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Jan 8, 2018 · 21m · top-founders

898 SaaS: SnapApp Lands Amazon as Customer, Passes $8m in ARR

Seth Lieberman · 12m 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 interview, host Nathan Latka speaks with SnapApp founder and CEO Seth Lieberman about scaling the interactive B2B content platform to nearly $10 million in ARR. Seth shares key insights on SaaS unit economics, enterprise expansion pricing, agency partnerships, and his entrepreneurial journey from investment banking to venture-backed software leadership.

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 32% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 5.8 Guest teaching 3.2 Guest disagreement 2.2 Nathan pushing back 3.0
05100:0010:0020:001:20–5:02 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Seth Lieberman's Path from Banking to Entrepreneurship Nathan guides Seth through his background, the SnapApp value proposition, and immediately identifies the agency channel as a high-margin distribution play. The tone is highly collaborative and conversational.5:02–8:43 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Annual SaaS Contracts, Revenue Growth, and Category Churn Nathan interrupts Seth to demand hard revenue numbers when Seth uses vague phrasing like 'growing quickly'. Seth provides clarity on ARR, growth rate, and reframes logo churn in the context of creating a brand-new software category.8:45–11:49 · Nathan as informed peer 7/10 Enterprise Upselling and Pricing Complexity Management Nathan demonstrates SaaS domain knowledge by sharing pricing lessons learned from HubSpot's leadership regarding multiple pricing axes. Seth agrees and elaborates on how excessive pricing complexity can backfire with Fortune 10 enterprise buyers.11:50–14:14 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Boston Team Scaling, Capital Raised, and Bootstrapping Insights Nathan probes into capitalization strategy and notes Drift's contemporaneous funding news. Seth gives advice on the philosophical divide between aggressive venture-scale fundraising and bootstrapping.14:16–18:12 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 HostGator Website Hosting Sponsorship Break After an ad read, Nathan presses Seth for specific unit economics including LTV and CAC. Seth pushes back on standard blended CAC metrics, explaining why it fails for enterprise deals and arguing for a dollars-in vs. dollars-out sales efficiency model.1:20–5:02 · Guest teaching 2/10 Seth Lieberman's Path from Banking to Entrepreneurship Nathan guides Seth through his background, the SnapApp value proposition, and immediately identifies the agency channel as a high-margin distribution play. The tone is highly collaborative and conversational.5:02–8:43 · Guest teaching 4/10 Annual SaaS Contracts, Revenue Growth, and Category Churn Nathan interrupts Seth to demand hard revenue numbers when Seth uses vague phrasing like 'growing quickly'. Seth provides clarity on ARR, growth rate, and reframes logo churn in the context of creating a brand-new software category.8:45–11:49 · Guest teaching 3/10 Enterprise Upselling and Pricing Complexity Management Nathan demonstrates SaaS domain knowledge by sharing pricing lessons learned from HubSpot's leadership regarding multiple pricing axes. Seth agrees and elaborates on how excessive pricing complexity can backfire with Fortune 10 enterprise buyers.11:50–14:14 · Guest teaching 2/10 Boston Team Scaling, Capital Raised, and Bootstrapping Insights Nathan probes into capitalization strategy and notes Drift's contemporaneous funding news. Seth gives advice on the philosophical divide between aggressive venture-scale fundraising and bootstrapping.14:16–18:12 · Guest teaching 5/10 HostGator Website Hosting Sponsorship Break After an ad read, Nathan presses Seth for specific unit economics including LTV and CAC. Seth pushes back on standard blended CAC metrics, explaining why it fails for enterprise deals and arguing for a dollars-in vs. dollars-out sales efficiency model.1:20–5:02 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Seth Lieberman's Path from Banking to Entrepreneurship Nathan guides Seth through his background, the SnapApp value proposition, and immediately identifies the agency channel as a high-margin distribution play. The tone is highly collaborative and conversational.5:02–8:43 · Guest disagreement 3/10 Annual SaaS Contracts, Revenue Growth, and Category Churn Nathan interrupts Seth to demand hard revenue numbers when Seth uses vague phrasing like 'growing quickly'. Seth provides clarity on ARR, growth rate, and reframes logo churn in the context of creating a brand-new software category.8:45–11:49 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Enterprise Upselling and Pricing Complexity Management Nathan demonstrates SaaS domain knowledge by sharing pricing lessons learned from HubSpot's leadership regarding multiple pricing axes. Seth agrees and elaborates on how excessive pricing complexity can backfire with Fortune 10 enterprise buyers.11:50–14:14 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Boston Team Scaling, Capital Raised, and Bootstrapping Insights Nathan probes into capitalization strategy and notes Drift's contemporaneous funding news. Seth gives advice on the philosophical divide between aggressive venture-scale fundraising and bootstrapping.14:16–18:12 · Guest disagreement 4/10 HostGator Website Hosting Sponsorship Break After an ad read, Nathan presses Seth for specific unit economics including LTV and CAC. Seth pushes back on standard blended CAC metrics, explaining why it fails for enterprise deals and arguing for a dollars-in vs. dollars-out sales efficiency model.1:20–5:02 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Seth Lieberman's Path from Banking to Entrepreneurship Nathan guides Seth through his background, the SnapApp value proposition, and immediately identifies the agency channel as a high-margin distribution play. The tone is highly collaborative and conversational.5:02–8:43 · Nathan pushing back 5/10 Annual SaaS Contracts, Revenue Growth, and Category Churn Nathan interrupts Seth to demand hard revenue numbers when Seth uses vague phrasing like 'growing quickly'. Seth provides clarity on ARR, growth rate, and reframes logo churn in the context of creating a brand-new software category.8:45–11:49 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Enterprise Upselling and Pricing Complexity Management Nathan demonstrates SaaS domain knowledge by sharing pricing lessons learned from HubSpot's leadership regarding multiple pricing axes. Seth agrees and elaborates on how excessive pricing complexity can backfire with Fortune 10 enterprise buyers.11:50–14:14 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Boston Team Scaling, Capital Raised, and Bootstrapping Insights Nathan probes into capitalization strategy and notes Drift's contemporaneous funding news. Seth gives advice on the philosophical divide between aggressive venture-scale fundraising and bootstrapping.14:16–18:12 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 HostGator Website Hosting Sponsorship Break After an ad read, Nathan presses Seth for specific unit economics including LTV and CAC. Seth pushes back on standard blended CAC metrics, explaining why it fails for enterprise deals and arguing for a dollars-in vs. dollars-out sales efficiency model.

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

0:00 · Nathan 48.3% · guest 51.7%0:00 · Nathan 48.3% · guest 51.7%3:00 · Nathan 16.9% · guest 83.1%3:00 · Nathan 16.9% · guest 83.1%6:00 · Nathan 18.5% · guest 81.5%6:00 · Nathan 18.5% · guest 81.5%9:00 · Nathan 24.8% · guest 75.2%9:00 · Nathan 24.8% · guest 75.2%12:00 · Nathan 40.1% · guest 59.9%12:00 · Nathan 40.1% · guest 59.9%15:00 · Nathan 38.4% · guest 61.6%15:00 · Nathan 38.4% · guest 61.6%18:00 · Nathan 32.8% · guest 67.2%18:00 · Nathan 32.8% · guest 67.2%21:00 · Nathan 95.2% · guest 4.8%21:00 · Nathan 95.2% · guest 4.8%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 16:02 Seth rejects traditional CAC framing

Seth directly challenges Nathan's question about customer acquisition cost, arguing that a blended CAC metric is flawed when contract values range from small licenses to massive enterprise accounts like Amazon.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 6:08 Nathan demands exact growth quantification

Nathan cuts off Seth's qualitative description of business momentum to demand exact historical and year-over-year revenue percentages.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 16:02 Seth reframes enterprise SaaS acquisition metrics

Seth educates Nathan on why tracking dollars of signed contract value against monthly total go-to-market spend is more actionable than standard blended per-logo CAC.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 10:07 Nathan demonstrates pricing model mechanics

