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Jan 20, 2019 · 16m · top-founders

1275 25 Year Old Hits $10k in MRR with his 3 Friends as Co-Founders

Ayush Jain · 8m spoken Nathan Latka · 5m spoken
0:00 / 0:00

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Nathan Latka interviews Ayush Jain, co-founder and CEO of Green Deck, on how four 25-year-old developer friends transitioned from an initial health tech exit to building an AI-powered dynamic pricing engine generating $10,000 in monthly recurring revenue.

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 39.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 3.8 Guest teaching 2.0 Guest disagreement 1.5 Nathan pushing back 3.5
05100:0010:001:15–4:04 · Nathan as informed peer 3/10 Entrepreneurial Background and HealthOS Exit Latka presses Jain to get concrete details about his previous startup HealthOS, interrupting to narrow down the acquisition timeline, headcount, and revenue size. Jain cooperates and clarifies that the acquisition was under a million dollars.4:04–8:52 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Green Deck Core Offering, Pivot, and Funding Latka works through the business model and unit economics, calculating monthly revenue from customer count and average contract value while converting between Euros and USD. Jain politely clarifies his currency and customer numbers when Latka overestimates the run rate.8:55–14:18 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Sponsor Break: Software Evaluation with Capterra Latka challenges Green Deck's retention model by stating he would cancel after one recommendation, and later attacks their four-way equal equity split. Jain defends the continuous value proposition using retail price volatility and pushes back on the hypothetical deadlocks.14:18–15:58 · Nathan as informed peer 2/10 The Famous Five Questions and Episode Conclusion Standard Famous Five lightning round followed by Latka's wrap-up summary of Green Deck's key metrics. The exchange is completely cordial and routine.1:15–4:04 · Guest teaching 2/10 Entrepreneurial Background and HealthOS Exit Latka presses Jain to get concrete details about his previous startup HealthOS, interrupting to narrow down the acquisition timeline, headcount, and revenue size. Jain cooperates and clarifies that the acquisition was under a million dollars.4:04–8:52 · Guest teaching 2/10 Green Deck Core Offering, Pivot, and Funding Latka works through the business model and unit economics, calculating monthly revenue from customer count and average contract value while converting between Euros and USD. Jain politely clarifies his currency and customer numbers when Latka overestimates the run rate.8:55–14:18 · Guest teaching 4/10 Sponsor Break: Software Evaluation with Capterra Latka challenges Green Deck's retention model by stating he would cancel after one recommendation, and later attacks their four-way equal equity split. Jain defends the continuous value proposition using retail price volatility and pushes back on the hypothetical deadlocks.14:18–15:58 · Guest teaching 0/10 The Famous Five Questions and Episode Conclusion Standard Famous Five lightning round followed by Latka's wrap-up summary of Green Deck's key metrics. The exchange is completely cordial and routine.1:15–4:04 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Entrepreneurial Background and HealthOS Exit Latka presses Jain to get concrete details about his previous startup HealthOS, interrupting to narrow down the acquisition timeline, headcount, and revenue size. Jain cooperates and clarifies that the acquisition was under a million dollars.4:04–8:52 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Green Deck Core Offering, Pivot, and Funding Latka works through the business model and unit economics, calculating monthly revenue from customer count and average contract value while converting between Euros and USD. Jain politely clarifies his currency and customer numbers when Latka overestimates the run rate.8:55–14:18 · Guest disagreement 3/10 Sponsor Break: Software Evaluation with Capterra Latka challenges Green Deck's retention model by stating he would cancel after one recommendation, and later attacks their four-way equal equity split. Jain defends the continuous value proposition using retail price volatility and pushes back on the hypothetical deadlocks.14:18–15:58 · Guest disagreement 0/10 The Famous Five Questions and Episode Conclusion Standard Famous Five lightning round followed by Latka's wrap-up summary of Green Deck's key metrics. The exchange is completely cordial and routine.1:15–4:04 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Entrepreneurial Background and HealthOS Exit Latka presses Jain to get concrete details about his previous startup HealthOS, interrupting to narrow down the acquisition timeline, headcount, and revenue size. Jain cooperates and clarifies that the acquisition was under a million dollars.4:04–8:52 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Green Deck Core Offering, Pivot, and Funding Latka works through the business model and unit economics, calculating monthly revenue from customer count and average contract value while converting between Euros and USD. Jain politely clarifies his currency and customer numbers when Latka overestimates the run rate.8:55–14:18 · Nathan pushing back 6/10 Sponsor Break: Software Evaluation with Capterra Latka challenges Green Deck's retention model by stating he would cancel after one recommendation, and later attacks their four-way equal equity split. Jain defends the continuous value proposition using retail price volatility and pushes back on the hypothetical deadlocks.14:18–15:58 · Nathan pushing back 0/10 The Famous Five Questions and Episode Conclusion Standard Famous Five lightning round followed by Latka's wrap-up summary of Green Deck's key metrics. The exchange is completely cordial and routine.

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

0:00 · Nathan 59.1% · guest 40.9%0:00 · Nathan 59.1% · guest 40.9%3:00 · Nathan 16.9% · guest 83.1%3:00 · Nathan 16.9% · guest 83.1%6:00 · Nathan 36.6% · guest 63.4%6:00 · Nathan 36.6% · guest 63.4%9:00 · Nathan 47.7% · guest 52.3%9:00 · Nathan 47.7% · guest 52.3%12:00 · Nathan 23.9% · guest 76.1%12:00 · Nathan 23.9% · guest 76.1%15:00 · Nathan 69.2% · guest 30.8%15:00 · Nathan 69.2% · guest 30.8%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 13:52 Jain dismisses hypothetical acquisition deadlock

When Latka pushes a 2-vs-2 voting stalemate scenario on a buyout offer, Jain firmly deflects, stating it is too subjective for an objective hypothetical answer.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 11:02 Latka challenges recurring value proposition

Latka bluntly challenges the core SaaS value proposition by arguing that customers have no incentive to stay and would just cancel after receiving their initial recommendation.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 11:11 Jain educates Latka on daily retail pricing volatility

Jain explains that fashion e-commerce requires constant monitoring rather than fixed SaaS pricing, illustrating with a real-world case of an Adidas sneaker sales drop caused by a competitor's discount.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 7:26 Latka drills down to exact ARPU and MRR figures

Latka quickly works through the customer count and contract tiers, reconciling currency differences to pinpoint the exact monthly recurring revenue at $10,000 USD.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Entrepreneurial Background and HealthOS Exit 3214 Latka presses Jain to get concrete details about his previous startup HealthOS, interrupting to narrow down the acquisition timeline, headcount, and revenue size. Jain cooperates and clarifies that the acquisition was under a million dollars.
Green Deck Core Offering, Pivot, and Funding 5224 Latka works through the business model and unit economics, calculating monthly revenue from customer count and average contract value while converting between Euros and USD. Jain politely clarifies his currency and customer numbers when Latka overestimates the run rate.
Sponsor Break: Software Evaluation with Capterra 5436 Latka challenges Green Deck's retention model by stating he would cancel after one recommendation, and later attacks their four-way equal equity split. Jain defends the continuous value proposition using retail price volatility and pushes back on the hypothetical deadlocks.
The Famous Five Questions and Episode Conclusion 2000 Standard Famous Five lightning round followed by Latka's wrap-up summary of Green Deck's key metrics. The exchange is completely cordial and routine.

Statements from this episode (7)

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jain: HealthOS was acquired for significantly less than $1 million
“No, it's way less than that, yeah.”
Ayush Jain Jan 20, 2019 ▶ 3:59
Insight
Jain: A 1% price change can boost net profit by 10% to 15%
“Even if one percent change in pricing can lead to, you know, 10 to 15% increase in net profit.”
Ayush Jain Jan 20, 2019 ▶ 4:39
Disclosure
Green Deck has four paying customers and pilots with listed companies
“So right now we have our customers we have four paying customers and we are in talks, we are doing a pilot with a couple of big companies which are listed companies right now.”
Ayush Jain Jan 20, 2019 ▶ 7:09
Disclosure
Green Deck hits approximately $10,000 in monthly revenue
“Some are on the lower side, some are on the higher side. So it would be less than that. So roughly around 10,000 USD, I would say.”
Ayush Jain Jan 20, 2019 ▶ 7:34
Disclosure
Green Deck has raised $120,000 in total capital
“What? One 20 US, one 20,000 US dollars.”
Ayush Jain Jan 20, 2019 ▶ 8:43
Disclosure
Greendeck acquires enterprise customers through 2-to-3-week zero-commitment pilots
“Our typical process for acquiring new customers at this moment is to sort of do a very small two week, three week pilot with them where we demonstrate our value to them upfront without having any commitment or any development effort from their side. And we, it…”
Ayush Jain Jan 20, 2019 ▶ 10:36
Disclosure
Greendeck plans transition to fully automated dynamic pricing
“Although we, right now we have kept this human loop in the between, but eventually we are moving to a complete automated pricing solution where they can, they don't even have to you know make any manual price changes.”
Ayush Jain Jan 20, 2019 ▶ 12:33
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