Rey Grainger, founder and CEO of Mavenlink, where he’s leading a mission to re-invent the way businesses do work. Ray brings over 25 years of experience in software and technology consulting to Mavenlink. He also invests in several technology companies through Accenture technology ventures including enterprise knowledge manager vendor InQuira.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Good to Great
What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff

Favorite online tool? — Evernote
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— I don’t
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “That I would actually end up achieving what I have setup to do”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:24 – Nathan introduces Ray to the show
02:28 – Ray likes corporate world more
03:00 – How Accenture invested in AI Technology
03:20 – Ray left Accenture in 2005 when InQuira started to get into the market
03:48 – Ray already had an idea for Mavenlink
04:45 – Mavenlink is SaaS business management solution
05:09 – Mavenlink is a subscription based business model
05:50 – First year revenue is zero
06:08 – Product development was in February 2009
- 06:25 – Began monetizing at the beginning of 2010
06:40 – Mavenlink was bootstrapped
07:05 – Before starting Mavenlink, Ray sold some of his stocks of Accenture
07:40 – Before they were able to monetize, Ray and his team already spent almost a million dollar
08:03 – Mavenlink has a broad customer base in over a 100 countries
- 08:13 – From SMB to large public companies
08:55 – Mavenlink has an inside sales team for each deal
09:30 – Mavenlink partnered with Google
- 09:38 – Google promoted Mavenlink in their marketplace
10:45 – “The amount of money you have in your bank account influences you”
11:16 – Ray had to look for creative ways to acquire customers
11:41 – Mavenlink sponsored 2 technology conferences
12:35 – It is difficult to say how much one is willing to spend to acquire a business
- 13:30 – “You have to manage it by channel and see what you’re going to get for the payback”
13:48 – Gross monthly customer churn
13:52 – “We offer a solution that directly impacts the profitability of the company”
14:18 – Clients who stay with Mavenlink continues to grow
15:41 – The upsell part of Mavenlink
16:06 – Mavenlink target seat price
16:29 – Mavenlink has taken a substantial amount of venture capital starting in 2011
16:52 – Team size
17:18 – Follow Ray on Twitter and LinkedIn
18:56 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

The amount of money you have in your bank account influences you.
Corporate life can hone great entrepreneurs.
Achieve what you have set up to do and aim for the big one.

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.
@mavenlink – Ray’s Twitter handle
LinkedIn – Ray’s business LinkedIn account
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 479: $45M Raised, 5000+ Project Management Customers with Mavenlink CEO Ray Grainger

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders