Oct 5, 2021 · 17m · top-founders
Customer Support SaaS Hits $60k MRR Using On Prem Installations, Raising $1m at $10m Valuation
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In this episode of Conversations with Nathan Latka, Welp.co founder Seymour Arasolov explains how his multilingual AI customer support platform scaled to $60k in monthly recurring revenue through on-premise enterprise contracts and usage-based pricing while raising a $1M round at a $10M valuation.
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 25.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 6.0 Guest teaching 1.0 Guest disagreement 0.7 Nathan pushing back 4.2
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 12:29 Pushing Back Against Measuring Reps by Quotas
Seymour rejects Latka's framing of sales performance, arguing that he avoids treating his staff as numbers and would buy a calculator if he only cared about raw figures.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 12:05 Latka Refuses Dodged Sales Quota QuestionWhen Seymour gives an evasive answer about annual team goals, Latka interrupts and restates the direct question demanding individual quota figures.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 2:13 Explaining On-Premise Niche in SME AI SupportSeymour explains how offering on-premise deployments to privacy-conscious financial and insurance institutions allows them to capture high upfront fees and sticky recurring revenue.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 4:11 Exposing Free vs Paid Customer CountsLatka quickly calculates that 800 customers paying $250-450 per month contradicts a $60k MRR, prompting the guest to admit only roughly a third are paying.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Welp.co Overview: Multilingual AI Support for SMEs | 5 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Latka opens by clarifying Welp's target market and asking structured questions regarding customer monetization. Seymour details their unique on-prem enterprise pricing model and recurring maintenance revenue without friction. | |
| Customer Segmentation and Usage-Based Pricing Shift | 7 | 1 | 1 | 6 | Latka catches a mathematical discrepancy between the 800 customer count and $60k MRR, forcing Seymour to clarify that only 30-35% are paying customers. Latka then drills into historical growth and white-label revenue sharing mechanics. | |
| Founder Praise for GetLatka Resources and SaaS Benchmarks | 6 | 1 | 0 | 4 | Seymour effusively praises Latka's database and email newsletters as essential guides for international founders. Latka redirects the conversation back to hard fundraising figures and audits the cap table arithmetic down to the 5% unallocated option pool. | |
| Market Competition, Competitive Moat, and Sales Team Quotas | 6 | 1 | 2 | 7 | Latka repeatedly presses Seymour on sales rep quota numbers. Seymour attempts to deflect with philosophical reasoning about not treating employees as numbers, but Latka persists until Seymour discloses the $15k-$20k monthly target. | |
| Customer Retention, Low CAC, and Inbound Acquisition | 7 | 1 | 1 | 6 | When Seymour claims an $8 CAC, Latka immediately challenges whether that figure represents cost per customer or cost per lead. Seymour concedes it is cost per lead and outlines the downstream conversion funnel. | |
| Investment Opportunity and $400B Total Addressable Market | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | Seymour presents his fundraising ask and TAM before going through the Famous Five questions. Latka finishes with an accurate and comprehensive recap of the company's metrics and trajectory. |
Statements from this episode (18)
Arasolov: Welp reached $59,000 in MRR for two consecutive months
“So currently, we're, this month, actually, we hit the 59,000 dollar monthly recurring revenue. This is the second month this is repeating”
Arasolov: Welp expects to reach $650,000 in total revenue for the year
“And by our, we expect to close a year at 650 total revenue, 650,000 dollars total revenue.”
Arasolov: Welp is the only provider in its space offering on-premise software
“We offer on-premise, and we are the only one in the, in this space offering on-premise.”
Arasolov: Welp.co Has Over 800 Customers, 20% On-Premise
“Today we have more than 800 customers in 16 countries. Not all of them are on premise. On premise about 20% of them.”
Arasolov: 30% to 35% of Welp.co Accounts Are Paying Customers
“About 30%. 35% of them are right now paying customers.”
Arasolov: Welp.co Charges 10 Cents per Closed Support Conversation
“The moment chatbot closes a ticket, or an agent closes a ticket using our solution, we charge them 10 cents per conversation.”
Welp.co Generated About $13K in Monthly Revenue in September 2020
“In September twenty-twenty, we were doing about 13,000 dollars.”
Welp.co Charges White-Label Partners a Fixed $30 Per User Monthly
“So we generally offer like 30 dollars per user per month, and they can sell it on top of that. They can charge 50, they can charge 60 on top of that, but they will have to pay us 30 dollars per user per month, so that's fixed fee.”
Arasolov: Welp.co raised $500k total across Techstars, 500 Startups, and bootstrapping
“Yeah, so far we have raised half million dollars, and we have about, we did the 500 startups and Techstars, and 500 startups gave us about 50,000 dollars, it was a safe note, and then Techstars gave us a 100,000 safe note, but then it's, the rest is bootstrapp…”
Arasolov: Welp.co Has 32 People, Including 25 Engineers and 5 Sales Reps
“32 people, two co-founders, 25 engineers, the rest is marketing, content marketing, and then we have about five specifically dedicated salespeople”
Arasolov: Welp.co Expects to Hit $4M Total Revenue by End of 2022
“By the next year, end of next year, we're expecting to reach total revenue in 2020 to four million.”
Arasolov: Welp.co Sales Reps Have Quotas of $15k–$20k Monthly
“They have about 15 to 20 K per month to bring in, each of them.”
Arasolov: Welp.co saw 4% total customer churn over two years
“We have in the last two years, we have four percent churn. Total in total. Only four percent of the customers left, and there was one specific reason.”
Arasolov: Welp.co lowered cost per lead from $18 to $8
“It used to be 18 dollars. We are, we have been able to bring it down to about eight dollars with content marketing.”
Arasolov: Welp.co generates 40-60 monthly leads with 18% trial conversion
“So we do about 60 40 to 60 leads per month. And then some of them convert for free users. And then we get about 18% conversion on, on a, we do 18% conversion out of these free trials on a six month list.”