SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
EP 530: Shut Down $2m Business, Why with CEO Shawn Livermore
05 Jan 2017
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base. You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have. I'm now at $20,000 per top.
Chapter 2: What led Shawn Livermore to shut down a $2 million business?
Five and six million. He is hell-bent on global domination. We just broke our 100,000-unit soul mark. And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Okay, Top Tribe, this week's winner of the 100 bucks that I give away every Monday is Kim Dust. She's in the entertainment industry and is currently working a full-time day job and doing her side hustle on the side. Kim, congrats.
For you guys' chance to win 100 bucks every Monday, simply subscribe to the podcast on iTunes now and then text the word Nathan to 33444 to officially enter. Again, text the word Nathan to 33444 after you subscribe. So folks, something very nerve-wracking happened while I was on my way home for Christmas. I was on American Airlines flight 1272, flight 12D.
I get off the plane and I realize I left my MacBook Air 11 inch in that back seat pocket. I panicked because I have so much sensitive data on this computer because of all these companies I'm acquiring. I mean, hundreds of due diligence docs. So I needed that stuff secure. I'm using a tool called Jamf Now, which allows me to manage all my Apple devices.
I'll tell you what happened and you'll learn if I got my MacBook Air back.
midway through this episode in the meantime try jams now at nathanlatka.com forward slash secure that's nathanlatka.com forward slash secure nathan latka here this is episode 530 coming up tomorrow morning you'll learn from alex babin they're currently raising a round of capital on a five million dollar cap note and they're pre-revenue how do they get that valuation and be pre-revenue
all right top tribe good morning nathan latke here our guest today is sean livermore he is an author and technology consultant most recently founder and ceo of tech startup zip task which generated nearly 2 million bucks in revenue he's raised four rounds of funding and then closed it down to take on new opportunities which we're going to talk about here in a second sean are you ready to take us to the top
i am thanks for having me nathan yeah man thanks for coming on i appreciate it so okay tell us first zip task that's the company tell us what it did and how you generated two million bucks in revenue right so zip task is uh fully managed outsourcing i think is the last tagline we went with and it was essentially a progressive effort to try to fix the problem and the problem was that when you try to outsource technology projects it just sucks it always breaks
You know, you have to deal with folks that are living in all sorts of places in the world with dirt floors sometimes, and they have language barriers and all sorts of economical issues there that they're trying to scrap together, you know, ends meet and put a sort of a career together from nothing. And you have an American business trying to outsource technology projects, trying to save a buck.
And so a vast amount of dynamics is happening between those two parties. And we tried to really solve that problem. It was a very painful problem, actually. People really pull their hair out trying to get someone to develop software for them on the cheap. And so that was the goal of the company.
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Chapter 3: How did Ziptask aim to improve outsourcing technology projects?
And we succeeded in the goal, but we failed as a company.
So what was the, how much capital did you end up raising total?
So we raised four seed rounds. First total, I think, came up to about $650,000.
Okay, four seed rounds. My gosh, you must have spent all your time raising capital.
I mean, this was quite an endeavor. I would say I've lost so much sleep and I've invested thousands of hours of my life into this thing. Me and about 30 other total people, I mean, it was really difficult. And I would... Totally.
My heart goes out to all those entrepreneurs out there who are pounding their head against the wall at two in the morning, you know, trying to write code and wake up the next day and drive into work and, you know, pay their bills. I really can feel their pain because that's pretty much what we did.
Well, so take us there. I mean, what were you paying yourself as you were going through this whole process?
Well, as a technology consultant, you know, I'd have my day job clients and I'd drive into Irvine from Corona. So Southern California here, the freeway system is one of the worst in the world. So I'd spend like, you know, an hour on the freeway, get into work, do the cubicle thing, pound it out at home at night.
And this is back beginning in summer of 2010 and just dissolved the corporation this year. In fact, just the last couple of months here. Okay.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did Shawn face while raising capital for Ziptask?
If you enjoyed Sean today, go back and listen to Guy Suter yesterday. His company, Notion.ai, is pre-revenue, but they raised $10 million. How'd they do it? Top Tribe, I love giving away free money. I feel like Oprah giving away cars, and I have something special for you today. How many of you have heard our super sharp guests talk about success they've had with Facebook and Google ads?
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Okay, Top Tribe, I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning. And don't forget, before you listen to any other episodes, subscribe on iTunes right now for your chance to win $100 every Monday.