Rand Fishkin

Josh Pigford on February 25, 2019

 

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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

How to reach Rand: Twitter, Email: rand@sparktoro.com

Josh Pigford