Oscar Nelson. He’s the CEO of Musqot, the marketing technology and SaaS company he co-founded after spending 12 years in various marketing roles in small and large companies. Industry-wise, he’s had a mixed background from consulting, media, telecommunications and enterprise software. He considers himself a business generalist more than a specialist.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
• What CEO do you follow? – Jason Lemkin
• Favorite online tool? — DocuSign
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 8
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – It is more important to focus on your cofounder than your business idea

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:52 – Nathan introduces Oscar to the show
• 02:18 – Musqot is a marketing performance management app
• 02:24 – Musqot helps their customers increase their marketing effectiveness and efficiency, enabling their marketing ROI
• 02:44 – ACV is around $25K annually
• 02:55 – Some customers pay 6 figures
• 03:04 – Musqot was founded in 2014
• 03:16 – On their second year, Musqot launched their beta product and just a year ago, they launched their real product
• 03:40 – Musqot was bootstrapped. They were able to sustain their first year without revenue through personal financial support and savings
• 04:05 – Oscar and his co-founder have initially put in around $100K for the company
• 04:47 – First year revenue
• 05:37 – 2017 target is $3M in ARR runway
• 06:12 – Musqot just recently passed their $100K MRR mark
• 07:06 – Musqot currently has 60 customers
• 08:14 – Musqot’s expansion is due to their support and onboarding efforts
• 09:13 – Team size is 25 with 20 full-time employees and 5 consultants
  • 09:30 – 5 are in sales, 2 are in presales and onboarding, 1 in marketing and the rest are in development
• 10:45 – Musqot gets customers from different sources
  • 11:00 – Musqot is on the Salesforce AppExchange
• 12:14 – Full weighted CAC
• 13:31 – Payback period is roughly a year or more
• 14:10 – Paid ads spend is around $20K monthly
• 14:50 – The bigger customers are happy and tend to stay longer than the smaller customers
• 15:32 – Logo churn is around 2% and revenue churn is negative
• 16:27 – Musqot has raised $1.2M
• 16:44 – Musqot’s HQ is in Stockholm, Sweden and Bangalore, India
• 17:40 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

1. A startup can thrive through personal savings and financial support if need be.
2. Share your business ideas with your business partner and make sure that your thoughts and visions for the company are aligned.
3. Plan carefully where you will place your paid ads.

 

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