Paul Walsh. He’s the founder and CEO of MetaCert, the world’s most-established security company in team collaboration and messaging services. He’s a holder of a full-patent for inept URL security. His first company generated $2.2M in Year 1 and he’s also the owner of a Michelin Star Indian restaurant.
Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People What CEO do you follow? – Jack Dorsey and Richard Branson Favorite online tool? — Teamwork and Slack How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Paul wished he executed his ideas regarding advertising right when he was building his first website
Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:11 – Nathan introduces Paul to the show 02:03 – Team collaboration and messaging services is only a few years old from a vertical perspective 02:34 – MetaCert’s security is focused on the premise that people are using like apps 02:51 – MetaCert’s security is put right into the service and is very specific in their niche 03:10 – In only takes seconds to install MetaCert 03:20 – Before you open a website, MetaCert checks if it is safe 03:31 – MetaCert has a database of classified URLs 03:34 – If the website is safe, nothing will happen 03:55 – If the website isn’t safe, you’ll receive a notification before the site loads 04:19 – MetaCert has their own security protocols to make sure that their database isn’t compromised 04:31 – MetaCert is probably the only small business that has its own threat intelligence system 04:56 – MetaCert has the biggest database of classified URLs 05:12 – Some of their customers are IBM and UCLA 05:25 – Paul believes that even if a user isn’t a paying one, he should be called a customer 05:35 – “We treat them with the same dignity” 06:04 – MetaCert has a good product market fit 06:15 – Most of MetaCert’s customers have started to pay 06:31 – MetaCert has a great dashboard that has an interface with every link and file shared with the company 07:11 – Less than 5% of the users are paying 07:20 – MetaCert turned down the payment system 07:52 – MetaCert had supported themselves through funding with a total of $2.4M 08:17 – Paul has thought about what series A investors look for 08:34 – It’s difficult for a SaaS B2B business to decide on the conversion metric 09:04 – MetaCert has been monitoring data 09:36 – MetaCert is installed in every channel for every customer—which is a privacy risk, but customers still do it 10:08 – A big company won’t just install a free product 10:15 – Paul has talked with their customers and ask their feedback on MetaCert 10:59 – Every customer that installed MetaCert has looked into the pricing 11:17 – There’s an expectation of paying after the 7-day trial 11:28 – MetaCert is a SaaS model 11:30 – Pricing starts at $1.50 per user per month 12:11 – The average customer is a company with 350 users 12:25 – $500-600 per month is the average starting point per company 12:38 – Around 1200 customers have installed MetaCert through Slack and Hipchat 12:44 – With zero inbound and outbound marketing 13:00 – Most traffic comes from Slack and Hipchat 13:14 – MetaCert didn’t negotiate with Slack and Hipchat 13:21 – Hipchat has blogged about MetaCert 14:43 – There’s a lot of people who don’t care about security, but there are those who still do 15:04 – Most IT people are more concerned about insider threats than external hacks 15:50 – Paul turned on their revenue for a number of reasons 16:30 – Moving from customers to users 16:57 – Building the platform took Paul a significant amount of years with continued tweaking 17:10 – Paul’s reason why he didn’t turn on the revenue initially 17:46 – Paul has built a great relationship with their customers 17:51 – A lot of security companies are using MetaCert 18:09 – Nathan wants to understand how Paul can build a big business out of MetaCert 19:08 – Paul believes that before charging their customers, there should be a product fit which Nathan disagrees 21:15 – Paul defines product fit 22:50 – The market opportunity 23:18 – MetaCert has become the most-established in the space 23:39 – MetaCert has all the right tools in place 24:43 – “You just don’t jump to revenue” 25:00 – Nathan has seen some of the most successful B2B SaaS business that had prepay, then get validation for the business 26:14 – Paul, on the other hand, believes that it’s rare for a customer to agree to prepay without trying a product 28:12 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
The definition of users and customers won’t always be the same for each company. Knowing your product fit before charging customers will help your customers see the value of your product right away. Being secure online has becoming a necessity to many because there are more inside threats.
Resources Mentioned:
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 Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments 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 booksShow Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
