Anders Fredriksson. He’s a Swedish, serial entrepreneur who recently moved to San Francisco to build his sales technology startup, ProLeads. He’s an engineer with a business mind and currently holds both CEO and CTO titles. Previously, he built and scaled ArrivalGuides.com as the founding CTO. Prior to that, he was the founder and CEO of Tablefinder.com, which he sold. He studied computer engineering and management at Chalmers University of Technology, but dropped out before getting his degree when he got funding for his first startup, Table Finder. Additionally, in 2007, Internet World named him the most prominent entrepreneur in Sweden.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup
What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff
Favorite online tool? — Google Inbox
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I really wished I knew how easy it is to start a business, but also I wish I didn’t know how hard it was”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

02:20 – Nathan introduces Anders to the show
03:25 – Anders got $75K when he started Table Finder
03:50 – ProLeads is a platform that aggregates service data to optimize workflow
04:07 – ProLeads is a SaaS model with annual subscriptions
04:40 – Average customer pay per month is around $75
05:20 – ProLeads was launched in the USA, in 2014
05:40 – Anders was in 500 Startups, Batch 12
- 05:43 – Anders was turned down 4 times
- 05:58 – What Anders said to convince 500 startups to accept them
06:10 – ProLeads was doing $5K per month when they were just starting
06:53 – There were 2 co-founders and now they have 3
07:20 – Average MRR
07:50 – The amount ProLeads receives from 500 startups
08:08 – ProLeads also raised funds during the program
- 08:20 – ProLeads totaled $500K from their fundraising
09:15 – Zesty is a longtime customer of ProLeads
- 09:38 – Zesty has 50-70 seats in ProLeads
10:45 – ProLeads’ lowest pricing is $300 per month
- 10:55 – ProLeads’ focus is mid-sized companies
11:14 – 2017 MRR goal
12:10 – Gross customer churn per month
- 12:49 – ProLeads was growing their MRR
- 12:56 – ProLeads had a problem during close demo day churn
- 13:35 – ProLeads had monthly contracts
13:51 – Average monthly churn is quite low
14:22 – Team size
14:36 – CAC
- 14:48 – No paid marketing
15:20 – The tools ProLeads uses:
- 15:30 – Clearbit, Full Contact, and DiscoverOrg
- 15:41 – DiscoverOrg was on The Top: Episode 512
17:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

BELIEVE in your own product—this will make it easier to convince other people to believe in it as well.
Problems arise at the start of any business, learn from it and move on.
Starting a business has both its hard and easy moments; either way, it’s worth the jump.

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
Freshbooks – Nathan doesn’t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 564: Proleads Passes 100 Customers, $75 ARPU Helping You Find Better Leads with CEO Anders Fredriksson

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders