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Nov 7, 2018 · 16m · top-founders

1201 How he sold customers before hiring first head of engineering

Max Armbruster · 8m spoken Nathan Latka · 6m spoken
0:00 / 0:00

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In this interview on The Top Entrepreneurs, host Nathan Latka sits down with TalkPush founder and CEO Max Armbruster to explore how the conversational recruitment platform scaled to $100,000 in monthly recurring revenue. Armbruster details the company's volume-based SaaS model, early technical hiring hurdles, and strategies for managing a capital-efficient global team.

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 40.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 6.4 Guest teaching 3.4 Guest disagreement 2.0 Nathan pushing back 3.4
05100:0010:000:00–2:13 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Executive Summary and Key Financial Metrics of TalkPush Nathan introduces Talkpush by summarizing key SaaS unit economics and asks Max to explain the core value proposition. Max collaborates easily, comparing the product to a Slack for recruitment.2:13–6:10 · Nathan as informed peer 7/10 Transforming the Applicant Experience with Conversational Rich Media Nathan probes potential risks of automated candidate screening and rapidly calculates the average ARPU from monthly revenue and customer count. Max clarifies that pricing scales on candidate volume rather than per-seat SaaS licensing.6:11–8:52 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Fundraising and Overcoming Early Technical Hiring Bottlenecks Nathan presses on why Max raised capital instead of bootstrapping, and Max candidly shares the friction of being a non-technical founder needing engineering talent. Nathan then includes an ad read on payroll management for distributed teams.8:54–13:08 · Nathan as informed peer 8/10 Recruiting Technical Leadership and Managing a Global Distributed Team Nathan demonstrates strong SaaS expertise by unpacking Max's confusing phrasing around net negative churn versus net expansion. Max readily admits the double negative and provides CAC, LTV, and payback metrics.13:09–15:56 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Analyzing the Glassdoor Valuation and Job Board Consolidation Nathan asks Max to evaluate Glassdoor's $1.2B acquisition valuation. Max offers industry analysis about recruiter consolidation among tech giants before concluding with the Famous Five rapid-fire questions.0:00–2:13 · Guest teaching 2/10 Executive Summary and Key Financial Metrics of TalkPush Nathan introduces Talkpush by summarizing key SaaS unit economics and asks Max to explain the core value proposition. Max collaborates easily, comparing the product to a Slack for recruitment.2:13–6:10 · Guest teaching 3/10 Transforming the Applicant Experience with Conversational Rich Media Nathan probes potential risks of automated candidate screening and rapidly calculates the average ARPU from monthly revenue and customer count. Max clarifies that pricing scales on candidate volume rather than per-seat SaaS licensing.6:11–8:52 · Guest teaching 3/10 Fundraising and Overcoming Early Technical Hiring Bottlenecks Nathan presses on why Max raised capital instead of bootstrapping, and Max candidly shares the friction of being a non-technical founder needing engineering talent. Nathan then includes an ad read on payroll management for distributed teams.8:54–13:08 · Guest teaching 4/10 Recruiting Technical Leadership and Managing a Global Distributed Team Nathan demonstrates strong SaaS expertise by unpacking Max's confusing phrasing around net negative churn versus net expansion. Max readily admits the double negative and provides CAC, LTV, and payback metrics.13:09–15:56 · Guest teaching 5/10 Analyzing the Glassdoor Valuation and Job Board Consolidation Nathan asks Max to evaluate Glassdoor's $1.2B acquisition valuation. Max offers industry analysis about recruiter consolidation among tech giants before concluding with the Famous Five rapid-fire questions.0:00–2:13 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Executive Summary and Key Financial Metrics of TalkPush Nathan introduces Talkpush by summarizing key SaaS unit economics and asks Max to explain the core value proposition. Max collaborates easily, comparing the product to a Slack for recruitment.2:13–6:10 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Transforming the Applicant Experience with Conversational Rich Media Nathan probes potential risks of automated candidate screening and rapidly calculates the average ARPU from monthly revenue and customer count. Max clarifies that pricing scales on candidate volume rather than per-seat SaaS licensing.6:11–8:52 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Fundraising and Overcoming Early Technical Hiring Bottlenecks Nathan presses on why Max raised capital instead of bootstrapping, and Max candidly shares the friction of being a non-technical founder needing engineering talent. Nathan then includes an ad read on payroll management for distributed teams.8:54–13:08 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Recruiting Technical Leadership and Managing a Global Distributed Team Nathan demonstrates strong SaaS expertise by unpacking Max's confusing phrasing around net negative churn versus net expansion. Max readily admits the double negative and provides CAC, LTV, and payback metrics.13:09–15:56 · Guest disagreement 3/10 Analyzing the Glassdoor Valuation and Job Board Consolidation Nathan asks Max to evaluate Glassdoor's $1.2B acquisition valuation. Max offers industry analysis about recruiter consolidation among tech giants before concluding with the Famous Five rapid-fire questions.0:00–2:13 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Executive Summary and Key Financial Metrics of TalkPush Nathan introduces Talkpush by summarizing key SaaS unit economics and asks Max to explain the core value proposition. Max collaborates easily, comparing the product to a Slack for recruitment.2:13–6:10 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Transforming the Applicant Experience with Conversational Rich Media Nathan probes potential risks of automated candidate screening and rapidly calculates the average ARPU from monthly revenue and customer count. Max clarifies that pricing scales on candidate volume rather than per-seat SaaS licensing.6:11–8:52 · Nathan pushing back 3/10 Fundraising and Overcoming Early Technical Hiring Bottlenecks Nathan presses on why Max raised capital instead of bootstrapping, and Max candidly shares the friction of being a non-technical founder needing engineering talent. Nathan then includes an ad read on payroll management for distributed teams.8:54–13:08 · Nathan pushing back 5/10 Recruiting Technical Leadership and Managing a Global Distributed Team Nathan demonstrates strong SaaS expertise by unpacking Max's confusing phrasing around net negative churn versus net expansion. Max readily admits the double negative and provides CAC, LTV, and payback metrics.13:09–15:56 · Nathan pushing back 3/10 Analyzing the Glassdoor Valuation and Job Board Consolidation Nathan asks Max to evaluate Glassdoor's $1.2B acquisition valuation. Max offers industry analysis about recruiter consolidation among tech giants before concluding with the Famous Five rapid-fire questions.

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

0:00 · Nathan 61.4% · guest 38.6%0:00 · Nathan 61.4% · guest 38.6%3:00 · Nathan 14.8% · guest 85.2%3:00 · Nathan 14.8% · guest 85.2%6:00 · Nathan 59.9% · guest 40.1%6:00 · Nathan 59.9% · guest 40.1%9:00 · Nathan 37.7% · guest 62.3%9:00 · Nathan 37.7% · guest 62.3%12:00 · Nathan 23.5% · guest 76.5%12:00 · Nathan 23.5% · guest 76.5%15:00 · Nathan 50.3% · guest 49.7%15:00 · Nathan 50.3% · guest 49.7%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 13:30 Pivoting Glassdoor valuation to industry consolidation threat

Max counters Nathan's price check by shifting the conversation to the danger of job board monopolization for enterprise employers.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 11:05 Drilling down on net negative churn math

Nathan interrupts Max's vague churn figure to clarify whether he means net retention or gross customer churn.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 4:58 Explaining volume-based pricing vs per-seat SaaS model

Max explains why standard per-seat SaaS pricing fails when automation allows a single recruiter to handle tenfold the candidate volume.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 4:42 Instant mental math on ARPU

Nathan instantly divides Talkpush's $100k MRR by its 30 customers to peg their average revenue per user at $3,300 per month.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Executive Summary and Key Financial Metrics of TalkPush 6212 Nathan introduces Talkpush by summarizing key SaaS unit economics and asks Max to explain the core value proposition. Max collaborates easily, comparing the product to a Slack for recruitment.
Transforming the Applicant Experience with Conversational Rich Media 7324 Nathan probes potential risks of automated candidate screening and rapidly calculates the average ARPU from monthly revenue and customer count. Max clarifies that pricing scales on candidate volume rather than per-seat SaaS licensing.
Fundraising and Overcoming Early Technical Hiring Bottlenecks 5323 Nathan presses on why Max raised capital instead of bootstrapping, and Max candidly shares the friction of being a non-technical founder needing engineering talent. Nathan then includes an ad read on payroll management for distributed teams.
Recruiting Technical Leadership and Managing a Global Distributed Team 8425 Nathan demonstrates strong SaaS expertise by unpacking Max's confusing phrasing around net negative churn versus net expansion. Max readily admits the double negative and provides CAC, LTV, and payback metrics.
Analyzing the Glassdoor Valuation and Job Board Consolidation 6533 Nathan asks Max to evaluate Glassdoor's $1.2B acquisition valuation. Max offers industry analysis about recruiter consolidation among tech giants before concluding with the Famous Five rapid-fire questions.

Statements from this episode (13)

Opinion
Recruiters prefer five minutes of candidate audio over reading traditional resumes
“And I bet if you asked any recruiter, you know what would you rather have, you know, a resume or would you rather be able to listen to five minutes of this candidate telling You about himself. I think most people would choose the latter option.”
Max Armbruster Nov 7, 2018 ▶ 2:55
Assertion Supported
Talkpush pivoted from voice calls to early Facebook Messenger recruitment bots
“We started the company. It was actually an IVR, so it was all voice. We would make phone calls and collect the voice for candidates. And then two years ago when Facebook opened its API for chatbots, we were one of the first recruitment chatbots to build on, on…”
Max Armbruster Nov 7, 2018 ▶ 3:15
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Talkpush passed $100,000 in monthly recurring revenue in April 2018
“Our revenue is about we passed the hundred K mark revenue wise monthly just this month.”
Max Armbruster Nov 7, 2018 ▶ 4:00
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Talkpush software conducts up to 3,000 automated candidate interviews daily
“Our bots, our software interviews more than between one and 3000 candidates every day currently. Over a million last year.”
Max Armbruster Nov 7, 2018 ▶ 5:38
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Talkpush generated $40,000 in monthly revenue one year prior
“I, we were at 40 K.”
Max Armbruster Nov 7, 2018 ▶ 6:05
Disclosure
Armbruster took years to hire engineering and customer success leaders
“It took me two years from that time to finding My head of engineering. It took me three years to find my head of customer success.”
Max Armbruster Nov 7, 2018 ▶ 6:53
Disclosure
Talkpush manages a globally distributed team with headcount concentrated in Asia
“We've got four offices already one in Manila, one in Delhi, one in Mexico, one in San Jose, Costa Rica, and then San Francisco. So where we have the most head counts is in Asia today.”
Max Armbruster Nov 7, 2018 ▶ 10:18
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Talkpush achieves 5% to 10% net negative revenue churn
“Churn negative revenue churn, five, 10%. So we're growing our accounts and yeah, I regret we lost one or two logos last year or so, you know.”
Max Armbruster Nov 7, 2018 ▶ 10:49
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Talkpush spends $11,000 to acquire enterprise customers worth $62,000 lifetime
“11,000 yeah, 11,000 CAC and an LTV of around 62 right now.”
Max Armbruster Nov 7, 2018 ▶ 12:11
Disclosure
Armbruster delayed marketing and sales to build customer success first
“No paid stuff so far. It's, you know, I'm going against the model, which is saying you build marketing before sales. And in fact, I'm going reverse. I'm doing customer, I build customer success team first, then now I'm building the sales team. And then when I'…”
Max Armbruster Nov 7, 2018 ▶ 12:50
Opinion
Glassdoor's $1.2B valuation stems from mastering recurring candidate engagement
“No. Wow. It's such a great asset. I mean, it's the one sort of marketplace that figured out how to get people to come back to it all the time. So I think it's a wonderful asset.”
Max Armbruster Nov 7, 2018 ▶ 13:14
Opinion
Job board consolidation leaves employers with only a handful of vendors
“The consolidation of this of this job board industry is, is a little bit scary for employers though, because, you know, they really only have like a handful of people to choose from these days. So you know, the employers, they have to advertise either with, yo…”
Max Armbruster Nov 7, 2018 ▶ 13:41
Opinion
WhatsApp for desktop beats Slack because it is free and supports audio
“It does everything that Slack does, but for free. And it's got a small edge Over Slack, which is you can send audio notes to your people. That's huge.”
Max Armbruster Nov 7, 2018 ▶ 15:00
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