Joe Griffin recently left his job of 8 years as co-CEO of ClearVoice, a company that he and co-founder Jay Swanson started in 2014 out of their digital marketing agency business in Phoenix, Arizona. ClearVoice was acquired by Fiverr in 2019 and has been operating as an independent subsidiary since then. Fiverr is now a large public company with a global reach.
ClearVoice was created in the fast-changing web search marketing industry in 2014 out of the need from larger companies for high-quality content to drive their organic website traffic. Joe and Jay previously ran their search marketing agency iAcquire and used profits to self-fund the first ClearVoice platform. They eventually raised a small amount of practical outside funding, including a seed funding round of $1.5M and venture debt of $2M.
ClearVoice is now a leading platform for brands to hire industry-savvy experts to write useful content that is branded for their communities and customers. Thousands of brands and over 10,000 industry specialist creators use ClearVoice to drive organic marketing efforts with high-quality content.
Best quote from Joe:
“I would never recommend to a founder that the path to success is raising money. It can be, but you should only raise it when you have to or when you’re super confident. I think a lot of times people say, Oh, I’ll start a business and I need to go out and raise money to start the business. That’s not true at all.
“You can start a business super cheaply. You need to wear every hat, including the revenue hat for a while, until you establish a level of validity, get to profitability, and make some really strategic hires. And you don’t need to grow that fast unless you have to. I would just avoid raising capital unless you need to.”
In this episode, Joe explains:
- How he had created and sold previous internet marketing agencies and technologies before creating ClearVoice
- The difficult transition of creating and funding the ClearVoice marketplace out of an existing services business
- How they finally found the right mix of marketplace, SaaS software, and services to serve their customers and creators well
- The acquisition by Fiverr before they went public in 2019 and how they operated as an independent subsidiary after that
- Their practical funding with self-funding from their services business, a little angel funding, a small $1.5M seed investment round, and then venture debt before being acquired
- How he led ClearVoice with a co-CEO and how they worked on all big decisions together
ClearVoice Company Facts
- Founded: 2014
- Description: ClearVoice is a marketplace platform for marketing leaders to connect with industry-expert freelance content creators in over 200+ industries to develop high-quality content
- Number of Employees: 60
- Funding: Self-funding from their services business, a little angel funding, a small $1.5M seed investment round, and then venture debt before being acquired
- Acquisition: ClearVoice was acquired in 2019 by Fiverr, a leading on-demand marketplace for creative and development projects. Fiverr (FVRR) went public in late 2019 on the NYSE. ClearVoice is a subsidiary company of Fiverr.
- Location: Phoenix, Arizona
Links
- Joe Griffin on LinkedIn
- ClearVoice on LinkedIn
- ClearVoice website
- Jay Swanson (Clearvoice co-CEO) on LinkedIn
- Album VC
- Cypress Growth Capital
- Fiverr website
- Fiverr stock info
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