Aug 19, 2020 · 31m · top-founders
Wavve Hits 9k For Audio Video Tool, $70k Monthly Profits!
Baird Hall · 18m spoken Nathan Latka · 9m spoken Frank Bien · 4s spoken Eric Yuan · 4s spoken Vivek Bhaskaran · 2s spoken
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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, serial entrepreneur Baird Hall explains how he bootstrapped Wavve from a salvaged side project into an audio-video SaaS generating $115,000 in monthly recurring revenue. Hall details the mechanics of their low-touch freemium funnel, lean six-person operational structure, and disciplined 70% profit margins.
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 33.6% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 6.3 Guest teaching 2.6 Guest disagreement 1.1 Nathan pushing back 2.5
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 16:31 Rejecting generic SEO framing
Hall counters Latka's SEO critique by highlighting that the industry terminology is nascent and directly conflicts with medical hearing test search traffic.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 16:06 Challenging lack of organic SEO strategyLatka brings up Ahrefs data live to confront Hall on why Wavve fails to rank for broader podcast marketing keywords.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 16:31 Educating on audiogram search intentHall informs Latka that search engine optimization for audio clips is hindered because average users do not know standard terminology and keywords overlap with medical terms.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 13:21 Live funnel math stress testLatka calculates the funnel numbers on the spot, demonstrating that stated conversion rates do not match Hall's claimed customer addition rate.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introducing Baird Hall and the Origin of Wavve | 6 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Latka raises direct technical hurdles regarding social video mute defaults and per-minute transcription costs. Hall clarifies how short clip durations and AWS rendering keep unit economics manageable. | |
| Wavve Business Metrics, Pricing, and Bootstrapped Scale | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Latka quickly converts active subscribers and ARPU into Wavve's monthly recurring revenue figure of $115k. Hall agrees with the math and details their low-touch, bootstrapped growth path. | |
| Manual Cold Outreach and First 100 Customers | 6 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Latka drills down into tactical cold email mechanics and conversion goals. Hall explains his conversational approach to cold outreach rather than pitching links immediately. | |
| Freemium User Journey and Conversion Funnel Mechanics | 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Latka models the conversion funnel live from monthly trials to paid customers, pointing out math discrepancies in estimated net additions. Hall acknowledges his conversion estimates were understated. | |
| Product Expansion, Zubtitle, and Search Marketing | 7 | 4 | 2 | 4 | Latka checks Ahrefs in real time and challenges Wavve's lack of generic podcast search rankings. Hall educates him on how 'audiogram' keyword intent clashes with medical hearing tests. | |
| Profit Margins, Wealth Generation, and Founders' Philosophy | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Latka praises the 70% profit margin and explores how the founders pull cash dividends. Hall describes their preference for building early-stage micro-SaaS rather than managing corporate scale. | |
| Lean Operational Structure and Contractor Philosophy | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Latka breaks down team compensation and contractor dynamics. Hall outlines their strategy of hiring ambitious side-hustling contractors who want autonomy. | |
| Prosumer Churn Dynamics and Acquisition Economics | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Latka explores high prosumer churn rates and acquisition economics before transitioning into the Famous Five wrap-up. Hall shares metrics on ad spend efficiency and Intercom support. |
Statements from this episode (18)
Baird Hall says AWS video generation and transcription costs have plunged
“The transcription cost, it's really gotten more efficient over the last couple years. So between that and just video generation through AWS's tools has gotten a lot cheaper.”
Baird Hall says Wavve reached 9,000 active paying customers by August 2020
“We've got let's see, active subscribers should be it's nine, 9000 active customers right now.”
Baird Hall reveals Wavve's average revenue per user is exactly $12.63
“It's SaaS based on usage. The lowest price is 10 dollars and it goes up to 60. But our average revenue per user is 1263 just, you know, 12 and a half bucks.”
Baird Hall confirms Wavve is generating $115,000 in monthly recurring revenue
“Yeah. A 115. That's what we're at right now.”
Baird Hall built Wavve to $115k MRR on $2,000 total initial funding
“Yep. All bootstrapped. We haven't raised any money. We all put, my co-founder and I put a thousand bucks in both. And have just been building it that way.”
Baird Hall scraped podcast RSS feeds to cold-email Wavve's first customers
“Nick is my technical co-founder and he built me this we use the iTunes API to give me a little search dashboard. So I'd go on Twitter and I would try and find people that are promoting their new episode, ideally like their first or second episode. I'd look for…”
Baird Hall advises using cold emails strictly to ask permission to sell
“So my approach for cold email is I keep the initial outreach very short and I usually try to start with an opening question that I All I'm trying to do is invite a conversation. Like I'm not even trying to get them to do anything in that first email. All I'm r…”
Baird Hall claims Wavve maintains a 7% to 9% free-to-paid conversion rate
“And we have our conversion rates around seven to nine percent. So we have a lot of volume coming in for that type of conversion rate to sustain growth.”
Baird Hall estimates Wavve adds 800 to 1,000 new paying customers monthly
“More like a thousand. So probably have to work back away from there between like 800 and a thousand new customers. So those numbers are probably a little, little low on the conversion side.”
Baird Hall notes audiogram tool SEO fails due to medical keyword overlap
“And I think that's because it's hard for people to articulate what these types of videos are because they're kind of hard to define. Audiogram is like the best kind of term that's come up, but The average person doesn't really know what an audiogram is or what…”
Baird Hall notes Wavve doubled monthly revenue from $51,000 in one year
“A year ago we were at 51 thousand. So we've pretty much doubled in the last in the last 12 months.”
Baird Hall claims Wavve maintains roughly 70% monthly profit margins
“But we are maniacal about our profit margins and we sit around 70% for monthly profit margins.”
Baird Hall distributes maximum cash from Wavve instead of reinvesting in product
“We distribute as much cash as we can. I mean as far as wave goes, we're not really seeing any major product development right now to reinvest into. The product's pretty mature.”
Baird Hall aims to exit his SaaS businesses at $500k to $2M
“So I think we are in that kind of, you know, 500 K to two million ARR sweet spot that we like to work in. And we haven't had our first exit yet, but I'm assuming that's kind of, I mean, that's probably going to be the goal. I don't think we're going to want to…”
Baird Hall spins every new SaaS product onto a separate cap table
“Any new products that we create, we do readjust with a new cap table because we want partners, you know, there were times you know, with subtitle, for example, there were People that previous partners that just couldn't take the risk to start a new company. So…”
Baird Hall exclusively hires contractors who are building their own side startups
“Outside of the equity partners. We don't hire employees. We only hire contractors. And something we really like to do is we actually like to hire contractors that are working on their own entrepreneurial ideas and they work for us. And we kind of help teach th…”