Market Metrics: Reduce Time Spent On Non-Billable Work and Focus On What Matters
By: Dan Stein
Tags: Founder Interviews, Startup Life, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, Startup Founders

Interview with Nick Swekosky, CEO of Market Metrics

Interview with Nick Swekosky, CEO of Market Metrics

Tell us about your business. What do you do?

Market Metrics is software that enables marketing professionals to do their reporting and analysis in minutes, instead of using spreadsheets or BI software to do so in hours.

What is your startup’s origin story?

While working on another startup in the fall of 2018, a common issue we heard from marketing professionals was the inability to leverage data from multiple sources to make more informed decisions. We created a prototype in a week and made a $300 annual subscription sale by Friday. Shortly after, we shut down the other startup and began working full time on Market Metrics

Had you been involved in the industry before this startup? What is your background?

Yes. Prior to this, we were working on a marketplace that made it easy for consumers and marketing teams to connect through event experiences. Feedback from interviews with marketing teams ultimately led to our “lightbulb moment”.

What’s unique about your company? What are the key differentiators between you and other players?

All dashboards, charts, and KPI’s can be created in seconds by simply clicking a button and authenticating with a 3rd-party source. In addition, users can customize their view or blend and filter data by using simple web forms instead of advanced analysis features. The one-click data connectors and form widgets are the key differentiators compared to other players.

Take us through a day in your life. What does the typical day look like?

At 5AM, 12PM, and 5PM, I respond to work emails.

From 6AM to 7AM, I workout, shower and prepare for the day.

From 7AM to 12PM, I attend meetings, work on new features, or answer customer service questions.

12:30PM — 1:00PM: Lunch

1:00PM — 5:00PM: Meetings with stakeholders, existing, and prospective customers

5:30PM — 9:00PM: Evaluate the meeting list and schedule for tomorrow, evaluate notes, and work on features, optimizations, and bug fixes.

What has been the most challenging part of growing your company?

Managing and growing a community. One needs to be open and transparent while continuing to provide value to a community of users that need a solution to their problem. It’s challenging to keep people engaged while controlling the flow of information that will ultimately lead more people down your sales funnel.

What has been your best marketing channel? What are some channels you are looking to explore next?

Public Slack workspaces. We meet people in communities available in public Slack workspaces where we can understand the issues and pain points for members in the community. We build trust by engaging and helping answer questions and ultimately people request to learn more about Market Metrics. The next channels we look to explore include subReddits and Twitter.

What apps do you use that you would recommend to others?

Slack and Trello. With Trello, we can create a public board to show common questions, requested integrations, completed work, new features and optimizations, and reported issues. With Slack, we can provide frequent updates to our community and show GIF’s of new features that are a work-in-progress.

Do you have a book, podcast, or Youtube channel you would recommend to other Entrepreneurs?

https://a16z.com/: They provide great examples of how founders have improved distribution and operations, depending on the company type.

If you could go back in time to the day you founded your company, what advice would you give yourself?

Avoid the tunnel-vision of making sales and focus on creating a community. By being open, transparent, and listening to better understand the pain-points and limitations of others, it will be easy to define what to do and how to improve sales.

What’s something you’ve learned from building your business that someone else can learn from?

If you don’t know where you can get the first 100 users, reconsider your go-to-market strategy before investing time optimizing the product or service.