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Mar 30, 2018 · 17m · top-founders

979 How Funnel.io 3x ARR to $2.1m in Last 12 Months

Fredrik Skantze · 8m spoken Nathan Latka · 6m 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 episode of The Top Entrepreneurs, host Nathan Latka interviews Fredrik Skantze, CEO and co-founder of Funnel.io, exploring how the marketing analytics SaaS platform scaled to $180,000 in MRR and $2.2 million ARR. Skantze details the company's unit economics, pricing strategy, lessons from past venture failures, and their recent $10 million Series A funding round.

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 41.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 5.8 Guest teaching 2.6 Guest disagreement 1.0 Nathan pushing back 2.2
05100:0010:002:20–5:25 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Funnel.io Origin, Funding History, and Team Structure Latka probes Fredrik on his founding story, previous company capitalization, and lessons learned from past startup failures. Fredrik candidly reflects on scaling his previous venture too fast despite top-tier backing.5:25–8:37 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Revenue Growth, Data Integrations, and Customer Acquisition Cost Latka drills into customer counts, MRR growth, and unit economics, calculating CAC payback periods on the fly. Fredrik explains the complexity of building 342 ad platform integrations.8:39–12:30 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Sponsor Segment: The Top Inbox Acquisition After an ad segment, Latka and Fredrik examine pricing models, gross/net churn rates, and LTV. Latka praises Fredrik for coming prepared with granular SaaS metrics.12:30–15:15 · Nathan as informed peer 7/10 Sales Strategy, Lead Generation, and Competitive Dynamics Latka pushes into competitive positioning against spreadsheets and breaks down the exact pre/post-money valuation multiples of Funnel's Series A round.15:17–17:43 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions Latka runs through the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions and delivers an accurate closing summary of Funnel.io's traction and financial metrics.2:20–5:25 · Guest teaching 3/10 Funnel.io Origin, Funding History, and Team Structure Latka probes Fredrik on his founding story, previous company capitalization, and lessons learned from past startup failures. Fredrik candidly reflects on scaling his previous venture too fast despite top-tier backing.5:25–8:37 · Guest teaching 3/10 Revenue Growth, Data Integrations, and Customer Acquisition Cost Latka drills into customer counts, MRR growth, and unit economics, calculating CAC payback periods on the fly. Fredrik explains the complexity of building 342 ad platform integrations.8:39–12:30 · Guest teaching 3/10 Sponsor Segment: The Top Inbox Acquisition After an ad segment, Latka and Fredrik examine pricing models, gross/net churn rates, and LTV. Latka praises Fredrik for coming prepared with granular SaaS metrics.12:30–15:15 · Guest teaching 3/10 Sales Strategy, Lead Generation, and Competitive Dynamics Latka pushes into competitive positioning against spreadsheets and breaks down the exact pre/post-money valuation multiples of Funnel's Series A round.15:17–17:43 · Guest teaching 1/10 The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions Latka runs through the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions and delivers an accurate closing summary of Funnel.io's traction and financial metrics.2:20–5:25 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Funnel.io Origin, Funding History, and Team Structure Latka probes Fredrik on his founding story, previous company capitalization, and lessons learned from past startup failures. Fredrik candidly reflects on scaling his previous venture too fast despite top-tier backing.5:25–8:37 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Revenue Growth, Data Integrations, and Customer Acquisition Cost Latka drills into customer counts, MRR growth, and unit economics, calculating CAC payback periods on the fly. Fredrik explains the complexity of building 342 ad platform integrations.8:39–12:30 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Sponsor Segment: The Top Inbox Acquisition After an ad segment, Latka and Fredrik examine pricing models, gross/net churn rates, and LTV. Latka praises Fredrik for coming prepared with granular SaaS metrics.12:30–15:15 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Sales Strategy, Lead Generation, and Competitive Dynamics Latka pushes into competitive positioning against spreadsheets and breaks down the exact pre/post-money valuation multiples of Funnel's Series A round.15:17–17:43 · Guest disagreement 1/10 The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions Latka runs through the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions and delivers an accurate closing summary of Funnel.io's traction and financial metrics.2:20–5:25 · Nathan pushing back 3/10 Funnel.io Origin, Funding History, and Team Structure Latka probes Fredrik on his founding story, previous company capitalization, and lessons learned from past startup failures. Fredrik candidly reflects on scaling his previous venture too fast despite top-tier backing.5:25–8:37 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Revenue Growth, Data Integrations, and Customer Acquisition Cost Latka drills into customer counts, MRR growth, and unit economics, calculating CAC payback periods on the fly. Fredrik explains the complexity of building 342 ad platform integrations.8:39–12:30 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Sponsor Segment: The Top Inbox Acquisition After an ad segment, Latka and Fredrik examine pricing models, gross/net churn rates, and LTV. Latka praises Fredrik for coming prepared with granular SaaS metrics.12:30–15:15 · Nathan pushing back 3/10 Sales Strategy, Lead Generation, and Competitive Dynamics Latka pushes into competitive positioning against spreadsheets and breaks down the exact pre/post-money valuation multiples of Funnel's Series A round.15:17–17:43 · Nathan pushing back 1/10 The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions Latka runs through the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions and delivers an accurate closing summary of Funnel.io's traction and financial metrics.

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

0:00 · Nathan 51.4% · guest 48.6%0:00 · Nathan 51.4% · guest 48.6%3:00 · Nathan 25% · guest 75%3:00 · Nathan 25% · guest 75%6:00 · Nathan 28% · guest 72%6:00 · Nathan 28% · guest 72%9:00 · Nathan 59.1% · guest 40.9%9:00 · Nathan 59.1% · guest 40.9%12:00 · Nathan 32.8% · guest 67.2%12:00 · Nathan 32.8% · guest 67.2%15:00 · Nathan 51.5% · guest 48.5%15:00 · Nathan 51.5% · guest 48.5%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 8:04 Clarifying CAC strategy

Fredrik clarifies that they are not aggressively inflating CAC with new funding, but rather keeping it steady while expanding customer volume and ACV.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 14:53 Correcting pre- and post-money valuation math

Latka immediately challenges and adjusts Fredrik's valuation math to establish the correct $20M pre-money on a $10M raise.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 6:35 Complexity of marketing platform integrations

Fredrik explains the technical hurdle of onboarding marketing data, noting that supporting over 340 custom marketing platforms required double their expected dev timeline.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 10:37 Critique of percentage-of-spend pricing

Latka draws on market data to explain why competitors fail when hybridizing SaaS fees with ad spend percentages.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Funnel.io Origin, Funding History, and Team Structure 5313 Latka probes Fredrik on his founding story, previous company capitalization, and lessons learned from past startup failures. Fredrik candidly reflects on scaling his previous venture too fast despite top-tier backing.
Revenue Growth, Data Integrations, and Customer Acquisition Cost 6312 Latka drills into customer counts, MRR growth, and unit economics, calculating CAC payback periods on the fly. Fredrik explains the complexity of building 342 ad platform integrations.
Sponsor Segment: The Top Inbox Acquisition 6312 After an ad segment, Latka and Fredrik examine pricing models, gross/net churn rates, and LTV. Latka praises Fredrik for coming prepared with granular SaaS metrics.
Sales Strategy, Lead Generation, and Competitive Dynamics 7313 Latka pushes into competitive positioning against spreadsheets and breaks down the exact pre/post-money valuation multiples of Funnel's Series A round.
The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions 5111 Latka runs through the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions and delivers an accurate closing summary of Funnel.io's traction and financial metrics.

Statements from this episode (9)

Disclosure
Funnel raised $3M in seed funding and a $10M Series A
“So we've had a couple of rounds of seed funding in total about three million, and then we took in a ten million dollar round in August this year.”
Fredrik Skantze Mar 30, 2018 ▶ 2:45
Assertion Supported
Fredrik Skantze's prior $30M-funded startup reached 120 employees without exiting
“We raised about thirty million dollars, had a 120 people, had really top, top VC backing. But ended up not having a big exit in the end.”
Fredrik Skantze Mar 30, 2018 ▶ 4:31
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Funnel reaches $180K MRR across 340 customers, growing 10% month-over-month
“We have about 340 customers. So MRR is around 180,000. And it's been growing north of 10% per month the last three months now.”
Fredrik Skantze Mar 30, 2018 ▶ 5:32
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Funnel's average revenue per customer rose to $525, up from $400
“We now have about average revenue per customer of about 525 dollars, and, but that's up from about 400 a year ago.”
Fredrik Skantze Mar 30, 2018 ▶ 8:21
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Funnel processes over $1B in annual advertising spend across its platform
“So we process about A bit north of one billion dollars in advertising spend a year.”
Fredrik Skantze Mar 30, 2018 ▶ 10:25
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Funnel's enterprise customer segment achieves negative 1.5% monthly net MRR churn
“And then you could, if you split the customer base and sort of small customers and large customers, the larger half of the customers have a negative MRR churn of about -1.5% a month.”
Fredrik Skantze Mar 30, 2018 ▶ 11:18
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Funnel models a $20,000 average customer LTV with 3x LTV-to-CAC
“Around 20,000 dollars. yeah. So, so yeah, so there's a payback Of about a bit over three on on the CAC. Yep.”
Fredrik Skantze Mar 30, 2018 ▶ 12:07
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Funnel encounters software competitors in only 10% of its sales discussions
“You know, I think the biggest, so, so we speak to about 200 new companies every month. And only in about 10% of the case is a competitor involved in that discussion. So out of 200 customers we speak to, 180, it's, they use a spreadsheet, and they're either goi…”
Fredrik Skantze Mar 30, 2018 ▶ 13:15
Disclosure
Funnel raised its $10M Series A at a $30M post-money valuation
“Well, I guess it was ten million rates. So. Okay. 20, yeah. 20 pre and 30 posts.”
Fredrik Skantze Mar 30, 2018 ▶ 14:58
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