The Exchanges

Q Yep. Uh, how'd you get your first customers?

A Well, it's the same way that we got our first customers with Goldmine. Imagine in 1989, you built the first networkable sales and marketing tool when people were figuring out just what to even use a network for. There wasn't any networkable business software, let alone sales and marketing software. So back then, what I did is I identified the trusted advisor of my prospect, and that was the guy that sold them the network, the technology reseller. And that was back then Novell reseller, and I cold called every Novell reseller in the country, and I got them to use it. Because people sell what they know, and they know what they use, then they started to recommend it, and that gave me my first 50,000 dollars a month in revenue for Goldmine.

AI assessment note: “I cold called every Novell reseller in the country, and I got them to use it.”

Q You've mastered kind of acquiring the small business customer, which is difficult. That's not easy. How are you acquiring these small businesses at such a large scale?

A Well, ultimately it's exact same way that we scaled gold mine, which essentially was outlook and Salesforce combined in its day. So back in the day, there was no outlook. There was no Salesforce gold mine was the thing that everybody in the company lived in. So I think the biggest problem with serum today is that it's only sales and marketing people that use it, but ultimately everybody in your company should be using A relationship platform for the whole business, because everybody in the company touches the customer, and the way we scaled Goldmine is, imagine this, two guys in an apartment in Canoga Park, that's a suburb of Los Angeles, who just created the world's first networkable business sales and marketing relationship tool. Nobody even knows they need that thing. How do you sell something people don't know they need, and you have no money to advertise? What we did Is we cold called every Novell reseller in the country. Novell resellers essentially sold the network to that small business, and we got them to use it. People sell what they know, and they know what they use. So they started to use it. They started to recommend it and resell it, and each one had sold a thousand networks to all these small businesses. So we instantly had 50,000 dollars a month in recurring revenue. Fast forward to today, when we started Nimble five years ago, nobody knew that social was going …

AI assessment note: “we went after the influence of our core customer in and around the areas”

Q So how do you move them though into a paid plan?

A Okay. So what happens is when you hit a button and open up an email, you can nimble that Person and find out who they are and what their business about. But you can only do that a limited number of times per day. And we're going to give you open and click on your emails, but you can only get a certain amount of those per month. And so for the business people that actually benefit from those clicks and opens and that insights on people and companies, what we find is that they then convert into a trial account into the Nimble system. And today, a visitor to our website, we're converting at five percent to trial. But on these outlook, uh, mobile and office five integrations, we're converting that double that rate at 10% to trial, which is amazing.

AI assessment note: “you can only do that a limited number of times per day... they then convert”

Q How do you win that though? Like how do you, cause you have hatch book, propeller, CRM, pipe drive, close, batch book, contactually, prosper work, serious insight. Yes, we're on support. I could go on and on. How did you win that deal?

A Relationships. Ultimately, in the end, if you can identify the right people at the company and find ways to add value to their initiative. So, in any business relationship, what you want to know is how is that person measured? How is, what does success look like for that person? And for the Alpha, Alpha, six, six, five, uh, product people, they get, uh, incentivized by driving, uh, API usage and CPU cycles on Office through 65. And so, if we can make those products more sticky, then we're benefiting them. And right now, today, when you open up Office for Six to Five or Google Apps for Work, now called G Suite, they don't have a good contact manager. They don't have Outlook. They don't have, let alone Goldmine, the sales and market automation that you need. And so, today, what Nimble does is it's a free plug-in into Office for Six to Five and Outlook Mobile and Outlook Desktop. That essentially requires no login, no account creation. And it gives you instant insights on people and companies. And all you got to do is add it to your office three 65. And we're rolling out that out for Google as well. That's free.

AI assessment note: “Relationships. Ultimately, in the end, if you can identify the right people”

Q So just to be clear, at a 30 dollar ARPU now, uh, you've increased it. These VARs are keeping anywhere between call it four and eight bucks kind of per plan. Is that recurring every month they keep that in perpetuity?

A Yes. Yes. And we just rolled out new, with this funding, we're rolling out new products, pricing, and positioning. Where Nimble is more than just a, uh, a CRM. It essentially blends social sales and marketing, where instead of you having to go out and buy, let's say, uh, MailChimp, uh, Salesforce, Yesware, and, um, uh, InsideView or LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you have to buy all these tools in the sales and marketing technology stack in order to arm your sales and marketing team members, and I think it's too costly and complex, so Nimble's rolling out, Market automation add on as well as, uh, 25 and 45 dollar per seat pricing, which will help us to significantly increase the average revenue per account as we scale up the number of users that are using us in the accounts.

AI assessment note: “Yes. Yes. And we just rolled out new, with this funding”

Q founder. So this wouldn't apply to you, but I'd say, do you ever worry about getting stuck under a liquidation preference on your series? A, like if you've got an offer for forty million and make you a multimillionaire, but you couldn't sell it because your valuation was 90. You're not worried about that. Cause you already had a good exit. You're going for a billion dollar home run now.

A We're definitely going for a large exit with Nimble, and ultimately, I think that this market has a lot of room to run. If you think about it, um, Google went out and built the cloud productivity marketplace by building Google apps for work. But the thing is, is that Microsoft doesn't innovate, they iterate. And back in the day, there was a company called Novell that essentially owned network operating systems and that work group, um, uh, network business. And Microsoft came in and ate that company and ate that marketplace. And if you think about today, Microsoft Office Is dominating the email cloud productivity suite, ah, space, and it's just beginning, because they've got billions of Office users. They only have a hundred million Office for 65 users. They've got hundreds of thousands of ours. Today, they've got about 50,000 cloud CSPs, which means there's literally billions of people that are going to be adopting the cloud using things like Office for 65 and G Suite, and all of those people are going to need A simple social sales and marketing system to layer on top of that. And Nimble, I believe is, is positioned today to dominate in this space.

AI assessment note: “We're definitely going for a large exit with Nimble”

Q million. They're doing over 200 grand in MR. Then you've got like a Contaxly, which is the band up there in Washington, D.C. is really focused on the realtor market. They've raised thirteen million bucks, doing about 700 grand a monthly recurring revenue. How do you Have you thought ever, one, about doing a roll up strategy of all these guys, and if not that, how do you beat them?

A Well, ultimately, I think that in a fragmented market, what you need to be able to do is get top of mind with the, your customers, as well as their influencers, as well as the business products that those people use. And ultimately, if you can become the product that their technology reseller recommends, that the influencer and the bloggers recommend, that the manufacturers like Microsoft and Google recommend, that ultimately you can stay top of mind and get ahead of And I think it's one of the reasons why we continue to be rated number one in most of the reviews and publications like G two crowd, but not just in the CRM category, but also in the business intelligence and, and, uh, and sales enablement category, because ultimately I think that people don't want to have to buy five different tools in order to manage relationships and sales and marketing in their company. And I think that by providing that type of functionality and, and building a brand that's Bigger than life that, uh, will continue to be in the top three. And if you can be in the top three in a billion dollar market, ultimately you win.

AI assessment note: “in a fragmented market, what you need to be able to do is get top of mind”

Q Elephant in the room. Head tumor solved by 2009, or are you still battling this?

A No, you know, you know, Nathan, you need to be your own advocate and things that are important to you, especially your health and financial situation, and you shouldn't trust anybody to do that analysis for you. You can consult with other people, but you better do your frigging homework, and I did, and I found a doctor that just developed this technology that enabled It enables them to focus a radiation beam in the center of your head without touching any of your vital nerves or salivary glands or taste buds, and they literally burned it from the center of my head from outside by shooting it with radiation for seven weeks for, um, every day, and, uh, and it literally disappeared in the middle of my head. It's kind of like using a magnifying glass on a leaf.

AI assessment note: “and it literally disappeared in the middle of my head.”

Q Number three. Besides your own, what's your favorite online tool?

A You know, I'm a big fan of buffer app. I, I, I love to tell stories. I love to inspire and educate. I believe if you teach people to fish, they'll figure out yourself fishing poles. So what I do on a daily basis is I share content to inspire and educate others about how they might become better, smarter, faster, not just in and around the areas of promise of nimble sales and marketing, but just personal stuff. Cause I think you need to expose your soul for people to be able to connect to you. And so you should share your passions like photography and food. I, I think we bond on the five F's of life, family, friends, food, fun, and frolicking around our three P's, passion, plan, and purpose in life, and if you do share effectively on a daily basis, you will be dripping fishing lures into the digital river, and you can have your elbows in. Uh, Wiley has called me five times.

AI assessment note: “You know, I'm a big fan of buffer app.”