SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
932 How ShareASale CEO Kept 100% Equity, Sold For $35m+
11 Feb 2018
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is the Top Entrepreneurs Podcast, where founders share how they started their companies and got filthy rich or crash and burn. Each episode features revenue numbers, customer counts, and other insider information that creates business news headlines. We went from a couple of hundred thousand dollars to 2.7 million.
Chapter 2: How did Brian Littleton start ShareASale with no money?
I had no money when I started the company.
It was $160 million, which is the size of many IPOs. We're a bit strapped. We have like 22,000 customers. With over 5 million downloads in a very short amount of time, major outlets like Inc. are calling us the fastest growing business show on iTunes. I'm your host, Nathan Latka, and here's today's episode. Hello everyone, my guest today is Brian Littleton.
He's the founder and CEO of ShareASale. He's connected thousands of merchants and affiliates alike, ensuring mutual profitability while preserving the spirit and core values of the affiliate marketing industry. Since 2000, his team and vision have helped create the industry into what it is today.
The business currently supports over 4,000 retailers on the ShareASale network, working strategically with its clients, both on advertising and publishing to maximize their individual potential.
He's a three-time winner of the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Award for Affiliate Marketing Advocate of the Year and has served as the President and Board of Directors for the Performance Marketing Association. In January 2017, ShareASale was acquired by a global affiliate marketing network, Alwin. Okay, Brian, are you ready to take us to the top? I am ready.
Did I pronounce that company name that acquired you correctly? It's actually awin.com, which is a lot easier. Just Awin, like it sounds. Awin, yes. All right, I'm trying to get too fancy. Okay, let's take a step back. For those that are not familiar with kind of you and ClickBank and others in the space, what is ShareASale and what's your revenue model? How do you make money?
So ShareASale is a performance marketing network, which means we kind of sit in the middle between, say, a blogger or a podcaster or any website owner and then a retailer that's selling a product or a digital product. So we track clicks and basically sales of commissions that take place between those two folks, provide the analytics, provide the marketplace for them to meet.
And then in terms of a revenue model for a performance marketing network, it's based on the commissions that are basically paid out. So we're essentially taking a cut of a commission that's paid out for an individual sale or down. whatever it might be.
And if someone sells a hundred dollar product and the affiliate kickback that drove the sale is 30%, so 30 bucks on average, I mean, what are you taking? You taking 5%, 10% more?
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Chapter 3: What is the revenue model of ShareASale?
Um, I mean, a long time ago in the year 2000, I was trying to do both at the same time. Uh, but I was, you know, I was 25 years old or whatever. So I had a lot, a lot of energy. Um, but, uh, you know, What we found is about 20% of publishers are finding programs from the retailers. So that's like you right now wondering, hey, what can I promote on my podcast?
I know that I love the brand, The RealReal. So I'm going to go there. I'm going to join their program.
I see their little affiliate program link in their footer, click it and it's powered by share a sale.
Exactly. So that's about 20% and 20% are coming from the network. Meaning I have a podcaster like yourself, you join share a sale and then you're looking around and you're finding programs that might fit your business. Um, and you see the real, real and you join and that's about 20% and 20%. So the approach is both. Um,
You need to have retailers on your platform or else you don't have a platform. And you need to be out there where merchants are recruiting in their own publishers as well. And the whole network grows from there. We've been fortunate because we have about, now it's over 5,000, it's about 5,200 programs and retailers that are on the platform.
So that helps us recruit the publishers that we need from both of those angles, as well as provide a marketplace for people that are just coming in and looking.
And how many publishers do you have today on the platform to support the 5200 retailers?
Uh, so the publisher's number is a lot more, uh, it's a lot more difficult to come up with because people come in and they may not do anything. Um, so, you know, in terms of publishers is well over a million, but that number is kind of worthless.
Yeah. Um, how many, how many have made more than 10 bucks would you say?
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Chapter 4: Why do merchants choose ShareASale over Amazon?
Are you bigger than ClickBank in terms of volume?
I'm not aware of ClickBank's specific volume, so I wouldn't be able to say. My guess would be no, if I was going to be guessing. They have a little bit of a different model. We're very much in fashion and retail and very goods that you can buy and hold in your hand. ClickBank traditionally has been more in digital products.
And there are two companies that don't really do the same thing, nor do they compete in you know, our competitors are much more in that physical space, a commission junction and a rack handling share and things like that, where, um, over the years, we've all been here since, you know, for 17 years plus or whatever. And those are the kind of the people that we compete with on a day-to-day basis.
And what's your team size?
Uh, there's 30 of us here in Chicago.
So 30 folks, good stuff, ma'am. All right, let's wrap up here with the famous five, Brian, number one, what's your favorite business book?
A favorite business book is the Value Proposition Design. There's a whole bunch of authors to that, but I'll give you Alan Smith as the primary in case you want to look it up. A great way to build a product.
Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying right now?
I'm actually following and studying my own CEO, and that's Mark Walters of Awind. And if you don't let me off the hook on that, I had a backup. But he's going to be leading this new team, and I really admire kind of what he's built over the years, so I'm excited to see it grow.
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Chapter 5: How did ShareASale grow its network of retailers and affiliates?
Many people will say, once you make a man rich, it's very hard to motivate him. Why the hell are you still there? There must've been a big earn out or something. Um, you know, there's usually in deals, you guys can look at a smile and you know, you know, what's going on right away.
Um, so that's not uncommon or what I would be, uh, you know, um, um, it's part of the deal as an entrepreneur, but, uh, what the real answer, however, is that I really enjoy it. I mean, I really enjoy the industry and the space and the company and the people that have come through share a sale and, and a, when it's a, it's a fantastic place to be and I'm looking forward to working with them.
So it's not, it's, it's not just that it's, uh, um, you know, I'm also too young to do nothing. So I gotta, I gotta find something to do.
All right. And what's, what's your favorite online tool, Brian?
Um, I would go with, um, I love MailChimp. I'm going to give MailChimp a shout out on that. They've been very good to me.
And number four, how many hours of sleep to get every night?
I'm pretty good at sleeping. I would put that right around eight. Okay. You know, I'm, I'm pretty good at that. Thankfully, because I don't know what would happen if I, if I wasn't.
And what's your situation? Married, single, you have kids? Uh, married. No kids yet? No kids, no kids. All right. And how old are you? I'm 43. Okay, so yeah, too young to do nothing. So take us back 23 years. What do you wish your 20-year-old self knew?
I wish he knew how important maybe hiring an accountant would be.
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