Guillermo Ortiz, the founder of Geek Powered Studios. Guillermo’s an ex-competitive gamer and the force behind a marketing and consulting company that focuses on data to take its clients from good to great. Listen as Nathan and Guillermo talk holistic marketing, investing in data, and why it’s good to be young and dumb.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Scaling Up
What CEO do you follow? — Will Reynolds
Favourite online tool? — SEMrush
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be?—I don’t know if I’d change anything. I was young and dumb and full of heart.

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:30 – Nathan’s introduction
01:49 – Welcoming Guillermo to the show
02:30 – Used to be 6th in the world at Counterstrike
03:05 – Set up strategic partnerships with small businesses
03:30 – “We try to do everything correctly rather than one thing really well”
03:40 – Monthly retainer package from $2k - $5k per month
03:55 – Handle landing pages, graphic design, facebook ads, SEO...
04:50 – Would only say no if they lacked time or resources to make the request happen
05:30 – Have 15-20 team members
05:45 – Based in Austin, Texas
06:08 – Total revenue in 2015 was $800k
06:30 – Biggest expense is subscription services
06:55 – Spent 30-40% of revenue on SaaS
07:15 – Profits last year around $100-200k
08:10 – Founded the company in 2009 while working full-time
08:30 – Left in 2012 to focus on Geek Powered Studios
09:14 – Currently around 55 clients
09:23 – MRR in 2015 about $110k
09:35 – Very high customer retention rates - focus on establishing relationships
10:15 – Optimised the keyword ‘deer antler spray’ for one client
12:20 – Now focusing on holistic awareness instead of only rankings
13:15 – Goal for 2016 is to clear $250k in profit
13:50 – Connect with Guillermo on twitter
16:20 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
Data is the new oil. Invest in data about your company; invest in analytics. Master exactly what’s going on.
Work yourself out of a job. Build a successful scalable business that can operate without you.
Establish fantastic relationships with your customers. Retention and referrals come from real relationships.

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

He Gave Up 30% Equity, Launched Own Gig, Winning with $800k/yr+ In Revenue. EP 289: Guillermo Ortiz

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders