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Sep 18, 2021 · 18m · top-founders

They Shut Down $3m Agency to Launch API SaaS tool, Hit 200 Customers

Vedran Cindrić · 10m spoken Nathan Latka · 5m spoken
0:00 / 0:00

gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions

Treblle founder Vedran Cindrić discusses shutting down a $3 million development agency to launch an API observability platform, scaling to $10,000 MRR, and raising $1.4 million in seed funding.

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 34.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 6.0 Guest teaching 1.7 Guest disagreement 1.7 Nathan pushing back 5.3
05100:0010:002:58–6:23 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Customer Profile, Pricing Tiers, and Seed Fundraising Latka drills into early-stage fundraising mechanics and clarifies the difference between priced rounds and convertible notes when the guest fumbles the terminology. He also walks through the post-money valuation calculation on the fly.6:23–10:44 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Shutting Down a $3M Agency to Build SaaS Latka repeatedly presses the guest on why he walked away from a highly profitable 3 million dollar agency to start from scratch. The guest calmly defends his decision by explaining his passion for building a scalable product.10:44–16:32 · Nathan as informed peer 7/10 Revenue Metrics, Scalability, and Utility Pricing Model Latka runs quick MRR calculations, raises a smart counterargument about utility-based pricing resentment, and catches the guest confusing customer acquisition cost with hosting COGS.2:58–6:23 · Guest teaching 2/10 Customer Profile, Pricing Tiers, and Seed Fundraising Latka drills into early-stage fundraising mechanics and clarifies the difference between priced rounds and convertible notes when the guest fumbles the terminology. He also walks through the post-money valuation calculation on the fly.6:23–10:44 · Guest teaching 1/10 Shutting Down a $3M Agency to Build SaaS Latka repeatedly presses the guest on why he walked away from a highly profitable 3 million dollar agency to start from scratch. The guest calmly defends his decision by explaining his passion for building a scalable product.10:44–16:32 · Guest teaching 2/10 Revenue Metrics, Scalability, and Utility Pricing Model Latka runs quick MRR calculations, raises a smart counterargument about utility-based pricing resentment, and catches the guest confusing customer acquisition cost with hosting COGS.2:58–6:23 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Customer Profile, Pricing Tiers, and Seed Fundraising Latka drills into early-stage fundraising mechanics and clarifies the difference between priced rounds and convertible notes when the guest fumbles the terminology. He also walks through the post-money valuation calculation on the fly.6:23–10:44 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Shutting Down a $3M Agency to Build SaaS Latka repeatedly presses the guest on why he walked away from a highly profitable 3 million dollar agency to start from scratch. The guest calmly defends his decision by explaining his passion for building a scalable product.10:44–16:32 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Revenue Metrics, Scalability, and Utility Pricing Model Latka runs quick MRR calculations, raises a smart counterargument about utility-based pricing resentment, and catches the guest confusing customer acquisition cost with hosting COGS.2:58–6:23 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Customer Profile, Pricing Tiers, and Seed Fundraising Latka drills into early-stage fundraising mechanics and clarifies the difference between priced rounds and convertible notes when the guest fumbles the terminology. He also walks through the post-money valuation calculation on the fly.6:23–10:44 · Nathan pushing back 6/10 Shutting Down a $3M Agency to Build SaaS Latka repeatedly presses the guest on why he walked away from a highly profitable 3 million dollar agency to start from scratch. The guest calmly defends his decision by explaining his passion for building a scalable product.10:44–16:32 · Nathan pushing back 6/10 Revenue Metrics, Scalability, and Utility Pricing Model Latka runs quick MRR calculations, raises a smart counterargument about utility-based pricing resentment, and catches the guest confusing customer acquisition cost with hosting COGS.

speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

0:00 · Nathan 53% · guest 47%0:00 · Nathan 53% · guest 47%3:00 · Nathan 23.7% · guest 76.3%3:00 · Nathan 23.7% · guest 76.3%6:00 · Nathan 19.2% · guest 80.8%6:00 · Nathan 19.2% · guest 80.8%9:00 · Nathan 33.9% · guest 66.1%9:00 · Nathan 33.9% · guest 66.1%12:00 · Nathan 30.8% · guest 69.2%12:00 · Nathan 30.8% · guest 69.2%15:00 · Nathan 41.4% · guest 58.6%15:00 · Nathan 41.4% · guest 58.6%18:00 · Nathan 87.9% · guest 12.1%18:00 · Nathan 87.9% · guest 12.1%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 14:05 Vedran counters Latka's customer resentment hypothesis

When Latka suggests customers will resent higher utility bills as their API usage scales, Vedran firmly dismisses the concern by arguing customers will happily pay for the immense developer time saved.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 9:26 Latka presses guest on shutting down profitable agency

Latka openly challenges the guest's sanity and credibility for giving up a 3 million dollar agency to pursue a pre-revenue SaaS startup.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 12:57 Vedran educates Latka on developer pricing psychology

Vedran explains why traditional tier-based feature gating repels technical users, justifying his pure usage-based pricing strategy.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 15:30 Latka corrects guest's understanding of CAC versus COGS

When the guest claims CAC is 5 dollars on a 50 dollar plan, Latka drills down and discovers the guest is actually quoting server COGS rather than acquisition spend.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Customer Profile, Pricing Tiers, and Seed Fundraising 6214 Latka drills into early-stage fundraising mechanics and clarifies the difference between priced rounds and convertible notes when the guest fumbles the terminology. He also walks through the post-money valuation calculation on the fly.
Shutting Down a $3M Agency to Build SaaS 5126 Latka repeatedly presses the guest on why he walked away from a highly profitable 3 million dollar agency to start from scratch. The guest calmly defends his decision by explaining his passion for building a scalable product.
Revenue Metrics, Scalability, and Utility Pricing Model 7226 Latka runs quick MRR calculations, raises a smart counterargument about utility-based pricing resentment, and catches the guest confusing customer acquisition cost with hosting COGS.

Statements from this episode (7)

Opinion
Cindrić: Zapier and MuleSoft target no-code solutions over developer APIs
“The services you mentioned are more geared towards no-code solutions rather than actual developer created APIs.”
Vedran Cindrić Sep 18, 2021 ▶ 2:17
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cindrić: Treblle has around 200 customers during open beta
“So right now we've got around the 200 customers.”
Vedran Cindrić Sep 18, 2021 ▶ 4:13
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cindrić: Treblle raised $1.4M seed at a $5M pre-money cap
“So they put a 1.4 million and valued the company at a five million.”
Vedran Cindrić Sep 18, 2021 ▶ 5:18
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cindrić's development agency peaked at a couple million in revenue in 2020
“A couple of million and the best year was actually 2020. The COVID year was coincidentally the best year.”
Vedran Cindrić Sep 18, 2021 ▶ 7:55
Disclosure
Treblle allocated an 8% ESOP pool for employee equity
“So we dedicated an ESOP fund for our employees and gave them ESOP shares. eight percent.”
Vedran Cindrić Sep 18, 2021 ▶ 8:54
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cindrić: 100% of early agency clients still use Treblle
“And now every single one of them is still using treble today. And they're recommending it to everybody you know, in their circles, if you will.”
Vedran Cindrić Sep 18, 2021 ▶ 10:35
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Treblle generated around $2,000 in MRR in March 2021
“We actually had, I think around six months ago, we had around 2000 dollars, give or take.”
Vedran Cindrić Sep 18, 2021 ▶ 11:08
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