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May 17, 2017 · 23m · top-founders

662: $425k Per Month With Software Product Helps With Sales Leads with Corporate360 CEO Varun Chandran

Varun Chandran · 10m spoken Nathan Latka · 9m 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', host Nathan Latka interviews Varun Chandran, founder and CEO of Corporate360, who details how he bootstrapped a B2B predictive sales intelligence platform from under $10,000 into a $5 million ARR global enterprise.

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 47.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 3.8 Guest teaching 3.0 Guest disagreement 1.5 Nathan pushing back 3.8
05100:0010:0020:001:56–5:34 · Nathan as informed peer 3/10 Corporate360's Business Model and DaaS Pricing Structure Latka explores Corporate360's beginnings, pricing structure, and bootstrap history with straightforward inquiries. Chandran explains the advantages of an ongoing Data-as-a-Service model over static marketing list purchases.5:35–13:20 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Predictive Sales Intelligence and Industry Differentiation Latka aggressively presses Chandran to move past industry buzzwords, comparing his offering to competitors like DiscoverOrg and FullContact and questioning if the product is just simple web scraping. Chandran counters with a concrete use case illustrating how predictive intelligence identifies hardware refresh cycles.13:20–17:53 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Company Metrics: ARR, Churn, and Global Footprint Latka drills into ARR, paid acquisition spend, and churn rates, briefly misinterpreting a 9% churn figure as monthly before being corrected by Chandran that it represents annual churn. Chandran provides clarity on his enterprise renewal rates and ad experiments.17:53–20:45 · Nathan as informed peer 1/10 Sponsor Break: Klipfolio Analytics and HostGator This segment consists of mid-roll sponsor reads for Klipfolio and HostGator followed by the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions.1:56–5:34 · Guest teaching 3/10 Corporate360's Business Model and DaaS Pricing Structure Latka explores Corporate360's beginnings, pricing structure, and bootstrap history with straightforward inquiries. Chandran explains the advantages of an ongoing Data-as-a-Service model over static marketing list purchases.5:35–13:20 · Guest teaching 5/10 Predictive Sales Intelligence and Industry Differentiation Latka aggressively presses Chandran to move past industry buzzwords, comparing his offering to competitors like DiscoverOrg and FullContact and questioning if the product is just simple web scraping. Chandran counters with a concrete use case illustrating how predictive intelligence identifies hardware refresh cycles.13:20–17:53 · Guest teaching 4/10 Company Metrics: ARR, Churn, and Global Footprint Latka drills into ARR, paid acquisition spend, and churn rates, briefly misinterpreting a 9% churn figure as monthly before being corrected by Chandran that it represents annual churn. Chandran provides clarity on his enterprise renewal rates and ad experiments.17:53–20:45 · Guest teaching 0/10 Sponsor Break: Klipfolio Analytics and HostGator This segment consists of mid-roll sponsor reads for Klipfolio and HostGator followed by the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions.1:56–5:34 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Corporate360's Business Model and DaaS Pricing Structure Latka explores Corporate360's beginnings, pricing structure, and bootstrap history with straightforward inquiries. Chandran explains the advantages of an ongoing Data-as-a-Service model over static marketing list purchases.5:35–13:20 · Guest disagreement 3/10 Predictive Sales Intelligence and Industry Differentiation Latka aggressively presses Chandran to move past industry buzzwords, comparing his offering to competitors like DiscoverOrg and FullContact and questioning if the product is just simple web scraping. Chandran counters with a concrete use case illustrating how predictive intelligence identifies hardware refresh cycles.13:20–17:53 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Company Metrics: ARR, Churn, and Global Footprint Latka drills into ARR, paid acquisition spend, and churn rates, briefly misinterpreting a 9% churn figure as monthly before being corrected by Chandran that it represents annual churn. Chandran provides clarity on his enterprise renewal rates and ad experiments.17:53–20:45 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Sponsor Break: Klipfolio Analytics and HostGator This segment consists of mid-roll sponsor reads for Klipfolio and HostGator followed by the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions.1:56–5:34 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Corporate360's Business Model and DaaS Pricing Structure Latka explores Corporate360's beginnings, pricing structure, and bootstrap history with straightforward inquiries. Chandran explains the advantages of an ongoing Data-as-a-Service model over static marketing list purchases.5:35–13:20 · Nathan pushing back 7/10 Predictive Sales Intelligence and Industry Differentiation Latka aggressively presses Chandran to move past industry buzzwords, comparing his offering to competitors like DiscoverOrg and FullContact and questioning if the product is just simple web scraping. Chandran counters with a concrete use case illustrating how predictive intelligence identifies hardware refresh cycles.13:20–17:53 · Nathan pushing back 5/10 Company Metrics: ARR, Churn, and Global Footprint Latka drills into ARR, paid acquisition spend, and churn rates, briefly misinterpreting a 9% churn figure as monthly before being corrected by Chandran that it represents annual churn. Chandran provides clarity on his enterprise renewal rates and ad experiments.17:53–20:45 · Nathan pushing back 1/10 Sponsor Break: Klipfolio Analytics and HostGator This segment consists of mid-roll sponsor reads for Klipfolio and HostGator followed by the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions.

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

0:00 · Nathan 69.7% · guest 30.3%0:00 · Nathan 69.7% · guest 30.3%3:00 · Nathan 25.4% · guest 74.6%3:00 · Nathan 25.4% · guest 74.6%6:00 · Nathan 31.9% · guest 68.1%6:00 · Nathan 31.9% · guest 68.1%9:00 · Nathan 32.4% · guest 67.6%9:00 · Nathan 32.4% · guest 67.6%12:00 · Nathan 25% · guest 75%12:00 · Nathan 25% · guest 75%15:00 · Nathan 32.8% · guest 67.2%15:00 · Nathan 32.8% · guest 67.2%18:00 · Nathan 84.5% · guest 15.5%18:00 · Nathan 84.5% · guest 15.5%21:00 · Nathan 98.4% · guest 1.6%21:00 · Nathan 98.4% · guest 1.6%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 8:50 Rejecting the data reseller label

Chandran firmly dismisses Latka's suggestion that Corporate360 buys data from third-party syndicates, emphasizing that they are not list brokers.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 9:03 Challenging proprietary algorithms

Latka interrupts and refuses to accept marketing jargon, bluntly stating that the proprietary algorithms are essentially basic web scrapers.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 14:48 Clarifying annual churn percentage

Chandran corrects Latka's miscalculation after Latka assumes a 9% churn figure was monthly and claimed the business lost 90% of its base annually.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 10:02 Citing DiscoverOrg revenue and data depth

Latka demonstrates deep domain knowledge by citing DiscoverOrg's $5M monthly revenue run rate to challenge Chandran's claims of unique unstructured data extraction.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Corporate360's Business Model and DaaS Pricing Structure 3312 Latka explores Corporate360's beginnings, pricing structure, and bootstrap history with straightforward inquiries. Chandran explains the advantages of an ongoing Data-as-a-Service model over static marketing list purchases.
Predictive Sales Intelligence and Industry Differentiation 6537 Latka aggressively presses Chandran to move past industry buzzwords, comparing his offering to competitors like DiscoverOrg and FullContact and questioning if the product is just simple web scraping. Chandran counters with a concrete use case illustrating how predictive intelligence identifies hardware refresh cycles.
Company Metrics: ARR, Churn, and Global Footprint 5425 Latka drills into ARR, paid acquisition spend, and churn rates, briefly misinterpreting a 9% churn figure as monthly before being corrected by Chandran that it represents annual churn. Chandran provides clarity on his enterprise renewal rates and ad experiments.
Sponsor Break: Klipfolio Analytics and HostGator 1001 This segment consists of mid-roll sponsor reads for Klipfolio and HostGator followed by the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions.

Statements from this episode (10)

Disclosure
Chandran: Corporate360's typical deal size starts from $20,000
“So the typical deal size would range anywhere from 20 K onwards.”
Varun Chandran May 17, 2017 ▶ 2:37
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Chandran: Corporate360 has nearly 70 employees across five countries
“We have nearly 70 employees in five countries now.”
Varun Chandran May 17, 2017 ▶ 3:39
Disclosure
Chandran: Corporate360 is completely bootstrapped and funded by reinvested profits
“We, we're totally bootstrapped, and we're sort of reinvesting profits back on the business to grow our business.”
Varun Chandran May 17, 2017 ▶ 3:47
Disclosure
Chandran: Corporate360 was launched with under $10,000 in capital
“Probably less than 10,000 dollars.”
Varun Chandran May 17, 2017 ▶ 4:53
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Chandran: Corporate360 has sold over 40,000 user seats
“We have more than 40,000 people seats that are being sold and seats per user licenses sold only for inside sales use case.”
Varun Chandran May 17, 2017 ▶ 7:21
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Chandran: Corporate360 does not participate in data syndicates or reseller partnerships
“We are not a part of any data syndicate. We are not buying and selling data from each other. We're not a part of any data reseller partnership. We're not a list broker. We source our own data through our own algorithms.”
Varun Chandran May 17, 2017 ▶ 8:53
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Chandran: Corporate360 generates close to $5 million in revenue
“We, we're close to about five million range in our revenue.”
Varun Chandran May 17, 2017 ▶ 13:41
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Chandran: Corporate360 annual customer churn is approximately 9.2%
“I was saying that we lose about nine percent 9.2% of our customers every year.”
Varun Chandran May 17, 2017 ▶ 14:58
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Chandran: Corporate360 achieves over 90% enterprise customer renewals
“At the enterprise level, we have more than More than 90% renewal.”
Varun Chandran May 17, 2017 ▶ 15:22
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Chandran: Corporate360 spent around $200k on LinkedIn ads in 2016
“Probably about 200 K last year.”
Varun Chandran May 17, 2017 ▶ 16:34
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