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In Episode #625, Nathan interviews Josh McCarter. He\u2019s the co-founder and CEO of Booker Software, a leading business management and marketing solution serving over 10,000 health and beauty businesses. Josh has served in a variety of senior executive board roles at various technology companies including Arbitech, Spafinder and Autobytel.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \u2013 Make Big Happen
• What CEO do you follow? \u2013\xa0 Steve Case, author of The Third Wave
• Favorite online tool? \u2014 OpenTable
• 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 \u201cStartups are a blast, but they are not easy\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:23 \u2013 Nathan introduces Josh to the show
• 01:59 \u2013 Booker is a business management and marketing solution for health and wellness businesses
• • 02:08 \u2013 Booker is like OpenTable
  • 02:16 \u2013 Booker does everything for a business to run
• 02:31 \u2013 Booker gains revenue from their subscriptions averaging $150-250 monthly
• • 02:48 \u2013 Booker also has merchant processing
  • 02:53 \u2013 Booker also sells its add-on product, Frederick
• 03:50 \u2013 Josh started to focus on the spa industry because of the technology from his previous company
• 04:25 \u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s important to understand what type of customers you serve best\u201d
• 05:31 \u2013 Josh shares how he spun out of business in his previous company
• • 06:00 \u2013 Make sure you have the right type of structure when you spin out a business
  • 06:10 \u2013 Give preferences to the shareholders
  • 06:18 \u2013 It took Josh 6-9 months to get all the right structures and licensing in place
• 06:30 \u2013 Josh had a series A for $150K in 2011
• 06:42 \u2013 Spafinder had put in the initial capital for Booker
• 07:17 \u2013 Booker\u2019s current team size is around 200
• 07:26 \u2013 Booker has raised a total of a million
• 07:47 \u2013 You have to do a proper valuation for a spin out
• 08:30 \u2013 First year revenue
• 09:00 \u2013 Booker is currently at 10K locations
• • 09:20 \u2013 There is a fee per location
  • 09:34 \u2013 A company who has more locations pays more
• 10:05 \u2013 Average MRR
• 10:25 \u2013 Booker does a lot of upselling and retention
• • 10:41 \u2013 Booker makes sure that they keep their existing customers happy
  • 10:50 \u2013 \u201cYou\u2019ve got to focus on upsell opportunities\u201d
  • 11:20 \u2013 Booker\u2019s merchant processing
  • 11:37 \u2013 Online booking for spas is more common
• 11:58 \u2013 First Data is Booker\u2019s newest investor
• 12:54 \u2013 Average total transactions
• 13:15 \u2013 Josh is currently not in any acquisition talks and isn\u2019t raising a round
• • 13:23 \u2013\u201cWe\u2019ve got some good runway\u201d
• 14:05 \u2013 Gross customer churn
• • 14:30 \u2013 \u201c50% of our churn is the people who ran out of business\u201d
  • 14:39 \u2013 Failure rate of the SMB market is quite high
• 15:00 \u2013 CAC
• • 15:05 \u2013 Most SMBs in SaaS and marketing business spend $1500-3500 to acquire new customers
• 15:40 \u2013 Frederick came to Booker for partnership
• • 16:10 \u2013 Frederick was able to look at how SMBs are retaining their customers
  • 17:22 \u2013 Frederick was able to get high conversion and retention metrics
  • 18:14 \u2013 Frederick is integrated heavily into Booker
• 18:38 \u2013 Team location
• 20:16 \u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

• It\u2019s important to understand what type of customers you serve best.
• Make sure you have the right type of structure in place when you spin out a business.
• Startups are a blast, but they\u2019re definitely not easy\u2014be willing to put in the work.

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Resources Mentioned:

• 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
• Organifi \u2013 The juice was Nathan\u2019s life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
• Klipfolio \u2013 Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Acuity Scheduling \u2013 Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• 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
• Freshbooks \u2013 Nathan doesn\u2019t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives