EP 553: Prospectify Raises $1M at $4M Post Money Valuation, $25k MRR, for Better Prospecting with CEO Matt Ekstrom - a podcast by Nathan Latka

from 2017-01-28T10:00

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Matt Ekstrom. He’s one of the founders of Prospectify and formerly co-founded HiringSolved. He’s in-charge of all things revenue for Prospectify, which is a promising sales and intelligence platform.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Sales Acceleration
  • What CEO do you follow? –  Gary Vaynerchuk
  • Favorite online tool? — Google Search and HubSpot
  • Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I would have studied more about startups and being an entrepreneur”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 01:30 – Nathan introduces Matt to the show
  • 01:55 – Prospectify is a SaaS model
  • 02:14 – Prospectify’s long term goal is to be able to scale personalization from the sales standpoint
  • 02:25 – Prospectify has monthly subscriptions
  • 02:45 – Prospectify’s pricing:
    • 03:25 – The prices from the website are $40, $190, $490, and $975
  • 03:33 – Average customer pay per month is $352
  • 03:50 – Prospectify was launched in February 2016, and was in beta in January 2016
  • 04:16 – Current number of customers is around 100
  • 04:46 – MRR is over $20K
  • 05:09 – Prospectify is based in Phoenix
  • 05:20 – Prospectify just closed their first month
    • 05:25 – It was in Angels and a million dollar round
  • 05:45 – Matt shares why he decided on an equity round and not a convertible note
  • 06:31 – Matt uses the trajectory to argue for higher valuation
  • 07:29 – Prospectify is about to launch their company search which includes 12 million companies starting in the USA
  • 08:10 – The people Prospectify has targeted
  • 08:18 – Prospectify’s customer base is diverse
  • 08:45 – Annual customer churn
  • 09:45 – Matt shares what he will do to keep customers paying and NOT cancel after receiving all the data
  • 11:10 – Prospectify’s top data sources
    • 11:22 – Matt shares what they used to validate the concept of Prospectify
  • 12:18 – Fixed cost per month for crawling
  • 13:11 – Matt shares where to get credits
  • 14:00 – Customer LTV
  • 14:34 – Current team size
    • 14:45 – Headcount expenses
  • 16:30 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  • Keep people up to date—that way, they will keep on paying.
  • Decide whether an equity round or convertible note will be most advantageous for you.
  • Discern what is the right track and try to stay on it.   

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Drip – Nathan uses Drip’s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
  • Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
  • Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
  • Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
  • The Top Inbox  – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
  • Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Further episodes of SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Further podcasts by Nathan Latka

Website of Nathan Latka