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Dec 26, 2018 · 17m · top-founders

1250 Incentive Every Employee to Sell Using This Tool, $80k in MRR

Patrick Shaw · 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 with Nathan Latka, Rapid Funnel founder Patrick Shaw explains how he built a profitable SaaS platform generating $80,000 in monthly recurring revenue by gamifying employee prospecting. Patrick shares key insights on scaling to 20,000 paid seats with just $300,000 in seed capital and managing a fully remote team of 27 across eight countries.

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 38.9% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 5.0 Guest teaching 2.3 Guest disagreement 1.5 Nathan pushing back 3.5
05100:0010:001:25–4:45 · Nathan as informed peer 4/10 Introducing Patrick Shaw and Audio Setup Nathan introduces the company and clarifies the product positioning regarding whether it targets general employees or dedicated sales reps. The atmosphere is warm and conversational.4:45–8:27 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Company Origin, Consulting Pivot, and Initial Equity Funding Nathan digs into the cap table and funding history, pressing Patrick to clarify per-seat pricing across different customer tiers.8:29–12:30 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Sponsor Message: Gusto Payroll for Remote Teams After the sponsor break, Nathan firmly redirects Patrick from promotional generalities to extract an exact monthly revenue figure and queries churn metrics.12:33–16:11 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Unit Economics, Marketing Spend, and Bootstrapped Profitability Nathan quickly computes payback period metrics from Patrick's CAC figures before moving smoothly through the standard Famous Five closing questions.1:25–4:45 · Guest teaching 2/10 Introducing Patrick Shaw and Audio Setup Nathan introduces the company and clarifies the product positioning regarding whether it targets general employees or dedicated sales reps. The atmosphere is warm and conversational.4:45–8:27 · Guest teaching 3/10 Company Origin, Consulting Pivot, and Initial Equity Funding Nathan digs into the cap table and funding history, pressing Patrick to clarify per-seat pricing across different customer tiers.8:29–12:30 · Guest teaching 2/10 Sponsor Message: Gusto Payroll for Remote Teams After the sponsor break, Nathan firmly redirects Patrick from promotional generalities to extract an exact monthly revenue figure and queries churn metrics.12:33–16:11 · Guest teaching 2/10 Unit Economics, Marketing Spend, and Bootstrapped Profitability Nathan quickly computes payback period metrics from Patrick's CAC figures before moving smoothly through the standard Famous Five closing questions.1:25–4:45 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Introducing Patrick Shaw and Audio Setup Nathan introduces the company and clarifies the product positioning regarding whether it targets general employees or dedicated sales reps. The atmosphere is warm and conversational.4:45–8:27 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Company Origin, Consulting Pivot, and Initial Equity Funding Nathan digs into the cap table and funding history, pressing Patrick to clarify per-seat pricing across different customer tiers.8:29–12:30 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Sponsor Message: Gusto Payroll for Remote Teams After the sponsor break, Nathan firmly redirects Patrick from promotional generalities to extract an exact monthly revenue figure and queries churn metrics.12:33–16:11 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Unit Economics, Marketing Spend, and Bootstrapped Profitability Nathan quickly computes payback period metrics from Patrick's CAC figures before moving smoothly through the standard Famous Five closing questions.1:25–4:45 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Introducing Patrick Shaw and Audio Setup Nathan introduces the company and clarifies the product positioning regarding whether it targets general employees or dedicated sales reps. The atmosphere is warm and conversational.4:45–8:27 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Company Origin, Consulting Pivot, and Initial Equity Funding Nathan digs into the cap table and funding history, pressing Patrick to clarify per-seat pricing across different customer tiers.8:29–12:30 · Nathan pushing back 6/10 Sponsor Message: Gusto Payroll for Remote Teams After the sponsor break, Nathan firmly redirects Patrick from promotional generalities to extract an exact monthly revenue figure and queries churn metrics.12:33–16:11 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Unit Economics, Marketing Spend, and Bootstrapped Profitability Nathan quickly computes payback period metrics from Patrick's CAC figures before moving smoothly through the standard Famous Five closing questions.

