Apr 24, 2022 · 17m · top-founders
Bank Calculator App Hits $400k ARR, Hit $7m Cap
0:00 / 0:00
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this interview, Nathan Latka speaks with Chimney co-founder and CTO Ryan Salerno about how the fintech startup bootstrapped its embeddable bank calculator platform to $300k ARR using outsourced engineering before raising a $1.3 million seed round to scale toward $400k ARR.
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 39.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 4.8 Guest teaching 1.8 Guest disagreement 0.3 Nathan pushing back 1.3
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 5:00 Rejecting equal founder equity splits
Ryan firmly dismisses 50/50 co-founder equity splits as dangerous and problematic when disagreements arise.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 2:06 Probing product retention and stickinessNathan questions the premise of consumer engagement for a debt and equity calculator, noting users typically check once and leave.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 7:36 Mastering outsourced engineering requirementsRyan educates the audience on how providing deep technical architecture and database schemas is essential to successfully using offshore dev shops.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 12:07 Nathan calculates revenue and evaluates growth pacingNathan quickly computes $35k MRR from customer count and ACV, then points out that growth from their $300k bootstrap milestone has been relatively modest.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introducing Ryan Salerno and Chimney's Product Suite | 5 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Nathan inquires about the product functionality and challenges the stickiness of a mortgage/home equity tracking tool. Ryan clarifies that the new product is still in development and will rely on embedded bank distribution. | |
| Chimney's Pricing Structure and Customer Validation Journey | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Nathan asks about ACV, per-calculator pricing metrics, and equity splits. Ryan explains their 40/30/30 co-founder split to avoid deadlocks, which Nathan strongly affirms based on his interview experience. | |
| Bootstrapping to $300k and Building with Outsourced Engineering | 6 | 3 | 0 | 1 | Ryan details how Chimney bootstrapped to $300k using an outsourced Ukrainian dev agency for a $16k MVP. Nathan validates this strategy and shares his own perspective on outsourced developer management. | |
| Sponsorship Spotlight: Scaling Global Teams with Remote.com | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Following an ad read for Remote.com, Nathan asks about the outbound SDR agency Memory Blue, current headcount, and the terms of their $1.3M seed round. | |
| Current Monthly Revenue and the ICBA ThinkTech Accelerator | 5 | 2 | 0 | 2 | Nathan calculates Chimney's current MRR (~$35k) and observes modest year-over-year revenue growth. Ryan explains that development focus shifted toward the second product and describes the ICBA accelerator experience before completing the Famous Five. | |
| Episode Recap and Final Thoughts on Chimney | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Nathan summarizes Chimney's core metrics, funding history, and team growth in a brief closing monologue. |
Statements from this episode (15)
Chimney is building an unreleased homeowner equity tool with large banks
“So this is a new product that is not in market yet. And the idea here is to partner with a big bank that had already had millions of users and they also serve up like helox or other types of loans. And then we'll be the tech in the middle that engages the user…”
Chimney customers pay an average of $7,000 per year
“Per year, it's like 7000 per year for the calculators.”
Chimney charges an average of $99 per month per calculator
“Pricing is really simple. So it's just a number of calculators. So the average price is 99 dollars per month per calculator.”
Chimney's three co-founders split their equity 40/30/30
“So we're 4030, 30 the CEO, Matt Covey, it was his idea. So he has 40% and then Chase and I reached 30.”
Latka: 50/50 founder equity splits signal poor communication and conflict avoidance
“Anytime I see someone split fifty-fifty, I go, you probably don't have great communication with your co-founder. You avoided the conversation basically is what happened.”
Chimney reached $300,000 in revenue while remaining fully bootstrapped
“And so we made it to like about 300 K in revenues by being fully bootstrapped.”
Founders must know how to build their product before outsourcing development
“Like the joke is that you have to be able to build it yourself in order to have an outdoor outsource dev shop. So I'm giving them literally like the database schema and the relationships And the models and like, okay, here's how we should structure this. Here'…”
Bad output from reputable dev agencies usually stems from terrible specs
“If you work with sort of a reputable development shop, like the one you work with, then you get back in bad product. It's usually because you gave terrible specs. It's very rarely the developers, you know, it's very rarely the shop's fault in my opinion.”
Chimney spent $16,000 with an outsourced agency to build its MVP
“Nothing, I actually remember this, because this was the first money that we spent from nothing to MVP was 16,000 dollars. And this was a platform for people to log in, create the calculator, issue it to themselves, and then embed it to their website.”
Startups with fewer than 10 employees should not hire product managers
“Ultimately decided the small team of like eight or nine people who can't yet have a product manager, like our CEO needs to be the product manager for now.”
Chimney raised its seed round on a $7M post-money SAFE cap
“It was a seven million valuation cap on a safe note. And that is, yeah, post money.”
ICBA ThinkTech accelerator sets up four daily bank meetings for startups
“And so that was great because it's less of an accelerator and more of a rapid fire way to have four meetings per day with banks and credit unions every day for three months.”