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Jun 2, 2020 · 21m · top-founders

TrustMary: Transition from $2m Agency to $200k SaaS

Arttu Haho · 12m spoken Nathan Latka · 5m spoken Eric Yuan · 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

Trustmary founder Arttu Haho sits down with Nathan Latka to discuss how he bootstrapped a 2.5 million euro video testimonial agency into a recurring SaaS platform with over 200 software customers. Arttu breaks down their product-market fit strategy, sales compensation model, and disciplined approach to external fundraising.

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 30.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 5.2 Guest teaching 1.7 Guest disagreement 1.5 Nathan pushing back 4.0
05100:0010:0020:001:56–7:20 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Introducing Arttu Haho and Trustmary's Value Proposition Latka immediately dives into calculating the ARR and average contract values, catching a discrepancy between the 208 customers and the quoted $390 per month plan. Haho clarifies that the current ARR is 208k euros because customers were signed up on cheaper annual plans, leading Latka to correctly recalculate average revenue per user at 90 dollars per month.7:21–9:48 · Nathan as informed peer 4/10 Agency Fatigue, Team Breakdown, and COVID-19 Impact The conversation covers the agency background and why Haho decided to pivot from a 2.5 million euro video production business to recurring SaaS. Latka drills into team composition, asking specifically for headcounts across engineering and quota-carrying sales reps.9:48–13:02 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Retention, Cold-Outreach Sales, and US Market Strategy Latka demonstrates domain knowledge by using third-party SEO data from Ahrefs to point out Trustmary's organic ranking for terms like NPS despite lacking paid ads. Haho explains their recent shift away from broad paid marketing in the US back toward organic and product-market fit discovery.13:02–16:42 · Nathan as informed peer 7/10 Sales Compensation Economics, Profitability, and Funding Goals Latka aggressively challenges the unit economics of paying 10 sales reps to cold-call customers for an eighty-to-ninety dollar per month SaaS product. Haho concedes the model was built on legacy five-thousand dollar video bundles and admits they are still figuring out commission structures for pure SaaS.16:43–19:06 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Viral Referral Experiments and Hypothetical Company Valuation When Haho names a hypothetical acquisition valuation of 10 million dollars against a three million dollar prompt, Latka pushes back on selling based on arbitrary potential. Haho defends his valuation based on the underlying profitability of the agency business funding SaaS growth.19:06–20:51 · Nathan as informed peer 3/10 The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions The interview concludes with standard rapid-fire questions regarding Haho's reading habits, sleep tracking, and founder advice, ending on a friendly note as Haho jokingly offers to optimize Latka's website.1:56–7:20 · Guest teaching 3/10 Introducing Arttu Haho and Trustmary's Value Proposition Latka immediately dives into calculating the ARR and average contract values, catching a discrepancy between the 208 customers and the quoted $390 per month plan. Haho clarifies that the current ARR is 208k euros because customers were signed up on cheaper annual plans, leading Latka to correctly recalculate average revenue per user at 90 dollars per month.7:21–9:48 · Guest teaching 2/10 Agency Fatigue, Team Breakdown, and COVID-19 Impact The conversation covers the agency background and why Haho decided to pivot from a 2.5 million euro video production business to recurring SaaS. Latka drills into team composition, asking specifically for headcounts across engineering and quota-carrying sales reps.9:48–13:02 · Guest teaching 2/10 Retention, Cold-Outreach Sales, and US Market Strategy Latka demonstrates domain knowledge by using third-party SEO data from Ahrefs to point out Trustmary's organic ranking for terms like NPS despite lacking paid ads. Haho explains their recent shift away from broad paid marketing in the US back toward organic and product-market fit discovery.13:02–16:42 · Guest teaching 2/10 Sales Compensation Economics, Profitability, and Funding Goals Latka aggressively challenges the unit economics of paying 10 sales reps to cold-call customers for an eighty-to-ninety dollar per month SaaS product. Haho concedes the model was built on legacy five-thousand dollar video bundles and admits they are still figuring out commission structures for pure SaaS.16:43–19:06 · Guest teaching 1/10 Viral Referral Experiments and Hypothetical Company Valuation When Haho names a hypothetical acquisition valuation of 10 million dollars against a three million dollar prompt, Latka pushes back on selling based on arbitrary potential. Haho defends his valuation based on the underlying profitability of the agency business funding SaaS growth.19:06–20:51 · Guest teaching 0/10 The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions The interview concludes with standard rapid-fire questions regarding Haho's reading habits, sleep tracking, and founder advice, ending on a friendly note as Haho jokingly offers to optimize Latka's website.1:56–7:20 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Introducing Arttu Haho and Trustmary's Value Proposition Latka immediately dives into calculating the ARR and average contract values, catching a discrepancy between the 208 customers and the quoted $390 per month plan. Haho clarifies that the current ARR is 208k euros because customers were signed up on cheaper annual plans, leading Latka to correctly recalculate average revenue per user at 90 dollars per month.7:21–9:48 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Agency Fatigue, Team Breakdown, and COVID-19 Impact The conversation covers the agency background and why Haho decided to pivot from a 2.5 million euro video production business to recurring SaaS. Latka drills into team composition, asking specifically for headcounts across engineering and quota-carrying sales reps.9:48–13:02 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Retention, Cold-Outreach Sales, and US Market Strategy Latka demonstrates domain knowledge by using third-party SEO data from Ahrefs to point out Trustmary's organic ranking for terms like NPS despite lacking paid ads. Haho explains their recent shift away from broad paid marketing in the US back toward organic and product-market fit discovery.13:02–16:42 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Sales Compensation Economics, Profitability, and Funding Goals Latka aggressively challenges the unit economics of paying 10 sales reps to cold-call customers for an eighty-to-ninety dollar per month SaaS product. Haho concedes the model was built on legacy five-thousand dollar video bundles and admits they are still figuring out commission structures for pure SaaS.16:43–19:06 · Guest disagreement 3/10 Viral Referral Experiments and Hypothetical Company Valuation When Haho names a hypothetical acquisition valuation of 10 million dollars against a three million dollar prompt, Latka pushes back on selling based on arbitrary potential. Haho defends his valuation based on the underlying profitability of the agency business funding SaaS growth.19:06–20:51 · Guest disagreement 1/10 The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions The interview concludes with standard rapid-fire questions regarding Haho's reading habits, sleep tracking, and founder advice, ending on a friendly note as Haho jokingly offers to optimize Latka's website.1:56–7:20 · Nathan pushing back 5/10 Introducing Arttu Haho and Trustmary's Value Proposition Latka immediately dives into calculating the ARR and average contract values, catching a discrepancy between the 208 customers and the quoted $390 per month plan. Haho clarifies that the current ARR is 208k euros because customers were signed up on cheaper annual plans, leading Latka to correctly recalculate average revenue per user at 90 dollars per month.7:21–9:48 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Agency Fatigue, Team Breakdown, and COVID-19 Impact The conversation covers the agency background and why Haho decided to pivot from a 2.5 million euro video production business to recurring SaaS. Latka drills into team composition, asking specifically for headcounts across engineering and quota-carrying sales reps.9:48–13:02 · Nathan pushing back 3/10 Retention, Cold-Outreach Sales, and US Market Strategy Latka demonstrates domain knowledge by using third-party SEO data from Ahrefs to point out Trustmary's organic ranking for terms like NPS despite lacking paid ads. Haho explains their recent shift away from broad paid marketing in the US back toward organic and product-market fit discovery.13:02–16:42 · Nathan pushing back 7/10 Sales Compensation Economics, Profitability, and Funding Goals Latka aggressively challenges the unit economics of paying 10 sales reps to cold-call customers for an eighty-to-ninety dollar per month SaaS product. Haho concedes the model was built on legacy five-thousand dollar video bundles and admits they are still figuring out commission structures for pure SaaS.16:43–19:06 · Nathan pushing back 6/10 Viral Referral Experiments and Hypothetical Company Valuation When Haho names a hypothetical acquisition valuation of 10 million dollars against a three million dollar prompt, Latka pushes back on selling based on arbitrary potential. Haho defends his valuation based on the underlying profitability of the agency business funding SaaS growth.19:06–20:51 · Nathan pushing back 1/10 The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions The interview concludes with standard rapid-fire questions regarding Haho's reading habits, sleep tracking, and founder advice, ending on a friendly note as Haho jokingly offers to optimize Latka's website.

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

0:00 · Nathan 67.6% · guest 32.4%0:00 · Nathan 67.6% · guest 32.4%3:00 · Nathan 18.1% · guest 81.9%3:00 · Nathan 18.1% · guest 81.9%6:00 · Nathan 26.1% · guest 73.9%6:00 · Nathan 26.1% · guest 73.9%9:00 · Nathan 23.4% · guest 76.6%9:00 · Nathan 23.4% · guest 76.6%12:00 · Nathan 19.7% · guest 80.3%12:00 · Nathan 19.7% · guest 80.3%15:00 · Nathan 22.5% · guest 77.5%15:00 · Nathan 22.5% · guest 77.5%18:00 · Nathan 29.3% · guest 70.7%18:00 · Nathan 29.3% · guest 70.7%21:00 · Nathan 76.3% · guest 23.7%21:00 · Nathan 76.3% · guest 23.7%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 18:01 Outright rejection of a three million buyout offer

Haho immediately dismisses Latka's hypothetical 3 million dollar cash buyout offer and asserts he would only sell for at least 10 million based on potential.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 13:02 Challenging SDR viability for small ARPU products

Latka directly interrogates Haho on how the company can afford 10 quota-carrying reps doing outbound cold calls on a ninety-dollar-a-month ACV SaaS product.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 5:07 Correcting ARPU and ARR calculation confusion

Haho clarifies the difference between his legacy discounted annual contracts and the new $390 list price after Latka erroneously projects monthly software revenue at $80,000.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 11:27 Pulling live Ahrefs organic traffic and SEM data

Latka brings external competitive intelligence into the conversation by citing Trustmary's exact paid search posture and organic NPS rankings from Ahrefs.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Introducing Arttu Haho and Trustmary's Value Proposition 6315 Latka immediately dives into calculating the ARR and average contract values, catching a discrepancy between the 208 customers and the quoted $390 per month plan. Haho clarifies that the current ARR is 208k euros because customers were signed up on cheaper annual plans, leading Latka to correctly recalculate average revenue per user at 90 dollars per month.
Agency Fatigue, Team Breakdown, and COVID-19 Impact 4212 The conversation covers the agency background and why Haho decided to pivot from a 2.5 million euro video production business to recurring SaaS. Latka drills into team composition, asking specifically for headcounts across engineering and quota-carrying sales reps.
Retention, Cold-Outreach Sales, and US Market Strategy 6213 Latka demonstrates domain knowledge by using third-party SEO data from Ahrefs to point out Trustmary's organic ranking for terms like NPS despite lacking paid ads. Haho explains their recent shift away from broad paid marketing in the US back toward organic and product-market fit discovery.
Sales Compensation Economics, Profitability, and Funding Goals 7227 Latka aggressively challenges the unit economics of paying 10 sales reps to cold-call customers for an eighty-to-ninety dollar per month SaaS product. Haho concedes the model was built on legacy five-thousand dollar video bundles and admits they are still figuring out commission structures for pure SaaS.
Viral Referral Experiments and Hypothetical Company Valuation 5136 When Haho names a hypothetical acquisition valuation of 10 million dollars against a three million dollar prompt, Latka pushes back on selling based on arbitrary potential. Haho defends his valuation based on the underlying profitability of the agency business funding SaaS growth.
The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions 3011 The interview concludes with standard rapid-fire questions regarding Haho's reading habits, sleep tracking, and founder advice, ending on a friendly note as Haho jokingly offers to optimize Latka's website.

Statements from this episode (10)

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Trustmary's average contract value exceeds €1,000 per month
“Currently kind of our annual average contract value is more than a thousand euro per month, but that's kind of the messy, the data we have currently.”
Arttu Haho Jun 2, 2020 ▶ 3:07
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Trustmary has produced almost 4,000 testimonial videos for 1,500 companies
“We have done it more, almost 4000 times already with 1500 companies.”
Arttu Haho Jun 2, 2020 ▶ 4:11
Disclosure
Trustmary is fully bootstrapped using revenue from video agency operations
“So we are bootstrapped to this point and yeah, that's how we have made money in the history and that's our core.”
Arttu Haho Jun 2, 2020 ▶ 4:22
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Trustmary's software business reaches €208,000 in annual recurring revenue
“So actually our ARR at the moment is 208,000 in Euro.”
Arttu Haho Jun 2, 2020 ▶ 5:28
Assertion Partly supported
Trustmary bootstrapped video testimonial agency to €2.5M annual revenue
“Like, when you are doing a project business, we bootstrap that from zero to 2.5 million in euro per year.”
Arttu Haho Jun 2, 2020 ▶ 7:32
Disclosure
Most software customers are on annual plans due to late monthly launch
“Like, almost all of them. Because we launched a monthly plan only two weeks ago, so.”
Arttu Haho Jun 2, 2020 ▶ 10:23
Disclosure
Trustmary's primary SaaS customer acquisition method is outbound cold calling
“Currently the most, like the most common way of finding those customers is actually that our sales rep is making a cold call and then finding a meeting and then making a deal with the customer from the meeting.”
Arttu Haho Jun 2, 2020 ▶ 10:36
Disclosure
Trustmary paused US and European marketing after finding product too generic
“We started putting efforts on sales and marketing, for example, in the US and into Europe somewhere The more effort somewhere in the November, December, but then we didn't get a lot of results. So that's why we have been, we scaled that down for a couple of mo…”
Arttu Haho Jun 2, 2020 ▶ 11:58
Assertion Supported
Trustmary has been profitable since inception and reinvests all profits
“Yeah, we have been profitable from the beginning, and all the money we have been basically making, we have been investing our future, so currently it's software where we are investing most. We have been aiming for, kind of, the zero margin for, until this poin…”
Arttu Haho Jun 2, 2020 ▶ 15:38
Disclosure
Founder Arttu Haho is ready to sell Trustmary for $10M today
“If you give me 10, then I can, I'm ready to do it today.”
Arttu Haho Jun 2, 2020 ▶ 18:13
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