The Top Entrepreneurs In Money, Marketing, Business And Life

Sushma Sharma, the CEO of Konversai. She’s a lawyer turned entrepreneur. She has law degrees from The University of Oxford and Columbia University and has worked in two prominent Wall Street law firms and set up a department of practical law at City University of Hong Kong. Sushma has taught thousands of students and seen some the most privileged humans as well as some of the least privileged in her life journey spanning 3 continents to where she has lived and worked over the last 15 years. Konversai was born as her solution to the problems facing mankind today. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – N/A What CEO do you follow? –  N/A Favorite online tool? — Slack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Don’t doubt yourself and just keep doing what you’re doing. There’s a time and place for everything”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:30 – Nathan introduces Sushma to the show 03:19 – Konversai is a social conversation platform 03:28 – Sushma share

Michael Kaplan. He’s the CEO and founder of Taivaco which is a media technology company. He’s also the former director of marketing at Sanyo and was appointed at San Francisco Water Bay Front Committee. Michael speaks Chinese, French and Japanese. He attended The University of Redlands, Waseda University in Tokyo, George Mason University and Chinese Culture University. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – It’s Not My Department What CEO do you follow? –  John Cleese and Ken Okuyama Favorite online tool? — Any.do Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “The more you listen to other people, the more success finds you” and  “Be a nice person”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:28 – Nathan introduces Michael to the show 02:07 – Michael shares why January 20th is a special day 03:15 – Taivaco was set out to solve an invisible problem and ended up solving more problems 03:47 – An archive isn’t an accurate description 03:50 – Organizations are struggling

Olivier Magnan-Saurin. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Fidzup which provides innovation retargeting solutions for brick-and-mortar businesses such as retail chains and shopping centers. Olivier founded Fidzup right after school, in between school, and a little bit of freelancing works. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – On M'Avait Dit Que C'Etait Impossible: Le Manifeste Du Fondateur de Criteo What CEO do you follow? –  Jean-Baptiste Rudelle Favorite online tool? — Pipedrive Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Create your own company”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:10 – Nathan introduces Olivier to the show 01:42 – Fidzup provides marketing platforms for physical retailers 02:04 – For physical retailers, clicks don’t have any value  02:25 – Fidzup sells advertising campaigns to retailers 02:38 – Fidzup is a CPC model and gets paid for every in-store visit 03:20 – Fidzup is currently working with 2500 retailers in Europe 03:43 – Fidzup

Will Dinkel. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Nova. Prior to founding Nova, Will developed his passion for enterprise sales while working in various technology and sales roles at CloudFlare and HP. Will studied engineering in Harvard Business School. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Presenting to Win What CEO do you follow? –  Travis Kimmel Favorite online tool? –  Apple Notes Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— “I try” If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I wish my 20-year old self was more ambitious”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:42 – Nathan introduces Will to the show 02:08 – Nova AI is a sales product that uses AI to help set appointments more effectively 02:25 – Nova helps sales reps, they don’t necessarily get leads 02:52 – Nova creates personalized emails and merged templates 03:08 – Nova charges per seat 03:30 – “What we do is very unique” 03:39 – Nova is a smart, workflow product 04:08 – Average pay per seat is $150 04:28 – Nova started in 2015 05:01 – Nova’s co-founde

Tatyana Mitkova. She’s the CEO and founder of ClaimCompass, a company that helps airline passengers submit a claim online for cancelled, delayed or overbooked flights. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – How to Win Friends and Influence People What CEO do you follow? –  Kathryn Minshew Favorite online tool? — Slack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Her life is to become more and more interesting with every decision she makes that takes her out of her comfort zone”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:26 – Nathan introduces Tatyana to the show 01:42 – ClaimCompass get airlines to pay up to $680 for cancelled flights 01:51 – Flights could be delayed, cancelled or overbooked 02:05 – ClaimCompass can help you get paid for your lost baggage 02:13 – ClaimCompass is based on the regulations in Europe 02:29 – More than 90% of airline passengers are unaware of their rights 02:46 – ClaimCompass tries to speed up the claiming process for passengers 02:49

Nathan interviews Patrick O'Luanaigh. He started as a programmer and designer at Codemasters 20 years ago, working on micro machines V3. Prior to founding nDreams, in 2006, he was a creative director at Eidos where he was responsible for the design and gameplay of all the titles there including the well-known Tomb Raider Legend and Hitman Blood Money. nDreams is now 50 people strong and pivoted to solely focusing on virtual reality 3 years ago. nDreams has launched 6 VR titles to date. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Chimp Paradox What CEO do you follow? –  Elon Musk and Brendan Iribe Favorite online tool? — Box Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Life is too short to play it safe, you gotta take your risk. It’s so much more exciting even though it is scary, you just gotta do it. Be brave!”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:18 – Nathan introduces Patrick to the show 02:07 – The greatest challenge of VR (virtual reality) at the moment

Allan Wille. He was on The Top on December 12, 2016, Episode 506. His company, Klipfolio, raised $7.9M in the past and has grown to 7000 paying customers. They create dashboard software for companies who want to monitor their business processes. Klipfolio is into something incredible, tune in as Allan shares about it on today’s episode. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – What CEO do you follow? –  Favorite online tool? — Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? –   Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:22 – Nathan introduces Allan to the show 02:52 – Klipfolio is an online and cloud based, and they create real-time dashboard software for SMBs 03:03 – There are over 7000 companies globally who uses Klipfolio 03:15 – Klipfolio just had a $12M Series B raise 03:33 – Klipfolio has a total of $19.9M total raised 03:41 – Klipfolio already has good investors in their cap table 03:56 – Allan shares how he came up with the Series B 04:19 – The initial intent was to

Mike Cook. He founded XOR Data Exchange to bring privacy and accountability back to data management. Today, his organization works with the nation’s largest financial institutions to fight fraud and manage risk. You might have never seen Mike presenting the newest consumer tech, but rest assured every digital entity in America is safer under his watchful eye.    Famous Five: Favorite Book? – How to Win Friends and Influence People What CEO do you follow? –  Sam Yagan Favorite online tool? — Periscope Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “That you should go to anger management”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Mike to the show 02:10 – Mike mentions how XOR Data Exchange works 02:54 – Mike wanted to create a company where financial institutions can share their data with one another 03:16 – XOR Data Exchange is a B2B model 03:21 – XOR Data Exchange will eventually help consumers 04:04 – Mike shares how XOR Data Exchang

Alex Fishman, the founder and CEO of Bugsee, a bug reporting tool for iOs and Android. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? –  Henry Worth Favorite online tool? – Gmail Do you get 8 hours of sleep?—I wish If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "You want start playing in the startup ecosystem as early as possible when you have less commitments and less things to worry about"   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:18 – Nathan introduces Alex to the show 01:31 – Bugsee is bug reporting tool for iOs and Android 01:51 – Bugsee provides video network and blog, leading out to the event 02:15 – You will not only know that the app crashed, but what led it to crash 02:50 – Bugsee is a SaaS model and they price based on the app size 03:19 – For an app that has 500K users, it will cost $500 03:40 – Bugsee provides different levels of value 04:33 – Average customer pay per month 04:45 – Bugsee started in January 2016 05:01 – Bugsee star

Magnus Åström. He's the CEO and founder of Now Interact, a machine-learning, SaaS platform for omni channel optimization. He's also the founder of InLead, a business consultant and operations company which was sold in 2010 and prior to that, he was founder of Primelog, a transportation management SaaS platform which was sold in 2006. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Blue Ocean Strategy What CEO do you follow? –  N/A Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "It's all about focus"   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:35 – Nathan introduces  to the show 02:17 – Primelog started in 2000 02:29 - Primelog connects transportation providers with transportation buyers 02:57 - Annual revenue 03:10 – Primelog was sold to Swedish group 04:44 – They raised 4.5M 04:57 – Inlead's idea is to help customers sell in C-level 05:39 – Inlead turned out to be too heavy on the consultancy side, so Magnus sold it 05:48 – It didn't tu

Zach Supalla. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Particle, a venture backed startup that’s making it easier to build internet connected hardware and other things. Particle is the most, widely used IoT platform with a developed community of a hundred thousand users and is listed as one of Fast Company's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in 2015, of the Internet of Things. Zach has been featured on CNN, The Wall street Journal, TechCrunch, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, Mashable and more. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? –  Jeff Lawson Favorite online tool? — Slack and Asana Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “You don’t have to be an engineer to be an engineer”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:35 – Nathan introduces Zach to the show 02:16 – Zach used to be a management consultant 02:45 – While Zach was doing his MBA, he interned in Groupon’s sales operation 03:07 – Zach did engineering 03:2

Craig McLuckie. He’s the founder and CEO of Heptio, a startup focused on making Kubernetes accessible enterprises. Prior to starting Heptio, Craig was a product manager at Google where he founded the Kubernetes project, launched Google compute engine and created The Cloud Native Computing Foundation that he also shared. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Influence What CEO do you follow? –  Andrew Grove Favorite online tool? — Lever Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I wished my 20-year old self understood the importance of kindness”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:25 – Nathan introduces Craig to the show 01:55 – Kubernetes is a technology that is used to run applications in a production setting 02:16 – The idea is to take the collective learning that Google instilled over the last decade of building and running applications 02:35 – Kubernetes is an open-source technology 02:53 – Kubernetes is being widely adopted by enterprises but th

Aner Ravon. He’s the co-founder and chief product officer of his new company called Zirra. Zirra’s mission is to solve the education and entry pain of the retail investors when it comes to equity investments. Before this company, Aner spent his time at Celltick as a VP of media and head of business unit. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Tipping Point What CEO do you follow? –  Steve Jobs Favorite online tool? — Ask  Wonder Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Not to worry so much”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:42 – Nathan introduces Aner to the show 02:58 – Zirra steps into the void between data and excel analysis of the companies 03:10 – There’s a big void in the data collection and actual decision making of a company for the people who want to invest 03:48 – Zirra is a service 03:52 – Zirra has an a la carte system which is pay-as-you-go 03:55 – Zirra has 2 main products 03:58 – Spotlight reports which costs $49 04:11 – Value p

Martijn de Kuijper, founder of Revue. He’s a product guy and his company’s focus is to get your thoughts to people’s inboxes via newsletters. He previously founded Fosbury and Yunoo. Martijn is also a Techstars alum. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Zero to One What CEO do you follow? –  N/A Favorite online tool? — Intercom Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Just keep doing what you’re doing and don’t get distracted by what other people are saying”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:30 – Nathan introduces Martijn to the show 02:10 – Revue focuses on personal newsletters like editorial newsletters 02:45 – Revue helps people share their content through newsletters 02:50 – Revue currently has a free and premium model 03:20 – Average customer pay per month is $7 03:45 – Martijn is a listener of The Top 04:10 – Revue was launched in January 2015 04:27 – Martijn started Revue on his own as a side project 04:30 – Martijn was working on the a

Charles Thiede. He’s the co-founder and CEO of the knowledge network platform called Zapnito. Zapnito helps organizations create privately, branded, expert communications and networks. He calls this “experts as a service”. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Lean Startup What CEO do you follow? –  Elon Musk Favorite online tool? — Product Hunt Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— I try to If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Do everything with courage”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:11 – Nathan introduces Charles to the show 01:41 – Zapnito is a SaaS platform 02:16 – The idea of Zapnito is to helps brands bring their audience back to the trusted sources of knowledge 02:40 – Zapnito’s Slack channel 02:51 – The platform behind the scene that pulls the audience and brands together 03:40 – Each brand has their own slack domain 04:40 – Average customer pay per year is £60K 05:38 – Zapnito started in trading in March 2013 05:48 – Started as a marketplace for experts in 2014

Raviv Turner. He’s the co-founder and CEO of CaliberMind – the first marketing, technology platform to apply machine learning in human language analysis to build detailed psychographic profiles. He has more than 10 years of experience leading products and development for high growth B2B SaaS companies. His previous roles include Director of UX at FullContact and VP of product at TapInfluence. Raviv is a mentor at Techstars Accelerator and holds a Masters in Interactive Media at NYU. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Hacking Marketing What CEO do you follow? –  Bart Lorang Favorite online tool? — Asana, 7Geese and Slack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Doing my best If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Your network is your net worth”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:40 – Nathan introduces Raviv to the show 02:25 – CaliberMind analyzes and boosts structured and unstructured data 03:18 – CaliberMind is a SaaS model 03:36 – Monthly billing starts at $2K 03:46 – Average custome

Lauren Sullivan. She’s the co-founder of Flightfox, a site which Nathan recently used to book multi-country travel. Flightfox helped him understand the best way to leverage his points from his Chase Credit Card for travel purposes. Flightfox helps you search flights, manage your trip, and leverage your loyalty points, to help ease your trip planning experience and it is growing fast. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? –  John Mackey Favorite online tool? — PocketSmith Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes, currently If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Lauren wished she had stopped working for someone else and started building her own company earlier   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:25 – Nathan introduces Lauren to the show 02:02 – Flightfox is an online and real-time platform that manages travel for individuals, companies and organizations 02:15 – Flightfox’s revenue model is to charge per trip and they make money from commission 02:32 – Fli

Aseem Badshah. He’s the founder and CEO of the company called Socedo. Before that, he built his own full-service marketing agency called Uptown Treehouse that leveraged social media and digital channels to reach current and potential customers. He’s upgraded and improved that initial business model with his current company, Socedo. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Crushing the Cashman What CEO do you follow? –  Favorite online tool? — Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Aseem wished that he would have prioritized building relationships   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:15 – Nathan introduces Aseem to the show 01:50 – Aseem noticed that there was so much data on prospects for B2B marketers in an agency 02:07 – Socedo’s goal 02:13 – Lead generation is what Socedo uses to get more customers 02:45 – Socedo provides behavioral data 02:56 – Socedo makes money from their software license 03:03 – Clients sign-up from 6 months to 1 year of license usa

Calvin Correli. He’s the CEO of a holistically focused, multi-million dollar, online, all-in-one solution driven software company called Simplero. This company exists to reduce the stress associated with figuring out software systems and how to join them together. He’s passionate about helping online business owners do exactly what brings them the most life. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – There Is Nothing Wrong With You What CEO do you follow? –  N/A Favorite online tool? — FastMail Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Not every night If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Invest in getting to know yourself, and who you are, and how you’re different”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:20 – Nathan introduces Calvin to the show 02:49 – Simplero is a tool that helps people sell online 03:20 – Simplero is a SaaS business model 03:30 – Simplero was launched in 2009 03:39 – Calvin started to charge people in 2010 03:50 – Number of current paying customers is 700 04:02 – One of Simple

Russ Heddleston. He’s the CEO and co-founder of DocSend. Previously, he was a product manager for Facebook. He arrived at the B2B acquisition of the product Pursuit.com. Russ also had roles in Dropbox, Greystripe and Trulia. He received a BS in Computer Engineering and MS Computer Science at Stanford along with an MBA from Harvard. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? –  Keith Krach Favorite online tool? — Gmail and Slack Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Do things well and be patient with them—and then, they will turn out well later”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:33 – Nathan introduces Russ to the show 02:03 – Pursuit was a human resources to management referral program for employees 02:22 – Russ shopped their company to Facebook 02:38 – Russ explains why they made this decision 03:38 – Russ was the product manager for Facebook’s pages team 03:55 – Russ worked both for the brands and personaliti