EP 609: Pagecloud Raises $8.5M Helping 8500 SMB's Drag and Drop Websites Together with CEO Craig Fitzpatrick

Craig Fitzpatrick. He's a serial entrepreneur, self-professed child nerd, and CEO of PageCloud.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Biography of Steve Jobs
• What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs
• Favorite online tool? — N/A
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Jump in while there's still nothing to lose"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:22 – Nathan introduces Craig to the show
• 01:48 – PageCloud is a SaaS business
• 02:10 – PageCloud is different from Weebly and Wix, but they are in the same space
• 03:28 – PageCloud has reinvented the experience for desktop publishing and puts it into your browser
• 03:56 – Average customer pay per month
• 04:08 – RPU
• 04:22 – PageCloud was launched in September 2014
• 04:48 – Craig started PageCloud as a hobby
• 04:48 – Craig has been frustrated with desktop publishing in the past
• 05:20 – Craig shares how he started the planning and creating of PageCloud
• 06:15 – Craig's previous company
• 06:45 – Team size
• • 06:52 – The team is based in Canada
• 07:05 – PageCloud is well-funded
• • 07:17 – PageCloud has raised a few rounds
  • 07:40 – First three rounds are convertible note and the fourth one is a priced round
• 07:55 – Average number of customers
• 08:15 – MRR
• 08:24 – PageCloud was in Kickstarter
• 09:00 – Below $200K MRR
• 09:23 – Craig shares how they pre-sell:
• • 10:00 – They built a landing page from TechCrunch's promo video
  • 10:30 – Craig did a lot of marketing before the launch
  • 11:19 – Starting price point
  • 11:30 – Average number of units sold
  • 12:21 – Craig learned how to do effective marketing in 6 months
  • 12:40 – Craig put in $1M in paid advertising
  • 12:56 – The payback was just after a month
• 13:10 – Gross customer churn
• 14:30 – CAC
• 14:50 – LTV
• 15:32 – 2017 goal
• 17:01 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Don't be afraid to invest in marketing – it shows that you believe in your product.
• Be innovative—make a change in an industry that is quite stationary.
• There is no time better than the present to get started.

Resources Mentioned:

• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
• Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
• The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket
• Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives