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:
- A shift in business model can allow your company to grow while still retaining its value and growth.
- Find the right keywords for your business and use AdWords to target them, it can help lower your CAC.
- 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