Eric Rea, co-founder and CEO of Podium.com which is based in Utah. He’s a software engineer at the International Atomic Agency and before that, the founder of FineGrain. He worked at Walmart as a software engineer and he has also interned at Orange Soda. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Multipliers What CEO do you follow? –  Phil Knight Favorite online tool? –  Domo and Apple Notes Do you get 8 hours of sleep? –  “I get 7” If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “You can always tell them to go to hell tomorrow” –  Warren Buffet   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:46 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show 02:20 – Podium helps businesses generate reviews which drives purchase decisions 02:30 – Podium charges $299 a month per location 02:48 – Podium is a SaaS business 02:58 – Average customer pays $499 03:20 – Podium was launched in 2013 03:25 – Eric started Podium because of his dad’s business 04:01 – Team size 04:44 – All employees are working full-time 04:50 – Team is based in Utah 05:35 – Podium raised $4M in total 05:50 – First seed round was in 2014 and $500K was raised 05:57 – Raised $3.5M in December of 2015 06:36 – Eric has given up 20% of the business for the seed round 07:38 – Podium has 25000 customers per location 08:13 – Podium has $1M in MRR 08:45 – Podium’s gross monthly customer churn is around 1% 09:10 – Net churn is negative 2% monthly 09:50 – Average CAC 10:12 – Average LTV is $12K 11:00 – 2015 ARR is $1.8M 11:30 – 2016 ARR is around $11M 11:41 – Goal for 2017 ARR is $25M 12:55 – Connect with Eric through his website and Twitter 15:05 – The Famous Five   3 Key Points: It’s important to have some capital in case you make mistakes – with no capital, just 1 mistake will sink you. Find a solution to the simplest problems to streamline your business processes. The SMB market will continually grow, creating more opportunities for startups.   Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip’s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal 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. 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 @EricWilliamRea – Eric’s Twitter handle Podium.com – Eric’s business website Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives