StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Jun 6, 2017 · 20m · top-founders

682: Why Tech Companies Are Opening Salt Lake City Offices With CloudCherry CEO Vinod Muthukrishnan

Nathan Latka · 9m spoken Vinod Muthukrishnan · 8m spoken Cloud Cherry Employee · 1s 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 CloudCherry CEO Vinod Muthukrishnan about scaling an omnichannel customer experience SaaS platform, expanding into Salt Lake City, and managing key metrics like churn, CAC, and ARR growth.

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 50.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 3.5 Guest teaching 2.0 Guest disagreement 1.3 Nathan pushing back 2.5
05100:0010:0020:001:19–5:21 · Nathan as informed peer 4/10 Salt Lake City Office Tour and CloudCherry Overview Nathan guides the office tour and clarifies details such as the definition of VOC (voice of customer) and commercial real estate pricing per square foot. The atmosphere is collaborative and casual.5:21–15:49 · Nathan as informed peer 8/10 CloudCherry Business Model, Metrics, and Growth Strategy Nathan intensely interrogates Vinod's metrics, expressing strong skepticism about enterprise churn being higher than SMB churn based on hundreds of SaaS interviews. Vinod pushes back on disclosing exact revenue and defends his atypical churn dynamics.15:49–18:14 · Nathan as informed peer 2/10 Mid-Roll Sponsor: Travel Nutrition and Superfood Juice Packets Nathan transitions from a sponsor ad read into the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions, with Vinod providing standard, agreeable answers.18:14–20:08 · Nathan as informed peer 0/10 Episode Recap and Interview Wrap-Up Nathan delivers a solo recap of CloudCherry's metrics and finishes with host promotions and calls to action.1:19–5:21 · Guest teaching 3/10 Salt Lake City Office Tour and CloudCherry Overview Nathan guides the office tour and clarifies details such as the definition of VOC (voice of customer) and commercial real estate pricing per square foot. The atmosphere is collaborative and casual.5:21–15:49 · Guest teaching 4/10 CloudCherry Business Model, Metrics, and Growth Strategy Nathan intensely interrogates Vinod's metrics, expressing strong skepticism about enterprise churn being higher than SMB churn based on hundreds of SaaS interviews. Vinod pushes back on disclosing exact revenue and defends his atypical churn dynamics.15:49–18:14 · Guest teaching 1/10 Mid-Roll Sponsor: Travel Nutrition and Superfood Juice Packets Nathan transitions from a sponsor ad read into the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions, with Vinod providing standard, agreeable answers.18:14–20:08 · Guest teaching 0/10 Episode Recap and Interview Wrap-Up Nathan delivers a solo recap of CloudCherry's metrics and finishes with host promotions and calls to action.1:19–5:21 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Salt Lake City Office Tour and CloudCherry Overview Nathan guides the office tour and clarifies details such as the definition of VOC (voice of customer) and commercial real estate pricing per square foot. The atmosphere is collaborative and casual.5:21–15:49 · Guest disagreement 4/10 CloudCherry Business Model, Metrics, and Growth Strategy Nathan intensely interrogates Vinod's metrics, expressing strong skepticism about enterprise churn being higher than SMB churn based on hundreds of SaaS interviews. Vinod pushes back on disclosing exact revenue and defends his atypical churn dynamics.15:49–18:14 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Mid-Roll Sponsor: Travel Nutrition and Superfood Juice Packets Nathan transitions from a sponsor ad read into the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions, with Vinod providing standard, agreeable answers.18:14–20:08 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Episode Recap and Interview Wrap-Up Nathan delivers a solo recap of CloudCherry's metrics and finishes with host promotions and calls to action.1:19–5:21 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Salt Lake City Office Tour and CloudCherry Overview Nathan guides the office tour and clarifies details such as the definition of VOC (voice of customer) and commercial real estate pricing per square foot. The atmosphere is collaborative and casual.5:21–15:49 · Nathan pushing back 7/10 CloudCherry Business Model, Metrics, and Growth Strategy Nathan intensely interrogates Vinod's metrics, expressing strong skepticism about enterprise churn being higher than SMB churn based on hundreds of SaaS interviews. Vinod pushes back on disclosing exact revenue and defends his atypical churn dynamics.15:49–18:14 · Nathan pushing back 1/10 Mid-Roll Sponsor: Travel Nutrition and Superfood Juice Packets Nathan transitions from a sponsor ad read into the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions, with Vinod providing standard, agreeable answers.18:14–20:08 · Nathan pushing back 0/10 Episode Recap and Interview Wrap-Up Nathan delivers a solo recap of CloudCherry's metrics and finishes with host promotions and calls to action.

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

0:00 · Nathan 60.6% · guest 39.4%0:00 · Nathan 60.6% · guest 39.4%3:00 · Nathan 36.1% · guest 63.9%3:00 · Nathan 36.1% · guest 63.9%6:00 · Nathan 41.6% · guest 58.4%6:00 · Nathan 41.6% · guest 58.4%9:00 · Nathan 35.3% · guest 64.7%9:00 · Nathan 35.3% · guest 64.7%12:00 · Nathan 33.9% · guest 66.1%12:00 · Nathan 33.9% · guest 66.1%15:00 · Nathan 64.8% · guest 35.2%15:00 · Nathan 64.8% · guest 35.2%18:00 · Nathan 91% · guest 9%18:00 · Nathan 91% · guest 9%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 7:12 Guest Refuses Direct Revenue Disclosure

Vinod firmly deflects Nathan's MRR estimation math by asserting that while Nathan can ask any question, he will not reveal revenue figures.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 8:26 Host Rejects Guest Churn Logic

Nathan bluntly challenges Vinod, claiming across 600+ interviews he has never heard of a SaaS company having higher enterprise churn than SMB churn.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 9:00 Guest Explains Disruptive Pricing Retention

Vinod explains that CloudCherry offers enterprise-grade customer experience tooling at survey-tier pricing, preventing low-tier SMBs from churning.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 8:45 Host Demonstrates SaaS Churn Benchmark Knowledge

Nathan cites standard industry data indicating typical SMB gross monthly churn sits between 4-8% while enterprise tends to be net negative.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Salt Lake City Office Tour and CloudCherry Overview 4312 Nathan guides the office tour and clarifies details such as the definition of VOC (voice of customer) and commercial real estate pricing per square foot. The atmosphere is collaborative and casual.
CloudCherry Business Model, Metrics, and Growth Strategy 8447 Nathan intensely interrogates Vinod's metrics, expressing strong skepticism about enterprise churn being higher than SMB churn based on hundreds of SaaS interviews. Vinod pushes back on disclosing exact revenue and defends his atypical churn dynamics.
Mid-Roll Sponsor: Travel Nutrition and Superfood Juice Packets 2101 Nathan transitions from a sponsor ad read into the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions, with Vinod providing standard, agreeable answers.
Episode Recap and Interview Wrap-Up 0000 Nathan delivers a solo recap of CloudCherry's metrics and finishes with host promotions and calls to action.

Statements from this episode (8)

Assertion Not checkable as stated
CloudCherry employs 74 people primarily across India and Singapore
“We have 74 people.”
Vinod Muthukrishnan Jun 6, 2017 ▶ 1:37
Assertion Contradicted
CloudCherry has raised over $9M total, including $7M latest round
“So we've raised seven million in the last one. Total, I think we raised close to nine, nine and a half million dollars.”
Vinod Muthukrishnan Jun 6, 2017 ▶ 1:47
Assertion Not checkable as stated
CloudCherry serves nearly 100 customers, mostly located in Asia
“So we have close to a hundred customers a lot of them in Asia, because that's where we started.”
Vinod Muthukrishnan Jun 6, 2017 ▶ 5:59
Assertion Not checkable as stated
CloudCherry has experienced zero customer churn in its SMB segment
“Whereas SMB, we have had no churn. None of our customers have left us. That's the honest fact.”
Vinod Muthukrishnan Jun 6, 2017 ▶ 8:41
Assertion Not checkable as stated
CloudCherry's customer base is 65% SMB and 35% enterprise
“So today our split would be closer to 35% mid-market and enterprise, and maybe 65% SMB.”
Vinod Muthukrishnan Jun 6, 2017 ▶ 10:18
Assertion Not checkable as stated
CloudCherry maintains 7-12 month CAC payback and 3.5-4.5x LTV:CAC
“So hence the range is between payback period of seven to 12 months CAC to LTV between three and a half and four and a half really depends on the segment.”
Vinod Muthukrishnan Jun 6, 2017 ▶ 11:49
Prediction Not checkable as stated
CloudCherry will surpass $4M ARR by December 2017
“So we should be not a four million ARR.”
Vinod Muthukrishnan Jun 6, 2017 ▶ 14:51
Insight
Early-stage SaaS startups must triple revenue annually to succeed
“Three X, I believe, is a number we should set ourselves and say, if you're not growing three X at this scale, then you're probably not going fast enough.”
Vinod Muthukrishnan Jun 6, 2017 ▶ 15:42
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