StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Jul 29, 2018 · 18m · top-founders

1100 Why aren't more private equity firms paying him $12k/seat?

Greg Silverman · 8m spoken Nathan Latka · 7m spoken
0:00 / 0:00

gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions

Nathan Latka interviews Greg Silverman, CEO of Concentric, analyzing how the company's predictive market simulation software commands $12,000 per seat per month while achieving 100% customer retention and transitioning from consulting to scalable SaaS.

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 46.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 5.2 Guest teaching 3.5 Guest disagreement 2.0 Nathan pushing back 4.7
05100:0010:000:49–5:47 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Introducing Greg Silverman and Concentric's Pricing Nathan presses Greg on how Concentric justifies its $12k/month per seat price tag and questions how they overcome long diagnostic sales cycles. Greg educates Nathan by clarifying that they do social science forecasting rather than standard predictive analytics.5:48–7:53 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Forecasting Entertainment Success and Private Equity Potential Greg shares how they forecasted box office receipts for Battleship. Nathan immediately pushes back, arguing that if the software's accuracy is that high, it is a red flag that private equity hasn't made Greg a billionaire yet.7:54–10:46 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Venture Capital Funding and Enterprise Adoption Metrics Nathan conducts live mental arithmetic multiplying 135 seats by $12,000 to infer a $1.6M monthly run rate. Greg qualifies this by noting enterprise volume discounts and clarifies they are still under $1M per month.10:47–13:17 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Capital Efficiency, Team Structure, and Zero Customer Churn Nathan breaks down the customer acquisition cost and one-month payback economics. When Greg mentions zero churn over three years, Nathan pushes on whether Concentric is underpricing its product.13:20–16:18 · Nathan as informed peer 7/10 Transitioning from Services to SaaS and Lifetime Value Nathan catches a major revenue discrepancy between the seat count and prior revenue figures, forcing Greg to clarify their transition from two-thirds professional services to pure SaaS. Nathan also probes whether Greg is raising capital or preparing to sell.16:20–17:20 · Nathan as informed peer 2/10 The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions In the Famous Five rapid fire round, Nathan briefly redirects Greg when he tries to name his own software as his favorite tool before closing on lifestyle and founding advice.0:49–5:47 · Guest teaching 5/10 Introducing Greg Silverman and Concentric's Pricing Nathan presses Greg on how Concentric justifies its $12k/month per seat price tag and questions how they overcome long diagnostic sales cycles. Greg educates Nathan by clarifying that they do social science forecasting rather than standard predictive analytics.5:48–7:53 · Guest teaching 4/10 Forecasting Entertainment Success and Private Equity Potential Greg shares how they forecasted box office receipts for Battleship. Nathan immediately pushes back, arguing that if the software's accuracy is that high, it is a red flag that private equity hasn't made Greg a billionaire yet.7:54–10:46 · Guest teaching 3/10 Venture Capital Funding and Enterprise Adoption Metrics Nathan conducts live mental arithmetic multiplying 135 seats by $12,000 to infer a $1.6M monthly run rate. Greg qualifies this by noting enterprise volume discounts and clarifies they are still under $1M per month.10:47–13:17 · Guest teaching 3/10 Capital Efficiency, Team Structure, and Zero Customer Churn Nathan breaks down the customer acquisition cost and one-month payback economics. When Greg mentions zero churn over three years, Nathan pushes on whether Concentric is underpricing its product.13:20–16:18 · Guest teaching 5/10 Transitioning from Services to SaaS and Lifetime Value Nathan catches a major revenue discrepancy between the seat count and prior revenue figures, forcing Greg to clarify their transition from two-thirds professional services to pure SaaS. Nathan also probes whether Greg is raising capital or preparing to sell.16:20–17:20 · Guest teaching 1/10 The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions In the Famous Five rapid fire round, Nathan briefly redirects Greg when he tries to name his own software as his favorite tool before closing on lifestyle and founding advice.0:49–5:47 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Introducing Greg Silverman and Concentric's Pricing Nathan presses Greg on how Concentric justifies its $12k/month per seat price tag and questions how they overcome long diagnostic sales cycles. Greg educates Nathan by clarifying that they do social science forecasting rather than standard predictive analytics.5:48–7:53 · Guest disagreement 3/10 Forecasting Entertainment Success and Private Equity Potential Greg shares how they forecasted box office receipts for Battleship. Nathan immediately pushes back, arguing that if the software's accuracy is that high, it is a red flag that private equity hasn't made Greg a billionaire yet.7:54–10:46 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Venture Capital Funding and Enterprise Adoption Metrics Nathan conducts live mental arithmetic multiplying 135 seats by $12,000 to infer a $1.6M monthly run rate. Greg qualifies this by noting enterprise volume discounts and clarifies they are still under $1M per month.10:47–13:17 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Capital Efficiency, Team Structure, and Zero Customer Churn Nathan breaks down the customer acquisition cost and one-month payback economics. When Greg mentions zero churn over three years, Nathan pushes on whether Concentric is underpricing its product.13:20–16:18 · Guest disagreement 3/10 Transitioning from Services to SaaS and Lifetime Value Nathan catches a major revenue discrepancy between the seat count and prior revenue figures, forcing Greg to clarify their transition from two-thirds professional services to pure SaaS. Nathan also probes whether Greg is raising capital or preparing to sell.16:20–17:20 · Guest disagreement 1/10 The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions In the Famous Five rapid fire round, Nathan briefly redirects Greg when he tries to name his own software as his favorite tool before closing on lifestyle and founding advice.0:49–5:47 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Introducing Greg Silverman and Concentric's Pricing Nathan presses Greg on how Concentric justifies its $12k/month per seat price tag and questions how they overcome long diagnostic sales cycles. Greg educates Nathan by clarifying that they do social science forecasting rather than standard predictive analytics.5:48–7:53 · Nathan pushing back 6/10 Forecasting Entertainment Success and Private Equity Potential Greg shares how they forecasted box office receipts for Battleship. Nathan immediately pushes back, arguing that if the software's accuracy is that high, it is a red flag that private equity hasn't made Greg a billionaire yet.7:54–10:46 · Nathan pushing back 5/10 Venture Capital Funding and Enterprise Adoption Metrics Nathan conducts live mental arithmetic multiplying 135 seats by $12,000 to infer a $1.6M monthly run rate. Greg qualifies this by noting enterprise volume discounts and clarifies they are still under $1M per month.10:47–13:17 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Capital Efficiency, Team Structure, and Zero Customer Churn Nathan breaks down the customer acquisition cost and one-month payback economics. When Greg mentions zero churn over three years, Nathan pushes on whether Concentric is underpricing its product.13:20–16:18 · Nathan pushing back 7/10 Transitioning from Services to SaaS and Lifetime Value Nathan catches a major revenue discrepancy between the seat count and prior revenue figures, forcing Greg to clarify their transition from two-thirds professional services to pure SaaS. Nathan also probes whether Greg is raising capital or preparing to sell.16:20–17:20 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions In the Famous Five rapid fire round, Nathan briefly redirects Greg when he tries to name his own software as his favorite tool before closing on lifestyle and founding advice.

