Rey Grainger, founder and CEO of Mavenlink, where he’s leading a mission to re-invent the way businesses do work. Ray brings over 25 years of experience in software and technology consulting to Mavenlink. He also invests in several technology companies through Accenture technology ventures including enterprise knowledge manager vendor InQuira.
Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff Favorite online tool? — Evernote Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— I don’t If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “That I would actually end up achieving what I have setup to do”
Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:24 – Nathan introduces Ray to the show 02:28 – Ray likes corporate world more 03:00 – How Accenture invested in AI Technology 03:20 – Ray left Accenture in 2005 when InQuira started to get into the market 03:48 – Ray already had an idea for Mavenlink 04:45 – Mavenlink is SaaS business management solution 05:09 – Mavenlink is a subscription based business model 05:50 – First year revenue is zero 06:08 – Product development was in February 2009 06:25 – Began monetizing at the beginning of 2010 06:40 – Mavenlink was bootstrapped 07:05 – Before starting Mavenlink, Ray sold some of his stocks of Accenture 07:40 – Before they were able to monetize, Ray and his team already spent almost a million dollar 08:03 – Mavenlink has a broad customer base in over a 100 countries 08:13 – From SMB to large public companies 08:55 – Mavenlink has an inside sales team for each deal 09:30 – Mavenlink partnered with Google 09:38 – Google promoted Mavenlink in their marketplace 10:45 – “The amount of money you have in your bank account influences you” 11:16 – Ray had to look for creative ways to acquire customers 11:41 – Mavenlink sponsored 2 technology conferences 12:35 – It is difficult to say how much one is willing to spend to acquire a business 13:30 – “You have to manage it by channel and see what you’re going to get for the payback” 13:48 – Gross monthly customer churn 13:52 – “We offer a solution that directly impacts the profitability of the company” 14:18 – Clients who stay with Mavenlink continues to grow 15:41 – The upsell part of Mavenlink 16:06 – Mavenlink target seat price 16:29 – Mavenlink has taken a substantial amount of venture capital starting in 2011 16:52 – Team size 17:18 – Follow Ray on Twitter and LinkedIn 18:56 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
The amount of money you have in your bank account influences you. Corporate life can hone great entrepreneurs. Achieve what you have set up to do and aim for the big one.
Resources Mentioned:
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 developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. 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. @mavenlink – Ray’s Twitter handle LinkedIn – Ray’s business LinkedIn account Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives