Table of Contents
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This week I talk with Rand Fishkin, Founder of Moz & SparkToro! In this episode we talk about transparency, making community a part of your business, producing content, alternatives to the typical VC route of funding, writing a book, what’s coming with SparkToro and a whole lot more!
Show Notes
- 0:45- Oprah
- 1:54- Traveling for speaking events
- 4:10- Childhood
- 5:00- Being a city person versus growing up in rural Seattle
- 6:38- Accidental entrepreneur
- 7:46- Mom’s business in Seattle- Small business marketing consultancy
- 9:12- Finding college non-educational
- 10:53- How experience with college effected “end goal”
- 12:15- Pitching web design to mom for her clients
- 13:30- Interest in SEO
- 14:30- Starting the SEOmoz blog
- 15:20- Defaulting to making the world of SEO more transparent
- 16:22- Creating content and making it a sustainable activity
- 17:16- Transitioning from consulting to software
- 19:13- Build an audience
- 21:05- “This is making us as much as consulting and we’re not doinganything”
- 22:58- Becoming CEO
- 24:20- Using an early version of Amazon Web Services
- 25:35- “We can do this…right?”
- 27:09- Influence on decisions
- 28:10- Moz’s success and the idea for the community built around it
- 31:30- What held Moz back
- 35:00- Leaving Moz and the transition out
- 37:37- Getting into a funk
- 38:28- SparkToro- Being the face of a company while maintaining ownership and control
- 40:42- The differences in running SparkToro and Moz
- 41:45- Atypical approach to fundraising for SparkToro
- 45:56- Venture Capital is a wealth concentration device
- 47:00- Creating a fundraising format out of nothing
- 48:25- Book writing process for Lost and Founder
- 50:10- Super early days of SparkToro
- 50:55- Filling the niche of audience intelligence with SparkToro
- 52:40- Keeping the company small, being frugal, and keeping the product focus very tight
- 54:55- The next year for SparkToro
