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Mar 10, 2016 · 21m · top-founders

Getting Your First $10k/mo In Revenue with Ben Fisher of CartHook.com EP 203

Ben Fisher · 13m spoken Nathan Latka · 5m 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 episode 203 of The Top, host Nathan Latka interviews entrepreneur and developer Ben Fisher, exploring his path through ventures like Lean Startup Machine and Alchemy to building CartHook, a high-growth SaaS tool solving e-commerce cart abandonment.

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 26.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 4.3 Guest teaching 2.3 Guest disagreement 1.3 Nathan pushing back 4.3
05100:0010:0020:001:10–6:05 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Ben Fisher's Background and Lean Startup Machine Nathan directs the background discussion by identifying Eric Ries and immediately drilling into Lean Startup Machine's monetization model. He presses Ben to quantify what 'working' meant in concrete dollar terms per weekend.6:05–10:21 · Nathan as informed peer 4/10 Building and Exiting Alchemy Collaboration Software Ben corrects Nathan's Crunchbase-derived assumption that Alchemy was a 12-week engineering course. Nathan pushes back forcefully when Ben deflects on fundraising numbers, asking 'How much did you raise?' twice until Ben gives a dollar figure.10:21–15:53 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Launching CartHook and Early Stage SaaS Metrics When Ben avoids giving a top-line revenue number by citing a lack of profitability, Nathan clarifies the distinction and pushes for customer counts and ARPU. Nathan quickly calculates CartHook's target monthly revenue ($12k MRR) based on the figures provided.15:53–20:42 · Nathan as informed peer 2/10 Social Handles and HostGator Sponsorship Break The segment covers social handles, a HostGator sponsor read, and the rapid-fire 'Famous Five' section. The dynamic is entirely friendly and conversational with standard Q&A.1:10–6:05 · Guest teaching 2/10 Ben Fisher's Background and Lean Startup Machine Nathan directs the background discussion by identifying Eric Ries and immediately drilling into Lean Startup Machine's monetization model. He presses Ben to quantify what 'working' meant in concrete dollar terms per weekend.6:05–10:21 · Guest teaching 4/10 Building and Exiting Alchemy Collaboration Software Ben corrects Nathan's Crunchbase-derived assumption that Alchemy was a 12-week engineering course. Nathan pushes back forcefully when Ben deflects on fundraising numbers, asking 'How much did you raise?' twice until Ben gives a dollar figure.10:21–15:53 · Guest teaching 2/10 Launching CartHook and Early Stage SaaS Metrics When Ben avoids giving a top-line revenue number by citing a lack of profitability, Nathan clarifies the distinction and pushes for customer counts and ARPU. Nathan quickly calculates CartHook's target monthly revenue ($12k MRR) based on the figures provided.15:53–20:42 · Guest teaching 1/10 Social Handles and HostGator Sponsorship Break The segment covers social handles, a HostGator sponsor read, and the rapid-fire 'Famous Five' section. The dynamic is entirely friendly and conversational with standard Q&A.1:10–6:05 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Ben Fisher's Background and Lean Startup Machine Nathan directs the background discussion by identifying Eric Ries and immediately drilling into Lean Startup Machine's monetization model. He presses Ben to quantify what 'working' meant in concrete dollar terms per weekend.6:05–10:21 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Building and Exiting Alchemy Collaboration Software Ben corrects Nathan's Crunchbase-derived assumption that Alchemy was a 12-week engineering course. Nathan pushes back forcefully when Ben deflects on fundraising numbers, asking 'How much did you raise?' twice until Ben gives a dollar figure.10:21–15:53 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Launching CartHook and Early Stage SaaS Metrics When Ben avoids giving a top-line revenue number by citing a lack of profitability, Nathan clarifies the distinction and pushes for customer counts and ARPU. Nathan quickly calculates CartHook's target monthly revenue ($12k MRR) based on the figures provided.15:53–20:42 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Social Handles and HostGator Sponsorship Break The segment covers social handles, a HostGator sponsor read, and the rapid-fire 'Famous Five' section. The dynamic is entirely friendly and conversational with standard Q&A.1:10–6:05 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Ben Fisher's Background and Lean Startup Machine Nathan directs the background discussion by identifying Eric Ries and immediately drilling into Lean Startup Machine's monetization model. He presses Ben to quantify what 'working' meant in concrete dollar terms per weekend.6:05–10:21 · Nathan pushing back 6/10 Building and Exiting Alchemy Collaboration Software Ben corrects Nathan's Crunchbase-derived assumption that Alchemy was a 12-week engineering course. Nathan pushes back forcefully when Ben deflects on fundraising numbers, asking 'How much did you raise?' twice until Ben gives a dollar figure.10:21–15:53 · Nathan pushing back 6/10 Launching CartHook and Early Stage SaaS Metrics When Ben avoids giving a top-line revenue number by citing a lack of profitability, Nathan clarifies the distinction and pushes for customer counts and ARPU. Nathan quickly calculates CartHook's target monthly revenue ($12k MRR) based on the figures provided.15:53–20:42 · Nathan pushing back 1/10 Social Handles and HostGator Sponsorship Break The segment covers social handles, a HostGator sponsor read, and the rapid-fire 'Famous Five' section. The dynamic is entirely friendly and conversational with standard Q&A.

