SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders 712: How To Use a Distribution Channel to Get 200 Customers Paying $15k per Year
Jul 6, 2017
23:25
Seymour Duncker. He's the co-founder and CEO of a company called iCharts, the leader in cloud business intelligence and analytics and a seasoned entrepreneur who has been both a consumer and developer of visual analytics. Before founding iCharts, Seymour assisted SAP's senior management in driving the company's product strategy and was an early team member at 2 enterprise software startups before that.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – The Inevitable
- What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
- Favorite online tool? — NetSuite and Salesforce
- How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-7
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Spend a little more time outdoors"
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 02:26 – Nathan introduces Seymour to the show
- 03:12 – iCharts is a cloud-based business and intelligence analytics solution platform
- 03:24 – iCharts is a SaaS model
- 03:36 – iCharts partners with NetSuite which is a cloud-based EOP
- 03:48 – NetSuite uses iCharts as an embed BI (Business Intelligence) engine that powers iCharts for NetSuite's customers
- 04:05 – iCharts is like an app inside NetSuite
- 04:55 – iCharts can take any kind of data and visually represent it so that people can interact and analyze the data
- 05:16 – The analogy of iCharts is like the car's' navigation system which is separated from the car's build
- 05:55 – iCharts considers SaaS businesses as an ecosystem and NetSuite is a large ecosystem
- 06:05 – iCharts has a mixed business model
- 06:24 – iCharts is also looking into exclusive partnerships with a SaaS platform to distribute iCharts
- 06:55 – Pricing starts at $15K per annum depending on the number of users on a platform
- 07:54 – Seymour arrived in the USA, in 2010
- 08:10 – Seymour is from Germany
- 08:50 – When Seymour had an idea for a cloud-based business intelligence platform, he was thinking about where to build it
- 09:27 – Back then, it was easier to sell in the USA than in Germany
- 10:10 – Being in California was also a great idea for Seymour's wife, so they built iCharts in the USA
- 10:37 – Team size is 60
- 10:56 – Sales team has 20 people
- 11:35 – The majority of iCharts' market
- 11:49 – iCharts will know the pain points of the users of NetSuite
- 12:53 – iCharts will already have an idea of the customer's needs
- 13:45 – iCharts has around 200 customers
- 14:04 – iCharts started focusing on various markets
- 14:25 – iCharts has raised $23M to date but they were initially bootstrapped
- 15:07 – Churn is around 5-7%
- 16:20 – CAC
- 16:32 – iCharts is highly profitable from the initial time they closed a deal
- 17:04 – There's an advantage of growing faster and burning yourself as you grow too fast
- 17:44 – At the end of the day, it's all about having a high-functioning team that produces quality
- 18:04 – Average ARR
- 18:21 – iCharts also offers additional services for their larger customers
- 20:13 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- Build your business wherever you'd like to—even if it means leaving your home country.
- Having a well-functioning team that produces QUALITY will drive your revenue and contribute to the success of your business.
- Make time for rest and vacations; this will relax and regenerate you.
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