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

0:00 · Nathan 69% · guest 31%0:00 · Nathan 69% · guest 31%3:00 · Nathan 31.7% · guest 68.3%3:00 · Nathan 31.7% · guest 68.3%6:00 · Nathan 29.7% · guest 70.3%6:00 · Nathan 29.7% · guest 70.3%9:00 · Nathan 38.9% · guest 61.1%9:00 · Nathan 38.9% · guest 61.1%12:00 · Nathan 45.7% · guest 54.3%12:00 · Nathan 45.7% · guest 54.3%15:00 · Nathan 65.1% · guest 34.9%15:00 · Nathan 65.1% · guest 34.9%18:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 100%18:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 100%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 16:03 Greg parries acquisition and fundraising inquiry

Greg deflects Nathan's either-or question regarding selling the company or raising capital with a sharp reframe about selling the product itself.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 13:32 Nathan calls out revenue calculation discrepancy

Nathan bluntly halts the conversation to point out that the math does not add up between seat pricing and monthly revenue, refusing Greg's implicit run-rate framing.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 2:50 Greg differentiates forecasting from predictive analytics

Greg firmly rejects Nathan's predictive analytics label, educating him on their mathematical modeling of human decision-making and consumer behavior.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 14:07 Nathan reconstructs pure SaaS versus services breakdown

Nathan swiftly recalculates the actual business economics on the fly, separating $120k/month in pure SaaS from professional services onboarding revenue.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Introducing Greg Silverman and Concentric's Pricing 5524 Nathan presses Greg on how Concentric justifies its $12k/month per seat price tag and questions how they overcome long diagnostic sales cycles. Greg educates Nathan by clarifying that they do social science forecasting rather than standard predictive analytics.
Forecasting Entertainment Success and Private Equity Potential 5436 Greg shares how they forecasted box office receipts for Battleship. Nathan immediately pushes back, arguing that if the software's accuracy is that high, it is a red flag that private equity hasn't made Greg a billionaire yet.
Venture Capital Funding and Enterprise Adoption Metrics 6325 Nathan conducts live mental arithmetic multiplying 135 seats by $12,000 to infer a $1.6M monthly run rate. Greg qualifies this by noting enterprise volume discounts and clarifies they are still under $1M per month.
Capital Efficiency, Team Structure, and Zero Customer Churn 6314 Nathan breaks down the customer acquisition cost and one-month payback economics. When Greg mentions zero churn over three years, Nathan pushes on whether Concentric is underpricing its product.
Transitioning from Services to SaaS and Lifetime Value 7537 Nathan catches a major revenue discrepancy between the seat count and prior revenue figures, forcing Greg to clarify their transition from two-thirds professional services to pure SaaS. Nathan also probes whether Greg is raising capital or preparing to sell.
The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions 2112 In the Famous Five rapid fire round, Nathan briefly redirects Greg when he tries to name his own software as his favorite tool before closing on lifestyle and founding advice.

Statements from this episode (9)

Disclosure
Concentric charges at least $12,000 per seat per month
“We're talking at least 12,000 a month.”
Greg Silverman Jul 29, 2018 ▶ 2:21
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Concentric's 94% accurate auto sales forecast saved client $160M
“And when it launched we were 94% accurate on the actual vehicle sales for the first year of the car. So that allowed them to drop features that they might not have needed. It helped them tailor their advertising. And they saved a hundred and sixty million doll…”
Greg Silverman Jul 29, 2018 ▶ 4:06
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Silverman: Concentric accurately predicted Battleship's $75M North American box office
“We predicted around seventy-five million for North America, and that's what it was.”
Greg Silverman Jul 29, 2018 ▶ 7:13
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Concentric grew revenue 100% year-over-year leading up to mid-2018
“A hundred percent.”
Greg Silverman Jul 29, 2018 ▶ 8:23
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Concentric serves 15 primary customers and over 50 global brands
“We've got what we'd call 15 primary customers. Some of them are partners, and so they might have another 10 each. So you can think about us, just over 50 different brands using the product globally.”
Greg Silverman Jul 29, 2018 ▶ 9:09
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Concentric's monthly revenue remained under $1 million in mid-2018
“We're still under.”
Greg Silverman Jul 29, 2018 ▶ 10:36
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Concentric's CAC is just 6% to 8% of first-year contract value
“It's pretty low cost in the sense that you know, when we go out and find the companies, we're just doing very traditional stuff, some basic marketing shows, so you can think of, like, our acquisition cost of, Maybe six to eight percent of the first year value …”
Greg Silverman Jul 29, 2018 ▶ 10:56
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Concentric maintained 100% software customer retention over three years
“In the last three years, we've had a hundred percent repeat rate for our software customers.”
Greg Silverman Jul 29, 2018 ▶ 12:21
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Concentric shifted from majority-services to majority-SaaS revenue over 18 months
“We were probably two-thirds Consulting, one-third licensing. Now that's reversed. We're one-third, I mean, two-thirds licensing, one-third services.”
Greg Silverman Jul 29, 2018 ▶ 13:57
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 2,600 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more