Danielle Morrill
Co-founder & CEO of Mattermark, known for epic tweetstorms
Discussion
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[deleted user]
@deleted_user
Hi, I’m Danielle Morrill, the CEO and cofounder of Mattermark, a startup company dedicated to organizing the world's business information. Besides my role as CEO and cofounder of Mattermark, I’m an angel investor, poker player, and software developer. I’m also an avid blogger, lover of spreadsheets, and enjoy making graphs about unicorns.
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Ryan Hoover
@rrhoover · Founder, Product Hunt
Danielle! As you know, I've been following you since the Referly days. Mattermark seems to be doing great but the current business focus seems to be selling to a niche: investors. What's your grandmaster plan? What does MM look like in 5 years?
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[deleted user]
@deleted_user
@rrhoover Thanks Ryan! My plan is to build a massively profitable company that organizes the world's business information. More than half of our revenue now comes from non-investor customers, and we are pretty sure organizing the world's business information is something that can useful to billions of people worldwide. In 5 years I'd like to be filing our S-1, but we'll see how it goes.
Daniel Schildt
@autiomaa · Interaction designer
@daniellemorrill Good to hear.
Have you already integrated data from OpenCorporates https://opencorporates.com/ to your set of company details? It might clearly expand the amount of data available from various countries outside of USA.
beltran
@lyricalpolymath · co-founder eyevel.com + berrocal.net
Hi Danielle, again (2nd question) :)
Ever thought of reusing Mattermark's data to make a matchmaking service for startups who are looking for the right investors?
I know startuppers couldn't pay the monthly fee but there might be other solutions)
I've looked in the API and with just a little more it could be possible.
I'm up for a customer dev / brainstorming session on this if you want ;-)
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[deleted user]
@deleted_user
@lyricalpolymath That's a great idea and we have an API that would enable this. If you are looking for additional functionality to make this work drop a note to @bryantsao and we can discuss it!
AD
@danakatit · Partner, AD Ventures
@lyricalpolymath would love to collaborate. we have been checking MM's documentation for similar use case.
Sydney Liu
@sydney_liu_sl · Co-Founder of Commaful
Hey Danielle!
Thanks for doing the AMA :)
Why do you tweetstorm vs. taking the same ideas and putting it on a blog or Medium post?
Thanks!
Sydney
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[deleted user]
@deleted_user
@sydney_liu_sl I'm a bit of a perfectionist about my writing, so I like to tweet when I'm still figuring things out rather than locking myself into a one-sided communication like a blog post. The best thing about tweetstorming is the feedback and conversation it starts. Also, since I invented the "Tweetstorm" concept I like to keep it going :P
Matija Abicic
@matijaabicic · Head of Product Strategy at Sysrepublic
Do you see angel.co as direct competition? What sets you apart from AngelList and what justifies your $600/month value proposition?
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[deleted user]
@deleted_user
@matijaabicic Nope, they are part of the ecosystem we are in and our relationship is similar to that of Bloomberg (where people research, analyze, track, etc.) and NASDAQ/NYSE/etc. where people transact.
Ty Danco
@tydanco · Angel investor
@daniellemorrill @matijaabicic Though to extend the analogy, Bloomberg also does a ton of transactions--not as principals, but facilitating them in order to sell more terminals. Maybe Mattermark some day too?!
Ricardo Reyna
@ricreyna · CTO and Co-founder, Promoter.io
@daniellemorrill Based on MM data, what do you see Series A eligibility increasing to in 2016 for B2B SaaS in terms of MRR and MoM growth?
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[deleted user]
@deleted_user
@ricreyna based on MM data it is hard to say without doing an analysis, but SaaS companies still need > $1M in ARR to raise a Series A from what I'm seeing, and the bar is still going up. Having some amount of sales process in place pre Series A is becoming more common.
Christian Van Der H.
@cvander · Co-founder, Platzi
I like your comments regarding Lifelong learning as the future, that's what we are working on at Platzi. And every time I open Mattermark in my phone, I feel like I’m educating myself more about Silicon Valley and its ecosystem. Do you see yourself as a new source of not only aggregation of sources, but as an Education ecosystem?
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[deleted user]
@deleted_user
@cvander I love this question! Yes, we hope that Mattermark will make some basic questions easier to answer so that people can follow their curiosity where it leads asking deeper and deeper business questions. I think we are fostering a community of inquisitive people, and I'm excited to see that grow. Might be a marketing campaign idea in here re: education ecosystem as some point, too.
SMB
@smb06 · Product Support Engg, Applied Materials
@daniellemorrill Is there a pattern that you see between the successful vs non-successful startups? Anything that stands out as different about those that made it as successful companies?
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[deleted user]
@deleted_user
@smb06 Successful startups build something customers want and are willing to pay for, and they make it their mission to find everyone who would want it. It's amazing to me how often startups a) lie to themselves about the fact that they don't have the first b) get the first but neglect the second until they're completely out of money with an "if we build it they will come" mentality.
Ty Danco
@tydanco · Angel investor
What are your plans for investing in AngelList syndicates or otherwise. Given the success of investor/writer/journalists like Mike Moritz, even to Jason Calacanis and Semil Shah, you'd be the all-time natural
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[deleted user]
@deleted_user
@tydanco I really don't have any plans for that right now. I've made a few investments in the past year but these have all been in friends' companies that are pre-product. With 100% of my net worth tied up in a couple startups, I'm not really looking for additional exposure to the asset class. :P
Jourdan Bul-lalayao
@jourdanb21 · Co-Founder & CTO, Jobox
@daniellemorrill Hey Danielle!
Thanks for chatting with us here on Product Hunt :)!
My question is intentionally vague as I'd love for you to answer based on your interpretation of the question!
If you had only one tip to share with entrepreneurs on how to build a successful startup, what is your absolute #1 tip?