Sep 28, 2020 · 27m · top-founders
Lemlist Gives Employees This Bonus When 5x Revenue Growth Target Hit
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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 with Nathan Latka, Lemlist founder and CEO Guillaume Moubeche details how his bootstrapped SaaS company scaled from $600K to over $2M in ARR with zero ad spend, $100K monthly profit, and a unique company-wide MRR bonus structure.
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 29.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 3.9 Guest teaching 2.8 Guest disagreement 1.1 Nathan pushing back 1.7
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 19:49 Rejecting a simple churn question
Guillaume explicitly refuses Latka's simple gross churn framing, insisting that churn can only be accurately understood by segmenting between SMB seasonality and mid-market expansion.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 4:16 Host insists on quota clarityLatka cuts through Guillaume's generalized team description to demand a direct answer on whether any individual employees carry strict sales quotas.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 4:48 Educating on aligned MRR compensationGuillaume breaks down why traditional MQL/SQL targets incentivize low-quality lead volume and explains how tying bonuses strictly to overall MRR aligns company-wide focus.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 13:02 Instant mental math on AppSumo deal economicsLatka immediately calculates total gross sales and platform fee deductions in real time, determining Lemlist's exact net cash proceeds from their launch.
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 Announcement: Subscribing to GetLatka Premium Feed | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | The segment begins with a standard promotional read for GetLatka before transitioning into an introductory interview overview and polite opening rapport regarding customer engagement. | |
| Aligning Team Compensation with Company MRR Growth | 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Latka pushes for clarity on whether any team members carry individual sales quotas. Guillaume explains his compensation philosophy, detailing why departmental MQL/SQL quotas create misaligned incentives compared to company-wide MRR growth. | |
| Setting 5x Annual Growth Targets and Revenue Milestones | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Latka actively works through the mathematical mechanics of Guillaume's quarterly bonus structure using hypothetical base salaries to clarify how team members earn variable compensation. | |
| AppSumo Launch Strategy and Managing Lifetime Deals | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Guillaume explains his decision not to aggressively upsell AppSumo lifetime users, prioritizing goodwill. Latka demonstrates quick domain fluency by calculating the exact gross-to-net revenue split from the AppSumo campaigns. | |
| Current SaaS Metrics, Pricing, and Bootstrapped Profitability | 5 | 2 | 0 | 2 | Latka and Guillaume discuss bootstrapped SaaS economics, cash allocation, dividend payouts, and realistic ARR valuation multiples for early-stage software companies. | |
| Sales Philosophy: Humanized Outreach and Product Differentiation | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Guillaume rejects conventional sales dogmas like aggressive closing and explains how Lemlist's product decisions reflect a human-centered, relationship-driven approach. | |
| Retention Dynamics, Cohort Churn, and Low Acquisition Cost | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | When Latka asks for a flat gross churn figure, Guillaume pushes back against the premise, reframing retention around customer persona size, cohort seasonality, and net negative churn. | |
| Building and Leveraging a High-Engagement Facebook Community | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | Guillaume explains why Facebook Groups outperform platforms like Slack or LinkedIn for brand community building, emphasizing live video reach and social proof while Latka investigates onboarding conversion rates. | |
| The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Standard concluding rapid-fire questioning featuring quick personal insights and mutual appreciation. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Moubeche records free 20-minute pipeline audits for select Lemlist customers
“I keep helping people if they are in need, you know, for advice on how to set up, you know, their outbound pipeline. So that's something where I'm doing, like, kind of, like, free consulting sessions depending on, on some customers where I could just, like, sp…”
Lemlist scaled to $2 million ARR with just 12 employees
“We were like 12 people when we reached two million in ARR, and in September, twenty-twenty, we're gonna be 19 people.”
Moubeche: Tying bonuses to lead volume harms overall lead quality
“Because I know a lot of people, you know, they're trying to put bonuses on number of qualified leads, marketing qualified leads, sales qualified I think it's too complicated, and I think people tend to always optimize things based on, so for example, if I tell…”
Lemlist targeted 5x annual revenue growth starting in December 2019
“Our goal essentially was to do like five X from December, 2019 up to like December, 20 20.”
Lemlist had approximately $600K in ARR in December 2019
“So in December, 2019, we were around a bit less than a million.
So I think it was like 600 K or something like that.
Yeah.
So it's six times yeah.
Wait, it's something like yeah.
600 K AR or something.”
Lemlist offers a 25% monthly salary bonus for hitting quarterly targets
“Every quarter you can get 25% of your salary, of your monthly salary.”
Lemlist sees seasonal summer churn as small customers pause subscriptions
“Cause I know like Q one is really strong. Q two is also really strong for us. I know Q three is sometimes a bit like less strong cause you have July and August where those are the months where we see like, we sometimes see like small companies especially like …”
Lemlist surpassed 3,000 monthly recurring customers and 10,000 total users
“In recurring, we have like more than 3000 companies paying on the monthly basis and total customer is more than a 10,000.”
Converting lifetime deal SaaS users into recurring paying customers is tough
“Yeah, I think it's very tough to convert a lifetime deal user into a paying customer.”
Lemlist netted approximately $150K in revenue from its AppSumo campaigns
“Total with AppSumo, essentially, we made, I think 150 K.”
Lemlist generates more than $100,000 in profit each month
“Right now we're making, you know, like each month we're making a bit more than a 100,000 dollar profits.”
Lemlist spends zero dollars on paid advertising or acquisition channels
“We don't spend any money on paid ads or paid acquisition or anything else.”
Lemlist's three co-founders each own a one-third stake in the company
“We all have like a third of the company.”
Moubeche values Lemlist at $7M to $8M on a 3x-4x multiple
“I think to be honest, like it's basically like, let's say we're at, I mean, we're north of two million ARR, but I think it's like 7,000,007 to eight million. If I have to be very like reasonable, I would say, because it would be like something if you are, if y…”
Moubeche: Studies show the best salespeople are introverted women
“But actually, when you look at, you know, like all the studies, you see that best salespeople are introvert. Best salespeople are usually women.”
Lemlist achieves -5% to -6% net MRR churn on mid-sized teams
“And those people are not churning. Like we have negative net MR churn. So something around like minus five, minus six percent.”
Lemlist sees 3% to 4% net MRR churn among small startups
“The churn is around like maybe 10%, but the net MRR churn is basically around like maybe three to four percent”
Lemlist's user community has grown to nearly 10,000 members
“Because, like, right now when people, like, go to our community, they see, like, almost 10,000 people”
Community ROI is undercounted because referrals get misattributed to word-of-mouth
“You could measure people in the community that became customers. Fine. That's a good indicator. But do you measure all the people from the community that are talking to other people about your brand? So it's like, you're going to put that in word of mouth when…”