3 Nightmare Years Then Scaling SaaS With Partners

Omer (00:11.360)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host, Omer Khan and this is the show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their strategies and insights to help you build, launch and grow your SaaS business.
This episode is a story about a guy who always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but he decided to go to law school and get an MBA instead.
Then with $100,000 in debt, he finally decided to take the leap and start his entrepreneurial journey.
He described the first three years of working on his business as a nightmare.
He was getting deeper into debt every month, but he was determined to make the business work.
Yet he also had his wife and four kids to think about.
Eventually, his wife had enough and told him that he needed to find a job.
But he had a surprising conversation the next day and decided with his wife's support, that he was going to continue working on his business for a little longer.
And that determination paid off.
Today his company employs 675 people and does over $100 million in annual recurring revenue.
He's a great guy and very transparent.
He shares his story and how he got through those first three nightmare years.
We explore how he got traction and quite his first thousand customers.
And we discuss how he's building a product driven culture and how he thinks about competition.
So I hope you enjoy the interview.
All right.
Today's guest is the co founder and CEO of infusionsoft, which makes sales and marketing automation software exclusively for small businesses.
Infusionsoft combines CRM, email automation and e commerce capabilities into one product.
It it helps small businesses capture more leads, improve conversion rates and generate more sales.
The company was founded in 2001 and has raised over $125 million to date.
Infusionsoft has over 125,000 users and so far has processed $3.4 billion of payments for its customers.
My guest is also the author of Conquer the Chaos how to Grow a Successful Small Business Without Going Crazy, a New York Times bestseller which focuses on b balancing personal and work life while becoming a successful budding entrepreneur.
So today I'd like to welcome Clayton Mask Clay.
Welcome to the show.

Clate Mask (02:59.250)
Thanks, Homer.
It's great to be with you.

Omer (03:01.250)
Now, as we were talking before we started getting, before we started recording, I've been trying to get you on the show for a long time, over a year.
And I think timing just worked out well for me that we've finally been able to do this.
So I'm really glad to have you here.

Clate Mask (03:15.920)
Well, I'm sorry I was so hard to track down, but I'm glad to be doing it.
This is something I love doing, so thank you.

Omer (03:22.400)
I like to start by asking what gets my guests out of bed every day to work on their businesses?
What is it for you?
Do you have a favorite quote or in your own words you want to just tell us, like, what drives you?

Clate Mask (03:33.680)
Yeah.
You know, I think the thing that gets me out of bed every morning is the challenge that I know that it is for small businesses to grow.
So for me, it's just, you know, I'm grounded in the realities of what it is to grow a small business, having done it myself and having worked with tens of thousands of entrepreneurs that are doing that, if not hundreds of thousands now.
And so to me, it's passion and compassion.
And what I like to say is, you know, it's passion to see small businesses grow, and it's compassion for the challenge that it is, you know, just the.
The sheer struggle that it is for business owners to achieve their dreams and get their.
Get their business to the level in the state that they want to get it to.
So, you know, I actually say that while it's that.
That passion and compassion that drives me, it's really about believing in entrepreneurs, believing in their ability to do it, and wanting to see them achieve those goals.
I just.
Our number one value is we empower entrepreneurs, and our number nine value is we believe in people and their dreams.
And it's those two things, those values that we have at Infusionsoft, that's value 1 and value 9.
Those are the things that drive me every day and get me and our employees excited about helping small businesses succeed.

Omer (04:59.410)
Love it.
Now, I gave the audience kind of an overview of infusionsoft.
Can you share in your own words what makes infusionsoft better or different than maybe other products out there?

Clate Mask (05:15.990)
Yeah, well, you know, it's.
There's kind of the standard answers that I offer, which are, first, it's about your CRM system and getting anything.
Getting all of your data organized and centralized in one place.
And then second, it's about the level of automation that you can go to once you have that in place.
So we're different in the sense that we are a CRM system.
Many tools out there aren't.
We're different in the sense that once you've got that data in there, you can do all kinds of automation to put your sales and marketing process on autopilot.
And then the third thing I would just say is we're crazy passionate and Focused about small businesses.
I think a lot of companies, they'll take whatever customer they can get.
They'll talk about SMB as though it's all small business.
And the reality is that it's a very different thing to have a three person company than it is a hundred person company, than it is a thousand person company.
So we're totally focused on small business.
So the standard answer is, well, it's CRM and it's the level of automation and it's entirely for small business.
I would say the more colorful answer is that this is the system that helps you grow.
We are about systematic growth.
And I think a lot of other things out there are kind of a simple tool or a quick thing you can do to try to get a little bit more, some more customers or something like that.
But if you don't do it systematically, you cave underneath the complexity of it eventually.
So, you know, it's systematic growth and I think supported by passionate people who want our customers to be successful.

Omer (06:59.360)
The one thing that I've always really liked about infusionsoft is hearing about some of the case studies and how people were able to implement it and grow their businesses.
I think that's one thing I'd recommend to anybody is that if you haven't been to the infusionsoft website, go and check some of those out, because those alone are pretty inspiring stories to just hear.

Clate Mask (07:25.240)
Yeah, thanks for saying that.
That's, you know, I.
When you said, what gets you out of bed?
I should have said it's the people and the stories.
I mean, it's, you know, I can say passion and compassion and we empower entrepreneurs and all, you know, that's all true.
But what it comes down to is when you hear people's stories and when people come up to you and say, holy crap, what you guys have done to streamline my business and get my, you know, get me organized and get me growing my sales and the time that I save, you know, that's what's really inspiring and what we love doing.
And, you know, we've got about 140,000 people that are using the software today, but we want to serve millions.

Omer (08:02.850)
So I had that number wrong.
I said 125,000.
You already added another 15 while we were talking.
Okay, so let's kind of go back to the early days of how you started the business.
And so you guys have been in business for, I guess, 16 years now, and it's not as straightforward.
I mean, a lot of the times we hear stories and people will Say, well, I had this idea, I did my product market fit and went out and talked to customers and launched my product, and here I am having a successful exit or something.
Right.
But the reality, and I think is most people who listen to this show know that the entrepreneurs we get on here and the stories we listen to, it's never as simple as that.
And it's often, you know, it's an overnight success, which was a decade in the making.
But people don't necessarily always talk about that.
But I think here, that's one thing that I really love to sort of explore because there are so many important lessons in that.
And I think it's also really inspiring for people to hear about what other people went through.
And I know that from the research that I did.
The first three years of running this business you described as a nightmare.
And it was really.
It took you guys three years to actually figure out how to get to the product that we sort of now understand as infusionsoft.
Can you tell us a little bit about that and why were those first years so difficult?

Clate Mask (09:42.860)
Yeah, you bet.
So thank you.
Because I think it's true a lot of times people see infusionsoft and, oh, you raised all this venture capital.
No, no, we bootstrapped the business to 7 million before we raised capital.
And for the first, you know, we've been in business 15 years.
The first five years was very different than what we're.
What it looks like today.
At the heart of it, it was the same work.
And that work is to automate sales and marketing for small businesses.
But here's how it got started.
It was three.
You know, actually there were four for people who were trying to do custom software to help small businesses grow with automating their sales and marketing.
And I'll tell you, that custom software business was just brutal.
It was trading hours for dollars, working to help small businesses that didn't really understand what they were trying to create.
They would have different ideas and trying to effectively serve that customer that was thinking, you know, they had a, you know, they had this grandiose idea of what they wanted to do and they had no budget for it.
And so when we started doing that 15 years ago, it was really tough.
And we tried to move out of the custom software business as quickly as we could.
It took us about a year to get to a semi custom CRM product that was web based.
And then it took us another year to get to sort of the CRM product that was really the predecessor to what infusionsoft is Today and then another year to kind of get the.
Get that tweak, you know, get those things dialed in.
It took about three years to where we had.
We had our product that was, that was specific for certain kind of small business that wanted to do their.
To automate their follow up.
And that three years was just brutal.
It was so hard.
And the truth is that about halfway through, I wanted to get out in the worst way.
I wanted to be done with it because it was so hard.
But by then we had personal guarantees in place.
We had more, you know, it was more risky to get out of the business than it was to try to stay in and see it through.
And so, you know, I had a mountain of student debt that I was wanting to be able to pay off, and it was only getting.
We were only getting deeper in debt.
I had a lot of years of college that my wife was looking at me saying, why did we do all of that?
I was completely delusional about what I was bringing home and how to actually provide for the family.
And so I just was full of the desire to get the business to a place of success.
But the reality was we were struggling like crazy, and it took about three years to get through that.

Omer (12:24.040)
I guess part of that was you talked about the progression of trying to figure out the product and building the product and so on, but that just sounds like it was slow progress.
But when you use the word nightmare, can you give me an example of why you use that term?
Why did it feel like a nightmare?

Clate Mask (12:42.870)
Sure.
I'll take you into the depths of it.
So here's why it was so tough.
You know, I. I had, I got.
I had, you know, an MBA and a law degree and an economics degree.
So I had eight years of college and I had $100,000 of debt to show for it.
Here I was doing a startup, taking home about two to $3,000 a month, and I had four kids, and my wife was at home with those kids, trying to make life work at home.
And I was just working like crazy, getting deeper and deeper in debt.
Not only that, but we had personal guarantees on the office space and personal guarantees on some servers and equipment that we had had to purchase.
And so I was so mired in debt that.
And I was.
And I was, you know, nothing to show for it was bringing home literally about $2,500 a month.
And my wife was just like, why did we go to all this school?
Why did we do all, you know, everything that we've done to get to this point?
Shoot, you could have done this going out, you know, out of high school.
So what are you doing?
And you know, it was probably about nine or ten months of frequent conversations with her that I should go get a real job.
And by the way, my wife is amazing.
She's incredibly supportive.
You know, she was just broken down to the point that she just, she just couldn't believe it was going to work.
And so that when you get to that point where nobody around you believes it and you're trying to make it work and you're working your brains out, I mean, it is a nightmare and you want, you know, you just want someone to wake you up and you snap out of it and everything's actually okay and life's fine, but you wake up the next day and you're still living the nightmare.
So that's what was so tough is I had a lot of financial obligations, the business wasn't progressing, it was slow going.
Trying to figure out what it was our customers really needed.
And when your wife comes to you in tears and says, look, I love you, but just were to the point where you have to go get a real job or else.
And that's the reality of where we were.
And somehow we made our way through it.
But it was pretty tough.

Omer (14:57.690)
You didn't go and get a job.

Clate Mask (14:59.770)
Right.

Omer (15:00.810)
And so what kept you going and how did you convince your wife to stay on board with the plan?

Clate Mask (15:12.500)
Yeah, well, here's the story.
After I don't know how many tear filled conversations like that on one particular night, it was like, you know, you have to, I can't do this anymore.
And so I said, okay.
And I remember the thing that like, caused me to say, okay, I'm willing to do this because I'm just so stubborn, you know, I just, I knew the business was going to work.
And she finally said, clay, okay, maybe it's going to work, but you need to like, connect up with it down the road.
You got to get off the bus for now because I just, it's not, it's not going to work for us and I can't do this anymore.
So with that little thought of, well, maybe it could work down the road, I thought, okay, I will go look for a job tomorrow.
So the next day I went to work and I sat down at my computer and I was back in my, you know, in, in the saddle doing my thing.
And before I knew it, the day was over and I, it was time to go home and I hadn't done anything to look for a job.
And I was like, ah, crap.
What am I going to tell Shareese?
So I'm driving home, and literally, I was like, just.
I felt bad because I hadn't done what I said I was going to do.
And, you know, I think.
I think only entrepreneurs can understand that.
You kind of.
You get in your.
You're.
You get in the saddle, and it's almost like the whole world goes away and you're just doing your thing.
And then all of a sudden, time to go home.
And, you know, and I just, like, realized, oh, shoot.
So I'm driving home nervous about what I'm going to tell Shareese.
Just, you know, just having to tell her.
I didn't, but I'll do it tomorrow because I was afraid of what that would mean.
And I walked into the kitchen, and her back was to me.
And I don't.
I don't know how to.
I don't know how to actually do it justice with words.
Omer.
But when she turned around, she looked different to me.
I could just see she was totally different.
The stress and the anguish and the arguing and everything that had been a part of her face and my face for quite some time was not there.
And she just came up to me and hugged me, and she said, you know what?
Just keep going.
I believe in you.
I know that God knows what we're doing.
It's all going to work out.
It's going to be okay.
Just keep at it.
And like I tell people, that was my Rocky Balboa moment.
You know, I felt that.
I was like, okay, I can do this.
You know, I know I can do.
Was really amazing because when I felt her support then I was like, okay, we can go make this happen.
And it was shortly after that that things began to turn.
It wasn't right away, but within a few months, we started.
Things started to get better, and she could see that it was getting better.
And the key thing was that we got to a place where, you know, we found the marketing automation that we were doing for our customers was really starting to hit home.
And by the way, that was before anybody called it marketing automation.
You know, it was just.
We were doing that back in 2005, and that's when it.
That's when the business started to go.

Omer (18:16.680)
So that was your Rocky four moment, right?
When Adrian says you can't win, and then she eventually comes around.

Clate Mask (18:22.450)
That's exactly right.
Yes.
You can't win.

Omer (18:29.650)
So, okay, so let's kind of talk about how did you make the transition into the sort of the product business?
Was that really from talking to the small businesses that you were trying to serve in the first few years and then is that where the opportunity sort of emerged from?

Clate Mask (18:47.810)
It really was a matter of us finding our beachhead.
So, you know, I'm a huge Geoffrey Moore fan of Crossing the Chasm fame.
He's on our board of directors.
I talk with him frequently.
And you know, we were, we had read his book early on and we had gotten very clear about finding our beachhead.
And so for us it was growth hungry entrepreneurs who were savvy in direct direct response marketing.
And specifically we've kind of found that in this, the Dan Kennedy Glaser Kennedy insider circle world.
And that's where it started for us.
And so we really worked hard on solving their problems related to following up with their customers and people who had shown interest in the products or service of our customer.
And so that's really where it started.
We got focused on that growth hungry, direct response oriented entrepreneur and created a great solution for them.
And then it began to just spread.
And so we got our product in place, we got out of the custom software world and got into the product world and then specifically found that niche, that beachhead, so to speak.
And that was really the thing that propelled us from about 2005 until I would say 2007.
And at that point we caught a much, much bigger vision.
We'd been in business for five years and we thought we would kind of build up the business and sell it off.
But we got to a point where we just fell in love with what we were doing for small businesses.
We saw there was a massive opportunity because salesforce.com was vacating the small business space.
And we felt like, hey, we can go and do something massive for small businesses and be that salesforce.com for small business.
So that's when we took off in our big vision for the company back in 2007, about 10 years ago.

Omer (20:40.340)
So for someone listening to this interview who maybe is in the early stages and maybe hasn't figured out what the beachhead for them is or should be, do you have any advice on how they can go about trying to figure that out?

Clate Mask (20:58.260)
Yes.
Listen to angry customers.
And that's it.
I mean, it sounds so simple, but our human nature is to take the anger and frustration and upset that's coming at us from a customer and run away from it, or dismiss it, or say why they're wrong and we're right or any number of things that are human nature.
But what we found was if we embraced the Angry ones.
When we were trying to get that product market fit, we realized that the angry ones loved us.
They were just upset about some things.
And it was far better for us to have an angry customer than it was for us to have an indifferent customer.
And it's counter.
It's counterintuitive when you're getting your, you know, you're putting your baby out there for people to receive, and they spit on it.
You know, like, hey, why?
What are you doing?
Do you not understand?
You know, but.
But the reality is it's that feedback from.
From vocal and passionate customers that helps you find the fit.
And I remember having some pretty heated debates and arguments with both customers because I was the one really facing the customers and then with our developers internally.
And you just have to embrace it because that's the hard place where you find product market fit.

Omer (22:22.430)
That's a really a fascinating way to think about it.
I'd never even thought about thinking of it that way.
And I think as a product guy and I spent well over a decade at Microsoft and working with engineers for most of my career, when a customer or a user complains about your product, the typical engineer kind of reaction is they're stupid or they don't know what they're talking about.

Clate Mask (22:51.550)
Right.

Omer (22:51.790)
And so it's very, very easy in that culture to kind of dismiss that kind of feedback.
It's much harder to listen to it and take it on board.

Clate Mask (23:00.190)
It is.
It is tough.
And, you know, I found myself in those in those earlier days being in between our.
Our product team and the customer and, you know, in a very angry cut, very angry customers at times.
And so that, that was the key thing, though, for us is to listen to it, because the passion, especially the passionate and articulate ones, they're so valuable to help you understand what you're missing and how if we did this or changed that or did this other thing, you know, it would be a big.
A big help to the customer.
And so it just comes down to finding ways you can solve their pain.
And that was the key thing.
Now we've had to reinvent ourselves a couple of times as we've grown the business.
And each time you got to remember, oh, yeah, that's actually the part we want to embrace.

Omer (23:49.050)
Now let's talk a little bit about growth.
And so from the point where you launch the product and you're trying to get your first.
I mean, I know this is going way back, but, you know, let's say your first hundred or thousand customers.

Clate Mask (24:03.610)
Yeah.

Omer (24:04.570)
Can you kind of Recall some of the growth strategies that worked or were most effective for you back then.

Clate Mask (24:13.870)
Absolutely.
Back then, getting the first thousand customers was really all about partner relationships.
So, you know, we were, we did our own marketing and, you know, work to generate our own leads and close those prospects.
But almost, you know, the majority of our early customers came through partners.
And so, you know, we got to about 1,000 customers in that first couple years.
And, you know, back then they were paying $5,000 in a setup fee plus, you know, three or $400 a month.
And it was, you know, you needed to go through partners because it wasn't clear exactly what the customer was getting.
So I think a lot of times when you're trying to get product market fit right, think of it this way.
It's a lot easier to get the market fit right for a few partners than it is for all the customers of those partners.
And so you listen to those partners extra closely, especially when they're upset.
But that was the key thing for us, was to have those partnerships where we could gain access to their customers and their tribes, so to speak, and help them see how infusionsoft could benefit their business.
But I would say it was all partner strategy for those first couple years, first thousand customers or so.

Omer (25:33.220)
Can you give us an example of a partner?

Clate Mask (25:37.290)
Yeah.
So, you know, one, one partner was, I mentioned earlier, it was called Glaser Kennedy Insider Circle.
They're still around gkic, but Dan, Dan Kennedy and Bill Glaser, they were really great because they had these savvy direct response marketers.
Another, another partner was a guy named Joe Polish who had a lot of customers in the carpet cleaning industry and they needed something similar.
We had another partner that was kind of in Internet marketing.
And so these handful of partners that we had gave us access through their events, through their.
They would introduce us through their affiliate marketing or email marketing.
And that gave us the ability to get in front of a lot of customers that we otherwise couldn't have.

Omer (26:24.840)
How do you build a partnership like that with a Dan Kennedy or a Joe Polish?
I don't think those guys are necessarily going to be about, okay, great, I can generate a bit of affiliate revenue or something.
I mean, this is their reputation as they sort of start to share a product with their, as you said, tribe.
So how did you get those guys on board?

Clate Mask (26:50.540)
We got them on board with the software.
So it was really interesting because what we did is we got them using the software.
Dan was selling his business to a guy named Bill Glaser.
And so we Got Bill using the software, we got Joe using the software, we got several others using the software.
And once they were using it and they realized, oh, I mean, this is the customer database that I've always needed to do effective marketing.
So once we got them doing that, then they realized, yeah, this makes sense to recommend it to our people because our people are asking, what should we use?
What do you use?
You're exactly right, Omer.
It wasn't about some dollars they could make.
It wasn't at all.
In fact, I saw Joe last week.
I see him all the time.
And Joe was our second customer.
And him, he was an early adopter trying to improve his own marketing and sales and he needed a database.
He was using ACT and he was trying to do email marketing and he had a shopping cart and he was trying to do all those things and it wasn't working well and there was no effective follow up for him.
It was very manual.
So we got him on the, on our system and then it became natural for him to promote it.
But interestingly, we began at one point trying to get partners to promote infusionsoft without first using it.
And that didn't work.
It just, it was, you know, trying to do it for the money or trying to do it if they didn't have it and use it and believe in it just didn't work.
So we had to do the hard groundwork of getting them using the software and fully on the system and in order to get them to begin promoting.

Omer (28:28.040)
How much time did you guys spend thinking about your competitors?
Were you, were you tracking what competitors were doing?
I mean, I know it probably in the early stages there probably wasn't that much because in many ways you were almost defining a new category.

Clate Mask (28:47.240)
Yeah.

Omer (28:47.680)
But between then and now, marketing automation has become a very crowded market with a lot of people trying to build some kind of product.
So what has just been your philosophy about competitors and how much time you spend thinking about them?
Or do you just tend to just ignore them and just focus on what you're doing?

Clate Mask (29:09.620)
Yeah, it's a great question.
So generally our philosophy is that success or failure lies within, you know, within, within, not what's going on on the outside.
So we, you know, we pay attention today, we certainly pay attention to competitive, to competition, but we have a vision of what we're trying to do and that's independent of any competitors out there.
Now in the early stages, you know, the competition was like Salesforce or netsuite or, you know, right now technologies.
And so all we had to do is look at that and say, yeah, we're not doing that.
There wasn't much we had to worry about there because we were so focused on small business.
But you know, 10 years ago when we created our Everest mission, as we referred to it, which we just completed and we've now kicked off, you know, launched the new mission.
But 10 years ago we actually, the mission was to create the category and we said, you know, and the reason why we said is that there was really no.
I mean, you had ACT and you had some email marketing things, yet you had pieces of it, but nobody was really doing CRM, marketing automation, sales automation, e commerce in a suite.
Nobody was doing that.
Even today, most aren't doing that, they're just doing marketing automation.
Most of the competitors.
But 10 years ago we said, look, we're going to create the category for small businesses and we're going to be the clear leader in that category.
And we consciously said to do this, if we really do succeed in that mission, then we're going to have a bunch of competitors.
And we smiled and said, yeah, that'll happen.
We're okay with that because what we're trying to do for the world in small business requires that we create this category and that there will be other competitors out there.
So over the last few years, you know, as we've kind of worked our way through that 10 year mission, we've watched the competitors pop up and do a piece of what we do.
And so we certainly note that and we think about, you know, we think about different aspects of what infusionsoft is and how we can, how we can respond and maybe offer a piece of what our entire suite is for those customers that just want some simple marketing automation that may or may not be a little precursor of things to come.
So, but what I would say generally is Omer, our focus is on how we are trying to revolutionize small business growth and how we're trying to change the world for small businesses.
And, and that's independent of what anybody else is doing out there.

Omer (31:44.970)
Yeah, that's great.
Yeah.
I have a SaaS product which has been kind of like more of a side project up until now, which is called Presto Pod.
And it was really driven from my frustration with publishing a podcast and all the things that you have to do like adding ID3 tags, uploading to Libsyn or SoundCloud, getting all the information right there, scheduling it for the right day, creating your show notes.
And so eventually I ended up creating these scripts to automate this for me.
And it turned into a product.
And then other people started asking me how I was publishing my podcast and they started to, to use it, but because there's nothing.

Clate Mask (32:26.100)
I need to talk to you about that.
For our small business success podcast.

Omer (32:29.100)
Yeah, we should.

Clate Mask (32:30.180)
We started doing that last year and it's awesome.
We love it.
But, but you know, I've got a, I got a guy that produces it.
I should probably get you in touch with him.

Omer (32:39.050)
Yeah, we should definitely do that.
But yeah, I think the thing that I found was because it was, there was nothing really like, like it out there, it was very difficult to explain it to anybody.
And so building a website and having people just go there to a landing page or your homepage, people just didn't get it.

Clate Mask (32:57.050)
Yeah.

Omer (32:57.570)
Yet if, when I got on a Skype call with somebody and gave them a demo in 10 minutes, they were like, okay, I'm signing up.

Clate Mask (33:05.330)
Right.

Omer (33:05.530)
And it was like, okay, there's, there's something here in terms of, I think a lesson in terms of when you're going into building some sort of new category, you've got to think constantly about how can you refine the messaging so people really get it.
And then secondly, I think the takeaway for me was don't try to build something scalable too soon by having something automated.
When in the early stages, you're still at a point point where you need to have these conversations one on one, not just to close a sale, but to get valuable feedback from each person, which is going to help you refine whatever your value prop is going to be.

Clate Mask (33:43.700)
Yep.
Yeah, totally agree.
Those are great points.

Omer (33:47.060)
I know that you guys, you talked at some point, certainly from an interview that I came across that you guys had been very much of a sales and marketing culture driven culture.
And then you sort of made the shift to turning infusionsoft into a product driven culture.

Clate Mask (34:04.620)
Yeah.

Omer (34:05.100)
What has that meant for you and why did you need to make that change?

Clate Mask (34:12.060)
Well, it's a great question.
You know, when you think about what we do in our software, it's really about sales and marketing, you know, sales and marketing acumen.
So that's kind of how we grew up.
That's what the expertise was that we were injecting into the software for our customers.
And so that's how we really propelled our own business.
But I think that what I saw was, as time went by, there are two big things that occur as the company scales.
The first is you've got to learn to master the people challenge, the leadership challenge of it all.
Just the organizational challenge.
And the second is that you've got.
The scale requires different strategies.
And I think that what we found is to really get the business to a greater scale.
Some of the sales and marketing tactics and strategies we had used for a long time just don't.
They just.
They don't have the reach and penetration that you want them to have.
And ultimately, it's about an amazing product that attracts and draws people in.
And so what I found was, you know, we could build the business to 50 million, you know, 60 million in terms of, you know, through.
Through our sales and marketing effectiveness and a solid product.
But to go to.
To serve millions, you have to have a beautifully elegant product, and you have to have the kind of fanatical attention to detail that allows customers and to get in and word of mouth to just spread like wildfire.
And so that required a change in how we ran the business.
It required a different.
A different investment approach to where we put our dollars in sales and marketing versus versus product.
It required different leadership structure.
And I think fundamentally, though, it requires the CEO to take.
To really have a passion for product and to get fired up and excited about the product in maybe a little bit different ways than you do when you are either an early founder or a successful company that's growing and growing fast.
I know there's something that happens.
It's hard for me to explain exactly, but I remember when it happened two or three years ago, and that was really critical because it got me focusing on what needed to happen in the product for us to be able to serve millions of small businesses.

Omer (36:42.400)
Now, someone told me that you have somebody in your organization whose job title is Dream Manager.
Right.
I mean, that sounds like the coolest title that I've come across.

Clate Mask (36:54.840)
But.

Omer (36:55.440)
So this is somebody.
Well, tell us, what does this person do?

Clate Mask (36:59.040)
Yeah, well, let me give you a little bit of background.
So we're very intentional about our culture.
We're consistently named a great place to work.
You know, we are.
We hire and train and fire people who are passionate about helping small businesses succeed.
And, you know, the thing that we found early on was to get people to bring their very best to work.
You've got to care about them beyond work.
And so if you want people to come and be super passionate, then it's not just about their performance at work, what's happening at work.
It's about themselves, it's about their lives, it's about what's going on.
And so we just believe that, you know, I told you earlier, our ninth value is we believe in people and their dreams.
So because that's part of our philosophy, we've always been attracted to writings, authors, you know, thought leadership around that topic.
And we came across a book called the Dream Manager.
We read this book, and the premise of the book is essentially what I just shared.
If you want, if you want to really love the place that you work and really get along great with your co workers and your employees and have them give their very best, then you've got to give your best to them.
And that means be involved in their lives beyond just the work.
And so the book the Dream Manager is about essentially the role of a person who helps the employees discover their dreams and achieve their dreams.
Those might be home ownership, they might be getting on American Idol or whatever.
I say that because one of our employees went through that process.
It might be taking a dream vacation to Europe.
There's all kinds of different things.
It might be getting married or having a child.
And so we found that when people will dream at work about what they're trying to accomplish in their lives, they show up differently.
And so we have a role in our company.
It's called the Dream Manager, and his name is Dan, and some people call him Dreamy Dan.
Dan.
He meets with people and individuals as well as teams, and helps them to think bigger and think bigger for themselves, but that inevitably helps them to think bigger about the company as well and their role and their team and what's possible.
So that's what the Dream Manager does.
Helps people articulate their dreams and go after them.

Omer (39:27.460)
Wow.
I love it.
Love it.
That's awesome.
So what is next for infusionsoft?
Right.
So we talked before we started recording, we talked about you having hired a coo, which has freed you up to be able to hang out with me.
And so I really, I'm really thankful to your CEO for that.
And, you know, the company is doing well.
You guys have raised, you know, 125/million dollars.
Last number that I came across back from 2014 was, or 15 was that you guys were doing around $80 million in revenue.
And so I'm.
I'm guessing that number is well beyond that now.
So.
So things are good.
They're.
They're very different from where they were in the first three years of, of this business.
And I'm sure that, you know, it's your.
The belief that, that your wife had in you in those first few years has paid off.
And, you know, so things sort of come together, but what keeps you hungry, Right?
So what's your kind of.
You've done the Rocky 4 thing.
What's your Rocky 5 challenge?

Clate Mask (40:40.490)
Well, Rocky 5 sucked.
I hope it's not.
No, you're right.
It has paid off.
It's been great.
And for us, it's about what we're trying to do in the world now.
It's not about a financial thing or it's not about anything like that.
It's what we believe is possible for small businesses when they automate their sales and marketing.
And so for us, it's about making that accessible to millions.
It's about, you know, getting our, you know, immediately.
It's about icon, which come.
Which comes here at the end of April, April 25th through 27th, and introducing the world to some pretty cool innovations that we've created that, you know, we're really excited about, and that really kind of set the platform for the future of things that we'll be doing so that we can serve millions of small businesses.
So, you know, that's it for me.
It's not anything different.
It's just the same thing at a different scale.
And it's about having an impact on the world for business owners so that they can grow their business and have a life.
And I think that's the thing that most people don't really understand very well if they haven't started their own business.
We all get attracted to business ownership because we want the freedom to be our own boss, to make how much money we can make versus what somebody says we're gonna make to work the hours we want to work instead of the hours somebody says we're going to work.
You know, that's the draw.
And then, of course, the challenge is that you quickly become.
You quickly give all your freedom to the business, and the business ends up owning and controlling you.
And you can't go on vacation without worrying about it if you go at all.
You don't get home when you thought you're working way more hours, the stress is much higher.
There's certainly a satisfaction because it's yours, but wow, does it come with a high price and a lot of challenge.
And to try to grow that business is incredibly difficult.
And so for us, it's about making systematic growth a reality that allows business owners to have that freedom that they're after and the lifestyle they want.

Omer (42:51.440)
Love it.
All right, it's time for our lightning round.
I'm going to ask you seven questions.
Just try to answer them as quickly as you can.

Clate Mask (42:58.360)
Ready?

Omer (42:59.800)
What's the best piece of business advice that you've ever received.

Clate Mask (43:04.600)
Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.

Omer (43:08.440)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?

Clate Mask (43:12.760)
Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale.
For the same reason that that's the best piece of advice I've ever gotten.
It's about what you think.

Omer (43:19.800)
Great book.
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?

Clate Mask (43:26.910)
Grit.

Omer (43:28.430)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?

Clate Mask (43:35.470)
I have something called a pocket coach that comes from strategic coach from Dan Sullivan.
It keeps me focused on my life plan, my three year plan, my one year plan, my quarterly plan, my weekly and daily.

Omer (43:50.110)
What's a new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the extra time?

Clate Mask (43:57.480)
I don't think about that.
All I think about is helping more small businesses.

Omer (44:03.240)
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?

Clate Mask (44:10.680)
I have six kids, including three that are in college.

Omer (44:17.880)
Wow.
Yeah.
No, I came across that when I was researching.
It was like, because when you wrote that book and let me just.
What was the title of the book again?
Yeah.
And the sort of whole concept of like balancing purse personal work life and still being an entrepreneur and then saying, oh, by the way, I think, you know, I built this company and I have six kids.
I think that adds a lot to your resume.

Clate Mask (44:42.260)
Yeah, yeah, it's.
It's pretty, you know, I'm a crazy.
I got all, I've got a million hacks, you know, on how to do that and constantly working at it.
But I think that that's, you know, part of the thing most people don't understand or realize.
And I think it's also the thing that helps me to and drives me to be productive and efficient.

Omer (45:02.370)
Awesome.
And finally, what's one of your most important passions outside of your work?

Clate Mask (45:08.690)
Gosh, hate to be redundant, but it is family.
I mean it's my kids, it's my wife.
My wife's amazing.
My six kids are incredible.
One just got married, so I now have a daughter in law, but it's my kids.
Our passion is spending time together, doing fun vacations and just laughing and having a good time together.

Omer (45:27.090)
You don't look old enough to have.

Clate Mask (45:29.650)
I'm not.
I know it.
I'm 44 and I've got a 22 year old that just got married.

Omer (45:37.650)
Wow.
Wow, Clay, thank you.
It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you and I'm glad we were finally able to do this.
And you really have a truly inspiring story.
I love Having had the opportunity, sort of explore some of the early years.
And I know that that's going to be a source of motivation and inspiration for a lot of people who are maybe, you know, in similar stage right now and trying to figure out their path and getting their breakthrough.

Clate Mask (46:07.560)
Yeah, I appreciate what you're doing.
I know that, you know, people don't realize how lonely business ownership is and entrepreneurship.
It's why we do the Small Business Success podcast.
It's why we do what we do at infusionsoft.
It's why we do Icon, which is just, you know, an amazing event for people to come together.
We'll have thousands of entrepreneurs there that are, that are, you know, sharing their passion and ideas for what they do.
But I appreciate what you do to help to help entrepreneurs be successful because it's tough.

Omer (46:34.920)
Thank you.
Thank you.
And I'm going to include links to obviously infusionsoft.com that folks go check out, as well as the Small Business Success podcast and Icon as well.
If folks want to get in touch with you, what's the best channel for them to do that?

Clate Mask (46:53.850)
You know, the best way is to send me an email.
Claytonfusionsoft.com they can always do that or they can go, they can submit questions for the Small Business Success podcast.
So a lot of times people have questions and they want me to mentor or help them out.
And what I usually do is point them to the Small Business Success podcast to submit their questions there, and then my co founder and I will answer them on the podcast.

Omer (47:18.130)
Awesome.
I love it.
Clay, it's been a pleasure.
Thank you.

Clate Mask (47:21.250)
Thanks so much, Omer.
Appreciate it.

Omer (47:22.850)
Cheers.