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Growth Stacking Show with Dan Martell

Dan Martell is a Canadian serial entrepreneur and angel investor. Subscribe now and learn his best strategies to build and scale successful products and businesses. Now hit that button and start the show. It's FREE.
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Now displaying: August, 2019
Aug 26, 2019

Exclusive Resource: Dream 100 - Learn How to Identify The 100 People That Will Transform Your Life (Peers, Advisors & Mentors) - http://bit.ly/2zo806g

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How do you get invited to spend a week at Richard Branson’s house in Switzerland?

Or for guys like Mark Cuban and Travis Kalanick (founder of Uber) to happily invest in your company? Or to get invited to travel to 8 European cities on a private jet?

These all happened to me… and I believe it’s a natural result of one thing I did right: Investing In Relationships.

I began figuring this out in my mid-twenties and WOW did it make a difference. 

Here’s what people often fail to realize: 

Your biggest business opportunities ARE NOT going to come from your strongest connections. (Weren’t expecting that, were you?)

Usually, you’ve already explored those connections…

Instead, it’s the friends-of-friends or the people you barely know (called “weak ties”) that are going to present you with the best-unexpected opportunities. 

Which means you’ve got to focus on connecting and building NEW relationships

But… how?

In today’s video, I share the details on how to network like a professional… even if you’re an introvert. Be sure to watch it:

Here are the core ideas I’ve learned through successful networking:

1. Go out
2. Host dinners
3. Perfect your intro
4. Add value
5. Stay connected

Perfecting your intro (a huge shoutout to Clay Hebert) is especially useful when making new business connections. 

Too often people lose opportunities because they just downplay themselves. Here’s an example:

Imagine you own a $10M business and someone asks you, “What do you do?”

Your answer: “Well… I built a web app”

Dude! Step up your game!

Nobody says you should brag or be arrogant, but you’ve also gotta deliver a valuable answer! 

Practice a clear and concise intro that can open the doors for a bigger conversation and a new connection. 

The basic format is super simple:

“I help [insert your ideal customer] get [the result].”

Here is an example from my friend Melanie: “I help entrepreneurs create memorable experiences”

Melanie’s intro sets the context for her to expand on what she can do. It’s a simple and catchy intro designed to grab people’s attention and create new connections.

So now it’s time to think about your intro. Wanna try it out? Drop a comment on this week’s video and let me know how you would introduce yourself with the format above.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Exclusive Resource: 
Dream 100 - Learn How to Identify The 100 People That Will Transform Your Life (Peers, Advisors & Mentors) - http://bit.ly/2zo806g

Aug 19, 2019

Exclusive Resource: Migration Method™ – How To Build a SaaS Product Inside a Service Business The Right Way - http://bit.ly/30hJ0JB

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I’ve seen this happen before…

A business that’s already growing decides to start their own SaaS.

It always seems like a great idea. 

You’re already serving your customers, you know their problems, and you’ve got company resources to work with… 

So it’s gotta be easier than starting from scratch, right?

Next thing you know it’s 3 years later and you’ve spent $7 MIL. and you HAVEN’T EVEN LAUNCHED!

This happened to someone I was introduced to hoping I could help them out…

You might wonder how it’s possible, but trust me, when you don’t have a good plan about how to build, co-create and launch your SaaS, it’s too easy to go broke spending another $150K/month for an outsourced development company.

That’s why in today’s video I am going to walk you through the steps of building a SaaS business without losing all of your savings. 

The 5 points in this video are super important. It’s not rocket science but you’ll be amazed at how easily they get forgotten. Here they are:

1. Solve your own problems first
2. Constrain the resources
3. Don’t overbuild for someday
4. Hire someone external
5. Talk about it

I made this video to save businesses from tripping up on their own success. 

A business starts to get some traction and some profits and then they lose it all on the SaaS Roulette Wheel. 

It frustrates me because it can all be avoided. 

It’s like they start making some cash and suddenly they forget everything they know about what made their business work in the first place.

The thing is: real success is never a gamble. It’s not accidental! It’s strategic and smart… from the start.

That’s why you’ve gotta check out this video. I just can’t let you make these mistakes and I want you to approach it the right way.

Don’t forget to leave a comment to let me know if this realigns your thinking.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Exclusive Resource:
Migration Method™ – How To Build a SaaS Product Inside a Service Business The Right Way - http://bit.ly/30hJ0JB

Aug 12, 2019

Exclusive Resource: Fundraising Like a Pro - Learn the 3 phases of fundraising and a 7 week process for starting & closing your next round of funding - http://bit.ly/2TvI41B

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Funding. The day will come when you need it for your SaaS.

You’ve grown your startup, got a brilliant team and you’ve got a great product you can actually take to investors as proof.

Now it just needs that push.

But before you even think about trying to fundraise or approach investors, you’ll need to know how to value your SaaS and decide on how much you should raise.

Value isn’t a number you just pluck out of thin air. You’ve gotta think it through and value your SaaS correctly or else you might send those eager investors running away before you’ve even shown them your product demo.

I know this mistake all too well… 10 years ago with Flowtown, I was the one who was raising the money and I settled on a value of $700K on $7M pre-money. 

Why?

It sounded clever (I share the details behind that decision in this week’s video). But very quickly I realized my valuation was off and it was doing more harm than good.

Since then, I’ve met with a lot of remarkable people and got some much-needed advice to help me value properly, all which helped refine my skill of fundraising.

I’ve now been involved in 30+ investment rounds, and have helped other founders from all over the world raise over $200M in capital.

Wanna know how to do a proper valuation of your SaaS? I’ll walk you through the key steps in this week’s video.

These are the 4 factors you’ve got to investigate before you’re ready to value your SaaS:

1. 409A Valuation
2. Market Norms
3. Competitive Process
4. Strong Thesis

Arguably the hardest part of getting your valuation is attracting investors in the first place so they’re lined up and interested in your business.

Why does that matter?

The more interest you get, the more you can leverage that to increase your valuation.

Fundraising is all about preparation and timing. If you get these wrong, you can sell too much of your company to the wrong investor and screw everything up.

We could discuss fundraising for hours, or… you can check out my Fundraising Like a Pro training below this week’s video which will show you the 3 phases of fundraising that I learned directly from Travis Kalanick (Founder of Uber.com).

Get into it! After you devour it, you will be able to go through the whole process in less than 7 weeks (normally it takes founders months to get a round done).

Last time I raised money, I closed my round in 3 days.

Aim high!

--

Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Exclusive Resource: Fundraising Like a Pro - Learn the 3 phases of fundraising and a 7 week process for starting & closing your next round of funding - http://bit.ly/2TvI41B

Aug 5, 2019

Exclusive Resource: Revenue Retention Cheatsheet™ - Stop The Bleeding & Scale Your Marketing With Confidence - http://bit.ly/2FHGVOi

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And it goes like this:

How much is it?
– It’s not that bad…
Look, it’s simple. Just give me a number. OK?
– It’s 20% – not that bad, right?
WOW… Your churn is 20% monthly? 

*issues a small prayer to all the SaaS gods*

The above is a conversation I recently had with a potential coaching client… GOOSEBUMPS!

Let me put this into perspective…

If your churn rate is at 20% and for one reason or another you fail to add any new customers… in just 5 months… you will churn through all of your existing customers and be left with nothing – simple math. 

The worse part, it pulls down your Lifetime Value of a Customer so it makes it really tough to invest in growth and is usually the reason startups fail.

You should always know exactly where you’re standing on your churn levels and you should be doing the best you can to fight these levels back and get that MRR up

You should make sure you UNDERSTAND CHURN!

In this episode of the SaaS Growth Stacking Show, I give you the 4 things you should pay attention to and stay on top of to make sure you stop the bleeding and SCALE-UP!

At a high level, these are the 4 things you need to keep in mind:

1. Churn Flatline
2. Maximum Viable Churn
3. Moment of Churn
4. Fight the Impact

Now… 

Where does it all begin? It starts with answering one simple question… What does churn mean?

If you cannot define it – you cannot measure it… and you absolutely need to define it! 

You don’t want to find yourself in a situation where your customer success team is measuring something else entirely that skews your data.

Start with something simple. Usually, there are 2 types of Churn – one is Cancellations and the other is Involuntary Churn.

Involuntary Churn can be 20%-40% of your Churn and a lot of times is quite easily fixable. 

There will be times where it is caused by simple payment failures and these ones, as frustrating as they are, can be tackled with great tools such as ProfitWell or FlexPay. 

Cancellation Churn’s moment, on the other hand, is well defined – it’s when a client doesn’t renew their subscription. 

Between the notice and the renew date, there is a period of time that you can really engage with the customer and save the account. 

If you implement a strong cancellation process you can save 30%-40% of these clients. A lot of times it’s up to downgrading, showing the solution, talking about their problems – SIMPLE, RIGHT?

You have to sit down and define the moment of churn with your team. Get aligned. There are things you can always do and improve and this is one of them. You need it to blast into space!

Don’t worry, it’s a solvable problem and I give you the strategy in my Churn Buster CheatSheet.  I provide 9 strategies that you can deploy today to help you reduce your churn. 

If you cannot find the solution for your business there – write a comment below with your question and let’s get the answer your business needs together.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Exclusive Resource: Revenue Retention Cheatsheet™ - Stop The Bleeding & Scale Your Marketing With Confidence - http://bit.ly/2FHGVOi

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