Feb 14, 2020 · 16m · top-founders
1665 How He's Using Government Loans to Build $50k MRR Visual Communication Tool for Construction Teams
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Tom Erik von Krogh-Martinsen, founder and CEO of Checked, explains how his visual communication SaaS platform reached $50,000 in monthly recurring revenue across 100 construction enterprise clients. He details the company's capital-efficient growth strategy, combining viral subcontractor adoption, non-dilutive Norwegian government loan guarantees, and in-house product development.
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 28.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 4.7 Guest teaching 1.7 Guest disagreement 1.1 Nathan pushing back 2.0
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 9:04 Tom Erik firmly corrects host on loan origin
Tom Erik pushes back against Nathan's assumption that the funds came directly from the government, clarifying it is a commercial bank loan guaranteed by a state program.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 12:06 Nathan defines expansion revenue for the guestWhen Tom Erik asks what is meant by expansion revenue, Nathan presses forward by framing it with a specific dollar upgrade example over a 12-month horizon.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 9:04 Explaining Norwegian government loan guarantee mechanicsTom Erik educates Nathan on how Norwegian public schemes provide credit security to private banks rather than issuing the debt directly.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 11:45 Instant inverse churn and LTV math derivationNathan showcases SaaS expertise by immediately converting a 30-month customer lifetime into a 3% monthly churn rate and a $15,000 cumulative LTV.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Checked Product Overview and Core Value Proposition | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Nathan digs into the core value proposition of Checked, asking clarifying questions about how digitizing construction drawings replaces pen-and-paper workflows. The guest cooperatively explains the product mechanics and clarifies current monthly revenue. | |
| Founder Background and Viral Expansion Loop | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Nathan asks how the product spread virally from the founder's family business to external contractors and probes the pricing metrics. Tom Erik explains their freemium viral loop and fixed per-department pricing tiers. | |
| Year-over-Year Growth and Norwegian Currency Translation | 6 | 1 | 1 | 2 | Nathan asks about year-over-year revenue and capitalization, quickly converting Norwegian Krone figures into USD on the fly. The conversation remains friendly as Tom Erik explains his pre-show prep translating Krone to USD. | |
| Government-Backed Debt and Non-Dilutive Financing | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Tom Erik describes using non-dilutive government schemes and bank debt. When Nathan mischaracterizes the debt as coming directly from the government, Tom Erik clarifies that it is a bank credit line with 75% government-backed security. | |
| Customer Retention, Churn Analysis, and Lifetime Value | 7 | 2 | 1 | 3 | Nathan demonstrates strong SaaS math expertise by taking the guest's 2.5-year customer lifetime figure and instantly deriving monthly logo churn (3%) and dollar LTV ($15k). He then guides the guest through the definition of expansion revenue. | |
| Customer Acquisition Economics and Marketing Strategy | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | Nathan calculates CAC payback economics ($3,000 CAC on a $500/month plan for a 6-month payback) and asks what marketing channels contribute. He then moves efficiently through the Famous Five questions. | |
| Episode Summary, Key Takeaways, and Conclusion | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Nathan delivers a solo outro summary of Checked's core business metrics, MRR, churn rate, team size, and payback period before closing the episode. |
Statements from this episode (17)
Checked charges its construction clients roughly $400 per month on average
“Well, the average is about 400 US dollars.”
Checked's biggest competitor in the construction sector is pen and paper
“Our biggest competitor is pen and paper.”
Checked serves over 100 customer companies
“We are about hundred a little bit over hundred companies today.”
Checked uses a PLG model where creating tasks requires paid subscriptions
“So when you give a check task to someone, you actually give them a link, which is to the software. So to communicate with you on that task, you will need to download the application, but it's free to download it. It's free to communicate with those who give yo…”
Von Krogh-Martinsen: Every SaaS pricing model is always wrong for someone
“There's one thing I learned about price models and that's no matter what you do with it, it's always wrong for someone.”
Checked prices its software per department rather than per user seat
“So right now the, we don't care about how many users you have or how many projects you have. We are basing it on on the company or the departments in the company. So if you have three departments with different organization numbers, then it's three licenses. S…”
Checked nearly doubled its monthly revenue from $25k to $50k year-over-year
“A year ago, we were at about half that. So we have almost doubled this year.”
Checked's chairman of the board is its largest external investor
“Actually my the chairman of the board is my is my biggest external investor. He came in when the company was founded.”
Norwegian accelerator Beta Factory took a 6% equity stake in Checked
“So so they typically did like all other accelerators took six percent of the company and gave us some money and a lot of help.”
Checked has spent approximately 10 million NOK in total capital
“And I would say that we have spent about ten million Norwegian crowners.”
Checked secured a 4M NOK loan with a 75% government guarantee
“So we just took a loan of four million Norwegian crowners and we wouldn't be able to do that without security. So there is the government program that actually stands for 75% of the security of that loan.”
Checked's government-backed bank credit facility carries a 5% interest rate
“No, it's about five percent.”
Checked operates with an eight-person team across sales, development, and administration
“We are eight people so there is one and a half on sale and three on development and product development one on customer success, and two in the administration.”
Checked brought software development fully in-house to Norway from offshore teams
“We started up with the offshoring in India, moved it to Sri Lanka to another company, which was Norwegian, but with the people in Sri Lanka, and now like the third, we are now in version three point zero, and that is fully made in Norway with our in-house team…”
Checked calculates an expected customer lifetime of 2 to 2.5 years
“Our expected lifetime is somewhere between two and two and a half right now. So the churn is is two and a half years expected lifetime. Yes, that's what's calculated out from the churn now.”