SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders EP 636: Bangalore Startup Hits $40k MRR Helping 18 Customers Get Consumer Data Using Social Intelligence with Frrole CEO Amarpreet Kalkat
Apr 21, 2017
18:35
Amarpreet Kalkat. He's the CEO and co-founder of Frrole, an AI (artificial intelligence) startup that is redefining consumer intelligence. He loves building things, be it product, revenue streams, teams or organizations.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
- What CEO do you follow? – Travis Kalanick
- Favorite online tool? — Klout
- Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Amarpreet would tell himself to focus and prioritize
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:22 – Nathan introduces Amarpreet to the show
- 01:50 – Frrole provides consumer intelligence
- 01:53 – Frrole relies on public data to build insights about the consumers
- 02:07 – Frrole works with companies' marketing teams
- 02:35 – eBay and Flipcut are some of Frrole's customers
- 02:44 – It is crucial for marketing teams to understand their customers
- 02:57 – Frrole works with eBay's shipping insides team
- 03:02 – eBay wants to understand their customer's shipping experience
- 03:34 – Frrole has data partnerships with Twitter and Facebook
- 03:40 – Frrole has official access to data
- 04:11 – Frrole looks at the attributes and annotations as a guide for the data they need
- 04:30 – Frrole is SaaS business and customers pay them for the insights
- 05:00 – Average customer pay per month is around $32K per year
- 05:28 – "Personally, I don't believe in locking customers in"
- 05:37 – Frrole has a 30-day walk out clause
- 05:46 – Most of Frrole's customers pay quarterly
- 06:08 – Frrole started as a B2C in the news discovery product, in 2012
- 06:14 – In 2014, Frrole pivoted to a B2B model
- 06:46 – Frrole currently has 13 team members
- 06:52 – The team is in Bangalore and Amarpreet goes back and forth between Bangalore and San Francisco
- 07:11 – Amarpreet is currently in San Francisco looking for a sales guy
- 07:25 – Amarpreet ideally looks for a co-founder kind of role
- 07:39 – Amarpreet is willing to give 5-10% equity
- 07:49 – Frrole has raised a couple of small angel rounds
- 08:00 – Frrole has raised a total of $250K
- 08:05 – Frrole currently has 18 paying customers
- 08:23 – Average MRR
- 08:45 – Average customer churn
- 09:36 – Frrole has 1 sales guy in Bangalore
- 09:50 – CAC
- 10:15 – Frrole spends $500-1K a month for paid marketing
- 10:39 – Frrole is recently experimenting with LinkedIn for marketing
- 11:18 – Frrole sponsors an email list and a banner ad
- 11:28 – It worked out okay
- 12:00 – Frrole is currently breaking even
- 12:10 – Salaries in Bangalore are way less than in the USA
- 12:26 – The best web developer in India would cost around $30K
- 13:58 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- Customers will use your product if they see the value – locking in is not always necessary.
- Marketing people need to dig deeper to understand and serve their customers well.
- Know what your priorities are and focus in.
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
- Organifi – The juice was Nathan's life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
- Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
- 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
- Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives