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Aug 11, 2018 · 18m · top-founders

1113 His Vegas Raceway Grossed $10m in Y1, Here's How

Aaron Fessler · 11m 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

Serial entrepreneur Aaron Fessler joins Nathan Latka to discuss his journey from early dot-com and anti-piracy software exits to raising $35 million and generating $10 million in year-one revenue with his Las Vegas supercar raceway, Speed Vegas.

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 31.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 4.3 Guest teaching 4.3 Guest disagreement 1.5 Nathan pushing back 2.3
05100:0010:002:00–6:14 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Early SaaS Venture and the Dot-Com Crash Nathan evaluates Aaron's exit multiples and questions whether he exited his anti-piracy business too early. Aaron educates Nathan on how digital streaming reduced corporate demand for standalone anti-piracy services.6:14–9:17 · Nathan as informed peer 4/10 Designing and Constructing Speed Vegas Nathan inquires about the mechanics, liability, and startup costs of building an exotic car raceway. Aaron walks through track design for novices and the realities of land development budgeting.9:17–13:31 · Nathan as informed peer 4/10 Entrepreneurial Focus and Cryptocurrency Perspectives Nathan prompts Aaron on intellectual interests like crypto and the financial structuring of Speed Vegas. Aaron counters common car-enthusiast mistakes by emphasizing dispassionate capital deployment and Las Vegas consumer spending psychology.13:31–17:34 · Nathan as informed peer 4/10 Operational Run Rate and Customer Acquisition Nathan breaks down the raceway unit economics before proceeding through the Famous Five rapid-fire questionnaire in a friendly, conversational exchange.2:00–6:14 · Guest teaching 6/10 Early SaaS Venture and the Dot-Com Crash Nathan evaluates Aaron's exit multiples and questions whether he exited his anti-piracy business too early. Aaron educates Nathan on how digital streaming reduced corporate demand for standalone anti-piracy services.6:14–9:17 · Guest teaching 4/10 Designing and Constructing Speed Vegas Nathan inquires about the mechanics, liability, and startup costs of building an exotic car raceway. Aaron walks through track design for novices and the realities of land development budgeting.9:17–13:31 · Guest teaching 5/10 Entrepreneurial Focus and Cryptocurrency Perspectives Nathan prompts Aaron on intellectual interests like crypto and the financial structuring of Speed Vegas. Aaron counters common car-enthusiast mistakes by emphasizing dispassionate capital deployment and Las Vegas consumer spending psychology.13:31–17:34 · Guest teaching 2/10 Operational Run Rate and Customer Acquisition Nathan breaks down the raceway unit economics before proceeding through the Famous Five rapid-fire questionnaire in a friendly, conversational exchange.2:00–6:14 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Early SaaS Venture and the Dot-Com Crash Nathan evaluates Aaron's exit multiples and questions whether he exited his anti-piracy business too early. Aaron educates Nathan on how digital streaming reduced corporate demand for standalone anti-piracy services.6:14–9:17 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Designing and Constructing Speed Vegas Nathan inquires about the mechanics, liability, and startup costs of building an exotic car raceway. Aaron walks through track design for novices and the realities of land development budgeting.9:17–13:31 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Entrepreneurial Focus and Cryptocurrency Perspectives Nathan prompts Aaron on intellectual interests like crypto and the financial structuring of Speed Vegas. Aaron counters common car-enthusiast mistakes by emphasizing dispassionate capital deployment and Las Vegas consumer spending psychology.13:31–17:34 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Operational Run Rate and Customer Acquisition Nathan breaks down the raceway unit economics before proceeding through the Famous Five rapid-fire questionnaire in a friendly, conversational exchange.2:00–6:14 · Nathan pushing back 3/10 Early SaaS Venture and the Dot-Com Crash Nathan evaluates Aaron's exit multiples and questions whether he exited his anti-piracy business too early. Aaron educates Nathan on how digital streaming reduced corporate demand for standalone anti-piracy services.6:14–9:17 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Designing and Constructing Speed Vegas Nathan inquires about the mechanics, liability, and startup costs of building an exotic car raceway. Aaron walks through track design for novices and the realities of land development budgeting.9:17–13:31 · Nathan pushing back 3/10 Entrepreneurial Focus and Cryptocurrency Perspectives Nathan prompts Aaron on intellectual interests like crypto and the financial structuring of Speed Vegas. Aaron counters common car-enthusiast mistakes by emphasizing dispassionate capital deployment and Las Vegas consumer spending psychology.13:31–17:34 · Nathan pushing back 1/10 Operational Run Rate and Customer Acquisition Nathan breaks down the raceway unit economics before proceeding through the Famous Five rapid-fire questionnaire in a friendly, conversational exchange.

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

0:00 · Nathan 73.6% · guest 26.4%0:00 · Nathan 73.6% · guest 26.4%3:00 · Nathan 24.4% · guest 75.6%3:00 · Nathan 24.4% · guest 75.6%6:00 · Nathan 19.2% · guest 80.8%6:00 · Nathan 19.2% · guest 80.8%9:00 · Nathan 20.5% · guest 79.5%9:00 · Nathan 20.5% · guest 79.5%12:00 · Nathan 13% · guest 87%12:00 · Nathan 13% · guest 87%15:00 · Nathan 41.4% · guest 58.6%15:00 · Nathan 41.4% · guest 58.6%18:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 0%18:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 0%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 11:44 Reframing car passion as a liability

Aaron rejects Nathan's framing of the raceway as a rich guy passion project, arguing that being emotionally detached from cars is essential for financial discipline.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 3:47 Challenging the exit timing of Media Century

Nathan directly challenges Aaron on whether selling his anti-piracy business for twenty million dollars was premature given ongoing modern data breaches.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 5:15 Shift from piracy prevention to streaming promotion

Aaron breaks down how platform integrations like YouTube and streaming services like Spotify shrank the standalone piracy protection market from an enterprise service to an internal feature.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 2:46 Calculating revenue multiples from historical sales

Nathan quickly computes the revenue multiple on Aaron's 1999 sale based on trailing twelve-month revenue, illustrating his SaaS finance knowledge.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Early SaaS Venture and the Dot-Com Crash 5623 Nathan evaluates Aaron's exit multiples and questions whether he exited his anti-piracy business too early. Aaron educates Nathan on how digital streaming reduced corporate demand for standalone anti-piracy services.
Designing and Constructing Speed Vegas 4412 Nathan inquires about the mechanics, liability, and startup costs of building an exotic car raceway. Aaron walks through track design for novices and the realities of land development budgeting.
Entrepreneurial Focus and Cryptocurrency Perspectives 4523 Nathan prompts Aaron on intellectual interests like crypto and the financial structuring of Speed Vegas. Aaron counters common car-enthusiast mistakes by emphasizing dispassionate capital deployment and Las Vegas consumer spending psychology.
Operational Run Rate and Customer Acquisition 4211 Nathan breaks down the raceway unit economics before proceeding through the Famous Five rapid-fire questionnaire in a friendly, conversational exchange.

Statements from this episode (9)

Disclosure
Fessler: Email security SaaS reached $12M TTM revenue before 1999 acquisition
“Our trailing 12 was around twelve million bucks at the time.”
Aaron Fessler Aug 11, 2018 ▶ 2:50
Assertion Partly supported
Fessler: Brightmail sold for roughly $400M with similar SaaS revenue
“One was Brightmail, which sold for about four hundred million dollars. The exact same platform, similar revenue, an impressive company”
Aaron Fessler Aug 11, 2018 ▶ 3:10
Assertion Contradicted
Fessler: Total Market for IP Protection Is Under $50M
“I would be surprised if the size of the total market today For intellectual property protection is more than 25 or fifty million dollars.”
Aaron Fessler Aug 11, 2018 ▶ 5:52
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Fessler: Speed Vegas Launched With $3 Million in Supercar Inventory
“Well, they're about three million dollars worth of cars.”
Aaron Fessler Aug 11, 2018 ▶ 8:41
Disclosure
Fessler: Speed Vegas Is About a $35 Million Project
“It was it's about a thirty five million odd project.”
Aaron Fessler Aug 11, 2018 ▶ 11:16
Insight
Fessler: Exotic car rentals fail when founders overspend on passion
“People who get into the exotic car space often make decisions out of their own passion for a particular car. You know, they might find something new and decide to spend a lot of money on that as opposed to looking really carefully about every dollar that's spe…”
Aaron Fessler Aug 11, 2018 ▶ 11:53
Disclosure
Fessler: Speed Vegas has around $10 million annual revenue run rate
“Our current run rate is around ten million bucks, something like that.”
Aaron Fessler Aug 11, 2018 ▶ 13:59
Disclosure
Fessler: Speed Vegas averages $500 spend across 20,000 yearly visitors
“It's around 500 bucks average spend. So about 20,000 people a year.”
Aaron Fessler Aug 11, 2018 ▶ 14:09
Opinion
Fessler: Crypto winners do not understand their risk exposure
“I see people today that are doing really well in the crypto space and think that they're rock stars, and the reality is they just don't understand the risks that they're exposed to yet.”
Aaron Fessler Aug 11, 2018 ▶ 17:24
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