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Mar 1, 2017 · 17m · top-founders

EP 585: CaliberMinds Raises $1.1M Helping 12 Customers Close B2B Leads Using More Intelligence with CEO Raviv Turner

Raviv Turner · 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

Nathan Latka interviews CaliberMind CEO Raviv Turner to discuss how the company uses machine learning to create dynamic B2B buyer profiles, bootstrapping to $36,000 in MRR with zero churn before raising a $1.1 million seed 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 46.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 3.7 Guest teaching 1.7 Guest disagreement 1.0 Nathan pushing back 2.7
05100:0010:002:15–6:21 · Nathan as informed peer 4/10 CaliberMind Product Overview and SaaS Subscription Pricing Model Nathan presses Raviv to bypass the tier breakdown and state a single blended average ARPU across his customer base. Raviv explains the origin of their psychographic profiling tech from Israeli intelligence without friction.6:21–11:07 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Customer Traction, Professional Services Strategy, and Seed Funding Nathan quickly does the mental math on monthly recurring revenue and immediately recognizes how professional services are used to subsidize SaaS product development. Raviv walks through their seed round, hiring, and competitors in a collaborative manner.11:08–15:12 · Nathan as informed peer 2/10 Acuity Scheduling Sponsorship Break and Extended Free Trial Offer The segment opens with an extended solo sponsor read for Acuity Scheduling before moving into standard rapid-fire questions with no friction.2:15–6:21 · Guest teaching 2/10 CaliberMind Product Overview and SaaS Subscription Pricing Model Nathan presses Raviv to bypass the tier breakdown and state a single blended average ARPU across his customer base. Raviv explains the origin of their psychographic profiling tech from Israeli intelligence without friction.6:21–11:07 · Guest teaching 2/10 Customer Traction, Professional Services Strategy, and Seed Funding Nathan quickly does the mental math on monthly recurring revenue and immediately recognizes how professional services are used to subsidize SaaS product development. Raviv walks through their seed round, hiring, and competitors in a collaborative manner.11:08–15:12 · Guest teaching 1/10 Acuity Scheduling Sponsorship Break and Extended Free Trial Offer The segment opens with an extended solo sponsor read for Acuity Scheduling before moving into standard rapid-fire questions with no friction.2:15–6:21 · Guest disagreement 1/10 CaliberMind Product Overview and SaaS Subscription Pricing Model Nathan presses Raviv to bypass the tier breakdown and state a single blended average ARPU across his customer base. Raviv explains the origin of their psychographic profiling tech from Israeli intelligence without friction.6:21–11:07 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Customer Traction, Professional Services Strategy, and Seed Funding Nathan quickly does the mental math on monthly recurring revenue and immediately recognizes how professional services are used to subsidize SaaS product development. Raviv walks through their seed round, hiring, and competitors in a collaborative manner.11:08–15:12 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Acuity Scheduling Sponsorship Break and Extended Free Trial Offer The segment opens with an extended solo sponsor read for Acuity Scheduling before moving into standard rapid-fire questions with no friction.2:15–6:21 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 CaliberMind Product Overview and SaaS Subscription Pricing Model Nathan presses Raviv to bypass the tier breakdown and state a single blended average ARPU across his customer base. Raviv explains the origin of their psychographic profiling tech from Israeli intelligence without friction.6:21–11:07 · Nathan pushing back 3/10 Customer Traction, Professional Services Strategy, and Seed Funding Nathan quickly does the mental math on monthly recurring revenue and immediately recognizes how professional services are used to subsidize SaaS product development. Raviv walks through their seed round, hiring, and competitors in a collaborative manner.11:08–15:12 · Nathan pushing back 1/10 Acuity Scheduling Sponsorship Break and Extended Free Trial Offer The segment opens with an extended solo sponsor read for Acuity Scheduling before moving into standard rapid-fire questions with no friction.

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

0:00 · Nathan 76.2% · guest 23.8%0:00 · Nathan 76.2% · guest 23.8%3:00 · Nathan 18% · guest 82%3:00 · Nathan 18% · guest 82%6:00 · Nathan 22.5% · guest 77.5%6:00 · Nathan 22.5% · guest 77.5%9:00 · Nathan 40.2% · guest 59.8%9:00 · Nathan 40.2% · guest 59.8%12:00 · Nathan 42.8% · guest 57.2%12:00 · Nathan 42.8% · guest 57.2%15:00 · Nathan 88.8% · guest 11.2%15:00 · Nathan 88.8% · guest 11.2%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 10:29 Guest corrects premise regarding executive hiring

When Nathan asserts that offering equity made it an easy decision for Nick to leave AdRoll, Raviv corrects the timeline by noting Nick had already departed AdRoll for consulting.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 3:58 Host cuts through tier ranges for a single average

Nathan interrupts the explanation of mid-market versus enterprise tiers to demand a single averaged monthly contract value across all customers.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 7:02 Guest outlines enterprise data onboarding challenges

Raviv educates Nathan on why hands-on onboarding services are required in messy enterprise tech stacks to clean and prepare data before machine learning can function.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 6:43 Host calculates MRR and explains service revenue strategy

Nathan immediately performs the unit economics math on MRR and accurately defines CaliberMind's service bundling as a bootstrapping mechanism for software development.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
CaliberMind Product Overview and SaaS Subscription Pricing Model 4214 Nathan presses Raviv to bypass the tier breakdown and state a single blended average ARPU across his customer base. Raviv explains the origin of their psychographic profiling tech from Israeli intelligence without friction.
Customer Traction, Professional Services Strategy, and Seed Funding 5213 Nathan quickly does the mental math on monthly recurring revenue and immediately recognizes how professional services are used to subsidize SaaS product development. Raviv walks through their seed round, hiring, and competitors in a collaborative manner.
Acuity Scheduling Sponsorship Break and Extended Free Trial Offer 2111 The segment opens with an extended solo sponsor read for Acuity Scheduling before moving into standard rapid-fire questions with no friction.

Statements from this episode (6)

Assertion Not checkable as stated
CaliberMind's Average Customer Pays $3,000 Per Month
“We are at 3000 dollar per month.”
Raviv Turner Mar 1, 2017 ▶ 4:05
Assertion Not checkable as stated
CaliberMind Was Founded Using Adapted Israeli Military Intelligence Algorithms
“So we launched back in 2015 and my co-founder, Oren Zamir, our CTO, and I go, ah, many years back to the Israeli army, actually. We both have our career background in the Israeli intelligence, and some of the algorithms being in use, ah, with Caliber actually,…”
Raviv Turner Mar 1, 2017 ▶ 4:15
Disclosure
CaliberMind Reached 12 Active Customers Six Months After Beta Launch
“We launched the beta six months ago, so we have our first 12 customers on the platform.”
Raviv Turner Mar 1, 2017 ▶ 6:26
Disclosure
CaliberMind Hits $36,000 in Monthly Recurring Revenue
“That's on the MRR, yes. We also have bundled packages of services where we actually go in and optimize marketing automation. So for software revenue, yes, you're right.”
Raviv Turner Mar 1, 2017 ▶ 6:51
Disclosure
CaliberMind Raised a $1.1 Million Seed Round in 2016
“We bootstrapped the first year. We graduated from the boomton accelerator here in Boulder last year. And once we started to find a product market fit and get some initial traction from customers, this is when we went and raised our 1.1 million seed round led b…”
Raviv Turner Mar 1, 2017 ▶ 7:41
Assertion Not checkable as stated
CaliberMind Reports Zero Customer Churn Since Launch
“No churn yet. I guess it's too early. There'll probably be some churn like every other SaaS company. So at the most, you know, we had customers just waiting for us to catch on the roadmap and some requested features that we need to catch up on, but no no churn…”
Raviv Turner Mar 1, 2017 ▶ 8:20
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