SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
996 Guess Why This $600m Man Came out of "Martha Vineyard" Retirement
16 Apr 2018
Chapter 1: What is the main focus of Marc Daniels' career?
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 hundred thousand dollars to 2.7 million. 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, everybody. My guest today is Mark Daniels.
He specializes in launching SaaS companies and rapidly developing the infrastructure and internal sales organizations to drive multi-million dollar revenue streams. Before Results.com, which is where he's at now, Mark was a founding member of Diligent Board Member Services, which sold to private equity for $941 million in New Zealand. I believe, what are they called, Mark? New Zealand dollars?
They're New Zealand dollars. New Zealand dollars. That translates to about $660 USD. 660 million USD. That was in 2016. Mark, are you ready to take us to the top?
Sure.
All right. Very cool. So I can't just skip over that exit, obviously. What was Diligent Board Member Services? What did it do?
Back in 2003, we launched a company that did electronic board packages for board of directors all around the globe. Previous to that, they got these big thick paper board books shipped to their houses, not very secure, very hard to travel. So a board member of ExxonMobil would get this big board package. We brought that all into the cloud secure environment.
And we're serving and still diligent and still in business. They serve probably over 2,000 boards today.
Oh, wow. So it's obviously public because a public company acquired ā or no, private equity acquired it, you said, right? It was public. Now it's private. Oh, so you took it public and then it went private.
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Chapter 2: How did Diligent Board Member Services revolutionize board management?
What are you seeing at results that got you excited?
A friend of mine called me and he said, Mark, you got to check out this company. They run businesses like you always have. And what results.com does is actually you first put together a very solid strategic plan. Then from there, you track your KPIs, your key performance indicators, and you hold your people accountable in weekly meetings. It's an online tool.
And, you know, if I think all the way back to the first business I started in 79, I had a whiteboard outside of my office door and I'd write down how many phone calls we took, how many orders we took, how many returns we processed and be shocked how many business leaders don't look at their KPIs on a daily basis.
So this helps you do that in the cloud.
Yeah. And I just I fell in love with the approach, you know, put together a rock solid business plan at the time. They had roughly 200 customers. And so I put some investment money into it.
How much did you invest?
Me personally?
Yeah.
Yeah.
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Chapter 3: What were the financial milestones achieved before going private?
staff and keep them working during the holidays.
But you were about 400 flat 12 months ago.
We were around 350, you know, and things were around. A large problem was retention and the quality of the software.
So I want to ask you what the retention was back a year ago and what you've done to pull kind of the levers to increase retention. So what was it a year ago?
Um, retention in New Zealand was in the 70 percentile and in the U S it was in the 50 percentile. So very low.
And is that logo retention or revenue retention?
That's a, that's logo retention. That's client retention.
And revenue retention reflected that, or was it? Oh yeah.
No, pretty, very much. I mean, you're very close to each other.
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Chapter 4: What prompted Marc to come out of retirement?
we have just instituted a money back guarantee, which is probably unheard of. I think, um, in the SAS business, like, you know, pay us for $12,000, pay us $12,000 over a year. And if your company doesn't grow, we'll give you your money back.
What is your, what do you assume right now? Lifetime value is on these accounts.
Um, don't really have a good answer for you there. Lifetime value. Um, um, We have accounts that have lasted four or five years, so I think the LTV is going to be pretty strong if we can get the return to mail.
You think minimum two years, so call it 24 grand, maybe 36?
If the tool is helping a company grow, I think the lifetime value would definitely be 5X times the first year's contract.
Yep. That's interesting. Yeah. I mean, from what I hear you telling me, it's kind of like you re-engineered onboarding. You have to figure you probably have two or three things that, you know, a new customer has to do in the first month for them to get value and to stick.
And once you hit those metrics, you know, they're going to stick with you for five years and you don't have to worry about a money back guarantee.
That's right. And some of those, you know, in the money back guarantee, you can actually leverage those. You can say, hey, we'll give you a full money back guarantee. These are the things you need to do.
Yeah.
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Chapter 5: How does Results.com help businesses manage KPIs?
It's pretty good.
Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?
Um... It depends on whether I'm meeting with my New Zealand team or not. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I get about four hours of sleep, and I generally sleep about six hours a night.
And Mark, what's your situation? Married, single, you have kids? Married, five kids, three grandkids. Wow. Three grandkids. It's amazing. And you said you're 60 now? 60. 60. Okay, last question. Take us back 40 years. What do you wish your 20-year-old self knew? Wow, that's a tough one. What would you tell your, I imagine you have maybe kids or grandkids around that age. What would you tell them?
Don't worry. Just if you stay focused, don't spend so much time worrying. Just stay focused on the task at hand, follow it to the end and follow your dreams and you'll be successful.
There you guys have it from Mark. He's had a lot of successes. Goes back to about 20 years before I was born in the 70s with this first. Not to age you, Mark, but with his first company there. Then had a company that helped boards basically manage their decks in a very secure way. Grew that to a big company. Sold it in New Zealand. It basically went public in early 2000s.
Then went private for about well over 600 million United States dollars. He then retired. He said, I'm done with this. Martha's Vineyard, baby. Wine and relaxation. And then he gets a car.
call from some friends and he says i love this business results.com it helps businesses understand manage employees keep them accountable and keep the kpis at the top of everybody's mind it's now growing team of 40 across new jersey san francisco new zealand they have about 500 customers paying on average a grand per month so call it 400 you know 20 ish grand per month in revenue they're flat but things are changing retention's getting higher economics look good and they're growing mark thank you for taking us to the top great hey thank you nathan
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