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

0:00 · Nathan 68.6% · guest 31.4%0:00 · Nathan 68.6% · guest 31.4%3:00 · Nathan 18.8% · guest 81.2%3:00 · Nathan 18.8% · guest 81.2%6:00 · Nathan 32.9% · guest 67.1%6:00 · Nathan 32.9% · guest 67.1%9:00 · Nathan 51.1% · guest 48.9%9:00 · Nathan 51.1% · guest 48.9%12:00 · Nathan 15.7% · guest 84.3%12:00 · Nathan 15.7% · guest 84.3%15:00 · Nathan 48.1% · guest 51.9%15:00 · Nathan 48.1% · guest 51.9%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 7:16 Patrick pushes back on pricing categorization

Patrick corrects Nathan's assumption regarding average contract size, clarifying that the $400/month figure only applies to small businesses rather than their core enterprise accounts.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 10:33 Nathan cuts through vague hype for hard numbers

When Patrick offers a vague celebratory summary about 'killing it' at an event, Nathan immediately cuts in to demand specific past-month revenue numbers.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 5:08 Patrick explains the corporate consulting misstep

Patrick explains how an enterprise customer squandered nearly a million dollars attempting to develop the IP internally before he took back control and raised external funding.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 12:43 Nathan computes two-month payback on the fly

When Patrick mentions he would spend $30 to acquire a $14.95/month user, Nathan instantly demonstrates financial SaaS acumen by computing the two-month payback period.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Introducing Patrick Shaw and Audio Setup 4212 Nathan introduces the company and clarifies the product positioning regarding whether it targets general employees or dedicated sales reps. The atmosphere is warm and conversational.
Company Origin, Consulting Pivot, and Initial Equity Funding 5324 Nathan digs into the cap table and funding history, pressing Patrick to clarify per-seat pricing across different customer tiers.
Sponsor Message: Gusto Payroll for Remote Teams 6226 After the sponsor break, Nathan firmly redirects Patrick from promotional generalities to extract an exact monthly revenue figure and queries churn metrics.
Unit Economics, Marketing Spend, and Bootstrapped Profitability 5212 Nathan quickly computes payback period metrics from Patrick's CAC figures before moving smoothly through the standard Famous Five closing questions.

Statements from this episode (8)

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rapid Funnel's largest client has 16,000 users paying a few dollars each
“So, so our largest is about 16,000 users, you know, and they're paying a few dollars a user, right?”
Patrick Shaw Dec 26, 2018 ▶ 4:18
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rapid Funnel was in development for nearly three years before selling
“We started selling about seven months ago, and we've been in existence almost three years.”
Patrick Shaw Dec 26, 2018 ▶ 4:48
Disclosure
Rapid Funnel is self-funding after raising just $300,000 in pure equity
“No, that was pure, just equity. No payback, nothing else. And they've offered a lot more. Now we've had a lot more offers since then, but now we're self-funding and it's going great. We're dealing with large enterprise level companies.”
Patrick Shaw Dec 26, 2018 ▶ 6:18
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rapid Funnel has reached 50,000 downloads and 20,000 paying subscriber seats
“Individual users is about 50,000 downloads, and paying subscribers is twenty-some thousand, something like that.”
Patrick Shaw Dec 26, 2018 ▶ 6:37
Insight
Onboarding a small business takes as much effort as a 5,000-seat enterprise
“It takes us almost as much work to unload a Upload or onboard a small business owner as it does a company with 5000 users.”
Patrick Shaw Dec 26, 2018 ▶ 6:56
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rapid Funnel is approaching $1 million in annual recurring revenue
“We're just shy of a million dollars in, in annual revenue right now.”
Patrick Shaw Dec 26, 2018 ▶ 10:38
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rapid Funnel employs 19 full-time developers across eight different countries
“We've got 20 19 full-time developers. We're in eight different countries.”
Patrick Shaw Dec 26, 2018 ▶ 11:04
Disclosure
Rapid Funnel has grown without using any pay-per-click advertising
“We just haven't done any kind of pay click or anything.”
Patrick Shaw Dec 26, 2018 ▶ 12:47
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