Ron Jacobson. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Rockerbox and Hindsight. Ron was a project manager at AppNexus and a proud McGill alumni. Follow him on Twitter.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Made in America
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk and Mark Cuban
Favorite online tool? — Spectacle
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “There are going to be a lot of highs and there are going to be a lot of lows, but you just got too keep moving”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:36 – Nathan introduces Ron to the show
02:01 – Rockerbox is an online marketing technology company
02:09 – Hindsight is a secondary offering which is an off-site analytics platform, complementary to Rockerbox
02:28 – Rockerbox is a management service and Hindsight is the SaaS part
03:00 – Rockerbox was launched in early 2014
03:03 – Team size is 18
03:13 – Target customers are marketers
03:25 – Rockerbox has partnerships with publishers and data providers
- 04:40 – Through different partnerships, they’re able to know the source of potential customers
05:25 – First year revenue was $640K gross
- 05:30 – 2015: under $2M , 2016 was around $4M and it will probably be $8M this year
05:48 – 10% of the customers are on Hindsight
06:50 – In 2016, Rockerbox has served 50 customers
07:19 – Hindsight currently has around 13 customers with a MRR of $16K
07:43 – Some of Rockerbox’s customers are Vimeo and Vanguard
- 08:16 – CAC and LTV
- 08:26 – No logo and revenue churn yet
- 08:50 – Some small companies can’t scale and their pricing is “take it or leave it”
09:32 – 5 team members are focused on Hindsight
09:59 – Hindsight is self-funded and is based on Rockerbox
10:14 – Ron shares why they raised funding despite doubling Rockerbox’s ARR
11:05 – Ron has reached out to people whom he hasn’t talked to for decades just to acquire new customers
- 11:16 – Ron shares the content of his email
13:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Having fewer customers with a larger paywall works well, it allows you to focus more on your customers’ needs.
Stick to your pricing and your target market.
Through the highs and lows, just KEEP MOVING.

Resources Mentioned:

Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
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

824: Brilliant Ad Tech Hedge: $8m Managed Services Firm RockerBox Adds $1k/mo SaaS Product

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