SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders 833: SaaS: Almost Broke, Pivots 2013, Now $5m+ in ARR in Social Hashtag Tracking Space
Nov 4, 2017
21:49
Tim Sae Koo. He's a 26-year old, LA-based native residing currently in San Francisco, California. He's dreamed to become the first Asian American president of the United States to solve impactful problems with a purpose. He found his legacy rules to be inefficient. He studied entrepreneurship at University of Southern California and graduated early to naively start a company and fulfill his original life mission. His company is TINT.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – Delivering Happiness
- What CEO do you follow? – Mark Cuban
- Favorite online tool? — Wunderlist
- 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? – "It's okay to make mistakes because that's how you're going to learn"
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:53 – Nathan introduces Tim to the show
- 02:26 – TINT is a marketing software platform that works with B2C brands
- 02:37 – They help source the best customer content on social media
- 03:11 – TINT is SaaS based
- 03:19 – ACV is from $1K to 5K a month or $12K to $60K a year
- 03:31 – The variations in price depend on different options including the number of hashtags to track
- 03:58 – They have a high base price
- 04:14 – The moderation feature can also be included using manual moderation or machine-learning
- 04:41 – TINT was launched in 2013
- 04:48 – TINT is completely bootstrapped
- 05:00 – Tim raised $370K for the previous company before pivoting to TINT
- 05:18 – The initial product was a consumer application and the market was quite saturated—this led to the pivot to TINT
- 05:55 – The initial company was getting zero revenue with 5K users and 3 team members
- 06:35 – Tim and the founders were paying themselves $36K a year
- 06:54 – Tim worked while he was still in college
- 07:35 – Keep your expenses low
- 07:44 – TINT's team size is around 30
- 07:52 – TINT currently has 700 customers
- 08:23 – Average MRR is around $700K
- 08:50 – 2017 goal is to get around $7.5M in revenue
- 09:15 – 2016 ARR is around $5M and cash basis is around $6M
- 10:08 – Current ARR is around $5.5M
- 10:30 – Tim hasn't raised capital yet because he thinks he won't be a good CEO if he does that
- 10:36 – Tim identifies himself more as a founder than a CEO
- 11:32 – TINT has always been profitable
- 12:16 – CAC is around $2K
- 13:00 – TINT is still figuring out the best channel for them to invest more
- 13:38 – Paid ads is $10-15K a month
- 14:10 – In the beginning, Tim used to acquire more customers by offering to draw any animal
- 15:20 – The main idea is to make something that can bring a smile to someone's face and that will help them remember Tim
- 15:35 – Team members are based in different states and other countries like Dubai, Brazil and London
- 15:50 – There's now a big push for a technology investment in Dubai
- 16:23 – Tim is now paying himself something modest, but nothing too grand
- 16:39 – Tim has two co-founders and half of the company is owned by the team; the other half for investors
- 17:35 – Tim shared how he started entrepreneurship and his plans for the future
- 18:20 – Tim might consider a $30M acquisition at the moment
- 20:10 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- The most successful in the entrepreneurial world are not the ones who know how to expand their revenue; they are the ones who know how to reduce their expenses.
- Think about how you can make people happy—this will make you memorable.
- Be the leader, not the boss.
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