Prem Bhatia, CEO and co-founder of Cooleaf. Cooleaf’s a B2B platform that helps companies organise, coordinate and track their engagement efforts. Listen as Prem and Nathan talk about breaking out of the corporate world, getting startup funding, and acquiring customers at no cost. Famous 5 Favorite Book? – The Alliance What CEO do you follow? — Dharmesh Shah What is your favorite online tool? — LinkedIn Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? —Do it sooner. You’ll learn on the job. Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:10 – Nathan’s introduction 02:10 – Welcoming Prem to the show 02:40 – Prem left the corporate world aged 35 to begin a startup 03:20 – Gave up a salary supporting his family 04:40 – Cooleaf is a SaaS platform designed to help businesses with engagement efforts 05:30 – Currently has 25 active customers 06:05 – Average annual contract of $25-30k 06:20 – Acquiring customers through inside sales - personal outreach; a blog 07:05 – Not spending any money on acquisitions 07:30 – Have raised about $800k in funding - in part from 500 Startups 08:10 – Funding is largely in equity 08:30 – Founded 4-5 years ago, but pivoted later into B2B 09:05 – Team of 11 10:30 – Annual churn of around 10% - a little unclear right now 11:30 – Average LTV is around $100k 11:45 – Model right now is to ‘nail it and scale it’ - tighten up what they’re doing 12:50 – Made less than $500k in 2015 13:20 – Aiming to make $88k per month this year 13:30 – Connect with Prem on Twitter 15:45 – Famous Five 3 Key Points: Startups don’t come with guarantees. To be an entrepreneur, you have to be prepared to give something up. If you’re working with a small number of high-value clients, you shouldn’t have to spend money on acquisitions. Reach out through your networks first. Learn on the job. No one ever feels ready to start something - accept that you aren’t, and jump in anyway. Resources Mentioned: Freshbooks - The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ 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