SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders 848: SaaS: Wistia Video King? $10m+ ARR, 10k+ Customers on Just $1m Raised!
Nov 19, 2017
20:58
Chris Savage. He's the CEO and cofounder of Wistia, a leading video platform that enables business teams to harness the connective power of video. They help over 400K businesses connect better with their customers using video as the medium.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – Masters of Doom
- What CEO do you follow? – Ben Chestnut
- Favorite online tool? — Quip
- How many hours of sleep do you get?— 8
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Persistence is the difference between success and failure"
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:51 – Nathan introduces Chris to the show
- 02:17 – Wistia is a SaaS business
- 02:20 – Wistia is a platform where you can upload your videos and customize them for your site
- 02:49 – Wistia charges based on the number of videos
- 02:55 – ACV is $100 a month and it's 25 cents per video
- 03:38 – Wistia is already 11 years old
- 04:09 – Wistia didn't make money their first year
- 05:08 – Chris and his cofounder needed at least 15K a month to live
- 05:55 – Wistia made a mistake when they weren't charging based on the storage
- 06:35 – Chris explains their decision to change their pricing
- 07:04 – Gross margin is in the 70s
- 07:43 – Total number of customers
- 08:00 – Wistia still has a free trial for 3 videos
- 08:05 – There are a few hundred thousand free users
- 09:21 – One the best things Wistia offers is inspirational and useful content for free accounts
- 10:05 – Wistia gets 15% of direct, attributable conversion from free accounts
- 10:30 – Wistia has raised two rounds with a total of $1M
- 11:09 – "We are very focused on long-term"
- 11:29 – Chris wants Wistia to be less complex for users
- 12:27 – Customer churn is 1.6% a month
- 12:47 – On a unit economic basis, Wistia is consistently expanding
- 13:11 – LTV is approaching $5K
- 13:20 – CAC
- 16:00 – Stretch goal in December of 2017
- 16:09 – Wistia is focused on profitability
- 17:06 – Wistia is doing a more than million dollars a month in revenue
- 17:22 – Wistia has raised less than what they're making monthly
- 18:50 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- Changing the price of your product won't necessarily equate to profitability—balance is the key.
- Converting customers from free to paid takes a lot of testing and patience.
- Persistency is the difference between success and failure.
Resources Mentioned:
- Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
- 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
- GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
- 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