Conor Lee, founder and CEO of HipLead. The company helps leading B2B companies scale their outbound sales with high quality lead generation outbound campaigns. Before founding HipLead, Conor founded several other companies including TellFi which was in the Y Combinator, Winter 2011 batch. Prior to that, he worked as a lobbyist in statewide political campaigns.
Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk Favorite online tool? – Zapier Do you get 8 hours of sleep? – No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Conor wished he had spent more time in tech than in politics
Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:30 – Nathan introduces Conor to the show 02:07 – Conor shares what happened to TellFi 02:58 – Conor had a co-founder who wanted to keep it going 03:19 – Conor shares how the exit happened 04:10 – HipLead helps companies scale their outbound sales 04:35 – HipLead’s pricing 04:55 – Current number of customers is 30 05:18 – HipLead was launched in 2013 05:30 – Conor is the solo founder, but he had a co-founder for awhile 06:25 – Conor has the majority of the shares of the company 07:35 – Conor and Nathan discuss cap tables 08:00 – Conor hired a lawyer for his legal documents 08:17 – Use the startup attorneys 08:31 – HipLead is bootstrapped 08:50 – HipLead’s loan 09:20 – Conor shares why he got the loan 10:00 – Conor shares how the loan works 11:30 – The type of loan is only for specific companies 12:00 – The company name that provides the loan is Lighter Capital and it is based in Seattle 12:21 – Annual customer churn: less than 15% 12:58 – CAC 13:09 – Customer’s LTV 14:15 – First year revenue 15:40 – 2015 revenue: $900,000 15:50 – Current ARR 15:59 – Conor is also looking into raising capital 16:10 – Team size of 16 16:29 – Team location is in San Francisco and other remote locations 18:35 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
We need to be more open about exits—there are times where you just have to pull the plug. If you need funds and do not want to share equity, try a bank loan. Make sure your legal documents are in order, especially in the case of a split from your co-founder.
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