Nicholas Haase, founder and CEO of Loot and Startup Drugz. Nick’s come out of the private equity industry and now wants to change the direction of marketing by tapping into the power of user-generated content. Tune in to hear what Nathan should invest his next million dollars into, why augmented reality is the future of tech, and where to buy a “9 to 5 is for the weak” T-Shirt.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – How to Win at the Sport of Business
What CEO do you follow? — Elon Musk
Favourite online tool? —Shopify
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?—No. I’m trying.
If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be?—I wish I knew how important computer science major would have been

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:13 – Nathan’s introduction
01:40 – Welcoming Nicholas to the show
02:20 – Worked in the private equity industry after an internship
03:10 – The people Nicholas worked with loved what they were doing
03:40 – Nicholas would invest $100 million in augmented reality if he had the juice
04:50 – Loot uses incentivised user-generated content to promote a brand
05:30 – People can upload photographs or actions and receive rewards according to their following
06:30 – Founded in 2012 and had only $200 topline revenue
06:50 – Topline revenue in 2015 was $500k
07:30 – Bootstrapped the app’s creation and raised capital following proof of concept
08:20 – Augmented reality can be many things - a Snapchat filter is augmented reality
08:46 – How do people value brands in the space that Loot works in?
09:30 – By recurring revenue or by number of contracts
09:55 – What’s Startup Drugz?
10:20 – An e-commerce company that sells merchandise based on entrepreneur humour
11:20 – In February 2016, total sales revenue was in mid-5 figures
12:30 – Connect with Nicholas via Twitter
14:05 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
Understand some computer science. Even if it’s not your core competency, you’ll be grateful for the background.
Nicholas thinks that augmented reality is the future of tech and entertainment
Leverage your users and fanbase - marketing is effective when it connects users to other user-generated content
Resources Mentioned:
Freshbooks - The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
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

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SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders