Mike Wilner, the co-founder and CEO of Compass, a web design marketplace for small businesses. Mike’s a Venture For America fellow and has secured funding for his startup - a platform which handles marketing and project management for web designers and connects them to small business clients. Listen in to find out why you should forget the startup hype and focus on putting one foot in front of the other.

Famous 5:

Favorite Business Book? – The Servant
What CEO do you follow? — None. I prefer following athletes.
Favorite online tool? — Asana

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Close
If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? —Don’t believe all the hype in the startup world. There are just as many falls as there are success stories.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:18 – Nathan’s introduction
01:50 – Compass works with network of freelance web designers - they connect small businesses to designers, manage projects, and take a cut
03:23 – Compass takes a 40% cut of everything that comes through
04:07 – People who need a project completed come to Compass - they take the details and then invite designers to the project
05:15 – Designers make around $40-60 per hour, after the 40% cut
06:24 – Started in late 2014 and have been launched full-time for just over 1 year
06:46 – First-year revenue in 2014 was $4k
07:40 – Total 2015 revenue was $40k
08:00 – 4 people in the core team, plus 40 designers on contract
08:30 – Around $250k worth of projects processed
09:15 – Designers have a lot of flexibility on how many projects they take on
09:43 – Growing 40% month over month
10:30 – Compass manages standardized rounds of revision to prevent scope creep
11:10 – “The technology is the easy part - the harder part is managing humans and expectations”
12:08 – Raised a $300k angel round via convertible note last year
13:20 – “There’s still a huge need in the marketplace for people who need a professional web designer”
13:40 – Connect with Mike on Twitter or at Compass

15:38 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Don’t believe the startup hype
The hard part of startups is managing humans and expectations: work on having great soft skills
Leadership is about service

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.

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 352: Marketplace Takes 40% To Create High End Websites At Little Cost

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders