691: King of Amazon Pricing Raises $33M, Helping 500 Sellers Make More Money

Victor Rosenman. He's the CEO and founder of Feedvisor. Before founding Feedvisor, he was the founder of an innovative marketing startup and a senior R&D manager at Sun Microsystems. Victor holds a BSc in computer science and an executive MBA from Kellogg Northwestern.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Black Swan
• What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos
• Favorite online tool? — Whatsapp
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-8
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Whenever you make a decision, you need to think a little bit longer"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 00:47 – Nathan introduces Victor to the show
• 01:24 – Feedvisor is a decision support system for large ecommerce vendors that sell through marketplaces
• 02:57 – Most of the e-commerce that joins Feedvisor has significant business on Amazon
• • 03:06 – Before joining Feedvisor, they will be doing marketplace management through Amazon
  • 03:32 – Feedvisor makes the numbers on the marketplace right
• 03:50 – Feedvisor looks into a load of various numbers so they can tell which price is right
• • 04:05 – Stock is almost similar to Amazon where there's competition in prices
  • 04:20 – To look into the numbers and make decisions is tough
• 04:42 – Feedvisor decides more on pricing, replenishment and assortment
• 05:02 – Feedvisor charges a monthly subscription
• 05:15 – Average customer pay is $2-3K a month
• 06:06 – Undercuts is getting information and automated price adjustments
• 06:20 – For every revenue Undercuts gets through the system, they pay a rev share
• 06:40 – Not going through Feedvisor's system will not make sense for the clients
• • 06:49 – "There's no way you'll be fast by doing things manually"
• 06:55 – The rev share is a portion of the entire fee
• 07:20 – Average rev share percentage
• 07:38 – Majority of Feedvisor's revenue is coming from their fixed revenue stream
• 07:45 – Feedvisor was founded in 2011
• 07:55 – Feedvisor was initially bootstrapped for a year
• 08:00 – Feedvisor got an initial seat funding in 2012
• • 08:03 – It was for $500K
  • 08:11 – It was all equity
• 08:15 – To date, Feedvisor has raised $33M
• 08:34 – Feedvisor's funding experience wasn't easy but it was fair
• 08:46 – Feedvisor was initially from Israel
• 09:12 – Israel has a powerful VC ecosystem
• • 09:18 – It's not different than Silicon Valley
• 09:48 – Feedvisor's revenue just before raising a round
• 10:00 – When Feedvisor raised a seed round, Victor didn't know about the e-commerce business
• • 10:16 – Feedvisor was primarily rev share when they started
  • 10:47 – Feedvisor raised funding in Q4
• 11:45 – Victor pitched to the investors slowly
• 12:00 – In the end, Angel investor is much more of a personal business
• 12:55 – The series B was done with a common valuation
• • 13:09 – The common valuation for series B is 60%-150%
• 13:30 – Team size
• 13:40 – Feedvisor has around 500-600 customers
• 14:12 – Average MRR
• 14:57 – Churn is quite low
• 15:50 – Feedvisor is close to net negative revenue churn
• 16:10 – Feedvisor focuses on value
• 16:57 – By optimizing Feedvisor, they create an ROI
• 17:58 – Feedvisor is charging a fair amount and they understand their customers
• 18:55 – Feedvisor finds customers through brand building initiatives and content marketing
• • 19:02 – Feedvisor invests a lot on brand building
  • 19:10 – "When you think Feedvisor, you think it's a reliable solution"
  • 19:34 – Feedvisor does their own conferences
  • 19:47 – Feedvisor creates an environment where people can learn
• 20:21 – Feedvisor has paid $3-4K for content marketing
• • 20:57 – It is about investing into everything that can help you position yourself, not just content marketing
• 21:44 – LTV
• 22:23 – CAC
• 23:45 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• People want their businesses not to just be automated, but also precise at the same time.
• Building your brand creates a great reputation and image for your business.
• Making big decisions requires careful consideration and time.

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