Jul 3, 2022 · 19m · top-founders
How he makes $7k/mo from app the fund his new SaaS tool
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
SaaS founder Filippo Barattini explains how he bootstrapped his churn-reduction platform, LamaFi, utilizing passive cash flow from a viral manga reader app to self-fund development and navigate early B2B growth.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 37.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 4.8 Guest teaching 2.2 Guest disagreement 1.3 Nathan pushing back 3.2
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 9:20 Filippo rejects acquisition suggestion
Filippo brushes off Nathan's suggestion to sell Sturpy for a quick payout, asserting his passion for building products.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 8:38 Nathan questions split focusNathan directly challenges Filippo on how a three-person team could realistically manage two separate SaaS products.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 6:43 Clarifying churn response contextFilippo corrects Nathan's critique of the survey data by pointing out the answers were for a one-off financial tool rather than continuous churn management.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 15:33 Nathan corrects market leader claimNathan intervenes when Filippo calls ProfitWell the industry leader, noting that ChurnZero generates significantly higher revenue.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Podcast Hook and GetLatka Database Overview | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Nathan introduces the guest and quickly digs into high-level business definitions and initial traction metrics. Filippo cooperatively answers questions about the product mechanism and initial user count. | |
| LamaFi Genesis Story, Team Structure, and Equity Division | 6 | 3 | 2 | 5 | Nathan challenges the unit economics and the usefulness of churn survey responses. Filippo clarifies a misunderstanding, explaining that the cancellation feedback pertained to Sturpy rather than LamaFi. | |
| Rapid Prototyping Mindset and Allocating Founder Focus | 5 | 2 | 3 | 6 | Nathan pushes hard on founder focus, questioning how a tiny team can support two products simultaneously and asking why they do not sell one. Filippo stands firm on his preference for building products and explains his alternative revenue stream. | |
| FounderPath SaaS Valuation Tool Promotional Break | 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Following the mid-roll ad read, Nathan explores the mobile manga app funding the SaaS venture. Filippo provides details on ad impression economics and revenue figures. | |
| LamaFi Early Traction, Pricing, and Growth Challenges | 6 | 3 | 2 | 4 | Nathan probes competitive differentiation and interjects that ChurnZero is larger than ProfitWell. Filippo defends his positioning by explaining his built-in LTV scoring and upselling features. | |
| Famous Five Questions and Founder Journey Recap | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Nathan runs through the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions and concludes with a comprehensive narrative summary of Filippo's journey. |
Statements from this episode (12)
Barattini: Most SaaS founders do not know why customers cancel subscriptions
“We see that most founders don't know why people are canceling. They're more focused around the product onboarding, which is totally understandable.”
Barattini: Owns roughly 55% of LamaFi and Sturpy alongside US co-founder
“One of us is actually like an employee, like a contractor, and the two, me and the guy in America, John big shout out to him. We have like a kind of fifty-fifty. I own a bit more because I started before he joined.”
Barattini: Sturpy generates around $500 in monthly recurring revenue
“We have around 500 MRR, but it's a big revenue per account, so we have more users, let's say.”
Barattini: Sturpy has over 100 active customers
“I think around I don't remember now, but let's say more than 100.”
LamaFi took one week to build internally, months to package for customers
“Oh, okay, so building for us was week, like, one week, maybe. Yeah, we have a good Engineering team. And then, but then packaging it and transforming into a solution that can work for others. It took a bit more, like a couple of months maybe.”
Barattini: Cancellation surveys should prioritize multiple choice over open text
“You try to give them a multiple choice answers and the options that you provide them are usually things that you want to, like that you have a sense that might be an issue. That's also what we recommend to our users. Like if you know that you may, might have a…”
Barattini: Sturpy churn is driven by customers no longer needing financial models
“So main one for us, which is very specific to our case, it's like we no longer need it. Because like, imagine a financial model that you need, ah, you do it once, maybe you check it every couple of months, but it's not something that you, ah, spend a lot of ti…”
Barattini: Manga reader apps have reached 1 million combined downloads
“And so they got the app down, then I had to upload another one, but combined all the apps have like one million downloads.”
Barattini: Manga reader app made $7K to $8K in its best month
“In my best month, I was doing a seven to eight”
Barattini: Churn-reduction SaaS products are inherently sticky once installed
“One cool thing about Lama that we kind of learned for Surtby is like having a different type of problem making, like, churn problem is very sticky. As you was, as you were saying before, like if you have a SaaS business, you have churn every month. Like that's…”