SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders 718: Air Pollution is Deadly, How Isralei Entrepreneur Is Cashing In
Jul 12, 2017
26:42
Ran Korber. He's the CEO and founder of BreezoMeter. His ambition is to improve the health and quality of life for billions of people across the globe by providing accurate and actionable air quality data. It's truly the leading air quality analytic company and one of Israel's top 10 promising startups in 2015 with millions of daily users.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – Zero to One
- What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
- Favorite online tool? — Slack and HubSpot
- How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Keep going, you're doing well"
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:10 – Nathan introduces Ran to the show
- 01:57 – BreezoMeter helps companies to increase user engagement
- 02:38 – BreezoMeter makes the invisible visible by providing highly accurate, location-based, air quality which includes data that can be integrated to any device or technology
- 03:08 – Using BreezoMeter's data, the Dyson air purifier turns on whenever the air quality outside is substandard
- 03:16 – A notification will be sent to the Dyson app as well
- 03:29 – Dyson is BreezoMeter's customer and BreezoMeter tells Dyson's customers about the air purifier
- 03:58 – The air purifier turns on automatically and, as an owner, you want to make sure that the product you bought is working
- 04:37 – BreezoMeter provides a license to their APIs
- 04:53 – Customers pay on a monthly basis
- 04:58 – BreezoMeter is data as a service
- 05:14 – All of BreezoMeter's customers are enterprises
- 05:23 – The customers use BreezoMeter's data in big volumes
- 05:49 – Average monthly RPU is higher than $1K a month
- 06:04 – Ran just read Jason Lemkin's From Impossible to Inevitable
- 06:29 – BreezoMeter broke a million in sales last year
- 06:34 – Ran hopes they'll break $10M in sales this year
- 06:54 – Ran is an environmental engineer
- 07:05 – In 2012, Ran was searching to buy a house for his family
- 07:10 – Ran's wife has asthma and Ran knows how air pollution can have severe health effects
- 07:45 – We all want to protect our families
- 07:51 – Ran asks the bureau of protection and environment in Israel about the place with the cleanest air and they don't have any data that can answer the question
- 08:08 – Together with Ran's colleague, they built the app
- 08:19 – BreezoMeter was founded in 2014
- 08:26 – Team size
- 08:39 – BreezoMeter has raised $5M
- 08:48 – The last round was in July 2016
- 08:57 – The first round was a seed round with $2M
- 09:54 – All of BreezoMeter's investors are approachable and they share the same vision
- 10:12 – Total number of users
- 10:46 – Dyson has an air purifier and you can download the Dyson link app that will show the air quality data
- 12:00 – Customers pay depending on the combination of the features they use and the volume of API calls
- 12:20 – BreezoMeter earns more from their features
- 13:03 – BreezoMeter doesn't disclose their pricing because of their enterprise clients
- 13:48 – BreezoMeter caters to different industries
- 14:13 – CAC
- 15:51 – BreezoMeter raise funds to expand and increase their revenue
- 16:21 – For every sales rep, the revenue is $500K to $1M in annual revenue
- 16:37 – BreezoMeter has 4 sales rep
- 17:01 – The churn is due to some of the companies having medical devices
- 18:30 – BreezoMeter's customers are paying at least $3K a month
- 19:32 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- Air pollution directly impacts our health—therefore, knowing the air quality around us can inform our decisions regarding what products to use.
- A SaaS company that serves mainly enterprise businesses has a possibility of scaling faster.
- Keep on going and believe that you're doing well.
Resources Mentioned:
- The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
- Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
- Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
- Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
- Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
- Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives