Chris Golec. He’s built three, successful, technology businesses in the last 18 years. Today, he’s the founder and CEO of Demandbase and his mission is to transform B2B advertising, marketing and sales through innovations and digital technology. Today, hundreds of blue chip enterprises across financial services, hi-tech, manufacturing, healthcare and telecom industries have adopted a demand based on the B2B marketing platform and account-based marketing technology to dramatically improve the way they acquire and grow customers.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Straight from the Gut
What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff, Steve Jobs, Jack Welch and Sundar Pichai
Favorite online tool? — Slack
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-7
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Don't start a company just to NOT work for someone else

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:50 – Nathan introduces Chris to the show
02:28 – In the last two years, Chris has seen that there’s a dramatic increase in demand
03:13 – Chris is seeing 50% growth in revenue this year
03:22 – Demandbase just closed funding of $65M in May 2017, which is on top of the $90M they’ve raised
03:50 – Chris shares the reason that they’ve raised another round
- 03:53 – The ABM category
- 04:10 – Demandbase has developed new innovations
05:27 – ABM is more of a business process and Demandbase is much more of a platform
05:41 – Demandbase has multiple products integrated into their solution
06:10 – Demandbase was launched in 2007
06:22 – Demandbase currently has a lot of options
06:33 – Salesforce and Marketo are getting into the ABM category as well
08:25 – By the end of 2017, they’ll pass the $100M revenue mark
09:00 – Demandbase’s customer expansion
09:44 – Current customer count is around 400-600
09:57 – Team size is 300
10:17 – Demandbase will probably break even or be cashflow positive in Q1 or Q2 of 2018
10:55 – Demandbase is increasing investments ahead of plan and that allows them to generate new products
- 11:13 – It makes new customers come to the platform
11:44 – Demandbase has offices in San Francisco, Seattle, New York and London
12:25 – Demandbase has 50-60 quota-carrying reps, 20-25 in marketing, 10-15 HR and the rest are in data, R&D and engineering
13:20 – Account-based marketing allows you to save a lot of money
13:58 – Customers pay annually
14:09 – Payback period is around 12 months
- 14:33 – Chris is lenient with their payback period
15:13 – LTV
15:30 – Chris won’t barter just to acquire new customers
17:44 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Raising a large amount of capital will help develop the business quickly.
Account-based marketing can save you more money.
When you start a company, you’re working for EVERYONE.

Resources Mentioned:

Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
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
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
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 books
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

817: SaaS: DemandBase Raises $65m More, $90m+ ARR, Leading ABM Space, IPO Next?

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders