Insight
Dane Maxwell: Software succeeds by improving existing behaviors, not modifying habits
“And that if you get the idea really solid and sound, meaning it's not modifying someone's behavior, they're currently looking for a solution, they're currently doing that thing without, without the product itself. And so not like, you know, like a Nordic track…”
Insight
Dane Maxwell advises finding SaaS ideas by asking what software frustrates professionals
“You could send someone cold. It's like, Hey, I'm looking to build software for your industry. And I'm just looking to know what software do you use right now? That makes you want to throw your computer out the window.”
Assertion Supported
Dane Maxwell positioned Paperless Pipeline as overhead reduction, avoiding feature-based comparisons
“All of my competitors were selling is it's transaction management software. So all of my competitors, they were selling transaction management software. But what I did is I sold how to build a mobile office, how to reduce your overhead.”
Insight
Dane Maxwell: Asking businesses how they use Excel reveals new software opportunities
“What do you use Microsoft Excel for in your business? Cause whatever using Excel for, you can find solutions to.”
Disclosure
Dane Maxwell spends less than one hour per year managing Paperless Pipeline
“I spend less than an hour a year on it cause I've got a great CEO and I told him, listen, if you make 25% profit margins, you can do whatever you want.”
Insight
Dane Maxwell says beginner entrepreneurs obsess over mechanisms, not customer outcomes
“The fundamentals of a business, as you know, as many know, is a customer that uses a mechanism to get a result. That's really a business in a nutshell. A customer that uses a mechanism to get a result. New people that are looking to start a business obsess abo…”
Insight
Dane Maxwell advises founders to hire developers directly from open-source communities
“I recommend hiring, for if you're hiring software, you want to hire open source. You want to hire the best open source developers you can find. These guys love coding for the passion of it, and you see, you go to open source communities, and you find these guy…”
Insight
Maxwell: Founders struggle to find problems when they push personal agendas
“People tend to get stuck for extended periods of time on finding a painful problem to solve. That's this, that's like, so, you know, people are sometimes will take four or five, six months just to find a single painful problem to solve. And the reason it takes…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Maxwell: Under 10% of Foundation students graduate with 10 paying customers
“Yeah, and so we had for example, with 10 paying customers software, less than 10%. However 40% of our graduating class of our second year program graduated with one paying customer in a business that they had started.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Dane Maxwell predicts Paperless Pipeline will exceed $2.1M revenue in 2020
“And then I started one as paperless pipeline.com is my biggest, which We'll do 2.1 million or more this year”
Disclosure
Dane Maxwell validated Paperless Pipeline by asking users what software failed them
“With PayPal's pipeline, the way that I built that and found that idea was I just went into the market. And essentially asked people what's the software product that you've been using or looking for years, but it's just not meeting the needs that you have.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dane Maxwell reveals Paperless Pipeline has approximately 1,460 active customers
“1460 ish.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dane Maxwell: Paperless Pipeline generates $180K to $185K in monthly revenue
“Well average monthly revenues around 180 to 185,000.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dane Maxwell: Adding a PDF hover preview doubled Paperless Pipeline's storage costs
“What happens is I created a feature where if you hovered over the link of the PDF, it would instantly create a preview so they could look at that document without having to click, without having to download. That doubled the cost of our hard drive space becaus…”
Disclosure
Dane Maxwell spent just $8,000 to build the initial Paperless Pipeline product
“So I got the D I got the project built for eight grand as little as I could. The product was in his hands for 8000 dollars. I spent eight grand to build the product.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Maxwell: The Foundation's first $3,000 cohort enrolled 88 students, beating targets
“Our first price was 3000 dollars when I was just doing this by myself, and I wanted 10 people to join, and 88 people ended up joining and it was 500 bucks a month for six months.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Maxwell: The Foundation has generated $5M to $6M in course revenue
“Somewhere, somewhere between five and six million.”
Disclosure
Dane Maxwell granted Paperless Pipeline's CEO 10% equity after three years
“I gave him 10% equity. But I gave him that after year three. There was never any talk about equity until about year three.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Maxwell: The Foundation has enrolled roughly 1,400 students to date
“Well, I think our current number is around 1400.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Maxwell: The Foundation averages an 8 out of 10 student NPS
“Well, the way that I understand it is that we measure our student happiness every week, and we measure our coach's happiness also every week. So we average around an eight percent. All through and through. Eight out of 10.”
Disclosure
Maxwell: The Foundation plans to launch $99 annual alumni membership program
“Our official alumni program kicks off November first, I believe. And for that, we're just charging all our existing alumni as a thank you for being in. We're just going to charge them 99 dollars for a year. But we're going to be thinking of it in terms of like…”
