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 talk. 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. Yesterday, you guys heard me talk in depth with Greg Rowlett, who breaks down how he used a $1,400 magazine ad to drive $8,700 in new monthly revenue. And he does it every freaking month. This is going to blow your mind. Good morning, Top Tribe. Nathan Latka here, and I got to tell you, you're going to love our guest today. He's super unique.
His name is Jim Fowler, and he's the founder and CEO of Jigsaw. Founded in 2003, sold to Salesforce in 2010, and now he is the founder and CEO of Owler. He went to the University of Colorado, and it might surprise you to realize he actually ran a ski resort in Idaho called Lookout Pass, and also served in the U.S. Navy as a diving and salvage officer. officer. You're going to love his story.
Jim, are you ready to take us to the top?
I am, Nathan. Great to be here.
Good, good, good. Well, look, we have a lot of people on the show, folks like Neil Patel and Heaton Shaw, folks like John Lee Dumas, who credited a lot of his success with his podcast in episode number 21 to his military background. Help me understand how you went from ski resort to Navy or maybe vice versa to then jigsaw.
Well, that's a long and winding trail, Nathan, I got to say. I needed a way to pay my way through college, so I went to University of Colorado on an ROTC scholarship. When I graduated, I had to spend four years in the U.S. Navy, and I did that as a Navy diver. And that was awesome. But I knew that that was not going to be a career I planned on paying my debt back to Uncle Sam.
And when I got out of the Navy, one of my best friends from college, he had moved back to his hometown in Idaho. And I needed a partner to get into the ski business with. So we were a couple of 26-year-old ding-dongs that didn't really know what we were doing. And to say we bought the ski area would be the wrong way to think about it. It was owned by a nonprofit organization.
But from basically age 26 to 30, we owned and operated this small ski area to call it a resort. It was a fantastic experience. I mean, I kind of look at that as my on-the-ground MBA. I learned a lot of lessons about business that carried on into the tech world. But basically, I hit 30, age 30 in 1995.
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Chapter 2: How did Jim Fowler transition from a Navy officer to a tech entrepreneur?
As you mentioned, it was actually one of the largest, um, um, it was the, by far the largest acquisition that Salesforce had ever done at that point in time.
What was the sale price again?
It was, um, $175 million was the final price. There was an earn out on it that we got a hundred percent of. So, um, it ended up being 175 million, which is one of the largest acquisitions in 2010. Now people raise more money than that every day. It seems like, but at the time it was a, it was a big deal. Um,
But in 2003, the Silicon Valley was still in a deep freeze following the huge bust of 2001 and, of course, the aftereffects of 9-11. But at that point in time, getting anything funded was really difficult. But I... I have a great story for your listeners that are thinking about starting a business because what happened was I got irritated at my boss's boss at this company I was working for.
And I came home and my wife said, honey, you are never going to be happy until you're running your own company. Mm-hmm.
And it's really hard. A lot of listeners right now are going, I'm stuck in corporate and I am, I am Jim. I mean, all your words here, give it to me.
Exactly. And you know, what do you do when you're 35 years old? You know, you've got a kid who you got to put through college. Um, you're making a really good salary as a VP of sales. I was making, you know, very good money. What's very good. Well, hell, I don't know.
I was probably making three or 400 grand that year, which for me, you know, especially coming from the, you know, the, the ski area life was a lot of money. Yep. Um, And I sat there and thought, how do you take the time to go do this? Because it's a big risk. And what I did was I knew that if I didn't really focus on this, it just wasn't going to happen.
So every single morning, I'm an early riser anyway from my Navy days, I got into the office. From 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. And I blocked out my calendar and I did not look at my email. I never answered my phone. I shut the door to my office. And for an hour every day, I just sat there and whiteboarded and thought, OK. And I started with what I know.
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Chapter 3: What inspired Jim Fowler to create Jigsaw?
Do you know what time it is?
Nope. What time is it?
And that is how the ex-ROTC member and ski resort guide plays his game on his feet. So Jim, it's time for the famous five. Are you ready? I'm ready. All right, brother. Number one, what is your favorite business book? The Innovator's Dilemma. Innovators, and that is Clay Christensen, I believe.
That's my favorite. The most useful was Jim Collins' Good to Great. That's an action Bible, but my favorite from an interest perspective was certainly The Innovator's Dilemma.
Well, there you guys go. And we will link to that, all of his books, all the numbers, everything you need to know about Jim at nathanlatka.com forward slash the top seven three. Okay, Jim, number two, which CEO are you following or studying right now?
Well, this is easy for me. Mark Benioff. I know the guy well, obviously, because he bought Jigsaw. But I also think that no one from a business perspective positions his company in the B2B world better than Mark. He's just a genius. Yes.
CEO of Salesforce there, guys. Yes. Yep. Sorry. No worries. Number three, Jim, what is your favorite online tool besides your new company, Owler?
Oh, no fair. It's absolutely Owler and your users.
Well, tell us what it is real quick. Yeah, tell us what it is.
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