779: Foursquare CEO on Transition From Consumer Social Network to B2B Enterprise Data Company

Jeff Glueck. He became the CEO of Foursquare in January of 2016 after 18 months as the COO of the company. Prior to that, he was the CEO of Skyfire Labs, co-founder of Site59.com and CMO of Travelocity. Previously, he was a strategy consultant at Monitor Company and served as a White House Fellow in the Clinton Administration. He holds a master’s degree from Oxford as a Marshall Scholar and a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College.   Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Good to Great What CEO do you follow? – Adam Neumann Favorite online tool? — Stitcher How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “It’s going to be okay when you take a risk”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:46 – Nathan introduces Jeff to the show 02:53 – Jeff has been with Foursquare for 3 years 02:55 – Jeff joined the company while it was evolving into a hot social network in 2012 03:10 – Foursquare developed the technology of Pilgrim that turned it into a powerful enterprise business 03:19 – Foursquare’s early valuation was based on the fact that it would be the next big social media network 03:51 – The valuation was only made up because it wasn’t based on revenue 03:57 – When Jeff entered, they raised a round and they’re now growing over 60% in the past 3 years 04:13 – Foursquare is now more rationally valued 04:55 – Foursquare has a powerful community of people mapping the world 06:05 – Pilgrim is based on Foursquare’s nearly 12B check-ins 06:13 – Foursquare is having more check-ins today than it did 2 years ago 06:30 – The check-ins are called explicit ground trips 06:55 – Everytime someone check-in, they’re mapping the business for Foursquare 07:15 – The explicit ground trip makes the program powerful 08:06 – Foursquare launched the Pilgrim SDK which is a white label way for their developers to add in background content and give users a better experience 08:24 – Using the Pilgrim technology, Capital One can ask its user if they want to opt-in for being informed about how to receive rewards points 08:36 – People overwhelmingly opting-in 09:08 – The notification from Capital One encourages people to actually use their mobile wallet 09:18 – TouchTunes uses the Pilgrim technology 09:25 – TouchTunes runs 65K jukeboxes through mobile app 10:37 – Pilgrim technology has learned when to send notifications 10:47 – Pilgrim technology also informs their developers of the best time to send notifications 12:08 – When Jeff joined, he saw how everyone, including Fortune 500 companies, was using them for free 12:15 – Jeff told their CEO that they’re actually losing money and that they needed to start charging customers 12:42 – Foursquare didn’t lose even a single developer after putting up a paywall 12:49 – The model was licensed-based depending on the usage 14:15 – Three of the largest headphones in the world are Foursquare’s customers 14:40 – Jeff understands how the market changes 14:55 – 92% of the consumer spending is far from the 8% they spend on e-commerce like amazon 15:10 – Foursquare has predicted how Chipotle’s sales will go down by 30% 15:20 – “We’re not investors, we’re technologists” 16:16 – Jeff believes that Foursquare’s mission is to be a location intelligence company 16:34 – Jeff is proud of Foursquare’s technology; they can build tools that help companies 17:07 – Foursquare started out as a consumer company but now, more and more apps are using them for their applications 17:51 – Jeff believes that in the future, they can also make real estate better 18:45 – 90% of Foursquare’s revenue is from B2B 19:34 – Foursquare’s paying customers are some of the biggest brands in the world who want a company that is as good as Google Maps 19:58 – People don’t want to be dependent on Google in the future 20:18 – “A lot of smart companies want to build differentiated mobile experiences in the future and we’re helping them do that, that is our business” 21:48 – The Famous Five   3 Key Points: Even if your company can go IPO, it doesn’t mean that it should. Offering your services or products for free may work for the short-term, but if your service adds value to your customers, they WILL pay. Focus on what your company is good at.   Resources Mentioned: Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost. The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives