Rally

What do you do when a collaborator takes your idea and builds a competing product? In this episode, Rob Walling is joined by fan favorite Jordan Gal to answer listener questions on some of the trickiest challenges founders face. They cover financing decisions like using debt to bridge cash flow gaps, competing in markets flooded with vibe-coded apps, and what to do when a collaborator takes your idea and runs with it. Want to get your question answered? Submit it here for a future episode. Episode Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by Mercury Mercury is the banking solution I use across my businesses, from my personal single-member LLC to MicroConf and TinySeed. Traditional banking forces you to duct-tape tools together and work around slow, clunky processes. Mercury gives me a clean dashboard that shows exactly where each business stands at a glance. The interface is simple enough for daily banking and paying invoices, but powerful enough to handle multi-step approval workflows for large transfers. There's a reason more than 300,000 entrepreneurs have made the switch. It's free to get started with no in-person visits and no minimum balance. Apply online in minutes at mercury.com. Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC. Topics we cover: (3:50) – Jordan Gal on Rosie's multichannel launch (8:01) – Investing cash in slow-moving healthcare markets (10:32) – Using debt or credit against signed contracts (16:48) – Competing in crowded markets with vibe-coded apps (24:34) – Should you offer advisory shares to design partners? (30:38) – Selling to problem-aware but not solution-aware audiences (37:35) – When a collaborator steals your startup idea Links from the show: TinySeed SaaS Institute Stripe Capital The Play Bigger Book The SaaS Playbook Rob Walling's Books Rob Walling's Newsletter Rosie AI Jordan Gal (@JordanGal) | X If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you'd like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We'd love to hear from you! Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify

Jordan Gal

Co-Founder

RallyRosieCartHook

How do you build an MVP for an AI-enabled SaaS?  In episode 764, Rob Walling interviews Jordan Gal, co-founder of Rosie, to learn about how he pivoted from Rally to build an AI-driven product for small business owners. Jordan shares insights into the challenges of finding product-market fit, the importance of trial and error, and the rapid growth Rosie has experienced since its launch. They delve into the significance of effective onboarding, and how building an MVP changes in the face of AI.  Topics we cover:  (2:38) – From CartHook to Rally to Rosie (6:28) – Deciding to pivot and feeling product-market fit (12:55) – Coming up with a feature set (16:50) – Building an MVP quickly (19:29) – Competition when developing with AI  (24:52) – Removing features and flexibility in software (29:59) – Incredibly fast onboarding (33:22) – Balancing a “better business” with a “faster business” Links from the Show:  Applications for MicroConf Mastermind Matching are Open through March 31st SaaS Institute Rosie Jordan Gal (@JordanGal) | X Rosie (@heyrosieai) | X Episode 549 | Hiring vs. Outsourcing, E-commerce SaaS, and More Listener Questions with Jordan Gal If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify

Jordan Gal

Co-Founder

RallyRosieCartHook

Jordan Gal built CartHook into a $6M ARR recurring revenue machine on Shopify. Then Shopify shut him down. But before that, his SaaS pricing strategy of tripling prices transformed a leaky business into a healthy one. Discover how raising recurring revenue prices from $99 to $500 plus transaction fees achieved churn reduction from 15% to 2% and doubled MRR from $250K to $500K in one year. Jordan is the co-founder of Rally. He previously grew CartHook's recurring revenue to $6M ARR processing $2.5 billion in GMV before platform risk forced a pivot. 🔑 Key Lessons 💰 Tripling recurring revenue prices filters wrong-fit customers: Jordan raised CartHook from $99 to $300 with zero drop in demand, achieving immediate churn reduction. 📉 High churn gets masked by strong recurring revenue growth: 400 trial signups per month with 15% churn would have capped MRR without raising prices. 🎯 Switch from self-serve to demos for recurring revenue power: Requiring applications dropped signups from 400 to 20 but attracted merchants paying $500 plus transaction fees. 💰 Raise prices on existing customers with a value promise: Jordan gave six months notice, committed to SaaS pricing improvements, and most customers stayed. ⚠️ Platform risk scales with your recurring revenue success: CartHook thrived on Shopify until processing $100M+ per month, when Shopify blocked new customers. Chapters Introduction What Rally does and the headless checkout concept The backstory - founding CartHook The abandoned cart idea and cold email sales No-brainer SaaS pricing that removed buyer risk Raising funding and finding a CTO Customizable Shopify checkout discovery Explosive launch demand Why tripling the recurring revenue price was right Spotting the churn wall at $250K MRR Requiring demos and raising prices for churn reduction How Shopify forced CartHook to change Platform risk lessons for every founder Lightning round Resources Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/302 Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email

Jordan Gal

Co-Founder

RallyRosieCartHook

Imagine a world with not just a few thousand cryptocurrencies, but billions of them. That's Rally CEO Kevin Chou’s vision. The founder of mobile gaming heavyweight Kabam joined The Scoop's Frank Chaparro to talk about the development of creator coins, which are blockchain-based tokens that are tied to the social capital of a person. “We thought about… if you have instead of just thousands of tokens in the world, but you have millions of tokens, tens of millions of tokens, a billion tokens at some future point in time, how do you create a world where people can easily exchange that value?” To be sure, it’s early days for Rally. The firm has onboarded approximately 160 creators, and that number is growing, with a community that spans athletics, art, and music. Rally is currently working with musicians like Portugal. The Man, as well as streamers, gamers, celebrities, athletes, and others to create their own fungible tokens via their network. According to Rally, the decentralized $RLY Community has raised $108 million to date for its community treasury. The project is offering a platform for creators to issue their own 'creator coins' that allow them to engage directly with fans and offer bespoke incentives — thereby giving them the power to “own their economic destiny," as Chou puts it. But the vision is much broader, according to Chou, who said in the interview: “How do we eventually think about a world where more and more people choose to create their online identity, reputation and financial wherewithal all on a blockchain. And that's kind of the world that we're trying to solve here on Rally.” Chou also discusses: Rally's plan to create network rewards for creators How creators are earning significant income already with Rally How Rally aims to work with regulatory commissions across the globe Episode 40 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Kevin Chou, CEO of Rally. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges. About Kraken Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today. About Exodus Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface.   Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control.   Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

Kevin Chou

Founder and CEO

ForteKabamRally

Jason kicks off the episode with research into the claims against Tether Limited, the company behind USDT, the world's largest "stablecoin" and 3rd largest cryptocurrency (1:30). Then Jason is joined by 3 founders of Alternative Asset investing platforms (25:49), Chris Bruno of Rally, Scott Lynn of Masterworks, and Ben Miller of Fundrise. They discuss inflation, supply & demand, expanding company roadmaps (59:56) and more!

Chris Bruno

Co-Founder & CEO

Rally

Scott Lynn

Founder & CEO

Masterworks

Ben Miller

Founder and CEO

CHChroniFIFundrise

In Episode 439, Rob Walling is joined by Jordan Gal to answer listener questions about starting an e-commerce SaaS and the laws and regulations, and compliance requirements required. They talk about managing enterprise perceptions of risk towards bootstrap startups. They also answer questions about bootstrapping and enterprise SaaS as well as hiring a growth role and whether you should hire full-time or outsource to a contractor or an agency. The topics we cover [01:11] Regulatory requirements for starting an e-commerce platform (Solman Ahmed) [06:18] Managing enterprise perception of risk when selling as a bootstrapper (Noah Stall) [16:26] Are some markets not feasible with a bootstrapped approach? (Declan Sweeney) [22:42] Finding someone who is experienced growing SaaS companies (Russ) [30:10] Hiring full-time versus outsourcing (Filip Kis) Links from the show Crossing the Chasm DemandMaven || Growth Marketing Consultancy for SaaS & Startups MicroConf Connect — MicroConf Episode 537 | On Launching, Funding, and Growth with Serial SaaS Founder Rand Fishkin Episode 499 | The (First) Six Stages of SaaS Growth - Part 1 Episode 499.5 | The (First) Six Stages of SaaS Growth - Part 2 Jordan Gal (@jordangal) | Twitter If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher This episode is sponsored by Rewardful, turning your biggest fans into your best marketers. Get 30% off your first 3 months by heading to getRewardful.com/startups. Offer expires May 31st.

Jordan Gal

Co-Founder

RallyRosieCartHook

The combination of cloud, social, and mobile took gaming beyond a small base of just console- and PC-gamers to a massive player base. But the underlying business model -- the concept of "free-to-play", built on top of games-as-a-service -- may have been the real innovation that led us to the global gaming phenomenons we have today. Unfortunately, observes gaming veteran Kevin Chou -- who's seen it all when it comes to tech platform shifts and gaming as a longtime gamer, founding CEO of Kabam, and now founder and CEO of Forte -- there is "a dark side" to free-to-play: Game developers have to balance the gamers who aren't paying with those who are, and especially those who are paying a helluva lot more (the whales) in order to make money and keep the game going. This balance becomes incredibly challenging over time; it is, quite frankly, a lopsided economy. The players will leave: The incentives between game publishers and players are simply not aligned. Yet what if we could re-align those incentives -- really, the economic relationships -- between game publishers/developers; players and guilds and clans; those who create on top of games (like on Roblox and Minecraft); those who trade and otherwise transact both inside and outside games (it's already happening in secondary markets and gold farms). We could do this in a more balanced way, thanks to blockchain technology and cryptoeconomic business models -- leading to thriving gaming economies with better monetization and deeper engagement, as well as new forms of collaboration, community, and creativity. But smart contracts, cryptoeconomies, security, etc. is hard for gamers who just want to focus on designing the best game, so how do we get here? Chou shares his thoughts in this episode of the a16z Podcast with Sonal Chokshi and general partner Chris Dixon. In gaming (and in fact, with other tech trends too), innovation happens when there's a combination of new devices, new technology platforms, and new delivery mechanisms... but it's the business-model innovations, argues Dixon, that tend to create the most startup opportunities. image: battle scene from Eve Online, a game with an economy (via Forte.io) --- The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. 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Kevin Chou

Founder and CEO

ForteKabamRally

Kevin Chou is co-founder and CEO of Kabam, a world leader in mobile free-to-play games. At Kabam, Kevin catapulted revenue to $400 million and a valuation of more than $1 billion in 2014. Under Kevin's leadership, Kabam has raised more than $240 million from venture and strategic investors, including some of the world's largest entertainment and internet companies such as Alibaba, Google, Intel and Warner Brothers. Before Kabam, Kevin worked at Canaan Partners, Kabam's initial investor and where he invested in 14 consumer technology and online media companies. In 2014 Kevin was named one Fortune magazine's prestigious "40 Under 40" and, in 2012, was identified by Fortune as one of the "Smartest People in Tech." In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Kevin came to found the wildly successful Kabam from a life in VC with Canaan Partners? 2.) How does Kevin respond to investors that say games is so challenging as it is so hits driven? What are the requirements to build an enduring and successful games company? 3.) What are the metrics that define success in gaming? Why does Kevin believe that gaming is unlike any other in terms of metrics? 4.) To what extent does Kevin believe it is right to monetise games from the beginning vs the free to play market? What are the features and challenges required for success in the premium end of the market? 5.) How does gaming alter both in terms of design and monetisation when comparing the East to the West? What feature sets are preferrable in both? Why doe the East want to pay for as much up front as possible? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Kevin's Fave Book: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Kevin's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Dean Takahashi: VentureBeat As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Kevin on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. X.ai is AI-poweredered personal assistant for scheduling meetings bringing you Amy or Andrew. The assistant you interact with like you would to any other person and it allows you to avoid the tedious hours of email ping pong in order to schedule one meeting. Even better, there is no sign in, no password, no download, all you do is cc amy@x.ai beautiful! And you can check it out now on x.ai it really is a must! Workable is the all-in-one recruiting software for ambitious companies. From posting a job to tracking and managing candidates, Workable provides everything you need to hire better. Transparent communication, organized candidate profiles, structured interviews and a full reporting suite gives hiring teams the information they need to make the best choice. Workable is available for desktop and mobile and you can find out more on workable.com where you can try it for free.

Kevin Chou

Founder and CEO

ForteKabamRally