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Mar 9, 2016 · 20m · top-founders

Would You Sell for $6m Today? No. With Olivier Pailhes of Aircall.io EP 200

Olivier Pailhès · 10m spoken Nathan Latka · 7m 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 episode 200 of 'The Top' podcast, host Nathan Latka interviews Olivier Pailhès, co-founder and CEO of Aircall.io, who breaks down how his cloud telephony startup grew to $100,000 MRR with negative net churn and why he turned down acquisition offers to scale toward an eight-figure 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 39.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 4.8 Guest teaching 2.0 Guest disagreement 1.5 Nathan pushing back 3.3
05100:0010:0020:001:08–6:25 · Nathan as informed peer 4/10 Olivier Pailhès on Corporate Restructuring and Entrepreneurial Roots Nathan inquires about Olivier's transition from heavy industry restructuring to founding Aircall. He probes into the equity distribution among six co-founders and asks directly about personal ownership percentage.6:25–11:06 · Nathan as informed peer 7/10 SaaS Pricing Tiers, Marketplace Inbound, and Negative Net Churn Olivier explains their MRR growth and negative net churn dynamics. Nathan takes the floor to break down SaaS expansion revenue and define negative net churn for the listeners.11:07–15:54 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Customer Onboarding Strategy, Scaling Hiring, and Growth Goals Nathan challenges Olivier with a hypothetical 6 million dollar buyout offer and pushes on investor expectations when Olivier insists they have zero plans or target number to sell.15:55–20:33 · Nathan as informed peer 2/10 Contact Details, Community Promotion, and HostGator Sponsorship Segment includes contact info, an extended sponsor read for HostGator, and the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions.1:08–6:25 · Guest teaching 2/10 Olivier Pailhès on Corporate Restructuring and Entrepreneurial Roots Nathan inquires about Olivier's transition from heavy industry restructuring to founding Aircall. He probes into the equity distribution among six co-founders and asks directly about personal ownership percentage.6:25–11:06 · Guest teaching 3/10 SaaS Pricing Tiers, Marketplace Inbound, and Negative Net Churn Olivier explains their MRR growth and negative net churn dynamics. Nathan takes the floor to break down SaaS expansion revenue and define negative net churn for the listeners.11:07–15:54 · Guest teaching 2/10 Customer Onboarding Strategy, Scaling Hiring, and Growth Goals Nathan challenges Olivier with a hypothetical 6 million dollar buyout offer and pushes on investor expectations when Olivier insists they have zero plans or target number to sell.15:55–20:33 · Guest teaching 1/10 Contact Details, Community Promotion, and HostGator Sponsorship Segment includes contact info, an extended sponsor read for HostGator, and the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions.1:08–6:25 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Olivier Pailhès on Corporate Restructuring and Entrepreneurial Roots Nathan inquires about Olivier's transition from heavy industry restructuring to founding Aircall. He probes into the equity distribution among six co-founders and asks directly about personal ownership percentage.6:25–11:06 · Guest disagreement 1/10 SaaS Pricing Tiers, Marketplace Inbound, and Negative Net Churn Olivier explains their MRR growth and negative net churn dynamics. Nathan takes the floor to break down SaaS expansion revenue and define negative net churn for the listeners.11:07–15:54 · Guest disagreement 4/10 Customer Onboarding Strategy, Scaling Hiring, and Growth Goals Nathan challenges Olivier with a hypothetical 6 million dollar buyout offer and pushes on investor expectations when Olivier insists they have zero plans or target number to sell.15:55–20:33 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Contact Details, Community Promotion, and HostGator Sponsorship Segment includes contact info, an extended sponsor read for HostGator, and the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions.1:08–6:25 · Nathan pushing back 3/10 Olivier Pailhès on Corporate Restructuring and Entrepreneurial Roots Nathan inquires about Olivier's transition from heavy industry restructuring to founding Aircall. He probes into the equity distribution among six co-founders and asks directly about personal ownership percentage.6:25–11:06 · Nathan pushing back 3/10 SaaS Pricing Tiers, Marketplace Inbound, and Negative Net Churn Olivier explains their MRR growth and negative net churn dynamics. Nathan takes the floor to break down SaaS expansion revenue and define negative net churn for the listeners.11:07–15:54 · Nathan pushing back 6/10 Customer Onboarding Strategy, Scaling Hiring, and Growth Goals Nathan challenges Olivier with a hypothetical 6 million dollar buyout offer and pushes on investor expectations when Olivier insists they have zero plans or target number to sell.15:55–20:33 · Nathan pushing back 1/10 Contact Details, Community Promotion, and HostGator Sponsorship Segment includes contact info, an extended sponsor read for HostGator, and the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions.

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

0:00 · Nathan 55.9% · guest 44.1%0:00 · Nathan 55.9% · guest 44.1%3:00 · Nathan 17.4% · guest 82.6%3:00 · Nathan 17.4% · guest 82.6%6:00 · Nathan 29.2% · guest 70.8%6:00 · Nathan 29.2% · guest 70.8%9:00 · Nathan 44.5% · guest 55.5%9:00 · Nathan 44.5% · guest 55.5%12:00 · Nathan 21.6% · guest 78.4%12:00 · Nathan 21.6% · guest 78.4%15:00 · Nathan 58.8% · guest 41.2%15:00 · Nathan 58.8% · guest 41.2%18:00 · Nathan 51.5% · guest 48.5%18:00 · Nathan 51.5% · guest 48.5%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 13:53 Flat rejection of buyout target

Olivier firmly dismisses Nathan's premise of having a sale price, stating there is no plan to sell and that exiting would be a waste of time.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 13:53 Challenging the refusal to sell

Nathan refuses to accept Olivier's dismissal of acquisition offers and presses him on why investors would put money in without an exit plan.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 9:20 Differentiating gross vs net churn

Olivier corrects Nathan's customer churn assumption by distinguishing between revenue churn, logo churn, and expansion revenue.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 10:02 Deconstructing SaaS unit economics

Nathan demonstrates domain expertise by defining negative net churn and explaining expansion mechanics to the audience.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Olivier Pailhès on Corporate Restructuring and Entrepreneurial Roots 4213 Nathan inquires about Olivier's transition from heavy industry restructuring to founding Aircall. He probes into the equity distribution among six co-founders and asks directly about personal ownership percentage.
SaaS Pricing Tiers, Marketplace Inbound, and Negative Net Churn 7313 Olivier explains their MRR growth and negative net churn dynamics. Nathan takes the floor to break down SaaS expansion revenue and define negative net churn for the listeners.
Customer Onboarding Strategy, Scaling Hiring, and Growth Goals 6246 Nathan challenges Olivier with a hypothetical 6 million dollar buyout offer and pushes on investor expectations when Olivier insists they have zero plans or target number to sell.
Contact Details, Community Promotion, and HostGator Sponsorship 2101 Segment includes contact info, an extended sponsor read for HostGator, and the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions.

Statements from this episode (8)

Assertion Supported
Uber and Deliveroo used Aircall for customer support in 2016
“So we use by, let's say, Uber, Deliveroo, I mean, all the on-demand economy, a lot of tech companies to just start doing business, calling customers, getting calls from customers, and just making sure all calls are attended wherever the team is based.”
Olivier Pailhès Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 3:19
Disclosure
Aircall closed a $2.8M seed round in early 2016
“And then we raised a bit of money earlier last year, in like half a million dollar, and we closed last week, a larger seed round of 2.8 million dollars to just keep the growth going.”
Olivier Pailhès Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 3:59
Disclosure
Olivier Pailhès retained 30% equity in Aircall after the seed round
“Myself, 30%.”
Olivier Pailhès Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 6:20
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Aircall reached nearly $100K MRR with 30% monthly growth in 2016
“And since then, since June, we've been growing about 30% a month in revenue. So we're kind of close to hundred now, something like that.”
Olivier Pailhès Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 7:33
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Inbound channels generated 80% of Aircall's early customers
“Today about 80% of our customers come from inbound.”
Olivier Pailhès Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 8:49
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Aircall saw 5-15% monthly growth purely from existing customer expansion
“Not a good thing is that net churn is negative. So if you factor in the expansion we get from our customers, we actually, without doing nothing, we typically have a growth between five to 15% a month from the expansion.”
Olivier Pailhès Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 9:49
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Aircall paid zero revenue share on its software marketplace integrations
“So all our integrations today exclude revenue sharing, right?”
Olivier Pailhès Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 11:22
Disclosure
Pailhès refused to consider an exit below a nine-figure valuation
“So once we get there let's say now we have a, whatever, eight digit valuation. That's nice. Clearly we need to add a digit, and then maybe we'll think about an exit or something, but I think it's even then, maybe probably too early.”
Olivier Pailhès Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 14:30
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