EP 457: 4000+ Units Sold Teaching Kids How To Code, $2m+ Raised with Piper

Tommy Gibbons, a former employee of both Goldman Sachs and Fundera. Listen to learn how Tommy met his Princeton bosses, and how he used those connections to get into Piper.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – N/A
• What CEO do you follow? – Mark Pavlyukovskyy – his boss
• Favorite online tool? — Zapier

• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20-year-old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "I wish I knew how I could"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:10 – Nathan introduces Tommy to the show
• 01:41 – Piper is a guide for kids ages 8 – 12 to build their first computer
• 02:02 – Apple's co-founder review on Piper
• 02:16 – Piper has more than 4,000 customers since launching last year
• 02:28 – Looking into subscription plans in the future
• 02:45 – Piper was launched in Kickstarter in June 2015
• • 03:10 – Sold their first product in December 2015
  • 03:20 – They had craigslist posters
  • • 03:40 – Title of craigslist poster was "Workers needed for packing of children's toys in Long Beach"
• 04:23 – Total funding raised is $ 2.3 million
• 04:47 – Tommy does customer service, retail partnership and ran all school app design
• • 05:10 – Tommy has an equity In Piper
• 05:40 – Piper has 3 founders
• 06:20 – Tommy's approach to Mark regarding his interest in Piper
• • 06:55 – Tommy told Mark about how he can be an advantage to the company
• 07:30 – Tommy was working for free for a couple of months
• 09:00 – The Piper question
• 09:30 – Cost of goods sold
• 09:45 – Gross margin
• 10:00 – Reselling
• • 10:23 – Reseller's price and markup
  • 10:36 – Facebook Ad
• 11:00 – Reorder rate
• 11:30 – They are now focusing on the development of Piper computers
• 11:52 – Revenue goal for 2016
• • 12:00 – Big expectations for Christmas
  • 12:15 – Order baseline
  • 12:55 – Baseline now per month
• 13:32 – They will be very happy with 8,000 units sold
• 13:54 – Connect with Tommy through Playpiper.com
• 14:55 – They do retargeting
• 15:45 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Don't just tell your future boss how you can be an asset to the company – show them what you can really do.
• Because businesses start small, there's always room to grow.
• Your degree doesn't define your future.

Resources Mentioned:

• Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal developers.
• Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
• Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
• Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
• Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
• Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
• Playpiper.com – Tommy's company website
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives