SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders 789: Google Bought Their Beacons to Distribute Free Wifi in India
Sep 21, 2017
21:53
Sharat Potharaju and Ravi Pratap Maddimsetty, co-founders of MobStac.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – Traction
- What CEO do you follow? – Ed Catmull who wrote Creativity Inc for Ravi
- Favorite online tool? — Rapportive
- How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "That entrepreneurship is a very, very painful journey"
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 02:07 – Nathan introduces Sharat and Ravi to the show
- 02:23 – Sharat and Ravi were classmates since fifth grade and were roommates in college
- 02:53 – MobStac is trying to solve the problem of online to offline device connections
- 03:04 – They use the technology of WiFi, bluetooth and beacons in mobile devices
- 03:17 – Beaconstac is one of MobStac's products
- 03:22 – It is a SaaS-based product that uses Bluetooth beacon technology
- 03:29 – It allows businesses to gather analytics
- 03:34 – It charges monthly
- 03:47 – Beaconstac is MobStac's main revenue stream
- 04:08 – Businesses use bluetooth beacons that can be deployed to physical stores
- 04:18 – Beaconstac's platform can then be used to track marketing and analytics
- 04:27 – Pricing starts at $49 to $99 monthly
- 04:34 – The price will vary depending on the number of beacons deployed in any physical location
- 04:45 – Average cost per beacon is $5 monthly which is on top of the starting price
- 05:25 – Beaconstac has a mixed group of customers, from mom and pop stores to enterprises
- 05:57 – Some would pay $50 a month and $5000 a month for others
- 06:04 – There are currently around 10K beacons deployed in total
- 06:27 – MobStac is a software company
- 07:03 – MobStac has partnered with a Chinese OEM who makes the hardware
- 07:35 – The pay for the hardware is a one-time cost
- 07:40 – "You own the beacons once you pay for the beacons"
- 07:43 – Charge per beacon is $22
- 07:50 – The margin is very small
- 08:07 – They make revenue mostly from the software and not from the hardware
- 08:15 – MobStac was launched in 2010
- 08:24 – It was focused in building products in the mobile space
- 09:20 – After pivoting, first year revenue was not zero but it was small
- 09:35 – 2014 revenue was less than $250K with 10-15 people on the team
- 09:54 – Current team size is 20
- 10:00 – The company is based in Bangalore, India but Sharat goes to New York as well
- 10:17 – Last month total MRR is close to $25K
- 10:22 – Target ARR by the end of 2017 is 500K
- 10:37 – Which was only from the Beaconstac product
- 10:56 – Beaconstac currently has 100 customers
- 11:12 – One of Beaconstac's biggest customer is Google India
- 11:14 – Google has deployed over 2000 beacons at 117 train stations
- 11:28 – It is the largest public Wi-Fi project in the world
- 11:32 – The beacons are used to send notifications and awareness to people who are waiting at the stations
- 11:46 – Sample notification
- 12:20 – MobStac has raised $3.5M
- 13:07 – The strangest customer acquisition strategy they've done
- 14:10 – Google has made the beacon technology compliant with the chrome browser
- 14:23 – Someone who is near a beacon can receive a notification as long as he has a chrome browser and bluetooth on; no need to download an app
- 15:15 – One of their customers is a freelancer who bought a beacon so whenever he goes to an event, the beacon will send a notification to other attendees to market his services
- 15:56 – MobStac isn't spending anything on paid marketing
- 16:01 – Ravi does some content marketing for the company
- 16:37 – Cap table
- 17:31 – Sharat and Ravi still own more than half of the company
- 19:00 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- Don't be scared to pivot if it is for the betterment of your company.
- The easiest and cheapest way to market your product is by using it.
- Entrepreneurship is definitely not an easy route—prepare your mindset for a rough (but worth it) journey.
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