Jun 3, 2016 · 37m · top-founders
From $0 to $17,000,000 In 2015 With NYC Based SaaS Company, EP 253: Ryan Urban
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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,' Nathan Latka interviews Bounce Exchange CEO Ryan Urban, who reveals how his behavioral marketing automation company scaled from zero to $17 million in revenue. Urban shares his contrarian views on venture capital, enterprise SaaS economics, sales strategies, and building a profitable company in New York City.
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 35.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 4.0 Guest teaching 4.8 Guest disagreement 4.3 Nathan pushing back 4.0
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 22:48 Ryan mocks standard SaaS LTV metrics
Ryan aggressively dismisses Nathan's reliance on standard churn formulas, calling them arbitrary projections made up by Harvard analysts that fail in the real world.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 24:04 Nathan insists on needing baseline benchmarksNathan refuses Ryan's dismissal of LTV/CAC ratios, demanding that Ryan provide a concrete alternative metric if he refuses to accept standard venture metrics.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 27:59 Ryan explains balance sheet vs P&L accountingRyan firmly educates Nathan on financial accounting, clarifying that a multi-million-dollar commercial security deposit is a balance sheet asset rather than an immediate P&L expense.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 11:55 Nathan calculates ARR run rate targetsNathan breaks down Ryan's vague forward-looking projections into an exact monthly recurring revenue figure of $3.3M needed by December to hit the $40M run rate.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Genesis of Bounce Exchange and Leaving Bonobos | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Nathan introduces Ryan Urban and digs into his transition from Bonobos to founding Bounce Exchange. Ryan explains his mindset around making bad ideas survive too long in his twenties and bringing on a co-founder. | |
| Fundraising Strategy, Office Space, and Organic Growth | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | Ryan vents about enterprise SaaS norms, saying 'screw VCs' and explaining why he refused traditional outbound SDR playbooks. Nathan pushes to understand the structure of their fundraising and real estate costs. | |
| Revenue Growth Trajectory and Enterprise Pricing Dynamics | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | Nathan presses aggressively on valuation and monthly recurring revenue numbers. Ryan pushes back against Nathan's ARPU math, explicitly stating he is debating Nathan's question because aggregate averages are deceptive in enterprise SaaS. | |
| Debating SaaS Metrics: Net Churn, LTV, and CPA | 7 | 8 | 8 | 7 | A heated debate on unit economics where Ryan rejects Nathan's standard SaaS formulas like LTV to CAC and 1 divided by churn, calling them 'crappy stats' made up by 'Harvard analysts'. Nathan pushes back insisting that companies must start with standard benchmarks. | |
| Global Expansion, Company Profitability, and NY Real Estate | 3 | 7 | 5 | 5 | Nathan questions how Bounce Exchange can be profitable after spending millions on an office deposit, confusing security deposit balance sheet accounting with regular P&L expenses. Ryan corrects Nathan on standard GAAP accounting and New York commercial real estate costs. | |
| Sponsorship Segment: FreshBooks and HostGator | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Nathan delivers mid-roll sponsor ad reads for FreshBooks and HostGator, then runs through the Famous Five rapid-fire questions, concluding with a fast wrap-up. |
Statements from this episode (15)
Urban: Bounce Exchange employs around 140 people in New York
“So we've been doing that the last four years and yeah, now we're about a 140 people here in New York”
Urban turned down a $300,000 Bonobos offer to start Bounce Exchange
“They offered me 300,000 dollars plus to stay, so I turned that down to make zero, and I think 2013, I made It was our first, like, real full year. I made a little more 30,000 dollars that year”
Urban: Bounce Exchange employs roughly 40 engineers
“Now, now we have, I don't know, 40 engineers or so”
Urban: Bounce Exchange deliberately avoided traditional outbound sales playbooks
“When you look at how all these B to B companies grew, it was because they had a fleet of salespeople, a fleet of these SDR sales development reps that are emailing, calling everybody blogs, white paper, social media, trade shows, spending a ton of money on AdW…”
Bounce Exchange raised VC primarily to pay a $3.5M lease deposit
“We're in the New York Times building right now, and the security deposit was three and a half million dollars. So we were profitable as a business, but we just needed to pay the security deposit to move because we were growing. That's the reason why we took on…”
Urban: Bounce Exchange operated for over two years without raising venture capital
“Yeah, so we went over two years without raising any VC money at all. And that money, not, not all that money went into the business. Somebody wanted to clean, clean up the cap table a bit.”
Urban: Bounce Exchange generated approximately $17M in 2015 revenue
“Last year, I think we did like seventeen million.”
Urban: Bounce Exchange aims to hit a $40M run rate by year-end 2016
“Our run rate will try to end this year at 30, forty million. Oh, well, definitely way more than, and in terms of and your MRR, your ARR is your annual recurring revenue or your committed annual recurring revenue. That's the important number for an immature Saa…”
Urban: Bounce Exchange has between 250 and 300 paying enterprise clients
“So a number of clients, and we probably on like 700 something websites, but paying clients is, is I think Somewhere between 250 to 300.”
Urban: Bounce Exchange maintained negative net revenue churn in 2015
“Our net revenue churn is
It was negative.
So we actually, it was growing.
Last year was a bad break, even a slightly negative.”
Urban: Bounce Exchange has never spent meaningful money on paid AdWords
“We think we shut down almost all of our social media.
we just did our first trade show last month.
We haven't spent a dollar in our life on on like paid actually for our brand term.
I think we put like 500 dollars into it because someone else was bidding o…”
Urban: Projecting SaaS LTV via Churn Formulas Is Meaningless Nonsense
“When that number one divided by your churn projects like your L, it will project your LTV at like, oh, you're three and a half years or four years.
Meanwhile, every year your business changes, your contract values change your contract lengths change, your pro…”
Urban plans to raise venture capital without a pitch deck
“I'm going to raise money without a deck.
I don't give a shit about a deck.
It's like, here, you're, this is what we're doing right now.
You're going to want to work with us.
This is what we mean.
this is what we want to do going forward.
And people are …”