\xa0 Domo and Apple Notes
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep? \u2013\xa0 \u201cI get 7\u201d
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \u2013 \u201cYou can always tell them to go to hell tomorrow\u201d \u2013\xa0 Warren Buffet

\xa0

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:46 \u2013 Nathan introduces Eric to the show
• 02:20 \u2013 Podium helps businesses generate reviews which drives purchase decisions
• 02:30 \u2013 Podium charges $299 a month per location
• 02:48 \u2013 Podium is a SaaS business
• 02:58 \u2013 Average customer pays $499
• 03:20 \u2013 Podium was launched in 2013
• • 03:25 \u2013 Eric started Podium because of his dad\u2019s business
• 04:01 \u2013 Team size
• • 04:44 \u2013 All employees are working full-time
  • 04:50 \u2013 Team is based in Utah
• 05:35 \u2013 Podium raised $4M in total
• • 05:50 \u2013 First seed round was in 2014 and $500K was raised
  • 05:57 \u2013 Raised $3.5M in December of 2015
• 06:36 \u2013 Eric has given up 20% of the business for the seed round
• 07:38 \u2013 Podium has 25000 customers per location
• 08:13 \u2013 Podium has $1M in MRR
• 08:45 \u2013 Podium\u2019s gross monthly customer churn is around 1%
• • 09:10 \u2013 Net churn is negative 2% monthly
• 09:50 \u2013 Average CAC
• 10:12 \u2013 Average LTV is $12K
• 11:00 \u2013 2015 ARR is $1.8M
• 11:30 \u2013 2016 ARR is around $11M
• 11:41 \u2013 Goal for 2017 ARR is $25M
• 12:55 \u2013 Connect with Eric through his website and Twitter
• 15:05 \u2013 The Famous Five

\xa0

3 Key Points:

• It\u2019s important to have some capital in case you make mistakes \u2013 with no capital, just 1 mistake will sink you.
• Find a solution to the simplest problems to streamline your business processes.
• The SMB market will continually grow, creating more opportunities for startups.

\xa0

Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• Toptal\xa0\u2013 Nathan found his development team using Toptal 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
• Host Gator\xa0\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
• Audible\xa0\u2013 Nathan uses Audible when he\u2019s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
• The Top Inbox\xa0 \u2013 The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens and follow-up with email sequences
• @EricWilliamRea \u2013 Eric\u2019s Twitter handle
• Podium.com \u2013 Eric\u2019s business website
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives