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Stu Sjouwerman

Founder and Executive Chairman, KnowBe4 · 1 appearance on the record.

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founderexecutiveauthor@StuAllard ↗LinkedIn ↗knowbe4.com ↗

Stu Sjouwerman founded KnowBe4 in 2010 after co-founding Sunbelt Software. He also authored several books, including Cyberheist: The Biggest Financial Threat Facing American Businesses.

16statements → 11claims → 1claims resolved → 3.75/5average certainty → 1.44/5average debate potential → 13said about them ↓

1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 10 not checkable as stated how the 11 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 10 assertions · 1 opinion · 4 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 11 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 10 name 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 Stu 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

Prediction Held up
KnowBe4 expects to generate $50 million in revenue in 2017
“We're gonna do fifty million in this year, 2017.”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 5:06 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year

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 Stu Sjouwerman on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

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

Prediction Held up
KnowBe4 expects to generate $50 million in revenue in 2017
“We're gonna do fifty million in this year, 2017.”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 5:06 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year
Disclosure
Sjouwerman gave hacker Kevin Mitnick 50% equity for his expertise
“Anyway four years ago, I said, listen, I can own A hundred percent of a muffin or I can own 50% of a really big pie. So I got in touch with Kevin and I said, I'll give you half the company in exchange for your 30 years of hacking experience. So we did that.”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 7:42 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year
Assertion Not checkable as stated
KnowBe4 claims a 7x ratio of customer lifetime value to CAC
“If you look at CAC over lifetime value, it is, the ratio is seven.”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 11:36 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year
Assertion Not checkable as stated
KnowBe4 makes $2,000 upfront on day one of every new sale
“The CAC is 2600 bucks, the ASP is 4600 bucks, so we make two grand on every sale right at day one.”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 12:05 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year
Opinion
Putin wages asymmetrical cyber warfare due to a low defense budget
“Vladimir Putin is essentially waging a sort of a low-grade cyber war against the U.S., which is, in his perspective, asymmetrical warfare, because they only have 10% of the defense budget that we do, and so he's harassing U.S., you know, both profits and non-…”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 13:10 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year
Assertion Not checkable as stated
KnowBe4 booked $1M in a single day and $12M in Q1
“March 31st was the best day of my professional career. We did a million bucks that day. We did five mil that month, and we did 12 mil in the quarter.”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 10:23 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sjouwerman estimates competitor revenues: PhishMe at $50M-$60M, Wombat at $30M-$40M
“Fish Me is in the 50, sixty-ish, and Wombats is 30, forty-ish, but that's guesswork.”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 17:32 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year
Assertion Not checkable as stated
KnowBe4 charges an average of $15 per user per year
“The average user is about 15 dollars per user per year, not per month.”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 2:47 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year
Assertion Not checkable as stated
KnowBe4 averages 400 to 500 seats per paying customer
“Yeah, four to 500 seats.”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 4:12 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year
Disclosure
KnowBe4 bootstrapped for five years before raising an $8M Series A
“No we bootstrapped for the first five years. I basically spent a million bucks building this company. And late, this was December, 2015, we took eight mil in venture capital. Because we wanted basically support and help to go public. Didn't really need the mon…”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 5:57 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year
Disclosure
Cap table: Elephant owns 24%, Mitnick and Sjouwerman under 30%
“Elephant, our VC, owns 24%. Kevin owns just under 30. I own just under 30. And the rest is owned by You know, early employees.”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 8:36 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year
Assertion Not checkable as stated
KnowBe4 has an annual customer churn rate of 15%
“Our churn is only 15%. Annually.”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 9:14 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year
Assertion Not checkable as stated
KnowBe4 has over 9,500 paying customer companies
“9500 and dust.”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 9:44 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year
Assertion Not checkable as stated
KnowBe4's customer acquisition cost is approximately $2,600
“CAC sits at the moment about 2600 bucks.”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 11:28 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year
Disclosure
Sjouwerman made $10M from a prior exit before founding KnowBe4
“I walked out with ten million bucks. I was set for life. I didn't, I'm not doing this for money.”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 18:11 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year
Assertion Not checkable as stated
KnowBe4 has reached a total headcount of 290 employees
“280. Actually, no, we just got 10 people in today. Two 90.”
Stu Sjouwerman Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 11:10 716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year

The other half of the tape: Stu Sjouwerman's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 13 times in 6 episodes on Top Founders. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Nathan Latka 9Marcin Kleczynski 4

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
00821542018201920202021episodesmentions
0242018201920202021episodes it came up in
001.52342018201920202021episodesmentions per episode
2021 1 mention in 1 episode
2019 1 mention in 1 episode
2018 11 mentions in 4 episodes 3 per episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
716: Putin is Making This Man $50 Million Per Year Jul 10, 2017 10m
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