Ep 190 Matt Smith, the founder of Latergramme and Thinkific. Listen as Nathan and Matt talk about how the latter left a 10K MRR business to work on a marketing platform for Instagram.
BioMatt previously started 2 profitable self-funded startups. Most recently he co-founded Latergramme, a visual content marketing platform that makes visual marketing a snap. The app one to aggregate, curate, schedule and optimize visual marketing campaigns across all visual social media networks.
Time Stamped Show Notes:01:00 – Nathan’s introduction to today’s show01:29 – Matt joins the show.02:30 – Thinkific is a platform that allows one to create, market, and sell online courses.03:53 – Matt created Latergramme at a hackathon while he was also work on Thinkific.04:20 – Latergramme allows one to create a publishing schedule for Instagram that automates marketing. 05:17 – Matt was making about 10K MRR (monthly recurring revenue) when he left Thinkific for Latergramme. His brother is still CEO. 07:00 – Matt believes his company Latergramme is well on its way to over 100K MRR by the end of 2016. 07:35 – The app was created in 2013, but wasn’t launched until May 2014. They did a beta list launch. 08:40 – Leading up to the May release, Matt built an audience of 20K through bloggers, article writers, and other online influencers. 09:30 – Matt built a VIP program as a marketing tactic and spent most of his evenings up to the release writing to potential users personally. 10:54 – Latergramme is currently free, but the business has 50K MRR soon to be 88K MRR. (1 million ARR).11:30 – The business is focusing on expanding user-base as its priority right now. 11:56 – The government covers a huge portion of salary for the people working at Latergramme. There are grants for SAAS based businesses in Vancouver. 12:37 – Latergramme has about 40K active users. 13:25 – 5% churn. 14:16 – Latergramme does no paid acquisition. Maybe in the future.15:31 – 25-30% month over month growth goal for 2016.16:42 - Rocketship.vc is an investment group that’s been giving Latergramme a hand. 18:42 – As the founder of the company, Matt pays himself south of 100K.21:25 – Find out what Nathan’s doing after selling his business Heyo at nathanlatka.com/whatsnext on February 4th. 22:08 – Famous Five
Famous 5Favorite Book? – Thinking Fast and Slow What CEO do you follow?— Hiton ShahWhat is your favorite online tool?— FitbitDo you get 8 hours of sleep?— Trying toIf you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be?— You don’t need a job.
3 Key Points:The government grants money to SAAS based businesses in the city of Vancouver. Latergramme does no paid acquisition but nevertheless projects to grow 25-30% per month. Matt hyped up the business by writing emails to influencers in the field who would write articles about the service.A convertible note is a short-term debt that converts into equity. Read more about it at Tech Crunch.
Resources Mentioned:Edgar – Nathan uses Edgar instead of other scheduling tools for Twitter because Edgar cycles through content over and over (buffer/others you have to re-input content over and over – time consuming). In the last several months, Edgar has driven Nathan over 3728 clicks that he didn’t have to work or pay for. @symana – Matt’s TwitterLinkedIn – Matt’s LinkedInLatergramme – Matt’s businessThinkific – Create, market, sell online coursesThinking Fast and Slow – Matt’s favorite bookFitbit – Online tool Matt usesRocketshipVC – Venture capital group backing MattConvertible Note – What is it?
CreditsShow Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
 
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