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Dec 29, 2020 · 16m · top-founders

How Lately Hit $900k For Social Media Automation Tool Using AI, $7m valuation

Kate Chernis · 10m spoken Nathan Latka · 3m 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, Lately Founder and CEO Kate Chernis shares how her AI-powered social media repurposing SaaS expanded from $300k to nearly $1M ARR with zero paid marketing through capital-efficient operations, organic social selling, and strategic product pivots.

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

Nathan as informed peer 5.3 Guest teaching 4.0 Guest disagreement 3.7 Nathan pushing back 3.7
05100:0010:001:15–6:31 · Nathan as informed peer 4/10 Founding Story, Female Founder Challenges, and Radio Roots Kate aggressively rejects traditional outbound SDR sales funnels and paid ad strategies, calling standard marketing tactics dinosauric and marketers lazy. Nathan largely validates her perspective and facilitates her explanation of Lately's organic growth flywheel.6:32–10:58 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Pricing Evolution, Extreme Burn Reduction, and Product Pivots Nathan drills into the financial mechanics of Lately's near-death experience, pressing on cash balances and burn rates. Kate candidly shares how she slashed net burn from $100k to $10k per month and went without paying staff to keep the company alive.10:58–14:51 · Nathan as informed peer 7/10 Capitalization Strategy, Retention Metrics, and Gary Vee Partnership Nathan demonstrates strong SaaS domain fluency by instantly calculating net revenue retention metrics from Kate's churn numbers and interrogating the Gary Vee equity terms. Kate pushes back against traditional Series A VC fundraising, declaring she refuses to play the dog-and-pony game for investors.1:15–6:31 · Guest teaching 4/10 Founding Story, Female Founder Challenges, and Radio Roots Kate aggressively rejects traditional outbound SDR sales funnels and paid ad strategies, calling standard marketing tactics dinosauric and marketers lazy. Nathan largely validates her perspective and facilitates her explanation of Lately's organic growth flywheel.6:32–10:58 · Guest teaching 4/10 Pricing Evolution, Extreme Burn Reduction, and Product Pivots Nathan drills into the financial mechanics of Lately's near-death experience, pressing on cash balances and burn rates. Kate candidly shares how she slashed net burn from $100k to $10k per month and went without paying staff to keep the company alive.10:58–14:51 · Guest teaching 4/10 Capitalization Strategy, Retention Metrics, and Gary Vee Partnership Nathan demonstrates strong SaaS domain fluency by instantly calculating net revenue retention metrics from Kate's churn numbers and interrogating the Gary Vee equity terms. Kate pushes back against traditional Series A VC fundraising, declaring she refuses to play the dog-and-pony game for investors.1:15–6:31 · Guest disagreement 4/10 Founding Story, Female Founder Challenges, and Radio Roots Kate aggressively rejects traditional outbound SDR sales funnels and paid ad strategies, calling standard marketing tactics dinosauric and marketers lazy. Nathan largely validates her perspective and facilitates her explanation of Lately's organic growth flywheel.6:32–10:58 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Pricing Evolution, Extreme Burn Reduction, and Product Pivots Nathan drills into the financial mechanics of Lately's near-death experience, pressing on cash balances and burn rates. Kate candidly shares how she slashed net burn from $100k to $10k per month and went without paying staff to keep the company alive.10:58–14:51 · Guest disagreement 5/10 Capitalization Strategy, Retention Metrics, and Gary Vee Partnership Nathan demonstrates strong SaaS domain fluency by instantly calculating net revenue retention metrics from Kate's churn numbers and interrogating the Gary Vee equity terms. Kate pushes back against traditional Series A VC fundraising, declaring she refuses to play the dog-and-pony game for investors.1:15–6:31 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Founding Story, Female Founder Challenges, and Radio Roots Kate aggressively rejects traditional outbound SDR sales funnels and paid ad strategies, calling standard marketing tactics dinosauric and marketers lazy. Nathan largely validates her perspective and facilitates her explanation of Lately's organic growth flywheel.6:32–10:58 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Pricing Evolution, Extreme Burn Reduction, and Product Pivots Nathan drills into the financial mechanics of Lately's near-death experience, pressing on cash balances and burn rates. Kate candidly shares how she slashed net burn from $100k to $10k per month and went without paying staff to keep the company alive.10:58–14:51 · Nathan pushing back 5/10 Capitalization Strategy, Retention Metrics, and Gary Vee Partnership Nathan demonstrates strong SaaS domain fluency by instantly calculating net revenue retention metrics from Kate's churn numbers and interrogating the Gary Vee equity terms. Kate pushes back against traditional Series A VC fundraising, declaring she refuses to play the dog-and-pony game for investors.

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

0:00 · Nathan 39.7% · guest 60.3%0:00 · Nathan 39.7% · guest 60.3%3:00 · Nathan 12.8% · guest 87.2%3:00 · Nathan 12.8% · guest 87.2%6:00 · Nathan 11.2% · guest 88.8%6:00 · Nathan 11.2% · guest 88.8%9:00 · Nathan 17.9% · guest 82.1%9:00 · Nathan 17.9% · guest 82.1%12:00 · Nathan 24.8% · guest 75.2%12:00 · Nathan 24.8% · guest 75.2%15:00 · Nathan 55.6% · guest 44.4%15:00 · Nathan 55.6% · guest 44.4%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 14:35 Rejecting VC fundraising games

Kate aggressively vents her refusal to raise a conventional Series A, stating she is tired of working with difficult investors and dancing in dog-and-pony shows.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 13:52 Interrogating the Gary Vee deal terms

Nathan refuses vague partner talk and directly drills down into whether Gary Vee received equity and whether he is the exclusive investor in the round.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 8:10 The reality of lean survival and unpaid payroll

Kate educates Nathan on what extreme operational survival really looked like when funding dried up, detailing operating on $13k cash and deferred staff compensation.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 13:24 Real-time SaaS retention math

Nathan immediately synthesizes Kate's 2% monthly churn and annual billing upsells into a precise 76-80% net revenue retention figure.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Founding Story, Female Founder Challenges, and Radio Roots 4442 Kate aggressively rejects traditional outbound SDR sales funnels and paid ad strategies, calling standard marketing tactics dinosauric and marketers lazy. Nathan largely validates her perspective and facilitates her explanation of Lately's organic growth flywheel.
Pricing Evolution, Extreme Burn Reduction, and Product Pivots 5424 Nathan drills into the financial mechanics of Lately's near-death experience, pressing on cash balances and burn rates. Kate candidly shares how she slashed net burn from $100k to $10k per month and went without paying staff to keep the company alive.
Capitalization Strategy, Retention Metrics, and Gary Vee Partnership 7455 Nathan demonstrates strong SaaS domain fluency by instantly calculating net revenue retention metrics from Kate's churn numbers and interrogating the Gary Vee equity terms. Kate pushes back against traditional Series A VC fundraising, declaring she refuses to play the dog-and-pony game for investors.

Statements from this episode (12)

Opinion
Chernis: Female founders must work 98% harder than male peers
“Female founders, do you know this, Nathan? We have to work 98% harder than our male counterparts.”
Kate Chernis Dec 29, 2020 ▶ 1:35
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Chernis: Lately grew MRR from $25k to $74k in 10 months
“So last year we were at 25,000 dollars MRR, and we are now at 74, 74,000 dollars MRR. Oh, great. So that's a 196% increase in 10 months.”
Kate Chernis Dec 29, 2020 ▶ 2:54
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Chernis: Lately converted 98% of product demos over 10 months
“The demo has always had a 50% or higher conversion. It's been at 98% for the last 10 months.”
Kate Chernis Dec 29, 2020 ▶ 3:43
Opinion
Chernis: The traditional outbound SaaS sales funnel is completely broken
“I'm hell bent on upending the SaaS sales model funnel model. I think it's completely broken and old. In Dinosauric even, right? It doesn't apply anymore. Nobody wants to receive those cold calls. Nobody wants a bank of SDRs smiling and dialing, who also, by th…”
Kate Chernis Dec 29, 2020 ▶ 4:11
Opinion
Chernis: Paid advertising is dead
“Paid is dead. I mean, there's tons of data about this out now. Freakonomics just did two episodes on this the last couple of weeks in case you guys listen to that podcast.”
Kate Chernis Dec 29, 2020 ▶ 5:55
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Chernis: 20% of churned target customers returned after Lately tripled prices
“What's been interesting to us is about 20% of the people that fit our key demographic now, who churned in the past, have come back.”
Kate Chernis Dec 29, 2020 ▶ 7:07
Disclosure
Chernis: Lately slashed monthly net burn from $100K to $10K
“And so I had no choice, Nathan, but to drop my burn from a hundred K to 10 K, which is pretty amazing.”
Kate Chernis Dec 29, 2020 ▶ 8:22
Disclosure
Chernis: Most Lately staff went unpaid for two years during cash crunch
“And so, but that also means most of my staff didn't get paid for the last two years.”
Kate Chernis Dec 29, 2020 ▶ 8:34
Disclosure
Chernis: Lately secured an oversubscribed $4M term sheet right before COVID
“I graduated in the top three of the class, won the final demo day, had a term sheet in hand, I'm oversubscribed, four million bucks, And the world explodes.”
Kate Chernis Dec 29, 2020 ▶ 9:00
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Chernis: Lately's monthly churn is 2% or less
“Yeah, the churn is two percent per month or less.”
Kate Chernis Dec 29, 2020 ▶ 12:58
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Chernis: Lately is looking to hit $1M ARR by January 2021
“So we're certainly looking at a million in ARR by January.”
Kate Chernis Dec 29, 2020 ▶ 13:42
Assertion Supported
Chernis: Gary Vaynerchuk is becoming an investor in Lately
“He is becoming an investor in lately, yes.”
Kate Chernis Dec 29, 2020 ▶ 14:04
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