Dave Nevogt is on his “third or fourth” online business, he doesn’t really remember. And it is not as if the previous companies have failed, some of those ventures hit $2 million+ in annual revenue. But in David’s words, “a lot of online companies have short life spans”. So David’s e-commerce business and fledging SEO business were eventually made obsolete by Amazon and Google’s changing algorithm. Now on his third—or fourth—David thinks this one will last, but also knows that it really doesn’t matter.

David’s current company, Hubstaff, provides tracking software for remote teams. If you’ve got a remote team member Hubstaff will track the amount of time they worked, take random screenshots, and even measure a user’s “activity rate” to gauge how productive your workforce is. In addition, Hubstaff offers tools to help with payroll, invoicing, scheduling, and all other myriad needs of remote teams. Since being founded in 2012, Hubstaff is now doing well over $1M annual revenue.

Hubstaff decided early on to do something that very few small business do. They publish their metrics. That means that anyone can see how much money Hubstaff makes, how many users they have, and how many folks have cancelled that month. It’s definitely “a little scary”, says David, but it is part of the mission of being transparent. It helps engender trust, and get on podcasts. On the negative side, it can also inspire copy-cat businesses but David says it is all about execution.

David is an absolute zen master when it comes to productivity, digital marketing, and remote team management. In terms of tangible nuggets of advice, David is full of them in this episode. And for those who really want more, we can recommend his website.

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