745: At $1.5m Revenue, Is This The New PowerPoint?

Jose Cayasso. He's a growth hacker, co-founder and CEO of Slidebean, 500 Startups alumni, and a frequent flyer miles hoarder.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup and Traction
• What CEO do you follow? – Josh Pigford
• Favorite online tool? — Amy@X.ai
• 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? – Jose would tell himself that he had to quit his day job and create something for himself earlier

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:38 – Slidebean has an office in New York City and Costa Rica
• 01:56 – Slidebean is a web-based tool for making presentations
  • 02:00 – Slidebean focuses on making presentation more efficient
  • 02:20 – Slidebean is a subscription service
• 02:26 – Most of Slidebean's customers are previous PowerPoint users
• 02:38 – Team plans start at $49 a month
  • 02:52 – A single presentation service is also available
• 03:00 – Most of the revenue are from the recurring model
• 03:14 – Jose started Slidebean in 2014
  • 03:25 – Originally, it was focused on end users
• 03:40 – Slidebean shifted to businesses that are doing presentations monthly
• 03:58 – Churn went down from 15% to negative churn in revenue
• 04:15 – Gross customer churn is currently at 3.5%
• 04:42 – Jose tried different measures for Slidebean to improve the churn rate
  • 05:09 – They changed the business model while keeping the subscription and premium value
• 05:28 – Slidebean caters to 2500 paying customers
• 05:45 – Average MRR is around $120K
• 06:06 – Jose is originally from Costa Rica and he's not a fan of outsourcing
  • 06:14 – "I still believe that office collaboration is the best"
  • 06:38 – There's a lot of talent in Costa Rica
• 08:07 – Team size is 22
• 08:17 – Slidebean has raised a small seed round
  • 08:22 – "We're in the break of profitability"
• 08:25 – Slidebean is burning around $25K a month
• 08:43 – Slidebean has raised a total of $850K on a seed round
• 09:08 – CAC is around $150
  • 09:15 – It's quite low because Slidebean competes in SEO
  • 09:22 – Prezi is one of Slidebean's competition
  • 09:35 – Slidebean targets keywords through AdWords
• 09:56 – LTV is around $1000 or 18 months
• 10:39 – Total marketing cost is around $25K-35K including head count cost
• 11:17 – Gross margin is around 75-80%
• 11:53 – 2017 target revenue is $2M
  • 12:03 – They don't need to raise more money at the moment
• 13:00 – 2016 ARR is around $750K
• 15:25 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. A shift in business model can allow your company to grow while still retaining its value and growth.
2. Find the right keywords for your business and use AdWords to target them, it can help lower your CAC.
3. The earlier you create something for yourself in life, the better.

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
• 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