Apr 23, 2021 · 21m · top-founders
Oil SaaS! They Broke $7m, Can They Hit $10m This Year?
Soumya Murthy · 15m spoken Nathan Latka · 4m spoken Archive Audio · 6s spoken Frank Bien · 4s spoken
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 with Nathan Latka, Soumya Murthy, Chief Customer Officer at Seven Lakes Technologies, explains how the company transitioned from a $100 million consulting enterprise into a $7 million ARR SaaS platform modernizing oil field operations, with sights set on reaching $10 million in 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 22.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 4.7 Guest teaching 4.0 Guest disagreement 1.5 Nathan pushing back 3.0
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 18:11 Defending cash flow and VC expectations
Murthy firmly pushes back on the assumption that they are in immediate need of VC capital, asserting they are cash flow positive and were told to reach $10M ARR first.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 16:50 Raising signaling risk and down-round dangerLatka directly confronts the guest on the hard reality of multi-year flat ARR after a $20M Series A, framing it as a major negative signal in the venture capital market.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 3:00 Explaining manual field workflow realitiesMurthy explains the surprising dichotomy in oil fields where advanced drilling sits side by side with manual paper grease sheets stored in mason jars.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 19:10 Dissecting the difficulty of flat revenue narrativesLatka demonstrates his venture expertise by explaining how stagnant growth over multiple years makes it nearly impossible to raise without taking a down round.
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 Subscription Announcement and Platform Overview | 3 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Following the subscription intro, Latka inquires about modernizing oil fields. Murthy educates the host on how field pumpers still rely on manual grease sheets stored in mason jars despite billions in production. | |
| Pivoting from Hundred-Million-Dollar Services to Enterprise SaaS | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Latka explores the pivot from services to SaaS, noting the massive risk of walking away from a hundred-million-dollar services run rate. Murthy explains the lack of product innovation from legacy incumbents like P2 and Quorum. | |
| SaaS Pricing Strategy, Annual Recurring Revenue, and Value Metrics | 6 | 5 | 2 | 4 | Latka drills into customer numbers, ARR, and ACV buckets, asking whether they can hit $10M ARR this year. Murthy admits revenue stayed flat at $7M ARR and breaks down their shift to usage-based transparent SaaS pricing. | |
| Enterprise User Scale, Retention Metrics, and Freemium Strategy | 6 | 4 | 2 | 5 | Latka challenges Murthy on why only 30 enterprise logos are paying if they claim 10,000 active users. Murthy clarifies that user seats are heavily concentrated inside major enterprise accounts like ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. | |
| Venture Signaling, Horizontal Expansion, and Future Revenue Targets | 7 | 4 | 3 | 6 | Latka confronts Murthy with venture signaling risk, pointing out that staying flat at $7M after raising $20M years ago usually signals trouble and risks down rounds. Murthy defends their position citing cash flow positivity and horizontal expansion. | |
| Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions with Soumya Murthy | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Latka runs through the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions, and Murthy provides quick, collaborative answers before Latka wraps up the episode recap. |
Statements from this episode (12)
Upstream oil operations still rely on physical grease sheets for data
“They were using grease sheets and paper to be able to drive millions, if not billions of oil production data from the place of where the oil is produced to the office space. So your entire inventory and production and everything else is run on grease sheets an…”
Murthy: Oil Operators Must Prove Free Cash Flow and Operational Tech Efficiency
“So what the market is now saying to the industry is, Hey, look, You can't just do production. You need to show me free cashflow. You need to be able to demonstrate operational efficiency, which means what you can't just, when the oil price goes down, just, you…”
Murthy: Seven Lakes raised a $20 million Series A in 2015
“Well, the company was doing services in 2009, all the way till 2015. We, this is before the first oil price dip and we raised a twenty million dollars in series A.”
Seven Lakes sold $100M in cumulative services before pivoting to SaaS
“I know up until the point the company had sold Around hundred million dollars in services. So he had a course of years, right?”
Murthy: Seven Lakes has 90 employees, including 50 engineers
“Let's just say we have 90 employees. 50 of them are engineers because we knew there was so much innovation we needed to do.”
Seven Lakes will fall short of $10M ARR in 2021
“This year is going to be we've budgeted, no, so it won't be this year, and I'll explain a couple of reasons why last year when we remained flat, this year what we did, last year what we did was sitting down with Shiva, we said, you know what, we're going enter…”
Seven Lakes reports 10,000-12,000 users across 80,000 oil wells
“We have about 10,012 thousand plus users on our system, and I would approximate ah, wells somewhere closer to 80. 80,000 wells, maybe?”
ExxonMobil accounts for roughly 2,500 users on the Seven Lakes platform
“They have, I think, 2500 or 2000 now. So it's so it's the number of users within ExxonMobil.”
Seven Lakes claims 95% to 97% net retention rate
“So still is in the high nineties. So it's right now at 95 to 97. It's it. I say that because I'm, I haven't gotten the latest numbers from my net retention or growth. Net retention.”
Murthy: Seven Lakes Reached Cash Flow Positive in 2018
“We were cashflow positive in 2018, so I will say we've got an extremely awesome CFO and CEO who've been very diligent in ensuring that we aren't Adding more people and cost without the ability to demonstrate.”
Seven Lakes grew from $0 to $7M ARR before flattening out
“We went from zero to 3.5 to five, five to seven and flat.”
Murthy: Two Dozen Companies Backlogged for Seven Lakes Product Trials
“Before we even hit into 2021 or even launched the product, we had two dozen real solid companies saying, if you, once you launch it fully and you get a couple of folks saying yes, we're in, put us in the trial. So now what we have is a backlog of folks wanting…”