Mar 14, 2022 · 20m · top-founders
Can they convert 11k Designer Installs to Revenue, $40m+ Valuation?
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this interview, host Nathan Latka speaks with Play CEO and co-founder Dan LaCivita about creating the first native iOS mobile design tool, managing a $6.1 million seed round, and converting 11,000 app installs into a sustainable freemium SaaS business.
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 38% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 5.4 Guest teaching 2.6 Guest disagreement 1.1 Nathan pushing back 3.1
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 18:49 Dan rejects a hypothetical $50M acquisition buyout
Dan dismisses Nathan's proposed fifty million dollar upfront buyout offer from Figma or Mural, asserting they need substantially more to exit.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 14:36 Nathan rejects Dan's vague retention descriptionNathan interrupts and pushes back on Dan's subjective description of design activity, insisting on the exact quantifiable event logged in Mixpanel.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 17:07 Dan educates Nathan on native iOS design constraintsDan counters Nathan's skepticism about designing on phones by explaining how desktop tools rely on web hacks that cannot replicate native video, haptics, or gestures.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 15:47 Nathan calculates user event velocity in real timeNathan instantly crunches Dan's high-level numbers, dividing 650,000 monthly events across 4,500 active users to establish an operational benchmark of 150 actions per user.
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 Dan LaCivita and Native Mobile Design Tool Play | 6 | 2 | 1 | 4 | Nathan probes Dan's agency background at Firstborn, estimating exit multiples and sale price based on standard industry valuations. Dan is open about revenue and team size but politely deflects confirming exact sale figures while discussing his transition to SaaS. | |
| Play's Founding Story and Initial Capital | 6 | 1 | 1 | 3 | Nathan quickly runs the math on Play's pre-seed SAFE and seed round dilution, estimating their post-money valuation at roughly thirty to forty million dollars. Dan agrees with the range and explains why they took early capital from First Round to accelerate their roadmap. | |
| Managing Burn, Runway, and Inbound VC Interest | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Nathan calculates monthly burn and runway from headcount figures, while Dan explains the unexpected organic inbound interest from venture capitalists ahead of planned fundraising. | |
| Automating SOC 2 Compliance with Vanta | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | Dan shares practical experience implementing SOC 2 compliance via Vanta and details the cost-benefit trade-off versus engineering time. The segment closes with Nathan reading a Founderpath sponsor segment. | |
| Cohort Retention Metrics and Figma Interoperability | 5 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Nathan asks how a pre-revenue startup defines retention, prompting Dan to explain their Mixpanel cohort tracking, high 7-week retention rates, and complementary positioning alongside Figma. | |
| Measuring In-App Actions and Exploring Willingness to Pay | 7 | 3 | 2 | 6 | Nathan pushes Dan on vague definitions of design activity in Mixpanel, requiring him to name specific event triggers. Nathan then does live division to calculate average monthly user engagement at 150 events per user. | |
| Native Mobile Design Strengths and Cross-Platform Roadmap | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | Nathan challenges the core premise of designers wanting to build on mobile devices instead of desktop monitors. Dan educates Nathan on native iOS capabilities like haptics, native video, and live maps that desktop web tools cannot accurately simulate. | |
| The Famous Five with Dan LaCivita | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Nathan runs through the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions and delivers a comprehensive outro summary consolidating all disclosed company metrics. |
Statements from this episode (20)
LaCivita: Play is the first native iOS design tool for teams
“So we're the first native iOS design tool for teams to design, prototype, and share directly on their device.”
LaCivita: Figma, Adobe XD, and Sketch are not built specifically for mobile
“As many great design tools there are Figma, Adobe XD, Sketch, they're sort of a mile wide and there is not really a platform built for people designing specifically for mobile products.”
LaCivita: Firstborn reached $27M–$28M revenue and 100 employees before sale
“Yeah, we were doing around 27, twenty eight million dollars annual revenue, about a hundred people.”
LaCivita: Mobile design platform Play is currently pre-revenue
“We were pre revenue right now. So going from managing a P and L to just an L has been you know, a mental shift from sort of a CEO perspective”
Dan LaCivita: Play launched with $1M founder capital, mostly from Michael
“We started with our own capital. So we started with a million dollars of capital. Michael put in the lion's share of capital.”
LaCivita: Play raised $3M pre-seed at $15M post-money cap
“The pre-seed round, we raised three million on a fifteen million dollar, you know, post-money valuation cap on the safes.”
LaCivita: First Round Capital led Play's $6.1M seed round
“And then we followed that up with another 6.1 that first round led.”
LaCivita: Play plans to raise Series A by late 2022 or 2023
“So I think, you know, the plan is maybe raise our RA towards the end of this year, early next year, but we've had, you know, we've had a fair amount of interest early this year, and maybe we'll end up doing it earlier.”
Dan LaCivita: Play will implement a three-tier freemium pricing model
“Maybe three tiers will most likely be a freemium product. So there'll be a free tier for starters, a paid individual tier. And then a paid tier for organizations and for teams.”
LaCivita: Pay for Software Rather Than Wasting Expensive Engineering Hours
“I think if you're going to, I mean, look, you need to save every dollar, but also if you're going to save 2000 dollars, but it's going to cost you another 10,000 dollars of manpower, right? Of people power to actually do the work. I'd rather pay the two grand …”
LaCivita: First-Year SOC 2 Compliance via Vanta Costs Around $20,000
“Yeah, I think, yeah, I think for the first year, you budget, budget around 20 grand, you know, inclusive of the auditor fees too, they kind of bundle everything together.”
LaCivita: Play has 30,000 waitlist registrations
“So we've got about 30,000 people on the list of people who've registered for full access.”
LaCivita: Play reached 11,000 iOS app installs
“We've got 11,000 app installs already of the product on iOS.”
LaCivita: Play cohorts see 80% to 85% retention at week seven
“So we have cohorts emerging in terms of retained users at five, six, seven weeks that are 80, 85% retained, right?”
LaCivita: Play is a great complement to Figma
“And so I think like play is a great compliment to Figma.”
LaCivita: Play logged 650,000 user actions in the past month
“And so if we look at the past month, there were actually 650,000 events, right? 650,000 individual actions inside of the product.”