Startup Hypeman: The GOAT to Market Show

"My first business did over a million in revenue and I don't think I ever took home more than 3 grand a month."Those are actual words from this week's guest, Jake Jorgovan, CEO of LeadCookie. We all push for revenue as our north star, but what good is revenue if you aren't actually making any money? Cash Flow is vitally important to running a healthy venture, and LeadCookie hit a point where 9 months in they had to layoff 6 people. As Jake admits, "It was largely due to me not knowing how to handle money in a growing business." That was the point when he decided to change things. Today LeadCookie is at it's most profitable point to date. As of when we recorded this episode, LeadCookie was at $60k MRR AND profitable. Get ready for a 200 level first-person lesson in how to build and manage your own financial dashboard.Head to startuphypeman.com/articles/jake-jorgovan-podcast for a bonus blog post written by Jake where he breaks it down even further. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do not adjust your television sets, what you are seeing is correct -- Amanda Greenberg is in fact back for a 2nd straight episode! Appearing as the show's first ever back-to-back guest (with two completely different topics), this time around the Balloonr CEO talks through how the company saw early on that it was not like the others. Oftentimes when we start companies we look for what's already hot. We look at areas where the market is proven. Balloonr took a different route. Rather than trying squeeze into an existing category, it has set out to create its own. In our conversation, Amanda walks through when it makes sense to opt for a new category entirely, and then the specific steps Balloonr has taken to attract market innovators as its customers.Head to startuphypeman.com/articles/amanda-greenberg-podcast-2 for a bonus blog post written by Amanda where she breaks it down even further. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You're in the midst of a capital raise. You keep hearing from angels that they are interested, but they want you to find a lead investor first. What if you instead targeted a more prominent investor? One who would go lead AND introduce you to other investors to help close out the round. In my conversation this week with Amanda Greenberg, Balloonr Cofounder & CEO, she talks through her process of landing Jason Calacanis. If you're not familiar with Jason, he's a big voice on the scene. His first company in the '90s was backed by Mark Cuban and sold to AOL. As an investor, he was an early backer of Uber, and 7 unicorns in total. And now he backs Balloonr. Listen here to how Amanda got on Jason's radar and ultimately received his backing.Head to startuphypeman.com/articles/amanda-greenberg-podcast-1 for a bonus article on this topic! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can, in theory, have high market need and a product that would be perfect to solve that need. But if the UX isn't on point, your market won't care. Especially when it comes to nontechnical people. The ones who aren't inherently tech-savvy are slow to adopt technology, and even when they do, they won't tolerate any friction in their user experience. Susannah Bailin is a seasoned entrepreneur, and Founder of AdviceCoach. Her product is used by physical and occupational therapists and their patients. A lot of people in this market prefer "the good 'ol days", so winning them over with product isn't easy. At first AdviceCoach struggled to build software that made sense for their target. Then they stumbled into an A-Ha moment that changed everything. I'll give you a clue: Context. Listen to our conversation for the rest.Head to startuphypeman.com/articles/susannah-bailin-podcast for a bonus blog post written by Susannah where she breaks it down even further. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I can't tell you the number of times I've seen startups just start building without having done any research into their audience. What happens? They build, release, and wonder why no one wants what they have. User research is critical early on (and even ongoing) if you want to build a lasting company. We've all heard of Product-Market Fit, but this week in my conversation with Humaira Ahmed, Founder & CEO of Locelle, she brings to the table a new term that will change how you think about your audience: PROBLEM-Market Fit. She shares her story of how focusing on Problem-market Fit out of the gate is what's helped Locelle get off the ground and generate revenue early on while bootstrapped.Head to startuphypeman.com/articles/humaira-ahmed-podcast for a bonus blog post written by Humaira where she breaks it down even further. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have you ever paid waaay over face value on a site like StubHub to go to a concert or sports game? Yeah, me too. Richard Davies has too, and he decided enough was enough. So he created Twickets, an ethical ticket resale marketplace, to help fans resell their tickets to other fans at face value. Twickets has been endorsed as the official resale platform by the likes of Ed Sheeran, Sir Elton John, Muse, Pixies, and more. With names like these on its roster, and a user base of 750,000 and growing, it's fair to say Twickets has developed a high level of trust with its customers. In my conversation with Richard he shares why trust is the foundation to user acquisition, in both communication and technology, and takes us through a multi-step process on how he did it.Head to startuphypeman.com/articles/richard-davies-podcast for a bonus blog post written by Richard where he breaks it down even further. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Way before I was 'RajNATION', I was simply little Rajiv in elementary school. Every fall we had an assembly where this outside school fundraising group named Innisbrook would come talk to us about how our ‘cool’ factor could increase with the latest boombox, or a sleek-looking Wilson duffel bag we could take to baseball/softball practice, or they'd talk up other amazing prizes. I finished as a top-3 seller by building Superconnector relationships. Want to expand your own company's customer base? Listen up and learn how to think like a 3rd grader in this #HYPEtalk. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

230k total users. 10k monthly active users. $1.6 million ARR. $0 in outside capital raised. These are the numbers behind SaaS startup Bubble.is, Cofounded by Emmanuel Straschnov. Oftentimes when we think of achieving scale, we jump straight to "I need to raise money to get more users!" Emmanuel took the opposite route because he realized that if Bubble raised money early, investors would have required mass user adoption at a time when the product wasn't ready to be mass adopted. Instead, he took a manageable growth approach over a 5 year time period. This approach turned into acquiring paying customers as means to fund the company's ongoing product development. At $1.6 million in revenue, I'd say they've funded it pretty well. I ask Emmanuel some tough questions and he has great answers for all of them, going into not only HOW to get customers to fund development, but WHY that makes your product better and builds a deeply loyal following. Oh and, the product itself is pretty amazing -- think Squarespace but for any web or mobile app.Head to startuphypeman.com/articles/emmanuel-straschnov-podcast for a bonus blog post written by Emmanuel where he breaks it down even further. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Once you raise your first growth round, or achieve a certain revenue milestone, you're likely ready to hire. Your first hire is so critically important because the wrong person can set your company back 6-9 months, potentially tank you entirely. Your next few hires carry a similar weight. We know that 9 out of 10 companies fail, and one of the top reasons for failure is 'wrong team'. That means most companies have a hiring process in place that leads them to hire the wrong people, which ultimately dooms their company. How do you be not like them? Chris Martinez, Founder & CEO of the whitelabel backend web dev company DUDE Agency, has built a process that attracts great talent, includes addressing potential failure points, and ultimately makes sure the person coming on is a 10/10 by their standards. This is a really good conversation where he walks through their exact hiring process for other companies like you to borrow and tweak. He also shares some powerful backstory around his upbringing that you won't want to miss.Head to startuphypeman.com/articles/chris-martinez-podcast for a bonus blog post written by Chris where he breaks it down even further. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week we had a cold and rainy day here in Chicago. I was downtown on Madison Street waiting for the #20 bus when a homeless man walked up to me and asked for a dollar. What happened next was a lesson in using social proof to build your case to customers or investors.Welcome to the first ever podcast #HYPEtalk! Short and punchy insight to help your startup. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.