The Exchanges

Q How does that work? How does a private reform incentivize a client? Creator like you could do anything he wants, build anything from scratch and keep a hundred percent for yourself. How does someone like Siegel convince you to come run mighty signals?

A Yeah. Um, you know, I just kind of thought of it like going back to school. Um, I respected Jonathan, um, during the scripted acquisition process was just really impressed by what, what he built and the companies that he was able to acquire. I know you've had a lot of, a lot of those guys that have come through the Zenon program on the podcast. Um, and I just thought I had a lot to learn from this guy. And I was kind of feeling like, Some of my muscles, some of my entrepreneurial muscles were atrophying. And this was going to be a way for me to, to get a kick in the pants, um, just learn from some of the best, get challenged. And, um, so yeah, I just decided to take the plunge. I also, Mighty Signal is a big mobile data company. We, we process, uh, data off of, off of phones, break apart apps, look at what software's installed. I knew nothing about mobile data. I knew nothing about SDKs. Frankly, I really knew nothing about private equity other than, uh, I kind of liked what it sounded like these guys, Did. So when, uh, when he offered me that job, you know, I was kind of flattered. That was part of it. And, uh, and yeah, I just decided, you know, here's an adventure. I'll just, uh, I'll just kind of go for it.

AI assessment note: “I just kind of thought of it like going back to school.”

Q Okay. So then why sell mighty signal recently? Why not keep building it?

A Yeah. Um, the, the, the thesis that was there when the founder sold was still there when I sold. And, uh, and that thesis is that specifically SDK intelligence is a niche market. That's worth a lot. It's very valuable to a handful of people in the mobile data industry. And, um, basically we just kind of cycled through all of the customers. There's a handful of players in this business. But I mean, I think more to the point, and this is something that you've brought up in your podcast in the past, you've had conversations like this. Um, it's, uh, essentially a feature versus a platform and mighty signal very much like really good at the single feature about what it does, breaking apart apps, looking for SDKs, tracking it in a database. It's not really a full blown company. It's, it's, um, It's, it's just, there's just not enough meat on that bone.

AI assessment note: “essentially a feature versus a platform... It's not really a full blown company.”

Q Yep. Okay. Makes good sense. Let's talk about two first. So did two for come before or after scripted?

A Tufer came before, actually. I was, um, this was kind of in between the, the screenwriting software and scripted. I took a job as, uh, basically an entry level sales rep at, uh, at another startup in San Francisco. And, uh, it was very technical company. Actually there was email data appending and it was, um, for various reasons, detail, uh, like that doesn't really matter. It was very difficult to sell kind of all of a sudden. Um, they basically got some cease and desist letters. So we in the sales team were like, shoot, what are we going to do? We needed to rapidly expand our, uh, essentially our net. And we just started putting together these Python scripts to identify email addresses and put lists together and, um, started running drip campaigns before it's kind of like in the early days of, of all of that.

AI assessment note: “Tufer came before, actually.”

Q if anyone listening right now is selling your company and let's say it's a five million dollar acquisition offer, 2.5 as stock, you don't want to just say fine, 2.5 stock. You want to say, okay, I'll get 2.5 stock, but you need to touch warrants to that. And those weren't like you're forced there. Explain to me how it would work. They're forced to buy the warrant of what?

A Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Let's just say, um, you say, okay, within, within eight months, like this stock needs to be liquid. Um, either you, you IPO, like you, uh, you provide some secondary capital that's going to come in and, uh, and buy our stock away from us. Um, or you're forced to buy it yourself. Um, yeah. Cause you know, and, and, and Xenon's their PE shop, you know, their cashflow business, essentially they don't, uh, they don't want to hold Some basically cash, you know, acquisition opportunity tied up in, uh, in some private stock in a company they never really intended to own because, um, yeah, like they're, they're, they're not in the business of holding stock in like mobile data companies.

AI assessment note: “either you, you IPO... or you're forced to buy it yourself.”

Q Okay. One 80. And, and again, you, this was, so let's say this was, this has been going wet for seven or eight years now, right?

A Uh, yeah, I think I, I put the paywall up in 2013. Um, initially, so, so, Started doing, like, kind of learned the process while I was at, at this company called Rap Leaf, and then, um, and then really started to use it in the early days of Scripted, and it worked really well, and my friends were like, shoot, and like, how are you doing that? And, uh, just decided to put it up initially as a freebie for my friends, and also so that I could learn website development and how to build web apps. So I was just like doing the Python stuff, And then your audience like knows anything about programming. Like it's kind of this whole other field to integrate your, your, your, like your Python scripts into a website. And I really wanted to learn that. So Twofer was kind of an exercise to learn web development.

AI assessment note: “yeah, I think I, I put the paywall up in 2013.”

Q If you had more time and resources, what does your gut tell you in terms of what would you do to try and drive that churn down and make the product stickier?

A Um, yeah, so I, I think the, when people leave, um, there, sometimes it is a quality problem or they're going after, um, Either foreign or say just a non non US domains that I don't have as good coverage on. Um, or like they, I think they also just kind of get confused. Um, like you've identified some bugs, Nathan, which I do appreciate, uh, and that can turn some people off. Um, so I think just being more diligent on, uh, like getting better testing into the app. So, so we don't push bugs. Um, And, uh, and then continuing feature development and also just better product marketing. I think often people, um, Mostly because there's, there isn't great help resources on two for, um, are either using it wrong because again, there's not great product marketing and not great support in the app itself. Um, so improving that I think would reduce churn, um, as would being much more engaged on newsletters and my blog posts and social media and stuff. I just, I just don't have the time to Right now to do that. And, uh, and I'd really like for the community to get more active. There's like 16,000 people who have registered in Twofer's lifetime. Like I said, I got a hundred active customers in any given month, but like 16,000 email addresses that are, are inbounds. You know, these are like real, um, inbound emails.

AI assessment note: “improving that I think would reduce churn, as would being much more engaged”