For this twenty-third episode, I talked to Hampus Jakobsson, co-founder of Brisk.io and The Astonishing Tribe, and now Partner at BlueYard. Hampus started with a group of friends in a dorm room and quickly embarked on an epic journey, sailing where the wind would blow. He made user interfaces for the big phone manufacturers, sold his company to BlackBerry for $150 million, worked there in mergers and acquisitions, started angel investing (in now 90+ companies), launched a new software startup to...
Feb 19, 2019•47 min
For this twenty-second episode, I talked to Rick Perreault of Unbounce, one of the leading drag and drop landing page builders out there. Rick used to be a creative director at an agency. He then started off with a vision of a platform to build landing pages that would be as easy to use as, say, PowerPoint. Now he’s leading a company of 175 people that is largely bootstrapped. We talk about Rick’s childhood dream of becoming an astronaut, where he gets his inspiration for how to run his business...
Feb 05, 2019•47 min
For this twenty-first episode, I talked to Rob Walling of Drip, one of the leading marketing automation platforms out there. Drip started as a simple opt-in pop-up with an autoresponder. It then evolved into an email service provider, to finally become a marketing automation platform. That’s when it hit real product-market fit and churn immediately started plummeting. Rob sold Drip to Leadpages almost 3 years ago. Recently, he started TinySeed, an early stage VC fund and remote accelerator that ...
Jan 23, 2019•52 min
For this twentieth episode, I talk to Mikita Mikado, one of the leading proposals and quotes solution for sales people. Mikita pursued the American Dream and moved from Belarus to the US to start a company. At first he flipped burgers, worked in moving, in cleaning, … He took every job he could get. Then he started a web design business, got into extensions for content management systems, and then into documents solutions for sales people. In a period of only four years, Mikita built a company o...
Jan 08, 2019•36 min
For this nineteenth episode, I talked to John Kim of SendBird, the user-to-user messaging backend that powers the chat of websites and apps like Reddit. Based on the belief that starting a company was the only way he could do what he loved, John started one of Korea’s first startups, raised money in an environment that had never heard about it, and then was one of the first to sell his startup to a company outside Korea. After this, John started a community for moms, raised money for it, pivoted...
Dec 12, 2018•45 min
For this eighteenth episode, I talked to Bryant Chou of Webflow, one of the leading website building platforms in the world. After working at Intuit, the company behind Quickbooks and other software, and then launching his own startup in mobile advertising, Bryant co-founded Webflow to bring responsive design capabilities to website builders. We talk about Webflow’s infinitely large roadmap, how it’s like to combine being a first-time parent with having a growth company, the Regret Minimization ...
Nov 27, 2018•43 min
For this seventeenth episode, I talked to Kevin Beales, Co-Founder of Refract.ai, a coaching platform for sales development reps based on conversation intelligence. Kevin started Refract.ai after he exited his previous business, because he had felt the challenge of being able to coach, develop and scale his sales teams. He then went from almost 0 to 5 million dollars in 18 months. This episode is all about learning. We talk about Kevin’s backstory, how he learns from other founders, the importan...
Nov 13, 2018•45 min
For this sixteenth episode, I talked to Krish Subramanian, Co-Founder of Chargebee, one of the leading payment platforms out there that powers subscription businesses. In the past year, Krish has doubled the size of his company to 150 employees. And his plans don’t stop there: he wants to go beyond payments and power all aspects of a subscription relationship. We talk about his backstory, why he got started on Chargebee, how he manages his fast growing company and keeps the vision clear, and wha...
Oct 30, 2018•43 min
For this fifteenth episode, I talked to Bart Lorang, Founder & CEO of FullContact, who are on a mission to revolutionize contact data. Before FullContact, Bart had 3 other companies, respectively in RPG games, web design and enterprise software. He grew up in rural Montana and now runs FullContact from Boulder, Colorado, 30 minutes from the ski slopes. We talk about how his wife’s address book inspired FullContact, how he aligns the 300 brains in his organization, and how he encourages a cul...
Oct 16, 2018•39 min
For this fourteenth episode, I talked to David Cancel, Founder & CEO of Drift, a leading conversational marketing & sales platform. Drift is not David’s first baby, nor his first success story. He was previously Chief Product Officer at HubSpot after his company, Performable, was acquired. Before that he also launched and sold Ghostery, Lookery and Compete. We talk about his backstory, how he likes to build both startups and flowers, why he is still involved in every single hire... and w...
Oct 02, 2018•46 min
For this thirteenth episode, I talked to Guilherme Lopes, Co-Founder of RD Station, South America's leading marketing automation software. Guilherme and his 4 co-founders have been building apps since 2005, operating from a city in the south of Brazil. In 2011 they saw a gap in the South American market and started building RD Station. A product manager by background, Guilherme quickly assumed the customer success role within the company and is now leading a team of over 200 people. We have an i...
Sep 18, 2018•55 min
For this twelfth episode, I talked to Emeric Ernoult, Founder & CEO of Agorapulse, one of the leading social media management platforms. As a young French lawyer, Emeric moved to Washington DC to practice law. After he decided this was not for him, he started a French pre-Facebook social network and a B2B community software company, while juggling other jobs on the side. We talk about his backstory, why he hasn't raised any VC funding, and how he builds his product, brand, content and compan...
Sep 04, 2018•1 hr 2 min
For this eleventh episode, I talked to David Henzel, Co-Founder of MaxCDN and now TaskDrive. In his previous life he was delivering content faster to web visitors, now he's helping companies to find the right leads. David is German and used to live in the US, but is now living on a warm Turkish beach. He's very much into mission driven businesses and managing happiness, and maintains a blog and podcast about the topic. We chat about how he manages his own happiness, how he builds companies with ...
Aug 21, 2018•39 min
For this tenth episode, I talked to David Darmanin, Co-Founder of Hotjar. His company helps tens of thousands of app and site owners to see how visitors are really using their software and collect more and better user feedback. David runs Hotjar’s remote team from Malta, a small island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. He previously used to build websites, was a VP of Design, and is now spending most of his time working on people and culture at his famous scale-up company. We chat about wh...
Aug 07, 2018•50 min
For this ninth episode, I had a chat with Patrick Campbell, Co-Founder of ProfitWell, the company that helps you with analyzing and boosting your subscription revenues. Before founding ProfitWell, Patrick had quite the well-rounded career. He was a coffee master at Starbucks, a strategist at Google and an intelligence analyst for the US Defense Department. We chat about his animal cracker hustle, US politics, optionality and about solving the world's problems. Read the transcript here: https://b...
Jul 09, 2018•57 min
For this eighth episode, I had a chat with Hannah Chaplin, Co-Founder of Receptive, the software that streamlines your product management. Hannah started working as a receptionist at a software company, then founded a development agency, and has had several SaaS and eCommerce companies ever since. We chat about brilliant SaaS companies, the importance of user feedback and learning, the virtues of GDPR, and about how we ended up where we are now. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare....
Jun 27, 2018•41 min
For this seventh episode, I had a chat with Russ Heddleston, Co-Founder of DocSend, the leading document tracking company. After growing up in South Dakota, and prior to starting DocSend, Russ had quite the track record. He worked at Microsoft, Dropbox, and Conversant. And he sold a company to Facebook. I first heard about Russ and DocSend when he was featured on TechCrunch. During our chat, we talk about what TechCrunch meant for him, building a great product, how to hire a VP of sales, and how...
Jun 12, 2018•53 min
For this sixth episode, I had a chat with Des Traynor, co-founder of Intercom, the unicorn messaging company. Over the years Des has been building marketing and product at Intercom. He is an important driving force behind many of their innovations and an inspiration to many fellow startup founders. Des and I talk about how to build great products (much more on that in our Iconic Products series), his plans with Intercom, personal passions, and what he'd change if he did it all over again. Read t...
May 29, 2018•38 min
For this fifth episode, I talked to Louis Jonckheere of Showpad. He leads a 260+ person scale-up that equips sales and marketing teams at Fortune 500 companies with the tools to organize and track the delivery of sales content to their prospects. Louis is a born entrepreneur, hustling since he was young. And he's also one of these guys who can recognize and double down on a good opportunity when he sees one. We talk about his passions, how to build a great team and culture, and the power of opti...
May 15, 2018•41 min
For this fourth episode, I talked to Sujan Patel of Mailshake, Pick, ContentMarketer, Narrow, Linktexting, Quuu, Ramp Ventures, Web Profits, … does this list even end? Sujan is a serial, but even more so a parallel entrepreneur, who likes to keep pushing his own limits to the extreme. He knows all about building startups and is a great guy to have a coffee with. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/sujan-patel-of-mailshake-d0facff292e3
May 08, 2018•46 min
For this third episode, I talked with Aaron Ross. Aaron became world famous as the guy who set up the sales organization of Salesforce. He wrote a book the subject and since runs a consulting company that helps companies with their sales; both called "Predictable Revenue". Aaron has 9 kids, 3 dogs, and more than 40 employees. We talk about how he manages his busy life, about having an ID forging business, and - obviously - about how to organize sales more effectively. Read the transcript here: h...
Apr 17, 2018•47 min
For this second episode, I talked with Hubert Palan of Productboard. I met Hubert about a year and a half ago at TechCrunch Disrupt at San Francisco, and I’ve been considering using Productboard to professionalize product management at Salesflare ever since. Hubert is a product guy and a thinker at heart. His vision: more excellent products through better product management. We mainly talk about what motivates him, how he manages Productboard, and where he looks for inspiration. Read the transcr...
Apr 04, 2018•1 hr 3 min
For this first pilot episode, I was lucky to talk with Adam Hempy of Better Proposals. Since last year when Salesflare and Better Proposals were on AppSumo at the same time, we talk with each other on a regular basis and you could say we have become founder friends. Adam is one of the most honest, authentic, and driven startup founders I know. He will never shy away from saying what’s on his mind, which makes him the perfect first guest for this series of personal founder talks. Read the transcr...
Mar 19, 2018•53 min
