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Dec 14, 2016 · 20m · top-founders

EP 508: Siftery $4M Raised, 25,000 Users to Help You Find Software Tools with CMO Gerry Golyer

Jerry Collier · 9m spoken Nathan Latka · 8m spoken
0:00 / 0:00

gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions

In this episode of The Top, host Nathan Latka interviews Jerry Collier, Head of Growth at Siftery, detailing how the startup raised a $4 million seed round, built a distributed global team, and scaled its software recommendation platform to 25,000 users.

How this conversation actually went

Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 47.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 3.8 Guest teaching 1.8 Guest disagreement 0.8 Nathan pushing back 1.8
05100:0010:0020:001:19–6:34 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Introducing Jerry Collier and the Origins of Siftery Nathan demonstrates solid understanding of web-scraping tech stacks by using Mixpanel tracking codes as an analogy for how Siftery operates. Jerry confirms and adds nuance regarding their community verification layer.6:37–10:51 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Monetization Strategy, Seed Funding, and Operational Costs Nathan presses on Siftery's lack of revenue and calculates their implied burn rate based on their $4 million seed round, prompting Jerry to share their actual burn numbers.10:51–16:06 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Growth Metrics, Product Hunt Launch, and User Utility Nathan explores growth metrics and probes Jerry on the specific mechanics of ranking near the top of Product Hunt. Jerry explains their user growth and how they track recommendation accuracy.16:09–19:44 · Nathan as informed peer 2/10 Mid-Roll Sponsorship: The Top Inbox and HostGator The segment includes mid-roll advertisements followed by the standard rapid-fire Famous Five questionnaire, which proceeds cooperatively.19:46–20:45 · Nathan as informed peer 0/10 Episode Recap, Previous Show Teaser, and HostGator AdWords Offer Host monologue featuring episode wrap-up, recap of past interviews, and sponsor promotions.1:19–6:34 · Guest teaching 3/10 Introducing Jerry Collier and the Origins of Siftery Nathan demonstrates solid understanding of web-scraping tech stacks by using Mixpanel tracking codes as an analogy for how Siftery operates. Jerry confirms and adds nuance regarding their community verification layer.6:37–10:51 · Guest teaching 3/10 Monetization Strategy, Seed Funding, and Operational Costs Nathan presses on Siftery's lack of revenue and calculates their implied burn rate based on their $4 million seed round, prompting Jerry to share their actual burn numbers.10:51–16:06 · Guest teaching 2/10 Growth Metrics, Product Hunt Launch, and User Utility Nathan explores growth metrics and probes Jerry on the specific mechanics of ranking near the top of Product Hunt. Jerry explains their user growth and how they track recommendation accuracy.16:09–19:44 · Guest teaching 1/10 Mid-Roll Sponsorship: The Top Inbox and HostGator The segment includes mid-roll advertisements followed by the standard rapid-fire Famous Five questionnaire, which proceeds cooperatively.19:46–20:45 · Guest teaching 0/10 Episode Recap, Previous Show Teaser, and HostGator AdWords Offer Host monologue featuring episode wrap-up, recap of past interviews, and sponsor promotions.1:19–6:34 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Introducing Jerry Collier and the Origins of Siftery Nathan demonstrates solid understanding of web-scraping tech stacks by using Mixpanel tracking codes as an analogy for how Siftery operates. Jerry confirms and adds nuance regarding their community verification layer.6:37–10:51 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Monetization Strategy, Seed Funding, and Operational Costs Nathan presses on Siftery's lack of revenue and calculates their implied burn rate based on their $4 million seed round, prompting Jerry to share their actual burn numbers.10:51–16:06 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Growth Metrics, Product Hunt Launch, and User Utility Nathan explores growth metrics and probes Jerry on the specific mechanics of ranking near the top of Product Hunt. Jerry explains their user growth and how they track recommendation accuracy.16:09–19:44 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Mid-Roll Sponsorship: The Top Inbox and HostGator The segment includes mid-roll advertisements followed by the standard rapid-fire Famous Five questionnaire, which proceeds cooperatively.19:46–20:45 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Episode Recap, Previous Show Teaser, and HostGator AdWords Offer Host monologue featuring episode wrap-up, recap of past interviews, and sponsor promotions.1:19–6:34 · Nathan pushing back 1/10 Introducing Jerry Collier and the Origins of Siftery Nathan demonstrates solid understanding of web-scraping tech stacks by using Mixpanel tracking codes as an analogy for how Siftery operates. Jerry confirms and adds nuance regarding their community verification layer.6:37–10:51 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Monetization Strategy, Seed Funding, and Operational Costs Nathan presses on Siftery's lack of revenue and calculates their implied burn rate based on their $4 million seed round, prompting Jerry to share their actual burn numbers.10:51–16:06 · Nathan pushing back 3/10 Growth Metrics, Product Hunt Launch, and User Utility Nathan explores growth metrics and probes Jerry on the specific mechanics of ranking near the top of Product Hunt. Jerry explains their user growth and how they track recommendation accuracy.16:09–19:44 · Nathan pushing back 1/10 Mid-Roll Sponsorship: The Top Inbox and HostGator The segment includes mid-roll advertisements followed by the standard rapid-fire Famous Five questionnaire, which proceeds cooperatively.19:46–20:45 · Nathan pushing back 0/10 Episode Recap, Previous Show Teaser, and HostGator AdWords Offer Host monologue featuring episode wrap-up, recap of past interviews, and sponsor promotions.

speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

0:00 · Nathan 81% · guest 19%0:00 · Nathan 81% · guest 19%3:00 · Nathan 29.9% · guest 70.1%3:00 · Nathan 29.9% · guest 70.1%6:00 · Nathan 17.5% · guest 82.5%6:00 · Nathan 17.5% · guest 82.5%9:00 · Nathan 26.4% · guest 73.6%9:00 · Nathan 26.4% · guest 73.6%12:00 · Nathan 36.3% · guest 63.7%12:00 · Nathan 36.3% · guest 63.7%15:00 · Nathan 69.5% · guest 30.5%15:00 · Nathan 69.5% · guest 30.5%18:00 · Nathan 78.8% · guest 21.2%18:00 · Nathan 78.8% · guest 21.2%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 7:54 Jerry reframes monetization timeline

Jerry resists Nathan's framing around immediate SaaS monetization by emphasizing that Siftery is playing a longer-term game focused on buyers rather than rushing to charge sales teams.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 7:54 Nathan presses on pre-revenue status

Nathan cuts through the future product roadmap talk to confirm that the tool is entirely free today with no established pricing model.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 5:23 Jerry explains community validation layer

Jerry educates Nathan on why web scraping alone produces inaccurate data and explains how Siftery uses crowdsourced user confirmation to filter out false positives.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 4:42 Nathan articulates tracking snippet mechanics

Nathan displays deep familiarity with SaaS product architecture by explaining exactly how Siftery crawls websites for Mixpanel tracking snippets to generate competitor lead lists.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Introducing Jerry Collier and the Origins of Siftery 6311 Nathan demonstrates solid understanding of web-scraping tech stacks by using Mixpanel tracking codes as an analogy for how Siftery operates. Jerry confirms and adds nuance regarding their community verification layer.
Monetization Strategy, Seed Funding, and Operational Costs 6324 Nathan presses on Siftery's lack of revenue and calculates their implied burn rate based on their $4 million seed round, prompting Jerry to share their actual burn numbers.
Growth Metrics, Product Hunt Launch, and User Utility 5213 Nathan explores growth metrics and probes Jerry on the specific mechanics of ranking near the top of Product Hunt. Jerry explains their user growth and how they track recommendation accuracy.
Mid-Roll Sponsorship: The Top Inbox and HostGator 2101 The segment includes mid-roll advertisements followed by the standard rapid-fire Famous Five questionnaire, which proceeds cooperatively.
Episode Recap, Previous Show Teaser, and HostGator AdWords Offer 0000 Host monologue featuring episode wrap-up, recap of past interviews, and sponsor promotions.

Statements from this episode (7)

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Siftery tracks about 10,000 software products across hundreds of thousands of companies
“So we're tracking about 10,000 software products right now and tracking, you know, hundreds of thousands of companies that are using them.”
Jerry Collier Dec 14, 2016 ▶ 3:17
Disclosure
Siftery employs 30 people across San Francisco, Kyiv, and Bangalore
“There's five of us in SF. We do have another 25 team members who are distributed between Kiev and Bangalore, which is our biggest office.”
Jerry Collier Dec 14, 2016 ▶ 4:02
Assertion Supported
Siftery raised a $4M seed round in 2016
“We raised a four million seed earlier this year.”
Jerry Collier Dec 14, 2016 ▶ 8:51
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Siftery has over two years of runway on its current burn rate
“Our current burn rate allows us to operate for still over two years.”
Jerry Collier Dec 14, 2016 ▶ 9:17
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Collier: Siftery's Product Hunt launch generated over 6,000 users
“That was like 6000 plus.”
Jerry Collier Dec 14, 2016 ▶ 12:12
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Collier: Siftery ranks among top 50 most upvoted products on Product Hunt
“Yeah, I mean, also Sifter is still one of the 50 most upvoted products on product hunt, I think.”
Jerry Collier Dec 14, 2016 ▶ 12:31
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Collier: Siftery has scaled to about 25,000 registered users
“So we have about 25 K right now users who have given us mostly their company email addresses.”
Jerry Collier Dec 14, 2016 ▶ 13:41
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