Nathan draws on his own entrepreneurial acquisition experience and insights from HubSpot's leadership to break down how multi-variable pricing axes drive negative net churn.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Seth Lieberman's Path from Banking to Entrepreneurship 5212 Nathan guides Seth through his background, the SnapApp value proposition, and immediately identifies the agency channel as a high-margin distribution play. The tone is highly collaborative and conversational.
Annual SaaS Contracts, Revenue Growth, and Category Churn 6435 Nathan interrupts Seth to demand hard revenue numbers when Seth uses vague phrasing like 'growing quickly'. Seth provides clarity on ARR, growth rate, and reframes logo churn in the context of creating a brand-new software category.
Enterprise Upselling and Pricing Complexity Management 7322 Nathan demonstrates SaaS domain knowledge by sharing pricing lessons learned from HubSpot's leadership regarding multiple pricing axes. Seth agrees and elaborates on how excessive pricing complexity can backfire with Fortune 10 enterprise buyers.
Boston Team Scaling, Capital Raised, and Bootstrapping Insights 5212 Nathan probes into capitalization strategy and notes Drift's contemporaneous funding news. Seth gives advice on the philosophical divide between aggressive venture-scale fundraising and bootstrapping.
HostGator Website Hosting Sponsorship Break 6544 After an ad read, Nathan presses Seth for specific unit economics including LTV and CAC. Seth pushes back on standard blended CAC metrics, explaining why it fails for enterprise deals and arguing for a dollars-in vs. dollars-out sales efficiency model.

Statements from this episode (12)

Insight
Agencies can no longer sustain businesses selling custom code, says Lieberman
“You can't have a business selling code anymore to companies. Nobody wants to pay for custom code, right?”
Seth Lieberman Jan 8, 2018 ▶ 4:19
Assertion Not checkable as stated
SnapApp nears 300 customers averaging $30,000 annually with six-figure contracts
“Our average customer these days starts about 30 grand a year. Our enterprises can be in the six figures. We don't have any seven figure customers yet. But that's typically where they are. We've got, we're closing in on about 300 customers, give or take.”
Seth Lieberman Jan 8, 2018 ▶ 5:23
Assertion Not checkable as stated
SnapApp is growing revenue north of 100% year over year
“We're growing north of a hundred percent year over year. In terms of revenue or customer count? Revenue.”
Seth Lieberman Jan 8, 2018 ▶ 6:16
Prediction Not checkable as stated
SnapApp predicts higher customer churn than established SaaS verticals
“I think we as a company will always have a higher churn rate on the customer count over the next five years than an established vertical, right? Like, you know, a lot of the, you know, CRM, marketing automation, analytics, those guys, their churn rates should …”
Seth Lieberman Jan 8, 2018 ▶ 6:52
Assertion Not checkable as stated
SnapApp maintains roughly 100% net MRR retention
“We were pretty much about a hundred percent MRR retention, right?”
Seth Lieberman Jan 8, 2018 ▶ 7:20
Insight
Lieberman: Overly complicated SaaS pricing hinders sales and leaves revenue behind
“The flip side of it though, is the more complicated you make it, the harder you make it to sell. And so we, you know, like any SaaS company, we try and walk that line, which is how do we leave ourselves enough variability that we can get the right amount of mo…”
Seth Lieberman Jan 8, 2018 ▶ 11:09
Assertion Supported
Providence Equity Partners invested about $22M into SnapApp
“I put in a bunch of my own money, did some angel money, and then we've raised money out of Providence Equity Partners down the road from us. How much total? They put in about 22.”
Seth Lieberman Jan 8, 2018 ▶ 12:09
Insight
Founders should raise maximum capital or fully bootstrap, says Seth Lieberman
“Increasingly I think you should do one of two things. You should either figure out how much money you can raise, and you should raise every dollar plus one, right?”
Seth Lieberman Jan 8, 2018 ▶ 12:46
Disclosure
Lieberman: SnapApp customers stay an average of three to five years
“On average, I'd say our lifetime customers are with us three to five years. I mean, we're still early, so it's hard to tell, right?”
Seth Lieberman Jan 8, 2018 ▶ 15:34
Disclosure
Amazon is a paying SnapApp customer, while HubSpot is not
“You know, so if HubSpot buys a 20,000 dollar license from us, and Amazon, and they're not a customer, Amazon is a customer actually, and Amazon buys a twenty million dollar, our CAC is still the same, right?”
Seth Lieberman Jan 8, 2018 ▶ 16:16
Disclosure
SnapApp is approaching $10 million in annual recurring revenue
“Yeah, we're getting to 10. We've got a little bit of work to do, but I keep hearing the gong ring over in the sales bullpen.”
Seth Lieberman Jan 8, 2018 ▶ 17:36
Disclosure
SnapApp operates at 95% gross margins by avoiding professional services
“95. Actually we decided long ago we don't want to be in the services business.”
Seth Lieberman Jan 8, 2018 ▶ 17:51
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