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

0:00 · Nathan 59.1% · guest 40.9%0:00 · Nathan 59.1% · guest 40.9%3:00 · Nathan 10.6% · guest 89.4%3:00 · Nathan 10.6% · guest 89.4%6:00 · Nathan 10.4% · guest 89.6%6:00 · Nathan 10.4% · guest 89.6%9:00 · Nathan 7% · guest 93%9:00 · Nathan 7% · guest 93%12:00 · Nathan 15.9% · guest 84.1%12:00 · Nathan 15.9% · guest 84.1%15:00 · Nathan 48.8% · guest 51.2%15:00 · Nathan 48.8% · guest 51.2%18:00 · Nathan 28.1% · guest 71.9%18:00 · Nathan 28.1% · guest 71.9%21:00 · Nathan 100% · guest 0%21:00 · Nathan 100% · guest 0%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 14:38 Ben refuses to inflate CartHook's traction

Ben resists Nathan's framing of their business milestones, openly stating he will not exaggerate their numbers because CartHook is still very early stage.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 8:32 Nathan demands exact capital raised

When Nathan asks how much Alchemy raised and Ben sidesteps by saying they returned it all, Nathan immediately repeats the exact question to force a clear answer.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 6:05 Ben corrects Nathan on Alchemy's product model

Nathan assumes Alchemy was a 12-week software engineering course based on Crunchbase, but Ben corrects him and explains it was actually B2B internal collaboration software.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 14:06 Nathan calculates target MRR from unit economics

Nathan redirects Ben away from bottom-line profitability toward top-line revenue, extracting the 100 customer count and $120 ARPU to calculate their $12,000 MRR target.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Ben Fisher's Background and Lean Startup Machine 5214 Nathan directs the background discussion by identifying Eric Ries and immediately drilling into Lean Startup Machine's monetization model. He presses Ben to quantify what 'working' meant in concrete dollar terms per weekend.
Building and Exiting Alchemy Collaboration Software 4426 Ben corrects Nathan's Crunchbase-derived assumption that Alchemy was a 12-week engineering course. Nathan pushes back forcefully when Ben deflects on fundraising numbers, asking 'How much did you raise?' twice until Ben gives a dollar figure.
Launching CartHook and Early Stage SaaS Metrics 6226 When Ben avoids giving a top-line revenue number by citing a lack of profitability, Nathan clarifies the distinction and pushes for customer counts and ARPU. Nathan quickly calculates CartHook's target monthly revenue ($12k MRR) based on the figures provided.
Social Handles and HostGator Sponsorship Break 2101 The segment covers social handles, a HostGator sponsor read, and the rapid-fire 'Famous Five' section. The dynamic is entirely friendly and conversational with standard Q&A.

Statements from this episode (6)

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Fisher: Lean Startup Machine reached $10k in revenue per weekend event
“If I recall, like, it's been a while but we got to a point, yeah, it was like 10 grand Per weekend, right? So if you did an event and that's not profit. That's just revenue.”
Ben Fisher Mar 10, 2016 ▶ 5:28
Disclosure
Ben Fisher says Alchemy raised $60,000 and returned it all unspent
“I think we raised about, I want to say, 60,000 dollars, but we didn't spend any of it.”
Ben Fisher Mar 10, 2016 ▶ 8:41
Disclosure
Fisher: Alchemy reached around $5,000 MRR prior to acquisition
“We're going off my memory, so I would say we're probably at, I want to say like, 5000 MRR, maybe.”
Ben Fisher Mar 10, 2016 ▶ 9:20
Disclosure
CartHook reaches approximately 100 paying customers in late 2015
“So we're somewhere around a hundred paying customers.”
Ben Fisher Mar 10, 2016 ▶ 14:01
Disclosure
CartHook targets $120 monthly revenue per customer
“We shoot for an MRR of around a 120 bucks a month.”
Ben Fisher Mar 10, 2016 ▶ 14:19
Disclosure
CartHook raised around $300k in friends and family capital
“Raised about let's say, 300.”
Ben Fisher Mar 10, 2016 ▶ 15:08
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