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Feb 18, 2020 · 17m · top-founders

1669 Weird Way He Gets Customers, $1m in ARR for Data Pipeline Visibility

Paul Lappas · 9m spoken Nathan Latka · 5m 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, Intermix.io CEO and co-founder Paul Lappas discusses scaling his cloud data observability platform past 25 enterprise customers and toward $1 million in ARR. He breaks down their unique job-scraping customer acquisition strategy, SaaS retention economics, distributed team structure, and capital strategy.

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 35.6% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 5.6 Guest teaching 2.4 Guest disagreement 1.2 Nathan pushing back 2.8
05100:0010:000:00–4:16 · Nathan as informed peer 4/10 Episode Overview and Key Business Metrics Nathan introduces the company's core metrics and guides Paul through his previous exit at GoGrid and the founding story at Crittercism. The tone is highly collaborative and exploratory.4:17–7:34 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Product Architecture and Enterprise SaaS Pricing Model Nathan pushes past Paul's initial deflection on net retention to drill into gross churn specifics, pressing until Paul clarifies it is under five percent annually.7:34–11:20 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Seed Stage Definition, Funding, and Reaching $1M ARR Nathan performs real-time financial modeling on Paul's customer count and expansion rates, verifying ARR markers and compounding month-over-month growth.11:21–14:06 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Unique Customer Acquisition Strategy and Job Board Scraping Paul educates Nathan on their specific go-to-market tactic of scraping Indeed job postings for Amazon Redshift keywords to build targeted outbound lead lists.14:06–16:30 · Nathan as informed peer 7/10 R&D Investment, Cash Burn, and Venture Debt Considerations Nathan demonstrates specialized venture financing knowledge by suggesting alternative debt providers like Lighter Capital when Paul assumes debt is only accessible post-Series A.0:00–4:16 · Guest teaching 2/10 Episode Overview and Key Business Metrics Nathan introduces the company's core metrics and guides Paul through his previous exit at GoGrid and the founding story at Crittercism. The tone is highly collaborative and exploratory.4:17–7:34 · Guest teaching 2/10 Product Architecture and Enterprise SaaS Pricing Model Nathan pushes past Paul's initial deflection on net retention to drill into gross churn specifics, pressing until Paul clarifies it is under five percent annually.7:34–11:20 · Guest teaching 2/10 Seed Stage Definition, Funding, and Reaching $1M ARR Nathan performs real-time financial modeling on Paul's customer count and expansion rates, verifying ARR markers and compounding month-over-month growth.11:21–14:06 · Guest teaching 5/10 Unique Customer Acquisition Strategy and Job Board Scraping Paul educates Nathan on their specific go-to-market tactic of scraping Indeed job postings for Amazon Redshift keywords to build targeted outbound lead lists.14:06–16:30 · Guest teaching 1/10 R&D Investment, Cash Burn, and Venture Debt Considerations Nathan demonstrates specialized venture financing knowledge by suggesting alternative debt providers like Lighter Capital when Paul assumes debt is only accessible post-Series A.0:00–4:16 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Episode Overview and Key Business Metrics Nathan introduces the company's core metrics and guides Paul through his previous exit at GoGrid and the founding story at Crittercism. The tone is highly collaborative and exploratory.4:17–7:34 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Product Architecture and Enterprise SaaS Pricing Model Nathan pushes past Paul's initial deflection on net retention to drill into gross churn specifics, pressing until Paul clarifies it is under five percent annually.7:34–11:20 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Seed Stage Definition, Funding, and Reaching $1M ARR Nathan performs real-time financial modeling on Paul's customer count and expansion rates, verifying ARR markers and compounding month-over-month growth.11:21–14:06 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Unique Customer Acquisition Strategy and Job Board Scraping Paul educates Nathan on their specific go-to-market tactic of scraping Indeed job postings for Amazon Redshift keywords to build targeted outbound lead lists.14:06–16:30 · Guest disagreement 1/10 R&D Investment, Cash Burn, and Venture Debt Considerations Nathan demonstrates specialized venture financing knowledge by suggesting alternative debt providers like Lighter Capital when Paul assumes debt is only accessible post-Series A.0:00–4:16 · Nathan pushing back 1/10 Episode Overview and Key Business Metrics Nathan introduces the company's core metrics and guides Paul through his previous exit at GoGrid and the founding story at Crittercism. The tone is highly collaborative and exploratory.4:17–7:34 · Nathan pushing back 5/10 Product Architecture and Enterprise SaaS Pricing Model Nathan pushes past Paul's initial deflection on net retention to drill into gross churn specifics, pressing until Paul clarifies it is under five percent annually.7:34–11:20 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Seed Stage Definition, Funding, and Reaching $1M ARR Nathan performs real-time financial modeling on Paul's customer count and expansion rates, verifying ARR markers and compounding month-over-month growth.11:21–14:06 · Nathan pushing back 3/10 Unique Customer Acquisition Strategy and Job Board Scraping Paul educates Nathan on their specific go-to-market tactic of scraping Indeed job postings for Amazon Redshift keywords to build targeted outbound lead lists.14:06–16:30 · Nathan pushing back 3/10 R&D Investment, Cash Burn, and Venture Debt Considerations Nathan demonstrates specialized venture financing knowledge by suggesting alternative debt providers like Lighter Capital when Paul assumes debt is only accessible post-Series A.

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

0:00 · Nathan 39.2% · guest 60.8%0:00 · Nathan 39.2% · guest 60.8%3:00 · Nathan 20.5% · guest 79.5%3:00 · Nathan 20.5% · guest 79.5%6:00 · Nathan 40.5% · guest 59.5%6:00 · Nathan 40.5% · guest 59.5%9:00 · Nathan 28.6% · guest 71.4%9:00 · Nathan 28.6% · guest 71.4%12:00 · Nathan 34% · guest 66%12:00 · Nathan 34% · guest 66%15:00 · Nathan 58.5% · guest 41.5%15:00 · Nathan 58.5% · guest 41.5%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 6:39 Deflection on gross churn breakdown

When Nathan asks for exact gross churn numbers, Paul deflects by discussing platform architecture and potential warehouse migration before eventually conceding the metric.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 6:47 Drilling into gross churn versus net retention

Nathan refuses Paul's vague framing around net retention and forces a clear disclosure of annual gross churn figures.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 13:09 Job board scraping outbound growth hack

Paul details a clever customer acquisition workflow where scraping Redshift job requirements generates qualified enterprise sales leads.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 14:45 Educating guest on revenue-based debt options

Nathan demonstrates domain expertise by citing non-dilutive lenders like Lighter Capital when Paul assumes venture debt requires Series A institutional backing.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Episode Overview and Key Business Metrics 4211 Nathan introduces the company's core metrics and guides Paul through his previous exit at GoGrid and the founding story at Crittercism. The tone is highly collaborative and exploratory.
Product Architecture and Enterprise SaaS Pricing Model 6225 Nathan pushes past Paul's initial deflection on net retention to drill into gross churn specifics, pressing until Paul clarifies it is under five percent annually.
Seed Stage Definition, Funding, and Reaching $1M ARR 6212 Nathan performs real-time financial modeling on Paul's customer count and expansion rates, verifying ARR markers and compounding month-over-month growth.
Unique Customer Acquisition Strategy and Job Board Scraping 5513 Paul educates Nathan on their specific go-to-market tactic of scraping Indeed job postings for Amazon Redshift keywords to build targeted outbound lead lists.
R&D Investment, Cash Burn, and Venture Debt Considerations 7113 Nathan demonstrates specialized venture financing knowledge by suggesting alternative debt providers like Lighter Capital when Paul assumes debt is only accessible post-Series A.

Statements from this episode (14)

Disclosure
Intermix Sells Enterprise Subscriptions With One- or Two-Year Terms
“We sell to enterprises. It's a subscription and people will either prepay for one year or two years.”
Paul Lappas Feb 18, 2020 ▶ 4:27
Disclosure
Intermix Enterprise Customer Pricing Ranges From Five to Six Figures
“It's between five fingers, moving up to six fingers to a six figures now.”
Paul Lappas Feb 18, 2020 ▶ 4:42
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Intermix Generated First Revenue Six Months After First Code
“We got to revenue our first dollar of revenue Came only six months after we wrote the first line of code for the business.”
Paul Lappas Feb 18, 2020 ▶ 5:47
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Intermix Has Scaled to Over 25 Enterprise Customers
“So we now have over over 25 customers.”
Paul Lappas Feb 18, 2020 ▶ 6:19
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Intermix Achieves Over 100% Net Revenue Retention
“It's we're you know over a hundred percent revenue retention. Cause a lot of our customers will expand with us.”
Paul Lappas Feb 18, 2020 ▶ 6:41
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Intermix Maintains Gross Revenue Churn Under 5%
“Gross. It's under, under five percent.”
Paul Lappas Feb 18, 2020 ▶ 7:21
Disclosure
Intermix Has Raised Over $5 Million Across Two Rounds
“We've raised a little bit over five million dollars across two rounds of funding.”
Paul Lappas Feb 18, 2020 ▶ 8:15
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Intermix Expects to Pass $1 Million ARR in Q2 2020
“Yeah. We're going to pass that within at the, in the, in about Q two, that's great.”
Paul Lappas Feb 18, 2020 ▶ 9:01
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Intermix Grows 12% Monthly With Expansions Driving 30% of Growth
“We're growing at over 12% per month at this stage, Nathan adding, adding new customers. Not only are we adding new customers, but the ACV is also growing, and our expansions are approaching over 30% of our monthly growth at this stage.”
Paul Lappas Feb 18, 2020 ▶ 9:14
Disclosure
Uncork Capital Led a $3 Million Seed Round in Intermix
“We raised around in May led by Uncore Capital. That was a three million dollar seed round.”
Paul Lappas Feb 18, 2020 ▶ 10:23
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Intermix Maintains Sub-$10,000 CAC and Two-Month Sales Cycle
“Our CAC at this point is, you know, south of 10 of 10 K. Our, you know, the nice thing about our business is that we can sell it over the phone. Typically customers will make a decision. There's a free trial and they'll make a decision in about two weeks two t…”
Paul Lappas Feb 18, 2020 ▶ 11:32
Disclosure
Intermix Sources Leads by Scraping Job Boards for Amazon Redshift
“It turns out the word redshift is pretty not common in job descriptions. And so if you scrape indeed, for example, you can kind of figure out which companies are using it. So we have scrapers that go out to job boards and then they collect company names. And t…”
Paul Lappas Feb 18, 2020 ▶ 13:17
Disclosure
Intermix Aims to Raise Next Venture Round in Early 2021
“Our goal is to raise another round of funding about this time next year.”
Paul Lappas Feb 18, 2020 ▶ 14:21
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lappas Notes Partner Banks Restrict Venture Debt to Post-Series A
“Venture debt, the banks that we work with only give you venture debt if you're after a series A.”
Paul Lappas Feb 18, 2020 ▶ 14:37
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