Dane Atkinson
Founder and CEO, Odeko. On 3 shows, 3 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutive@daneatkinson ↗LinkedIn ↗odeko.com ↗
Dane Atkinson is a serial entrepreneur currently leading Odeko, an operations and supply chain platform for independent coffee shops and cafes. He previously served as the CEO of Squarespace from 2007 to 2011 and subsequently founded the analytics company SumAll.
3shows
3appearances
29statements
4resolved
4supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
Everything Dane Atkinson said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Dismissing Startups for Small Initial TAMs Is a Flawed Investor Strategy
“And a lot of VCs, you not included, but a lot of investors are like, but the TAM is too small. You're just focused on blogs or you're just focused on selling surfboards. Like, you know, it's not that tends to not actually be an effective long-term strategy. Ca…”
Shortening Squarespace's 30-Day Free Trials Increased Paid Customer Conversions
“The lesson that I learned from Squarespace, and I probably should get much closer to my heart, was we originally had, or during the cycle time, like a thirty-day trial, and so you get to, you build your site and everything else, and we quickly discovered that …”
Pivoting Odeko to Tech-Enabled Logistics Crushed Its Valuation Multiple
“And actually all the advice our investors gave at the time has been, was totally true. Like they said, you're gonna screw your multiple and yeah, sure as hell screw that multiple. No doubt about it. I'm like, we have trucks and drivers and 14 cities and you kn…”
Selling to SMBs Requires Transformative Value, Not Minor Iterative Savings
“Now the threshold is you have to be an epic salt, particularly in small business. You can't walk into small business and be like, I'm going to save you three percent on your business. I don't care. I don't have time. Wait, what the hell are you doing? Right? I…”
Founder Charisma and Desperation Often Mask a Lack of True PMF
“So that desperation often turns into it not working, but you're just making it work. You're just charismaing the shit out of it. You're convincing one customer, like you're like force of nature. But when something really works, it actually just works.”
Small Businesses Prefer Automated Execution Over Analytics and Data Insights
“When we first started is we tried to provide insights and guidance. We found that the SMEs just didn't have the bandwidth for it. So we would promote, like, stop advertising on Twitter. It's not working for you. Your product's better on Instagram. You're seein…”
Charging Customers Proves True Product Value Better Than Freemium Engagement
“The thing that I didn't realize was the discipline of charging is a more honest reflection of creating value for your customers. So we made, I made, and I make so many mistakes, it's kind of laughable, but I certainly missed that in the sense of looking at met…”
Dane Atkinson: Social media analytics will become as monstrous as search
“Social is the next search. This industry is going to be monstrous.”
Building a Product for Yourself Is the Best Way to Find PMF
“Being the customer yourself is one of the best, because especially if you can viscerally understand the desire and hold onto that as you grow, like it, it's fantastic.”
SMBs Struggle to Calculate Data ROI Compared to Enterprise Customers
“In selling to the enterprise. As an example, it's easier for there to be a calculation of impact. Like how is this data actually guiding decisions? How are we able to make real value out of it? And then you can attach a fee to it. A small business. And I thoug…”
Atkinson Maintains a Strict Rule to Speak With a Customer Every Day
“I have a rule that I have to have coffee and a coffee shop every day. And I've got to talk to a customer every day, even now.”
Independent Coffee Shops Need Franchise-Level Logistics Support Without Franchise Restrictions
“What we realized that coffee shops needed Is that they want to be part of a franchise without being part of a franchise. They needed to have the same support that the, you know, manager at Dunkin's has, or the manager at Starbucks has, with the fact that they …”
Atkinson Grants Advisor Equity to the First Customers Across His Startups
“We have it at every company. We give an advisor shares out for every company we've ever been for those first customers to be engaged.”
Pitching Extrapolated Time Returns to Small Business Owners Is Unintelligible
“A small business doesn't know how to vector their time, you know, calculate all that in. If you come at them with an extrapolated return, it's unintelligible.”
Headcount and Funding Are the Worst Indicators of Startup Success
“I would say, no, don't use funding. Don't use hiring. Don't use your pretty box as your symptoms of success. Those are all number of employees, worst one possible. It really should be something where you can feel the impact.”
Squarespace Remained Profitable Throughout Dane Atkinson's 2007-2011 CEO Tenure
“The company was always profitable. It's a very strong business model.”
The Average Small Business Uses 14 SaaS Integrations to Operate
“I mean, if you look at the small business, the average small business has 14 integrations right now. They're using 14 SAS's just to survive.”
SumAll Relies Exclusively on Word of Mouth With Zero Acquisition Costs
“We don't actually have a user acquisition cost. We don't do any marketing to get our customers. It's all a word of mouth. It's visibility from our partners that push us.”
Dane Atkinson: Top global companies use SumAll because enterprise tools fail
“Because the tools are so weak, we find giant companies Top 10 companies putting our tools on just so they can see the social landscape in one shot, right?”
Small businesses radically shift marketing budgets after seeing customer retention metrics
“When we show customers what their old and new customer equation is, it's shocking how small businesses have no clue, and as soon as they see that, all of a sudden their marketing budgets get split in half, right? They start spending money for new acquisitions,…”
Dane Atkinson: Companies will demand data backgrounds when hiring business roles
“So I think that, that, that, that term is going to blend, and you're going to look for people who have a data background when you're hiring for a business role, and right now it's just a, it's a titling issue.”
Squarespace Raised $40M and Surpassed $10M Revenue Under Atkinson
“We'd raised forty million bucks during my time, and I'd gotten to, I would think, a pretty meaningful product market fit. It was more than ten million in a revenue standpoint.”
Podcast Creator Endorsements Were the Keystone to Early Squarespace Growth
“The fact that you could do it yourself was an educational sell, so we had to find long formats. And true, this format was one of our keystones to success, but we found podcasters and that ability for someone to actually share their experience with it really he…”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Dane's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 PRODUCT MARKET FITLEDGER | Founder and CEO, Odeko | 1 | 15 | 100% 2/2 | full record on A Product Market Fit Show → |
 TOP FOUNDERSLEDGER | Founder and CEO, Odeko | 1 | 9 | 100% 2/2 | full record on Top Founders → |
 MADLEDGER | Founder and CEO, Odeko | 1 | 5 | — | full record on the MAD Podcast → |