Apr 3, 2017 · 25m · top-founders
EP 618: Astronomer.io 2 Yrs Old, Hits $60K MRR, $2m Raised Helping Companies Makes Sense of Data with CEO Ry Walker
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Nathan Latka interviews Ry Walker, co-founder and CEO of Astronomer.io, exploring the big data startup's origin pivot, enterprise data pipeline model, $60K monthly recurring revenue milestone, and capitalization strategy.
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 47.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 4.4 Guest teaching 1.8 Guest disagreement 0.8 Nathan pushing back 1.9
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 15:41 Ry refutes Nathan's assumption about runway
When Nathan asserts that Astronomer must have plenty of runway after raising in August, Ry bluntly rejects the premise, stating that with 25 employees and a $150k net burn, they are actively fundraising.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 8:20 Nathan clarifies AngelPad convertible note valuationNathan intervenes immediately when Ry states AngelPad invested on a 4k pre-note, challenging the phrasing to confirm it was actually a 4 million pre-money cap.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 15:44 Ry breaks down gross vs net burn realityRy educates Nathan on why their million-dollar note ran out so quickly, explaining their deliberate strategy to burn cash quickly to scale 25 employees at $200k gross burn.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 14:40 Nathan computes CAC on the flyNathan demonstrates financial fluency by instantly deducing Astronomer's CAC is roughly $27,000 using Ry's given 9-month payback timeline and $3,000 monthly ARPU.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introducing Ry Walker and Astronomer's Mission | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Nathan introduces Ry and the company's background. Ry explains their transition into 'data engineering as a service' and shared vs private cloud pricing tiers, while Nathan demonstrates industry context regarding compliance needs in fintech and healthcare. | |
| The Origin Story and Pivot at Collision Conference | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Ry describes the company's pivot at Collision conference away from end-user analytics toward data pipelining. Nathan shows expertise in SaaS analytics dashboard bottlenecks and surprises Ry by listing their customer verticals off the top of his head. | |
| AngelPad Accelerator Experience and Moving Upmarket | 7 | 1 | 1 | 4 | Nathan catches Ry's slip on AngelPad's valuation cap, correcting $4k to $4M pre-money cap. Nathan also demonstrates familiarity with current seed funding mechanics and multiple convertible note stack issues. | |
| Customer Retention, Unit Economics, and Payback | 8 | 2 | 1 | 4 | Ry details negative net churn and unit economics. Nathan immediately calculates implied customer acquisition cost by multiplying the 9-month payback period by the $3,000 monthly ARPU ($27k CAC), pressing Ry on the financial model. | |
| Monthly Burn Rate and Upcoming Post-Seed Round | 6 | 4 | 2 | 3 | When Nathan assumes Astronomer has plenty of runway from their August round, Ry corrects him directly, explaining that their $150k monthly net burn on 25 staff leaves little runway, prompting their new post-seed raise. | |
| Mid-Roll Ad: Klipfolio Business Dashboards | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Solo host mid-roll advertisement read for Klipfolio and Acuity Scheduling. No guest interaction. | |
| The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Standard Famous Five rapid-fire question segment. Ry answers questions about his habits, age, and tools like Phabricator in a collaborative manner. | |
| Interview Summary and Previous Episode Recap | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Host outro summarising Ry's company metrics and pitching future episodes and sponsor offers. |
Statements from this episode (14)
Astronomer Charges $6K/Month for Cloud and $10K/Month for Private Instances
“We basically offer access to our team. And our technology for one flat price, you know six grand a month if you want it to run on in our shared cloud, or 10 grand a month if you want us to put up a private instance of the platform so that your data, so that yo…”
Latka: Connecting Data Streams Boosts Analytics SaaS LTV by 10x
“I'm talking about Clipfolio, Grow.com, Data Hero, Dasharoo, their number, all of them, the number one issue is the onboarding and actually getting users to connect data streams. If they can get them to do that, lifetime value almost always increases by 10 X.”
Astronomer Grew from Zero to $600K ARR Run Rate in 2016
“We ended the year at a 600 K ARR run rate. So we went from zero to 600.”
Astronomer Raised $1.1M on Convertible Notes Across Four Separate Rounds
“1.1 million. Priced. Yeah, yeah. No, no, it was a convertible note. So we've actually done like four rounds of notes, which is something shocking to me.”
Walker: Early-Stage Investors Avoid Priced Rounds as VCs Move Upmarket
“Obviously like the people who do Price rounds or really like to do those price rounds are all moving up market. You know, the old A is a B now and, or I'm sorry, the old B is an A now. And so, yeah, I think a lot of the earlier stage investors don't like to pr…”
Walker: Astronomer Has 20 Customers at $3K Monthly ARPU
“No, we're actually, we've got 20 customers.
So yeah, average revenue historically is around three K a month.”
Astronomer Hits Massive 148% Net Revenue Retention Rate
“So our churn, our, we've got a net negative churn of 48% right now.”
Walker: One-Third of Astronomer's Revenue Comes From Expansion
“So two, a third of our revenue is, is from expansion revenue of our current revenue.”
Walker: Astronomer Will Probably Double Revenue in Six to Eight Weeks
“So we had new customers, you know and we're about to, like I said, add about a bunch of new ones here in the first part of the year and probably double our revenue in the next six or eight weeks.”
Walker: Astronomer Did Not Spend on Paid Acquisition Before 2017
“We actually just started here in, in 2017 to spend any money on customer acquisition.
everything's been referral and outbound up till now.”
Astronomer's Fully Loaded CAC Payback Period Is Nine Months
“No, I say we started around 12 months, then we got down to about six months, and then we doubled the team size. We went back up to 12, and now we're back down to nine again.”
Walker: Astronomer Burns $200K Gross and $150K Net Monthly
“I think our burn, our net, our gross burns around 200 K. So we're burning net one 50 right now.”
Walker: Astronomer Is Raising a $3M to $5M Post-Seed Round
“We're doing like a three to five million dollar round that is not a seed extension around. It's a, it's an up round. It's a, it's more money than we raised initially. And it's essentially the old a, you know, you'll raise three million. Three to five.”
Walker: Founders should focus on share price over percentage ownership
“Great advice, you know, is, is think about your share price instead of your percent ownership. And, you know, if we can get this round done, our share price, our value of our equity rises and our, the odds of us living goes up.”