Omer (00:11.440)
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 Week's episode is a story about a sales guy who had an idea for a SaaS startup.
He realized that there was a lot of time being wasted as salespeople drove from one customer's location to another, and he figured he could make them more efficient.
So he started with a really simple idea.
Take all those customers that a salesperson has to see each day and map them as points on Google Maps.
And that simple idea has grown into a SaaS business with over 6,000 customers today.
In this episode, we talk about how he came up with the idea, what he did to build that business, and some lessons that he's learned that have helped him grow the business.
So I hope you enjoy it.
Today's guest is the co founder and CEO of Badger Maps, a sales routing software that helps salespeople be more successful.
The product enables sales reps to map their CRM customer data, integrate with their calendar, plan routes, and find nearby leads.
Badger maps is a SaaS product and a mobile app.
It was founded in 2012.
The company is based in San Francisco and to date has raised about $1 million in funding.
Prior to founding Badger Maps, my guest worked in sales for companies like IBM, Autonomy, and Google.
And in 2009, he was named Google Enterprise's top performing salesperson in the world.
So today I'd like to welcome Steve Benson.
Steve, welcome to the show.
Steve Benson (01:51.540)
Hey Omer, thanks for having me.
This is great to be here.
Omer (01:54.420)
Now I want to start by getting inside your head a little bit and figuring out what makes you tick.
So what is it that gets you out of bed?
What drives and motivates you to work on your business?
Do you have a favorite quote?
Steve Benson (02:04.500)
I guess more than anything, I really like building a team that's working together to solve a problem that a lot of people have.
And I love talking to the customers and hearing how we've helped their business and hearing them say things like, oh, yeah, I'm selling 20% more because of your product.
We help a lot of small businesses and we have Fortune 500 companies too.
But I think it's those small and medium sized businesses that really appreciate us solving these annoying problems for them.
I think that those relationships are probably the thing that get me out of the bed the most.
And then working with the team that we've built It's a very close knit team and kind of very mission driven to solve these problems.
And we have a lot of fun together.
It's about the people.
For me, my favorite quote is by Teddy Roosevelt.
It's a pretty famous quote.
I think it's a little long, so I won't, I'll shorten it down for you.
But basically he starts out like, oh, it's not the critic who counts.
The credit belongs to the man who's in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.
And that man keeps coming up short again and again.
But with no effort or error or shortcoming, you can't do anything.
You know, basically there are people that are going to do things in the world and that's how you, how you achieve things.
And there will always be critics and people saying, oh, you can.
Oh, that's not going to work.
Or.
And the whole point of the quote, I think at the end was he talks about how like the people who are critics of the people that are actually in, in the arena, in the ring, he's kind of making an analogy to boxing or some kind of fighting.
The critics of those people never know victory or defeat.
If you're in the ring and you're winning or losing, that's what life's all about.
Omer (03:38.540)
All right, so I gave the audience a kind of an overview of badger maps.
But it would be great to kind of hear, in your own words, tell us about the product.
What is it?
What does it do?
Steve Benson (03:48.300)
We help field salespeople do a variety of things.
So, you know, when I say field salespeople or outside salespeople, what that means is the type of salesperson who goes out and meets with their customers face to face.
So they don't work in a store and have their customers come to them and buy clothes, for example, or they don't sit in a call center on the phone and call out to their customers to interact with them.
That way they go to their customers.
And this is really common in pharmaceutical or med device or people that sell beer to bars or dentistry tools to dentists or tires to tire stores, et cetera, et cetera.
But these face to face salespeople that need to go out and meet with a whole bunch of customers, we do a bunch of things for them to make their days more organized, help them focus on the right deals to make the most money, sell the most stuff, build out their day and their schedule.
We have a routing tool and scheduling optimization tools and a bunch of visualization things to help them Stay focused, be efficient.
And there's a whole bunch of things that they were doing kind of by hand with maps and calendars and figuring out who focus on the right people.
And we're kind of put that all into one application that works really cleanly and is on their mobile device, either their tablet or phone.
It's basically we help them do more stuff in a day with less effort.
Type play.
Omer (05:05.920)
For people who aren't familiar with field sales or outside sales, why do they need something like a badger maps?
What is the problem that these people sort of experience or have been experiencing before they were using a product like this?
Steve Benson (05:24.200)
These folks are super mobile.
Like, imagine yourself as someone that sells some type of tooth cleaning tool to dentists or beer to bars.
You cover a territory.
So maybe you cover the Bay Area and you work for a company that makes the beer or makes the equipment and your job is to go out and meet with the thousand dentists or the, you know, there's, I don't know how many, I don't even know how many restaurants there must be in the bay area, but 10,000 restaurants who can serve beer.
And your job is to interact with the decision makers at these places to maximize sales of your company's product into this area.
So how do you determine who to focus on and who to see who to spend your time with in the next week, month?
If you are this person that has these,000 dentists or 10,000 restaurants, it's very hard to focus in given that it's different than just creating a list where if you were just calling them on the phone, you could just have a list of, okay, I organized them and sorted them and this is the order given these characteristics, who's the most important.
But if you're actually moving around in the world, if you're actually mobile and meeting with these people face to face and dropping in and saying hi and building relationships face to face, then you need to say, well, I'm going to be out in this suburb tomorrow or next Thursday at 2pm for this meeting.
Who else is important that's along the way out there that I should be seeing who's on the way back?
What if I came back this way?
And how does that change what I should be doing these other days of the week?
And they kind of have to design their whole schedule and where they're going to be geographically or, you know, on the map.
And they have to do this all the time.
And historically they've had their data in a system and so we integrate with those systems like traditionally CRM systems, and before CRMs it was Rolodexes, et cetera, Just stacks of cards.
So we integrate with the CRM system so we have access to who are your customers.
We built the thing on top of a map so we know where they are and we can show them to you.
Then we give you tools to manipulate them and figure out, okay, who should I focus on?
And then we give them tools to build a route, schedule out their day, things like that.
They always had to do this, right?
I mean, 50 years ago, there'd be a sales rep and he's like, these are my.
These are my leads.
It's on the stack of cards.
Here's the map that I'm driving around in my car, going to see them, and here's my little calendar book.
I'm figuring out where I'm going to be when.
And they were just doing all this stuff in their head.
And for nine to 35 bucks a month, depending on which version of our product they get, we do all this stuff for them in two seconds with a computer program.
Omer (07:53.600)
How did you come up with the idea for this product?
Steve Benson (07:57.530)
I was scratching my own itch here.
I mean, my whole career has been in field sales, and my last gig was at Google, and so I was working with the Google Maps API product.
And so I was kind of selling a thing that I was like, oh, if this was, you could use this as a platform to solve a problem that I have now.
I wasn't the exact user, I guess, that I would say, ended up being the type of person that we've really helped the most.
Because when I was at Google, I was meeting with customers face to face.
But like, a big day for me would be like, two meetings in a day would be a lot.
Right.
Like, I wasn't like, really, if you're selling stuff to dentists or restaurants, you're having eight meetings a day.
But I was.
I would fly into Kansas City, meet with one or two people about, you know, during the day, and then fly back to California.
The problem that I was solving was, is useful for someone like that.
Like.
Cause if I had gotten a third, if I had been organized enough to get a third meeting, that would have been great.
But it was really a lot less about the.
As long as it was like a good meeting and focused and like, you know, the right type of person to be meeting with and stuff and just knowing where everyone is around you, I could, I could have filled up my schedule and done a lot more.
Right.
But if you're Doing eight meetings a day and driving around.
Like, there's a lot of inefficiencies in the process that it's pretty easy to get a 20% bump in efficiency and therefore a 20% bump in how much you're getting done.
And that's really at the core of what we're doing, right?
We're helping them someone.
And this is all measurable because these guys all track their miles and they track their sales.
So they can say, yeah, I've started using this product and I now I'm driving less, but I'm getting more meetings and I'm getting more sales.
And so they, we, we've surveyed people and it's like they drive 20% less.
And go figure, they get like 20% more done and they get like 20% more sales.
Basically it's just an efficiency play.
Like, it's just there was some, there are some inefficiencies in their process.
If they're doing it by hand, that if you combine all these things and provide services around it and just have it done all in the little app, then they get, it just becomes more efficient and they get more done.
Omer (09:50.220)
Okay, so the basic idea that you had was you're at Google, you're in enterprise sales, you're going out and selling Google Maps.
You see an opportunity there that could potentially help you in terms of how you could use Google Maps.
But when you went out and you started talking to other salespeople and the research that you did, it was, the opportunity was bigger in terms of the kind of field salespeople who were seeing a larger number of people on a regular basis and being able to basically make their.
The logistics of their day more efficient.
Steve Benson (10:30.320)
Exactly.
That is exactly right.
Omer (10:34.000)
Where did you raise the money to start this business?
Were you kind of just using your own savings or did you kind of go out and rate a friends and family round or.
Steve Benson (10:43.120)
Yeah, well, both actually.
So we raised a friends and family round and then.
And cobbled together some cash that way.
And then both of the founders both invested in the business just from personal savings.
And he had had a background in private equity and I had had a background in working at Google for years.
And just in sales for years.
We both had savings that we could inject into the business to cover its costs and then also didn't need to pull money out of the business for either of the two of us in form of salary so that we had a lot of firepower for the price of zero between he and I.
Omer (11:26.890)
Now, how long did it take you to get the first version of that product built in market.
Steve Benson (11:34.730)
I mean, the earliest version was pretty basic.
We're just putting points in a map, not mobile, just in the browser and showing people, okay, here's your customer base around you.
And that didn't take too long, I mean, six months or something until we had the basic version, but then started to actually do real things that were useful, that was more work.
Omer (12:00.790)
So after six months, you've got basically a web app which people can take data, and you're taking that customer information and mapping it, presumably using Google Maps API.
Did you start charging for the product right away?
Steve Benson (12:16.990)
Yes, yes.
From day one, we charged.
Omer (12:19.630)
And do you remember how much you were charging at the time when you launched?
Steve Benson (12:23.630)
Same as what we're charging now, so 35 bucks a month.
Omer (12:28.110)
So it's interesting that you launched with a fairly basic product after six months and you were charging $35 a month.
And now, I guess five years later, the product has probably evolved a lot and has a lot more functionality in it.
Steve Benson (12:44.200)
Yeah, for sure.
Omer (12:45.720)
I mean, it sounds like you should be able to charge a lot more for it.
Now, if people were willing to just.
If people were willing to pay $35 for you to map some points on Google Maps for them.
Steve Benson (12:55.240)
Right.
Well, so that's.
It's.
Pricing's tricky, though, because some people were willing to pay, so some small segment of the market were willing to pay that.
So we could.
The problem with pricing in software in general is you'll have some customers that would be willing to pay $1,000 a month for the thing that we're doing, and it would still be a slam dunk.
They'll get 10 times the value of that.
But we have other customers that really.
20 bucks a month is.
It's worth 200 bucks a month to them.
So they'd totally be willing to pay 20, but they really wouldn't pay.
They wouldn't pay 100.
So your demand curve is tricky in software, and that makes pricing difficult because you just don't get to scrape every nickel off the table.
Years ago, when I first started in software, there was a lot more of that.
There was like you're selling this CD and it does these things, and you can go to a company who clearly has a lot of dough and sell it to them for a lot more than you could sell it to some small company who maybe didn't need it as much, and it's the same CD to you.
So they were able to price discriminate a lot better back in the day.
But our prices are on the website.
So we just, the person that we're create, the person that we're creating massive value for, we're just leaving a lot of money on the table.
And the person that we, that doesn't need us nearly as much, we're just leaving a lot less money on the table.
But you kind of have to, I believe when you're a small company you're better off having more customers, more people hearing about it, more reach and charging less.
So it's, I don't like if I tripled the prices, I'd make more money, but I'd have a lot fewer customers.
And so that wouldn't help me.
It's not a good long term strategy because it's going to spread around.
By making it cheap, it makes more people use it and therefore more people hear about it and so we'll end up growing faster.
Omer (15:01.690)
How many customers do you currently have?
Steve Benson (15:05.090)
About 6,000.
Omer (15:06.370)
Wow.
Steve Benson (15:07.090)
Okay.
And a lot of those are small companies or you know, individuals.
There's, there's a lot.
This is a product that one, a single salesperson can just start using or a team of 8 people or 12 people can start using or a company that has 50 salespeople can start using or a Fortune 500 company with a ton of field salespeople.
We, they can use it too.
But I guess the bigger companies arguably get more out of it because they get all the enterprise features are really useful to them, more out of it than an individual just because their individual sales people on that team are all getting a lot out of it.
But they're also getting all the managerial features and things that we've put in place to help enterprises for capturing data and bringing it back into their CRM and stuff.
An individual salesperson using this doesn't care about that.
But we have an interesting model because generally you want to go after one or the other.
It's a pain to go after both the small end of the market and the high end of the market.
But the reason we've been able to do it is because the small end of the market, we don't make a ton of money.
It kind of costs us more or less to acquire those customers and set them up and everything.
It costs us about as much as, as, as we make off of them.
So they're not, it's not good business.
However, a lot of times it expands.
So one salesperson starts using this thing.
You know, maybe they're using the, the nine, nine dollars a month products.
We're making 100 bucks a year or maybe, maybe their month.
Maybe they're using the, the, the, the $35 a month products are making 420 bucks a year off of them.
We're not really making a lot of money off of them.
And given how much work that goes into it and all the other things to spin someone up.
But a lot of times then that person's manager is like, oh, how are you doing?
How are you getting so much done?
What's going on here?
What is this thing you're using?
Oh, that's really cool.
Why can't we buy that for the whole team?
I mean, if it's helping you this much, why can't we, you know, wouldn't it help our whole team?
It's like, yeah, of course.
Okay, so now that person's manager buys it for the eight people, eight other people on his team, and then he goes to her, his manager, and she says, oh, wow, well if it's helping your team this much, I mean, why wouldn't help.
You're just managing Georgia and Tennessee.
Wouldn't this help all the regions?
And it's like, yeah, it's worked great for us.
Maybe let's test it with all the other regions.
And so then they get it for all the regions and next.
So now you've got a whole company using it.
And so even though we don't make money on those individuals that come and fall, fall in our laps and you know, we try to keep the cost of acquisition down there.
We try to do a lot with like SEO and help them just find us on the Internet and stuff.
But they, the real value of those single seat players is when they prove out they basically are test cases for the whole business.
So it's a bottoms up, land and expand strategy that works.
Omer (18:02.830)
Yeah, I really like that.
It's almost like you have two ways of making the sale with a business customer.
Either as you just described, the bottoms up approach, where the individual plan now really looks pretty smart.
Because at $9 a month, pretty much any salesperson could look at that and say, you know, it's just nine bucks.
It could potentially help me be more efficient, see more customers close, more sales.
I can get my credit card out right now and I can start using it.
And then it has the benefit of kind of, you know, almost being that word of mouth referral inside the business with other salespeople and the sales team and so on.
And then the other way, I presume you're also doing this is through outbound sales where you can kind of go and try to land a business enterprise customer and get them to buy X number of seats.
So you have sort of a bottom up and a top down approach to doing this.
Steve Benson (19:04.990)
And both have worked for us for large deals.
I mean we've had someone where one sales guy, that whole scenario that I just described, the pure bottoms up play.
And because I saw him using it and being so successful, I was in touch with more their technical team trying to be like, can we make this?
I'd love to have you guys check this out.
It seems like it's good for a few people.
And they're basically like, no, I don't think this is that big of a problem.
This is stupid.
We're not going to deal with this.
We have bigger fish to fry.
But in the meantime, this one salesperson's being really successful.
Then it goes to his team, then it goes to his region.
And then the next thing you know, the, you know, the VP of sales that's over the national is saying, hey guys, I want you to implement this for everyone.
And they're like, oh, I guess this was a big problem.
But, but they didn't know the problem, right?
They didn't understand why it was as big of a deal.
If you're not a field salesperson, you're like, well, why don't they just, you know, use Google Maps?
I don't get it.
This is stupid.
Like you're like, well, it does a lot of things.
Check it out.
There's a reason this is here.
But so we've had, we've had it happen like that.
But then we've also literally had a company where it was literally the CEO that was, that was like, I think this is a problem.
Like he was doing right alongs with the reps and he's like, this is a problem, there's gotta be a solution to this.
And they found one of our competitors and I think he googled it, he found one of our competitors and told his, told someone on his sales operations team, hey, get this, I want it, I want it up and running, I want it in everyone's hands.
And so they, they buy the thing and start trying to put it in everyone's hands.
And they had a rough time with the scalability side of it and with doing it with such a big team, they were kind of, it just wasn't, it wasn't as enterprise focused as it would have needed to be.
And so that person, the person on the team that was deploying it on the ops team, they googled around to figure out who are the competitors of this thing?
What else is out there?
Have they dealt with these enterprise level problems before?
And so he gets on the phone and literally it was someone who answers our phones, comes up to me and she's like, there's someone asking for, I forget it was like a 300 seat deal on the phone.
I think they should maybe talk to you.
And we're still a pretty small company at this point.
So I was like, yeah, okay, I mean I'm through obviously.
And the deal closed.
Literally it was like nine days later.
And so that's an example of it going top down, which obviously compresses the sales cycle and that's fantastic if you can have that level of top down, high level air cover certainly takes a lot longer to organically spread around an organization that literally took a year from when that first salesperson had bought it till the whole company had gotten it.
So, but, but, but both work.
I mean in the end, you know, both are cutting a six figure checks on an annual basis and we love them, right?
So it's, you know, both, both strategies work.
Omer (22:11.860)
So if someone is listening right now, maybe they're a founder, they, they may be in the process of building the first version of their product or maybe they've just recently launched and they're in that position where they're looking to get their first 10, 20, whatever customers.
And now, now they're hearing this and saying, okay, outbound sales, what does that mean to me?
What kind of activities should I be doing on a daily basis?
And I think it will vary depending on the type of business obviously as well, because you might have somebody who's doing outbound and that outbound basically just involves sending emails.
Whereas the other end of the spectrum could be they're selling to enterprise and it means they need to, they actually need to get out of the building, they need to get their foot in the door and see somebody face to face.
But kind of beyond that, what are some of the steps that that person could take to start getting some day to day sales activity going?
Where would they start?
Steve Benson (23:11.270)
Well, it really depends on what are you selling, who are you selling it to?
Who are the decision makers?
Who's getting the value from it?
How much does it cost?
Because people buy things at different price points in different ways.
If you're talking 35 bucks a month, someone doesn't have to, you know, they don't have to call the cavalry to make that decision.
If you're selling something that's a million bucks a year, you know, you've got to be selling to power and talking to the right people.
And it's a long sales cycle, so it really depends on the thing that you're doing.
Omer (23:49.660)
And, but maybe let's, let's maybe think about a product that's maybe similar to where you were with Badger Maps.
So, so you have a product where you can do the out, you can do the outbound, but people could also go there and they'd be happy to pay 35 bucks a month to sign up.
Steve Benson (24:06.030)
Yeah, so.
So I mean the key thing is figuring out, and I guess this is in either of these scenarios, whether, you know, across, across all the different combinations and permutations of this, of these scenarios and of who you're selling to, what you're selling, what the sales is going to be, all these things.
The key is to figure out who needs this the most.
Who is my perfect customer?
What industry are they in?
What is their title?
You should have talked to 50 people like this already.
And you know, 50 people that are like a little slightly different.
And so you should, you're already engaged with these guys to get the feedback on the product and what exactly they need and then, and how do you find, I mean, so you've got to engage with these people and so how do you do that?
Well, you get introductions, you find them on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is a beautiful thing, right?
There's nothing cooler for salespeople in the universe ever or for people trying to drum up business of this nature because you can really zoom in.
It's like, well, this is a product.
My perfect user is in the med device industry selling these types of devices because it's, you know, this is their, their business is special because of this, this and this or this law is affecting them like this.
So they've just, they're the ones that need this more than anybody.
And the title of the decision maker at that type of company.
So here are the.
You can figure out who the hundred customer, 100 companies that are like that, of the right size, just the perfect company that you, that you're creating this thing for.
And then you can turn around and go to LinkedIn and figure out, oh well, this is the person at that company who is doing that exact thing.
And then you can ask yourself, well, who do I know that can introduce me to someone at this company?
And LinkedIn shows you that too, right?
So you can get introductions to these people.
You can reach out to them directly through LinkedIn.
You can figure out their email and email them directly.
You can just call them Directly, you can call the company and ask for them.
Right?
And.
And if you are solving.
If they really have a head wound and you are really solving it, then they will take the call.
The second they're like, oh, you're gonna try to solve this issue?
This is my issue, man.
I can't sleep at night because of this issue.
This is my biggest problem.
If that's the case, they'll return your call.
They'll get on the phone with you, And a lot of times you're asking them for feedback.
You're kind of describing their exact problem and saying, I'm trying to solve this problem for people like you with technology.
And I'd love to just pick your brain for 15 minutes to see exactly what you would want such a solution to look like.
And they're like.
Because of your expertise in the area, and they're like, oh, well, I really want this solved.
I want to hear what this guy has to say.
This is a big problem for me.
If they won't get on the phone with you, then it's not a big problem for them, and you're barking up the wrong tree.
Omer (27:09.810)
And is that the approach you took in the early days with badger maps?
Like you were reaching out to these people and kind of focusing more on getting feedback than trying to make a pitch?
Steve Benson (27:21.220)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because you want to understand it, and you don't have a thing to pitch yet anyway.
And so you're kind of getting their feedback, and then you're saying, okay, well, I hear you.
This is what we're going to build.
When I build it, would you know, when I build it, if I can show it to you and let you try it and it works and stuff, would you buy it?
And that's a key.
That's a key.
It's key to ask that question because people will tell you, your baby's pretty all day and say, oh, yeah, this is really cool.
Oh, I'm so glad someone's looking at this.
Very, very cool.
Oh, would you buy it?
Oh, no, I wouldn't buy it.
Because of xyz.
You have to understand that xyz.
And you have to.
So you should be talking to way more people like this than anyone understands.
I think that's one of the keys to getting one of these companies off the ground, is you've got to solve a problem that a lot of people have.
But now you have to start talking to all those people to let them know the solution to this problem is coming, and you get to play a part in what it's going to look like and give me feedback.
And frankly, they ask for the same things anyway.
If you are solving a big problem that a lot of them have, they're all like, oh, I would love it to do this and I would love to do that and I would love to do this.
And you're like, that is exactly what we're building.
So I'll circle back to you once it's built.
And then you circle back and a good chunk of them will.
Will actually, certainly if you, if you actually ask the questions right and got.
Got truthful answers out of them, they'll, they'll buy it.
Omer (28:44.640)
And once you had launched the product, how did that approach change when you, when you sort of reached out to new people?
Steve Benson (28:51.440)
Well, then, then you're reaching.
The, the big change is you're reaching out saying, I have solved this problem and these people that are like you are using it and getting these results.
And that's a different conversation than, hey, I'm, I'm considering solving this problem.
So it's more about letting them know, hey, I believe you have a problem and this, and I believe I've solved it.
Check this out.
Here's our website, here's a demo.
Would you like to get on the phone and talk about how we've done this and check it out?
I'd love to.
You can still ask them for their feedback on it, but you can be like, I'd love to get your feedback on if this would be really useful in your industry or in your company.
And if you are solving a problem, then they want it.
Like, everyone thinks sales is hard, but it's all about focus.
It's all about figuring out it is hard.
Omer (29:37.400)
Unless you're a salesperson.
That's a good point.
Steve Benson (29:40.960)
Well, I guess I've always been in sales, but maybe I'm the wrong person to ask about this, but it's all about finding the exact right person who really has a need to have the problem that you are solving solved and then getting the message in front of them saying, hey, you have this problem, huh?
Well, we solved it.
And if that's, if they do have a problem and if you have solved it, then they want to talk to you.
Omer (30:09.090)
Now, kind of looking back over the last five years and sort of from going to, going from idea to the company and product that you have today, what do you think was one of the biggest mistakes that you've made along the way?
Steve Benson (30:31.720)
Biggest mistakes.
I've made so many mistakes.
I make mistakes every day.
It's amazing.
I'm really good at making mistakes, actually.
So the biggest mistakes, I would say, well, I would have liked to have more money available.
I could have done a lot more with more money.
But raising money is hard and you got to be, you know, you got to have the right characteristics for, you know, for someone to really give you a meaningful slice of cash.
They're, you know, they're.
It's difficult.
Raising money is its own art.
So.
But I guess the, my biggest mistake was probably around not hiring the, not hiring the right people.
Well, hiring the wrong people that were not geared for startup life to, you know, to start the business with and, you know, so bringing the wrong people on board early.
A lot of people think they want to be in a startup and it sounds cool.
Like the, like we've romanticized it.
Everyone thinks it's great.
You know, everyone thinks they're going to be a millionaire.
It just, it's, you know, there are so many great stories and success stories about entrepreneurship out there and it's.
But frankly, most people, it is not a good fit to start a company.
Like, they're just, they're not cut out for.
Takes too long to get something off the ground.
It's too hard.
You have to be able to wear too many hats.
You have to be able to put it all on the line and be.
Will you have to.
There's a very high probability that you will fail and you have to be comfortable with that.
And that's a real.
A lot of the people, frankly, that would be.
Be great entrepreneurs and are really talented people.
One problem with them is they haven't failed much.
They're the kind of people that are like, you know, yeah, I was always really smart in grammar school and then I went to high school and I was in the smart group and got great grades and I went to a great college and you know, I've always my every, you know, from when I was flipping burgers in high school until now that I'm 30, I've always had, you know, every boss has thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
And I went to graduate school here and I'm super, super smart and super, super talented.
One problem is that person maybe has never failed at anything in their life.
And you're putting them out there saying, hey, now you're going to do this thing and give it your.
And there's a 90% chance you're going to fail and it's going to feel like you're failing the whole time.
And by the way, you're going to have to work harder than you've ever worked before.
And I know you thought you worked hard in that consulting job, but that was easy, man.
That's nothing.
And you know, and they're just not geared for how long it takes, how hard it is, and what the constant and ever present stress that it puts on your life, your family, your friends, your everything.
And that was definitely my biggest mistake in starting this business is bringing people on board who, you know, super talented people.
And by any means anyone would look at him and say, oh, great hire.
That guy's a rock star.
But you've got to be a rock star who's geared for this because most people aren't.
Omer (33:55.700)
I mean, just kind of, you know, with your background and Google and companies like that, I mean, if, I don't know if you were, but if you're hiring people who come from that type of environment, they're used to a very different type of experience, right?
They've, they're dealing with products that are a lot more mature.
They're used by millions of people.
It's much easier to, to mention Google and get your, you know, get into the door to see somebody and then you kind of go into a completely different environment.
You're in a startup that no one's heard of.
The product is, is still in kind of early stages and is evolving and, and you're not really sure in terms of whether you've completely nailed it.
And so it introduces a whole new set of challenges.
I'm kind of curious, like, what have you done to address that?
Like, how do you hire differently now to make sure you're getting the right people in?
Steve Benson (34:50.620)
I don't have to anymore.
We're already over the hump.
The, it's, it's the first it's in, it's getting over the hump that's so hard.
You know, once, once you've got money rolling in the door, you've got a ton of, you've got investment and things are going well and you're, it's, there's starting a company which is going from zero to one is the, you know, zero to getting the train moving a little bit and getting all the pieces together and figuring it all out.
That's, that's the really hard part.
If you're doing a million bucks a year in revenue and you got a bunch of customers under your belt and the product is working 75% of the time, that's, that's still hard obviously, when you're at that stage.
But it's not the same Thing as actually getting the train moving.
Well, building the train, putting the wheels in the train and getting.
And then getting it to move its first six inches.
That's that getting it out of the station, basically that.
So, you know, once, once the thing, once the thing's moving, you know, it's you.
You don't have to be nearly as picky.
And I guess the problem is it's easy to identify who can be a great employee.
It's hard to identify who can be a great founder because a lot of people that.
It's just there's so much that goes into it.
Omer (36:12.380)
And how big is the team right now?
Steve Benson (36:15.500)
About 50 people.
Omer (36:17.580)
Wow.
Steve Benson (36:18.460)
So we're out of the station and the train's been moving up the hill.
We're not, we're not at the top of the hill or anything.
We haven't crested and it's really not going downhill, but.
So we're still working hard, but the train's moving and it's out of the station.
Omer (36:36.030)
Okay, let's get onto the lightning round.
I'm going to ask you seven questions.
Just try to answer them as quickly as you can.
You ready?
Steve Benson (36:42.670)
I'm ready.
Omer (36:43.790)
What's the best piece of business advice that you've ever received?
Steve Benson (36:52.360)
Man, I've gotten a lot of great business advice.
Well, you know, when I was about 13 or 14, buddy of my father, really successful guy, Bill Moran, who had kind of built a real estate empire from the ground up.
And I was kind of doing a ride along with him that my dad had set up, you know, going around, seeing the pieces, just going, following him around all day, you know, just hearing him say things and see what he does and, you know, he kind of goes around to different buildings that he owns or is considering buying and doing this, does this and that, thinks about this and that, you know, to create value for himself.
And piece of advice he gave me was never work for anyone else, only work for yourself.
Because even though it's harder and it sucks at first, all the value you create is yours.
And that really stuck with me after business school.
I actually didn't take that advice for most of my career.
After business school, I wanted to IBM, which is the opposite of that.
And then I worked for a bunch of other big companies too, but I did always have that rolling around in the back of my mind.
Even if it's harder and even if you.
The upside's yours.
I did some really cool things at different parts of my career at different companies and created a lot of value.
I was good employee I think on the balance.
But all that value that was created went to those companies.
I didn't receive any of it, basically.
Although I did get some pretty trophies.
But, you know, like, it's like I made you 10 million bucks.
So thanks for the trophy, man.
Omer (38:41.820)
You know, it's really interesting because at probably at the age of 18, I knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur.
I wanted to do my own thing.
And yet I spent the next 20 years working for companies like Disney and Microsoft.
Right.
So it's kind of funny how it's so easy to, you know, maybe not take the path that you intuitively know that you want to kind of take.
Yeah, but you know, some of us take longer to get there than others.
But let's keep going.
Steve Benson (39:17.900)
Yeah, and you've got to have the right idea and you've got to be at the right stage in your life.
I mean, you know, it's there, there's, there's a lot of, I'm not a guy saying, hey, you got a sweet job, sweet gig at Microsoft or Disney, great companies to work at, Google, whatever.
There are a lot of great companies in the world, not just the big ones.
I think there's a lot of great small companies.
If you've got a great gig and you're thinking about jumping out of it and starting something, I would always advise people to think twice and three times and maybe 10 times because there's a very good chance that risk adjusted, you're better off where you are.
Omer (39:49.720)
Yeah.
Steve Benson (39:51.240)
I think people romanticize starting companies and it's, it's 8 to 12 times harder than anyone can imagine if they haven't done it.
Omer (40:01.010)
Yeah.
And a huge emotional roller coaster as well.
Steve Benson (40:04.610)
Yeah.
Omer (40:05.490)
Okay, let's keep on going.
So what book would you recommend to our audience and why?
Steve Benson (40:11.090)
I guess it depends what stage you're at.
I'm reading a book called Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss.
And that's kind of a cool book for anybody to read, I guess.
Just kind of ideas.
And he does these long interviews with really interesting people and he tries to pick out what is interesting, what are they doing different, what tools are they using, what are their secrets, kind of what makes them tick.
And then he does a little brief, you know, the whole book is just a whole bunch of little brief things talking about, you know, these things that he learned from these quote unquote, titans.
Catchy name too, Tools of Titans.
But that's cool.
But if you're in my industry, if you were a SaaS company or anything kind of like that.
And you were an entrepreneur.
I would say the Jason Lemkin book.
Lemkin and Aaron Ross wrote it, I guess co wrote it together somehow.
But impossible to inevitable I think is a really, you know, the.
Certainly if you're in, if you're in a SaaS business and you don't read it, it's a huge mistake.
Omer (41:22.030)
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?
Steve Benson (41:28.350)
Grit.
If you, I mean if you, if you can't trade, trade body blows with anybody, you're going to be in trouble.
You need your, your thin, your skin just has to get thicker and thicker and, and you know, you've got to be able to grind things out and do things the hard way and be resourceful and you know, if it's.
That's probably the most important thing.
There are lots of people that are, I'd say if you're gonna be an entrepreneur, there are lots of people that can be smarter than you and there are lots of people that can be better educated, you know, better, better equipped, better background to do something more perfect fit.
But in the end it's I think to get something to get the train moving those first six inches.
It's just a lot of elbow grease and a lot of grit.
Omer (42:26.580)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?
Steve Benson (42:35.890)
I do kind of a stupid thing right now.
Well, I don't know.
I write down, I put on my calendar, on a recurring calendar entry, the most important things that I want to get done.
And I just keep re saving the calendar entry so it changes all the calendar entries following it.
But obviously it's just a to do list of like, but like I have a to do list that's separate.
But it's like these are the things that I really want to be doing like now, like tomorrow, like today, like this week.
And so I'll toss things on there and that's.
I try to focus on those things first and get those things done first.
So I think it's like a lot of systems, right?
It's like, oh, make sure you're doing what's important and urgent, not what's urgent and not important.
You know, do what's important and not urgent before doing things that are urgent and not important.
But I kind of, I kind of.
So I have that framework in my mind and I put the things that are really, that I really, really want to get done right away, like, you know, on that list.
And I'm always accessing it and changing it.
I mean you could do it, you could do it in a Google Doc.
You do it anywhere.
But I just like leaving it on my calendar because I have it in the beginning of the day and I've got it in red staring at me.
So I try to jump on that stuff first and just keep updating it.
Omer (43:53.490)
What's a new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the extra time?
Steve Benson (43:59.710)
Oh, I have a lot of ideas.
I always tell friends that are, I know, are kind of snooping around the entrepreneurial world.
I always just like pass them off to them.
I'm like, hey, here's the thought.
I can't do it.
I think there's a lot of opportunity around the tracking marketing space right now.
Like, people spend marketing on a ton of things and I think some of the things they're spending money on is a waste.
And some of it, they don't know how good it is and they should be spending more money on it.
And I think just figuring out people misattribute a lot of their marketing spend.
They're like, oh, this is.
I'm spending all this money on this and it's great, it's totally working.
Or I bought this or I did that.
It's fantastic.
But it's really hard to dig into the data and actually figure out.
I think some things are more fantastic than people realize and some things are less fantastic.
And using, using tracking tools and data to figure out what's what.
I think there's a bunch of cool, A bunch of cool opportunities around that space.
Omer (45:02.450)
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?
Steve Benson (45:11.490)
Interesting or fun?
Interesting or fun?
So I really like dogs.
I.
That's.
Dogs are interesting and fun to me.
I have a, I have a Pomeranian, which is like a little fluffy ball of.
They're terrible dogs, but they're really cute and they're like lap dogs.
But so that's, I guess that's.
We have a dog friendly office mostly because I like dogs.
So I don't know, I don't know if that's a very interesting.
I don't know if that's an interesting fact, but I think it's kind of.
Dogs are fun.
Omer (45:51.640)
Dogs are fun.
Yeah.
All right.
And finally, what is one of your most important passions outside of your work?
Steve Benson (46:00.360)
Passions outside of work.
So I guess the.
I'm very interested in dogs being pushed, separated from their owners because of laws that, that people renting apartments and stuff are not allowed to keep dogs, like people move or something and now they can't bring their dog to the next place, and so they have to give it up to a shelter to be euthanized.
That really annoys me.
So I'm very interested right now in the legal landscape that allow and what people have as rights as renters to.
To be able to keep their.
To be able to keep their dogs.
That.
That's.
That's interesting to me.
Omer (46:46.930)
All right, cool.
You made it through the lightning round.
Steve Benson (46:50.690)
That was intense, man.
Blister.
Omer (46:52.530)
Totally.
A lot of.
A lot of pressure there.
Okay, Steve, thanks for joining me and sharing your.
Your story of.
Of Badger Maps and, and also, you know, your.
Your expertise around sales and hopefully, you know, some insights that you shared will help somebody listening in terms of taking their SaaS business to the next level.
If people want to find out more about Badger Maps, they can go to badgermaps.com badgermapping.com yeah, I realize that because you own badgermaps.com which redirects to badgermapping.com.
Steve Benson (47:30.240)
yeah, well, that's because we.
Omer (47:33.140)
We.
Steve Benson (47:33.620)
Someone else owned badgermaps.com and we had to get the trademarks and stuff before we could.
Then we could take it from them, which is a pain.
But we did that.
But now we haven't actually flipped over to using the right domain, but we'll do that eventually.
Just Google Badger Maps if you're looking for this.
And I'm easy to find.
I mean, I'm on LinkedIn and stuff.
If you just can just Google Steve Benson Badger, and I'll come up.
But so that's.
That's how to find the company and how to find me.
And if any of your listeners are field salespeople or, you know, a lot of times, A lot of times entrepreneurs need to.
Need to do some things like this to get the ball rolling.
Like they need to be field salespeople for a little while.
Like, they actually go out and get in front of people to drum up interest and stuff.
So if that's.
If.
If that turns out to be the case for you, just mention the name of the podcast here.
And when you get in touch with the people over here that help customers get going, they'll give you two months free of the product because I'm always looking to pay it forward for other entrepreneurs.
Omer (48:45.630)
All right, sweet.
Thanks for that.
It's great.
Steve Benson (48:47.630)
Yeah, absolutely.
Omer (48:48.670)
Okay, well, thanks for making the time to join me today.
Love to hear the story of Badger Maps, and I wish you and the team all the best in the future.
Steve Benson (48:59.150)
Thanks.
Well, this has been fantastic.
I really enjoyed it.
Omer (49:03.150)
Awesome.
Cheers.
Steve.
