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Rand Fishkin

Co-founder & CEO, SparkToro · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutiveauthor@randfish ↗LinkedIn ↗sparktoro.com ↗

Rand Fishkin is the co-founder and former CEO of search marketing software company Moz and the current co-founder and CEO of SparkToro. He is the author of the startup memoir Lost and Founder and co-author of The Art of SEO.

14statements → 11claims → 5claims resolved → 80%fully supported → 3.71/5average certainty → 1.21/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 36said about them ↓

4 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 5 not yet assessed 1 not checkable as stated how the 11 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 10 assertions · 1 insight · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 11 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 5 are resolved, 5 are not yet assessed, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Rand argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Fishkin: Moz did $850k in 2007 revenue across software and consulting
“So the full year, 2007, I think revenue was 850,000 dollars. It was 400 K in consulting and four 50 in software.”
Rand Fishkin Jul 27, 2016 ▶ 4:04 EP 368: From Blog to $40M/Yr, 23k Customers At Moz With Rand Fishkin

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
83% certainty 3
100% certainty 4
100% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Rand Fishkin on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Rand Fishkin said on Top Founders that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Fishkin: Mental illness is incompatible with being a startup CEO
“Mental and emotional illness are, don't make for a good match with the CEO role in a growing company. They are not what the traits that inspire people to give their best.”
Rand Fishkin Jul 27, 2016 ▶ 17:11 EP 368: From Blog to $40M/Yr, 23k Customers At Moz With Rand Fishkin
Assertion Not yet assessed · timeframe Jul 2019
Fishkin: Moz has 23,000 paying customers and 6.3% monthly churn
“We have 23, about 23,000 paying customers, and so in order to have net negative revenue churn on a self-service model with 6.3% average monthly churn, we would have to be upselling customers at a, at an insane rate, right?”
Rand Fishkin Jul 27, 2016 ▶ 10:32 EP 368: From Blog to $40M/Yr, 23k Customers At Moz With Rand Fishkin
Assertion Not yet assessed · timeframe Jul 2019
Moz Pro generates 85% to 90% of Moz's revenue
“Does all the marketing costs go into just pro, which is essentially our you know, the product that I'm talking about, our largest product. Which is responsible for 85 to 90% of our revenue.”
Rand Fishkin Jul 27, 2016 ▶ 12:49 EP 368: From Blog to $40M/Yr, 23k Customers At Moz With Rand Fishkin
Disclosure
Fishkin: Moz will increase spend only if gross churn drops under 4%
“I think, look, if we get down to four percent maybe or under gross churn or below two percent for qualified customer churn, then we would be feeling a lot more comfortable about dumping dollars in.”
Rand Fishkin Jul 27, 2016 ▶ 14:58 EP 368: From Blog to $40M/Yr, 23k Customers At Moz With Rand Fishkin
Assertion Supported
Fishkin: Moz did $850k in 2007 revenue across software and consulting
“So the full year, 2007, I think revenue was 850,000 dollars. It was 400 K in consulting and four 50 in software.”
Rand Fishkin Jul 27, 2016 ▶ 4:04 EP 368: From Blog to $40M/Yr, 23k Customers At Moz With Rand Fishkin
Assertion Supported
Fishkin: Moz software revenue grew to $1.1M in 2008 and $2.2M in 2009
“I think we did 300,000 dollars worth of consulting in 2008 and software went to 1.1 million. And then the next year it was, gosh, what was it? It was like 2.2 million in software and 900,000 in consulting.”
Rand Fishkin Jul 27, 2016 ▶ 4:17 EP 368: From Blog to $40M/Yr, 23k Customers At Moz With Rand Fishkin
Assertion Partly supported
Fishkin: Moz generated around $39.3M in revenue in 2015
“I think we were at 30, was it 39000039.3, something around there.”
Rand Fishkin Jul 27, 2016 ▶ 6:31 EP 368: From Blog to $40M/Yr, 23k Customers At Moz With Rand Fishkin
Prediction Held up
Fishkin: Moz will reach the low $40 millions in revenue in 2016
“We'll be at the low forties this year.”
Rand Fishkin Jul 27, 2016 ▶ 6:38 EP 368: From Blog to $40M/Yr, 23k Customers At Moz With Rand Fishkin
Disclosure
Fishkin: Moz does not serve enterprise customers and caps at $500/month
“And we are much less in that realm because we don't actually serve enterprise customers. So we top out at about 500 bucks a month.”
Rand Fishkin Jul 27, 2016 ▶ 11:36 EP 368: From Blog to $40M/Yr, 23k Customers At Moz With Rand Fishkin
Assertion Not yet assessed · timeframe Apr 2016
Moz ARPU was around $119.60 per month in April 2016
“A 119 dollars. A little more than that, like one 19 60, something like that.”
Rand Fishkin Jul 27, 2016 ▶ 12:22 EP 368: From Blog to $40M/Yr, 23k Customers At Moz With Rand Fishkin
Assertion Not yet assessed · timeframe Jul 2019
Fishkin: Moz's customer acquisition cost is between $90 and $120
“But the nice thing is it is definitely somewhere between, depending on how you want to calculate it, 90 dollars and a 120 dollars.”
Rand Fishkin Jul 27, 2016 ▶ 13:17 EP 368: From Blog to $40M/Yr, 23k Customers At Moz With Rand Fishkin
Assertion Not yet assessed · timeframe Jul 2019
Fishkin: Moz's average customer lifetime is about 9.5 to 10 months
“If you want to call it across the entire cohort, I think average customer life is like 9.5 months or something, 10 months, something like that.”
Rand Fishkin Jul 27, 2016 ▶ 13:33 EP 368: From Blog to $40M/Yr, 23k Customers At Moz With Rand Fishkin
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Fishkin: Moz generates 150 to 200 new free trials every day
“Essentially we're being moderately conservative, I'd say with marketing spend, not trying to fill the funnel dramatically more than what we already have, which is between a 152 hundred new free trials every day.”
Rand Fishkin Jul 27, 2016 ▶ 14:32 EP 368: From Blog to $40M/Yr, 23k Customers At Moz With Rand Fishkin
Assertion Supported
Fishkin: Moz board and leadership replaced him as CEO with Sarah Bird
“I talked with my investors, my board and with my executive team, and we made the call to replace me with Sarah bird, who'd been my chief operating officer for a long time and is one of my best friends in the world.”
Rand Fishkin Jul 27, 2016 ▶ 17:27 EP 368: From Blog to $40M/Yr, 23k Customers At Moz With Rand Fishkin

The other half of the tape: Rand Fishkin's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 35 times in 19 episodes on Top Founders. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Nathan Latka 11Massimo Chieruzzi 4Guillaume Moubeche 4Vivek Khandelwal 2Marvin Russell 2Marco Saric 2David Darmanin 2Dave Carruthers 2

Statements about Rand Fishkin, by other people (1)

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Doherty: Single Moz mention generated over $300,000 for Credo over five years
“This one mention alone has made my company over 300,000 dollars in the last five years. One mention alone, 300 plus thousand dollars.”
John Doherty Nov 7, 2022 ▶ 11:00 How I Generated $250M In Leads As A One Person Marketing Team

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0084158201620172018201920202021202220232024episodesmentions
048201620172018201920202021202220232024episodes it came up in
001.5438201620172018201920202021202220232024episodesmentions per episode
2024 3 mentions in 1 episode
2022 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2021 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2020 2 mentions in 1 episode
2019 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2018 2 mentions in 1 episode
2017 7 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
2016 11 mentions in 7 episodes 2 per episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
EP 368: From Blog to $40M/Yr, 23k Customers At Moz With Rand Fishkin Jul 27, 2016 13m
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