Gary Guseinov, an investor, operator, and advisor in various technology companies including Business Hangouts, InCast, Playsino and Revenue.com. During his career, he has over $100 million in growth capital and structured complex financial transactions. He’s also acquired over 300 million users for global technology product and services.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Power the Mind
What CEO do you follow? – Mark Zuckerberg

Favorite online tool? — Calendly
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I knew how to start a business with very little capital”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:26 – Nathan introduces Gary to the show
02:08 – Business Hangouts is a web-conferencing and webinar platform
- 02:17 – It is specifically designed for Google apps
02:47 – Gary has raised capital for USTechSupport in 2003
- 03:07 – Private from 2003 to 2007
- 03:15 – From September 2007 to 2012, it became public in Nasdaq
- 03:22 – It was bought out by a big marketing company in LA
- 03:29 – Gary was the co-founder and left the company because he needed a break
04:24 – “It takes a lot of processes when it comes to legal and accounting when you shift from private to public”
- 05:05 – SDC reviews the applications and processes
05:20 – Gary was in his mid-thirties when he started USTechSupport and didn’t have any experience running a company
- 05:29 – Gary is now 46
05:40 – Gary acquired Business Hangouts from the previous owner
- 05:51 – Business Hangouts had 1.7 million enterprise users when it was acquired
- 06:02 – Over 700,000 registered users and 70,000 enterprise users
- 06:40 – Number of paying users
07:10 – Business Hangouts’ competitors usually separate web conferencing and webinar leading to 2 different subscriptions
- 07:48 – Consumers wouldn’t know what their monthly expenses were going to be
07:54 – Business Hangouts is not as complicated as their competitors
- 08:10 – “Our pricing model is very simple”
09:07 – Average monthly RPU is $70
10:40 – Business Hangouts is currently getting offers from investors
11:45 – “We try to build a business based on purely economics”
12:06 – “We think that we are a strong contender to multi-million dollar entities”
12:54 – Gary does not wish to disclose their MRR because they are not looking for capital at the moment as they are still a small company
13:57 – Gary’s goal is to stay “at the radar”
- 14:18 – “You want to be good at what you’re doing and you want the market to recognize that”
14:55 – Churn is less than 10% yearly
15:32 – Gary acquired the company for less than $10 million
17:00 – Gary can afford to put inside sales representatives in the demo
17:36 – Business Hangouts is completely bootstrapped
18:15 – Current CAC is zero
18:55 – Team size is less than 10
19:16 – Connect with Gray through LinkedIn
20:42 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Choose a business that is viable in the marketplace.
Staying “at the radar” while doing an excellent job at what you do will help you become recognized by the marketplace.
You CAN start a business without raising capital.

Resources Mentioned:

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 developers.
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
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.
LinkedIn – Gary’s LinkedIn account
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 495: WebEx Killer +$5M In Revenue, 1.7M Users For Better Online Meetings with BusinessHangouts CEO Gary Guseinov

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