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Mar 18, 2019 · 16m · top-founders

1332 We almost missed payroll 3 months ago as we reset 5 year old business

Nathan Latka · 6m spoken Vivek Kumar · 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

Host Nathan Latka interviews ClickIt co-founders Vivek Kumar and John to examine how they pivoted a five-year-old hospitality Wi-Fi company into an enterprise frontline employee feedback platform while overcoming near-fatal cash flow crises.

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 46.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 4.0 Guest teaching 2.4 Guest disagreement 1.4 Nathan pushing back 3.2
05100:0010:001:14–4:30 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Founding Team Introductions and Co-Founder Dynamics Nathan probes the founders on their team hierarchy, equity split, and seat numbers. When Vivek provides vague daily response metrics instead of customer seat counts, Nathan calls him out directly and turns to John for the real figure.4:30–7:42 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Revenue Breakdown and Pivoting from Hospitality Wi-Fi Nathan breaks down the monthly recurring revenue math and challenges why the team launched a second offering so quickly. Vivek explains their historical pivot from hotel guest Wi-Fi in India to employee feedback kiosks.7:42–10:55 · Nathan as informed peer 3/10 Sponsor Message: Blinkist Book Summary Service Following the mid-roll Blinkist sponsor read, Nathan checks whether early investors were wiped during restructuring and asks about churn metrics across their customer segments.10:55–13:56 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Cash Burn, Payroll Crisis, and Founder Commitment Nathan presses into the company's monthly cash burn and asks John directly why he remained at the startup when they almost missed payroll three months prior. Both founders openly share their equity adjustments and pay cuts.13:57–15:57 · Nathan as informed peer 2/10 Customer Discovery in Warehouse Logistics John describes how talking to warehouse logistics operators uncovered their core enterprise use case, followed by Nathan running through the standard Famous Five rapid-fire closing questions.1:14–4:30 · Guest teaching 2/10 Founding Team Introductions and Co-Founder Dynamics Nathan probes the founders on their team hierarchy, equity split, and seat numbers. When Vivek provides vague daily response metrics instead of customer seat counts, Nathan calls him out directly and turns to John for the real figure.4:30–7:42 · Guest teaching 3/10 Revenue Breakdown and Pivoting from Hospitality Wi-Fi Nathan breaks down the monthly recurring revenue math and challenges why the team launched a second offering so quickly. Vivek explains their historical pivot from hotel guest Wi-Fi in India to employee feedback kiosks.7:42–10:55 · Guest teaching 2/10 Sponsor Message: Blinkist Book Summary Service Following the mid-roll Blinkist sponsor read, Nathan checks whether early investors were wiped during restructuring and asks about churn metrics across their customer segments.10:55–13:56 · Guest teaching 3/10 Cash Burn, Payroll Crisis, and Founder Commitment Nathan presses into the company's monthly cash burn and asks John directly why he remained at the startup when they almost missed payroll three months prior. Both founders openly share their equity adjustments and pay cuts.13:57–15:57 · Guest teaching 2/10 Customer Discovery in Warehouse Logistics John describes how talking to warehouse logistics operators uncovered their core enterprise use case, followed by Nathan running through the standard Famous Five rapid-fire closing questions.1:14–4:30 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Founding Team Introductions and Co-Founder Dynamics Nathan probes the founders on their team hierarchy, equity split, and seat numbers. When Vivek provides vague daily response metrics instead of customer seat counts, Nathan calls him out directly and turns to John for the real figure.4:30–7:42 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Revenue Breakdown and Pivoting from Hospitality Wi-Fi Nathan breaks down the monthly recurring revenue math and challenges why the team launched a second offering so quickly. Vivek explains their historical pivot from hotel guest Wi-Fi in India to employee feedback kiosks.7:42–10:55 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Sponsor Message: Blinkist Book Summary Service Following the mid-roll Blinkist sponsor read, Nathan checks whether early investors were wiped during restructuring and asks about churn metrics across their customer segments.10:55–13:56 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Cash Burn, Payroll Crisis, and Founder Commitment Nathan presses into the company's monthly cash burn and asks John directly why he remained at the startup when they almost missed payroll three months prior. Both founders openly share their equity adjustments and pay cuts.13:57–15:57 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Customer Discovery in Warehouse Logistics John describes how talking to warehouse logistics operators uncovered their core enterprise use case, followed by Nathan running through the standard Famous Five rapid-fire closing questions.1:14–4:30 · Nathan pushing back 5/10 Founding Team Introductions and Co-Founder Dynamics Nathan probes the founders on their team hierarchy, equity split, and seat numbers. When Vivek provides vague daily response metrics instead of customer seat counts, Nathan calls him out directly and turns to John for the real figure.4:30–7:42 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Revenue Breakdown and Pivoting from Hospitality Wi-Fi Nathan breaks down the monthly recurring revenue math and challenges why the team launched a second offering so quickly. Vivek explains their historical pivot from hotel guest Wi-Fi in India to employee feedback kiosks.7:42–10:55 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Sponsor Message: Blinkist Book Summary Service Following the mid-roll Blinkist sponsor read, Nathan checks whether early investors were wiped during restructuring and asks about churn metrics across their customer segments.10:55–13:56 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Cash Burn, Payroll Crisis, and Founder Commitment Nathan presses into the company's monthly cash burn and asks John directly why he remained at the startup when they almost missed payroll three months prior. Both founders openly share their equity adjustments and pay cuts.13:57–15:57 · Nathan pushing back 1/10 Customer Discovery in Warehouse Logistics John describes how talking to warehouse logistics operators uncovered their core enterprise use case, followed by Nathan running through the standard Famous Five rapid-fire closing questions.

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

0:00 · Nathan 72.4% · guest 27.6%0:00 · Nathan 72.4% · guest 27.6%3:00 · Nathan 35.2% · guest 64.8%3:00 · Nathan 35.2% · guest 64.8%6:00 · Nathan 60.5% · guest 39.5%6:00 · Nathan 60.5% · guest 39.5%9:00 · Nathan 29.9% · guest 70.1%9:00 · Nathan 29.9% · guest 70.1%12:00 · Nathan 23.4% · guest 76.6%12:00 · Nathan 23.4% · guest 76.6%15:00 · Nathan 66.9% · guest 33.1%15:00 · Nathan 66.9% · guest 33.1%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 5:23 Vivek pushes back against premature scaling critique

Vivek firmly corrects Nathan's assumption that they abandoned their initial offering prematurely, explaining they hit hard scaling roadblocks in hospitality.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 3:46 Nathan rejects Vivek's vague response metric

Nathan cuts through Vivek's deflection about daily response volume and explicitly asks John for the actual seat count.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 2:36 Vivek details non-deskbound worker kiosk model

Vivek explains the 80-million hourly worker market in the US and how physical kiosks bridge the feedback gap at three dollars per employee.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 5:08 Nathan unpacks the unit economics and questions focus

Nathan immediately calculates the hundred-dollar per month average across logos and challenges the strategic rationale of introducing a second product line.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Founding Team Introductions and Co-Founder Dynamics 5225 Nathan probes the founders on their team hierarchy, equity split, and seat numbers. When Vivek provides vague daily response metrics instead of customer seat counts, Nathan calls him out directly and turns to John for the real figure.
Revenue Breakdown and Pivoting from Hospitality Wi-Fi 5324 Nathan breaks down the monthly recurring revenue math and challenges why the team launched a second offering so quickly. Vivek explains their historical pivot from hotel guest Wi-Fi in India to employee feedback kiosks.
Sponsor Message: Blinkist Book Summary Service 3212 Following the mid-roll Blinkist sponsor read, Nathan checks whether early investors were wiped during restructuring and asks about churn metrics across their customer segments.
Cash Burn, Payroll Crisis, and Founder Commitment 5314 Nathan presses into the company's monthly cash burn and asks John directly why he remained at the startup when they almost missed payroll three months prior. Both founders openly share their equity adjustments and pay cuts.
Customer Discovery in Warehouse Logistics 2211 John describes how talking to warehouse logistics operators uncovered their core enterprise use case, followed by Nathan running through the standard Famous Five rapid-fire closing questions.

Statements from this episode (8)

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Vivek Kumar: ClickIt charges $3 per employee per month
“We make it easy through a kiosk, and we charge organizations three dollars per employee per month to be able to provide this information.”
Vivek Kumar Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 2:49
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Vivek Kumar: ClickIt receives about 10,000 responses per day
“In total, we across different solution sets we have, we probably get about 10,000 responses a day.”
Vivek Kumar Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 3:32
Assertion Not checkable as stated
ClickIt generates $10k–$20k monthly revenue with $10k recurring
“So total revenue per month is between 10 and 20,000 dollars. About half of that's recurring. So about 10,000 a month in recurring. The new offering that John is talking about in more detail, it's about a thousand a month in recurring. So within three months, w…”
Vivek Kumar Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 4:54
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
ClickIt has raised around $750k in total funding
“We've raised about 750,000 over that course of that whole time. In fact, just closed some more capital recently.”
Vivek Kumar Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 6:41
Disclosure
Kumar: ClickIt did not reset cap table or wash out early investors
“We did not. There was debate about whether to do that.”
Vivek Kumar Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 9:08
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kumar: ClickIt had 29% retention in hospitality, zero churn across 3 new clients
“I mean, in our hotel business, it was 29% retention, about 25 paying customers. In this space, the three paying customers to date, zero so far in the three months.”
Vivek Kumar Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 10:23
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Vivek Kumar: ClickIt Burns About $20,000 Net Per Month
“No, we net burns about 20 K a month.”
Vivek Kumar Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 11:11
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Vivek Kumar: Co-Founder John Took Pay Cut for More Equity
“He actually walked the walk. So he agreed to modify his compensation package. He took a severe pay cut and he doubled down on his equity almost more than that.”
Vivek Kumar Mar 18, 2019 ▶ 12:51
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