Benjamin Cohen. He’s the CEO and leading T-REX, with a strong vision for the future of enterprise financial technology and its impact on marketing and making markets more transparent and efficient. He’s built the T-REX team and the T-REX software platform by combining the most sustainable elements of finance with modern SaaS technology.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – Influence
- What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
- Favorite online tool? — LinkedIn
- How many hours of sleep do you get?— Between 6 and 7.5
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I wished that I knew that not everything was of the utmost consequence for my entire life”
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 02:24 – Nathan introduces Benjamin to the show
- 02:55 – T-REX is a fintech company that makes complex capital markets more liquid by making them more transparent and efficient
- 04:04 – T-REX provides a familiar framework where their clients can slice and dice everything
- 04:15 – “We’re just making the risks more transparent”
- 04:20 – T-REX has an enterprise SaaS model
- 04:59 – Customers are paying $2k-20K per month depending on the functionalities they need
- 05:09 – Benjamin launched T-REX in 2012
- 05:55 – The Ecosystem Integrity Fund is T-REX’s series A lead investor
- 06:12 – T-REX has raised $15M in total
- 06:26 - T-REX had 2 priced equity rounds
- 06:32 – Team size is 21 and based in New York
- 06:39 – Half of the team is based in Tel Aviv, Israel and are mostly software engineers
- 06:57 – The cost of living in Israel is a bit lower
- 07:35 – T-REX has over 225 users
- 07:51 – The 225 are all paying customers
- 08:28 – The model of T-REX is that investors are coming in and looking for different deals than what originators have out, which includes different loan portfolios—specifically in the renewable energy sector
- 09:34 – Loan’s interest
- 09:44 – The secure ties
- 10:30 – Average MRR
- 11:13 – “I invested 2 years of my time before getting a dollar”
- 11:19 – It took Benjamin 2 years to raise capital
- 11:36 – Benjamin’s fund was from his previous role in Macquarie Bank
- 12:12 – Renewable energy presented a great slate of a market
- 12:33 – Benjamin funded T-REX with a 6-figure capital
- 12:52 – A junior engineer’s average salary from Tel Aviv
- 13:53 – Everybody in the company has equity
- 14:03 – Benjamin is the sole-founder of T-REX
- 14:32 – Customer churn is currently zero
- 14:54 – Benjamin is expecting T-REX to be incredibly sticky
- 15:20 – T-REX is selling additional seats and their customers can sell more modules
- 15:29 – T-REX can expand horizontally to different markets and vertically where they can sell different models
- 15:50 – Years ago, T-REX has set up their own broker/dealers
- 16:05 – CAC is dependent on the customers
- 17:11 – T-REX will do a $10K conference sponsorship and they need to be there
- 17:35 – T-REX series B closed in November 15th
- 20:00 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- Be in the space that you know best and don’t fear being a solo founder.
- It is actually GREAT to make mistakes and GREAT to fail, as long as you learn from it.
- Don’t fear that every decision you make or action you take has a lifelong consequence in your life—it simply isn’t true.
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