Sieva Kozinsky, founder and CEO of StudySoup. The online marketplace now has over 5000 buyers and 1000 sellers. These sellers provide their notes and study guides for college courses. StudySoup helps their sellers learn how to be entrepreneurs and provides a unique service to college students everywhere.

Famous 5:

Favorite Book? – Elon Musk’s biography
What CEO do you follow? — Elon Musk
Favorite online tool? — Slack

Do you get 8 hours of sleep? — “I get 6.5 to 7.5 hours.”
If you could let your 20-year-old self know one thing, what would it be? — “Pay attention to the signs. If something isn’t working, ditch it and move forward.”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:05 – Nathan’s introduction
02:25 – StudySoup is “an education marketplace for college students”
01:55 – It’s a monthly subscription
02:25 – Sellers take notes, and the buyers use those class notes
03:10 – Students get “karmas” to access notes and study guides
04:10 – the “karma” system
05:10 – The backstory
- 05:45 – StudySoup was tested at a few schools and took off
06:10 – Year-one revenue was $45k
06:25 – Now they have over 5000 subscribers
06:45 – 1000 note takers
07:09 – Funding is over a million
- 07:35 – They used convertible notes
08:15 – Team size
08:30 – The team is distributed and remote
- 09:05 – Slack, Google Hangouts
09:25 – Trajectory
- 09:55 – They will hit almost $4 million this year
10:05 – A focus on getting more note takers
10:40 – The revenue is seasonal according to class schedules
11:15 – Revenue February to May is pretty consistent
11:45 – About 4000 buyers used the service in March
12:25 – All buyers and sellers are very active
12:45 – Average purchase size is $42
13:15 – A study guide is the best-selling item
13:40 – What happens after a student graduates?
- 14:15 – Expanding into grad school and high school in the future
14:40 – Buyers pay 15 to 20 dollars each month
15:25 – Churn is 8% to 12%, lower than the average for the industry
16:20 – Acquisition cost
- 16:30 – Training sellers to be entrepreneurs
17:10 – It’s too early to see lifetime value of a customer
17:40 – Contact Sieva on Twitter: @SievaKozinsky
19:40 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

When you find an idea that works, go for it.
Distributed, remote teams are very doable with today’s online tools.
Look for the signs that tell you the direction your business is headed.

Resources Mentioned:

Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for 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.
Slack and Google Hangouts – The online tools that StudySoup uses to stay in touch with a distributed team.

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 371: $1M Raised, $40k/Mo Marketplace For Class Notes with Sieva Kozinsky

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders