Darian Shirazi. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Radius. He was an early employee at Facebook and worked on the” Sell Your Item” Team at eBay. He’s founded, invested, and advised many successful technology companies. Prior to starting Radius, Darian studied Computer Science and Philosophy at UC Berkeley. He’s also a prominent keen speaker at Top of Technology Innovation.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Essays of Warren Buffet
What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff
Favorite online tool? — Yesware
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “How much harder building the business is than you originally thought and how once you get to scale how amazing it feels.”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:42 – Nathan introduces Darian to the show
02:15 – Darian shares about his time with Facebook
- 02:30 – Darian’s favorite project on Facebook was Facelift
02:45 – Darian shares what he thinks of Mark Zuckerberg
03:30 – Darian can’t think of a time when Mark was at odds with another team member
03:58 – Radius is about growing pipelines for B2B marketers
- 04:08 – The customers are typically enterprise and mid-market businesses
- 04:15 – Radius fixes data
- 04:30 – Radius’ services
04:48 – The whole foundation of the product starts with the Radius business graph
05:17 – Darian shares how they help the client
05:40 – Darian shares how Radius is different with CB Insights
- 05:50 – Radius’ data is powered by their customers which allows them to access their CRMs
- 06:20 – The activity data allows Radius to improve their data
- 06:50 – Radius doesn’t rely on publicly available data
07:30 – Radius was founded in 2011 and launched in 2013
08:00 – Average number of customers
- 08:30 – It is not really a seat model
- 09:10 – Radius has a used cased expansion
09:41 – Team size is currently 150 people
10:00 – Radius has currently raised $100M
- 10:25 – Radius still has a lot of net capital left
- 10:42 – Radius’ retention for enterprise customers is around 93%
10:50 – Gross monthly customer churn
11:24 – Darian shares what drives their revenue
- 11:48 – Radius’s implementation day is only 18 days so customers see the value quickly
12:11 – Radius’ pricing
12:23 – ACV
13:00 – First year revenue
13:25 – Darian has 2 co-founders
14:07 – Radius requires a team
- 14:28 – Darian hired people from enterprise companies
15:00 – Darian shares Radius’s CAC to LTV ratio
- 15:36 – Radius’s sales cycle
- 15:52 – “Customer trust is our number one value”
- 16:50 – It is difficult to measure CAC to LTV when enterprise companies rely on big events for marketing

17:53 – Radius’s growth rate
19:14 – Radius’ marketing budget
19:29 – The amount Radius spends on Dreamforce
- 20:27 – Dreamforce is an incredible way to grow a pipe

20:40 – Is Radius going to be the next Benioff’s acquisition?
21:48 – Darian shares how Microsoft has been an incredible partner for Radius
22:36 – The last funding
23:05 – Darian discusses Radius’ future
23:40 – Follow Darian at Twitter and email him
25:35 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

It takes a great team to create a great product.
Take what you’ve learned from your last employer, be grateful for it, and leave graciously.
Acquisition requires planning, an exchange of ideas, and thorough researching.

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
Ceo@Radius.com – Darian’s email address
@Darian314 – Darian’s Twitter handle
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 534: 29yo Radius CEO Raises $100M, Helping Expand B2B Sales Pipelines with Darian Shirazi

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders