Dec 3, 2018 · 24m · top-founders
1227 Would $24m ARR Dashlane Ever Merge with LastPass?
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this interview on The Top Entrepreneurs, Dashlane CEO Emmanuel Shalit breaks down how the cybersecurity company reached $24 million in ARR and nearly 10 million users through product-led acquisition and capital efficiency. Shalit details Dashlane's 105% net revenue retention, venture debt funding strategy, and bottom-up expansion from individual consumer vaults into enterprise-wide contracts.
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 42.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 4.9 Guest teaching 4.0 Guest disagreement 2.3 Nathan pushing back 3.7
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 19:21 Guest refuses to name venture debt firms
Emmanuel explicitly refuses Nathan's repeated prompt to list the names of the debt financing firms he evaluated.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 19:05 Host insists on getting lender namesNathan refuses to let Emmanuel stay abstract, interrupting to demand he name specific top firms Dashlane spoke to.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 14:31 Schooling on multi-year CAC attributionEmmanuel points out the blind spot in Nathan's CAC formula by highlighting that a large share of conversions come from a multi-year free user tail rather than immediate cohorts.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 14:05 Host backs into CAC from lead volumesNathan demonstrates financial mastery by reverse-engineering a full customer acquisition cost model from top-of-funnel ad spend and free-to-paid conversion rates.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introducing Emmanuel Shalit and Dashlane's Mission | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Nathan recalculates Dashlane's run rate and subscriber numbers in real time from previous interviews. Emmanuel clarifies the price split between consumer seats and business seats. | |
| Low Churn and Negative Net Churn Mechanics | 5 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Nathan is astonished by low logo churn figures and asks how that is possible. Emmanuel explains that net negative churn is driven by long-tail conversions of multi-year free users rather than upsells. | |
| Marketing Scale, Paid Acquisition, and Debt Capital | 4 | 3 | 2 | 4 | Nathan presses Emmanuel to reveal exact monthly direct paid marketing spend and specific payback months. Emmanuel keeps the figures directional while explaining their debt-funded user acquisition strategy. | |
| Sponsor Message: Gusto Modern Payroll Solutions | 6 | 6 | 4 | 5 | Nathan presents a calculation to derive Dashlane's CAC from acquisition volume and ad budget. Emmanuel pushes back, explaining that the mathematical model ignores long-tail multi-year conversions and B2B viral loops. | |
| Team Composition and Land-and-Expand Sales Motion | 4 | 2 | 1 | 3 | Nathan drills into the exact headcount breakdown of the sales organization. Emmanuel details how collaborative product features replace traditional enterprise sales motions. | |
| Venture Debt Strategy and Avoiding Valuation Pitfalls | 5 | 5 | 4 | 6 | Nathan repeatedly asks Emmanuel to name specific venture debt lenders they spoke with. Emmanuel declines to name firms and instead educates on the risks of late-stage equity minimum check sizes and valuation traps. | |
| Long-Term Vision, Exit Strategy, and Market Positioning | 5 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Nathan asks if Dashlane would consider merging with LastPass, prompting Emmanuel to point out that LastPass was already acquired by LogMeIn. Emmanuel explains why Dashlane's 'B2H' (business-to-human) model does not fit LogMeIn's pure B2B profile. |
Statements from this episode (17)
Shalit: Password management has more immediate impact than space exploration
“Because I think at the end of the day short term, I can have more impact on mankind by focusing on this.”
Dashlane CEO: Company is days away from crossing 10M registered users
“We are a few days away from passing the ten million user milestone.”
Dashlane CEO: Company is nearing $24M in annual recurring revenue
“We're getting closer to very close actually to two million a month.”
Dashlane CEO: Overall revenue grew by more than 80% in 2017
“Our revenue overall grew by more than 80% last year and could grow by even higher percentage this year.”
Shalit: Dashlane achieves 0.4% annual churn for certain user cohorts
“Depending on the courts I look at, for some courts, we have annual churn that is in the you know, 0.4%.”
Shalit: Dashlane maintains approximately 105% annual net revenue retention
“You could think about a 105.”
Dashlane CEO: Adding 10 passwords and two devices strongly predicts retention
“The two clearest indicator of future engagements are you know, people that have added 10 or more passwords in their app very soon. And even more so people that have installed Dashlane on two devices. Your phone, your laptop. The moment you've done that, the li…”
Dashlane CEO: App adds approximately 250,000 new free users per month
“Think about a quarter million.”
Dashlane approaches $1M per month in direct paid marketing spend
“Today you can think of us as spending we are below a million a month, but that number is quickly growing.”
Shalit: Consumer users drive B2B adoption, boosting true customer lifetime value
“And there are synergies between the B to B side of our business and the B to C side of our business, which means that whenever we generate individual users, they end up working somewhere and that somewhere they tell that company to. And so the value of those r…”
Dashlane CEO: Bulk of business is driven by self-serve adoption
“Our the bulk of our business is actually happening in a self-serve way, whether it's consumer or whether it's with small businesses.”
Dashlane CEO: $24M ARR business operates with just two Account Executives
“Two, two AEs and one CSF.”
Shalit: Dashlane's venture debt terms lack hard revenue or operational covenants
“In our case, we were able to negotiate really attractive terms because of the nature of our cash flow, and that none of what we have agreed to is Is tied in a hard way to, you know, revenues or covenants or anything.”
Shalit: Late-stage VC minimum check sizes force dangerous valuations or dilution
“When you get to later stage rounds, you're often constrained by things like minimum check size. Which then force you to either accept a lot of dilution or a very high valuation that may turn against you if the markets go in the other direction.”
Shalit: Dashlane has no active interest in selling the business
“We have no interest in selling. Of course, if somebody knocks on our door with an offer, we will look at it very seriously, especially if it's an offer that can help us accelerate our growth. But we are very, very focused on the acceleration of our business ri…”
Shalit: Dashlane's "business-to-human" model is incompatible with pure B2B LogMeIn
“LogMeIn is fundamentally focused on the B to B market, which is not a bad thing in and of itself. But we approach digital identity with a different length, which is, it's not B to B, it's not B to C, it's B to H, business to human. We are focused on the end us…”