Info

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

What if you knew data behind the fastest growing SaaS companies today? Each morning join Nathan Latka as he spends 15 minutes interviewing SaaS founders. You'll learn how SaaS CEO's launched their startup and grew it into a business. SaaS Founders range from bootstrapped to funded, MVP to 10,000 customers, pre revenue to pre IPO.
RSS Feed Subscribe in Apple Podcasts
SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
2024
March
February
January


2023
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2022
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2021
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2020
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2019
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2018
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2017
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2016
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2015
December
November
October


Categories

All Episodes
Archives
Categories
Now displaying: Page 1
Jul 4, 2016

Max Nussenbaum, co-founder of Castle and a Venture for America fellow based in Detroit. Max and his co-founders are revolutionizing property management in one of America’s most opportunity-rich property markets. Tune in to hear what Max is doing differently, why he defends splitting equity evenly with his co-founders, and why you should be investing in Detroit.

Famous 5:

Favorite Book? – Anything You Want
What CEO do you follow? — Henry Ward
Favorite online tool? — Instapaper
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? — Relax a little bit

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:27 – Nathan’s introduction
02:04 – Max is based in Detroit
02:20 – Castle manages rental properties for owners - they find tenants, collect rent, and coordinating repairs
02:29 – They make money by charging a flat fee of $79 per month per rental unit
03:00 – They want to simplify the pricing structures associated with regular property managers
05:30 – Founded in late 2014 and launched in 2015
05:47 – Currently managing 530 units, all in the Detroit area
06:10 – “Our target market is the regular-person property investor”
06:43 – First year revenue was around $100k last year
07:14 – The metric Max focuses on is MRR - the subscription model is similar to SaaS
08:12 – Raised around $3 million, most recently $2 million in a seed round
09:17 – Team of 10 people
09:35 – “Structurally we’re a lot like a SaaS business”
10:00 – Monthly RPU is $174, as the average customer has 2.2 units
10:35 – Switching costs are very high in terms of time and energy, so monthly churn is only around 1%
11:51 – “The bottom line is that we just don’t know lifetime value yet...we haven’t even been around for 2 years”
12:18 – They consider acquisition costs on a per-unit basis - and they’re willing to spend around $200 to acquire a unit
12:55 – Most customers are investing less than $1 million in property in Detroit in their lifetime
14:30 – There are a lot of cheap properties in Detroit - but generally you can’t get a mortgage for them
15:50 – The percentage of properties that have been vacant for more than 30 days is around 5%
17:17 – “There are still 700k people in Detroit and they’re regular people who just need places to live”
21:45 – Connect with Max on Twitter
20:04 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
Don’t stress too much when you’re young. There’s plenty of time in life.
If you can simplify a complicated process, there’s a good chance you’ll make money
You don’t have to be bullied away from splitting equity evenly with co-founders - what each of you brings to the table is less than what you achieve working as a team
Resources Mentioned:
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks - The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
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

0 Comments
Adding comments is not available at this time.