Maria Seidman. She is the CEO and co-founder of Yapp, the top platform for event applications. Prior to Yapp, she was the GM for mobile and VP for Warner Bros. Digital Distribution. She has her MBA from Stanford and her BA from Yale and resides in New York City.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – How
• What CEO do you follow? – Stewart Butterfield
• Favorite online tool? — FullStory and Slack
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5-7
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Take more risks”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:41 – Nathan introduces Maria to the show
• 02:29 – Yapp already has 85K apps published on their platform since they started
• 02:28 – Yapp was founded in 2011 and launched in 2012
• 02:56 – Maria left Warner Bros in 2010, then she met her co-founder for Yapp and they started in 2011
• 03:40 – Yapp’s market is professional events or the “mice industry”
• 03:54 – Yapp provides event technology for organizers who are in corporations or associations
  • 04:25 – Yapp isn’t for casual events
• 04:56 – Yapp is a SaaS business and charges monthly fees
• 05:17 – Nathan shares how his former business, Heyo, was seasonal and the churn was difficult to manage
• 05:40 – Maria shares how Yapp attracts customers because of its affordability and its ability to adapt to different types of events
  • 06:10 – Yapp has an internal communications tool
• 06:44 – Most customers are having multiple events per year
• 07:00 – Yapp’s pricing starts at $400 up to their volume pricing which is annual
• 07:32 – Small organizations tend to avail of Yapp more
• 08:34 – Team size is 5, all remote
  • 08:48 – 3 are engineers, 1 in marketing and Maria is in charge of other tasks
• 09:12 – Yapp started with a small debt round for capital, but was bootstrapped after the growth
• 10:19 – The investors were supportive of Yapp
• 10:45 – Maria aims for Yapp to be a group of tools targeting marketing and events
• 12:14 – Yapp is in a competitive market and can’t share their numbers
• 12:42 – Yapp is focused on their ARPU and is going deeper on the enterprise
• 13:16 – Maria shares the weirdest thing she did to get customers was sneak into tradeshows
• 15:45 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

1. The seasonality of the business affects churn drastically so having a second revenue stream is a must.
2. Smaller groups are having more events than corporations are having within the frame of a year.
3. Applications that are versatile get more users, especially from the business market.

 

Resources Mentioned:

• Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
• 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
• GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
• Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• 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
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives