693: How to 3x SaaS Revenue in 8 Months from $25k to $85k

Victor Levitin. He's the CEO of CrazyLister and last time he was at The Top was in late 2016. His company, Crazy Lister, has passed 2K customers, about 600K raised and about 30K in 2015 revenue. Each customer pays about $15 in monthly revenue. They've passed 25K in MRR with about 3% gross customer churn each month. They are based mainly in Tel Aviv with their team of 8.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About The Hard Things
• What CEO do you follow? – Jason Lemkin
• Favorite online tool? — Intercom
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Start with SaaS, everything else does not compound"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 00:44 – Nathan introduces Victor to the show
• 01:25 – CrazyLister is the easiest way to create high-converting, mobile-optimized product listings for eBay
• 01:36 – Investors call CrazyLister, the Wix for eBay
• 01:49 – CrazyLister closed the door on their Tel Aviv office and focused on just working
• 02:14 – CrazyLister has recently hit $1M in ARR
• 02:38 – CrazyLister just passed 3.5 paying customers
• 03:13 – CrazyLister's growth is a combination of several tactics and strategies
• 03:26 – CrazyLister now nailed paid acquisition
• 03:47 – CrazyLister managed to get their CAC to LTV ratio to 1:8
• 04:01 – CrazyLister is spending $15K a month for paid acquisition
• • 04:10 – To acquire a new customer costs $80
• 04:29 – CrazyLister is trying every paid acquisition
• • 04:41 – CrazyLister is now focused on Google AdWords which is working quite well for them
• 04:58 – CrazyLister couldn't make it on Facebook
• 05:31 – CrazyLister targets specific customer needs in retail
• 06:15 – Victor has been in California for 2 months to discuss the future of CrazyLister
• • 06:40 – Victor came to the conclusion that with the growth that they have experienced, raising a big VC round wouldn't be healthy for them
• 07:06 – Victor now focuses on making e-commerce easier for retailers
• 07:17 – CrazyLister will first prove traction beyond eBay then raise a not-so-big round to sustain growth
• • 07:35 – It will be between $1-2M
• 07:40 – Current team size is 10
• 07:53 – CrazyLister just hit cash flow positive in March
• 08:03 – CrazyLister doesn't really need capital, but wants to grow beyond eBay
• 08:48 – CrazyLister now has 3 plans: $9/month, $25/month and $45/month
• • 09:04 – The best customers for CrazyLister are the highest paying ones
  • 09:35 – CrazyLister tries to understand their customer even before they upgrade
• 10:24 – As CrazyLister adds more features and updates, they increase their pricing
• 10:56 – CrazyLister has developed a feature that is beneficial for businesses
• 11:37 – Victor has 2 co-founders
• 11:51 – There are 3 main pillars in CrazyLister
• • 11:55 – Victor and Max, the co-founder, are the business pillars
  • 12:06 – The second pillar is the CTO
  • 12:25 – The third pillar is the paid acquisition expert
  • 12:45 – The paid acquisition expert is a full-time employee
• 14:00 – When CrazyLister began with paid acquisition, their budget was only $5K
• • 14:08 – As the data becomes better, they've raised their budget as well
• 15:34 – CrazyLister now wants to replicate what they did to eBay to other channels
• 15:50 – 2016 total revenue
• 16:40 – As a seller/business, you constantly need to add listings on eBay, so there's a considerate need to use CrazyLister
• 17:03 – Gross churn per month
• 18:38 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Focus in on your goals, then see if you can raise a bigger round.
• Paid acquisition, if done well, can get you new customers consistently and help grow your company.
• Let your pricing reflect the valuable updates and developments you make to your product.

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