Don Mal
person on 2 shows · 16 statements across 2 episodes
A Product Market Fit Show 
Top Founders
On the record as a speaker too: Don Mal across every show, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
16 statements about Don Mal, every show
Don Mal left Vena at $50M ARR before it reached $100M
“I mean, I left Vena five years ago when we were halfway there, but the company was well on its way, and so great to see that they have eclipsed the hundred million ARR mark.”
Vena sold perpetual on-premise licenses before pivoting to cloud within one year
“Early days, we were an on-premise solution actually. But within about a year, George, you know, really determined we needed to be a cloud first, you know, type of application be, you know, when I say cloud first, we cloud second, I guess, but it was really qui…”
Founders should launch products in domains they already know how to sell
“I always tell young entrepreneurs, Hey, look, stick close to your nettings, you know, come to market with something you already know how to sell.”
Six new FP&A vendors have entered the market since Vena and succeeded
“Since Vena, there have been another, let's call it half dozen vendors that have entered the space that are all doing well.”
Vena took five years to hit $10M ARR, then eight to $100M
“If you go back to Vena, like those first five years, you're just building that first, like getting to five to ten million of ARR, you know, that's really what you're doing, I think, in most cases. But then if you think about where Vena is today, like eight yea…”
Don Mal: Vena reached $1M ARR in about 18 months
“A million would have been literally, I'd say maybe a year and a half.”
Mal: Vena spent over $1M launching enterprise go-to-market
“Early days at Vena, going back to Vena now, had invested over a million dollars launching a go to market motion for enterprise. Okay. Hired very expensive sales reps.”
Don Mal left a seven-figure salary to co-found Vena sight unseen
“I left my very, very high paying job to start Vena. I think like it was a seven figure income the year I left just to take a risk to start something, but I did it without even seeing the product.”
Vena Solutions is growing over 100% year-over-year
“What we know is that we're growing at greater than a hundred percent year over year.”
Vena Solutions generates around $50,000 per customer annually
“Yeah, so we're getting around 50,000 dollars per year per customer, so, you know, break that down 4000 a month, I guess, roughly.”
Vena Solutions approaches 350 customers, adding 50 per quarter
“So we are approaching 350 customers. But just to get a sense of run rate, we will add 50 customers this quarter.”
Vena Solutions targets a CAC payback period under 12 months
“We'd like to keep our kind of, you know, cost to acquire customers below a kind of a 12 month cost of what we would normally see for revenue. So, you know, that ratio of one would be kind of ideal or, you know, and we know that anything kind of better than a .…”
Vena Solutions projects a customer LTV of $400,000 to $500,000
“And so we do, you know, sort of Project a customer staying with us for as up to 10 years. Imagine, you know, four to 500,000 dollars with a lifetime value.”
Vena Solutions maintains under 10% gross customer churn
“It's, I would say our overall churn is less than 10%, which is within our industry standpoint.”