The Exchanges

Q And when was put, kind of linked affluence on, on, on a time, like a timeline line for us, when did they launch?

A So, the company actually launched in 2006, but the, uh, the, the, the kind of, uh, shift, uh, to becoming a SaaS platform happened in, uh, 2012. Uh, so from 22,006 to 20 12, the company was very good at understanding social data, but more acting as consultants or as an agency with, with their clients, and they started to build the, uh, the SaaS platform in 2012, uh, and started, you know, transitioning from an agency model to a SaaS platform. Which I think is a great way to discover some, some needs and really understand the model for your clients. Um, it's just a hard transition that a lot of agencies or consulting firms fail to achieve at some point.

AI assessment note: “the company actually launched in 2006, but the, uh, the, the, the kind of, uh, shift”

Q Okay, great. And hey, uh, real quick, you know, just move the mic so it's not rubbing against your clothes. Just cause we're getting a bunch of friction. I wanted to make this cookie. That's perfect. Um, okay, good. So it's pure play SaaS and then give us more of the history here. So when did you launch the company?

A So we launched, uh, end of 20 11. Um, and the background was really around, you know, realizing that we were going to be in a content first world where online visibility was going to be determined by, you know, the content you were going to be publishing. And we felt that it was going to be a big transition for a lot of companies out there. You know, it was about becoming a, you know, a media outlet, a media brand. And we felt a lot of market. There's are not trained to do this. It's a, it's a new paradigm. It's a new Environments. And so we wanted to see whether technology could help. And we realized that, you know, looking at what's been published out there, building a technology that can do that for you was going to be the natural first step. Um, and so that's when we started. So we launched end of 20 11. Um, you know, first as a, as a free tool that anybody could use. We have now more than four million users of that free version. Uh, we launched a B to B version three years ago in 2015. Um, yeah, so that's kind of the story behind the company.

AI assessment note: “So we launched, uh, end of 20 11.”

Q Got it. And tell me more about that team. How many sales folks are on it and what's the total size of your team today?

A So we're still pretty lean. We, we have, you know, pretty much relied on the, uh, the free version to bring us leads. So our team is about 20 people. Um, the, um, you know, sales marketing team, uh, that's about, uh, seven people. Um, And so, you know, we're still having a pretty lean model. We've been trying to leverage the fact that with the free version, we get a lot of inbound interests, uh, that's helped develop our brand, but also brings a lot of people who sign up for the free version for themselves and then realize they could use this for their company. Uh, and we use a lot of content to help them realize that there are, there is more they could do with the platform. Uh, with our more advanced, uh, versions.

AI assessment note: “our team is about 20 people. Um, the, um, you know, sales marketing team, uh, that's about, uh, seven”

Q Yeah. Yep. So about 40,000 dollar ACV, something like that. Interesting. And, and, and what are they, and obviously that might be maybe first year ACV when they're signing up originally, are they starting when one specific sector of the business and then expanding to different, like, uh, other, other departments or silos? Are you really going for a full deployment right off the bat?

A So, um, that's very interesting. They usually start with one, uh, part of the company, but the interesting part with social data now is it's, it started with, uh, digital marketing. Obviously all of the digital marketers want to listen to social data. Uh, but now what we're seeing is that as, uh, those clients get more mature, they also want to use the social data for, uh, consumer insights, which is, you know, the traditional, uh, market research, um, um, teams. They want to use that for, uh, social care. So all of the customer relationship, like, you know, when you tweet at an airline, because you're complaining your flight is late, they want to listen to that. Um, and it informs even their product strategy. And so the, the, um, it's usually starts with one team, but, uh, our role is to evolve this maturity, uh, model and to help those clients get more mature and get into more teams.

AI assessment note: “They usually start with one, uh, part of the company”

Q Okay. But number, you know, adding like number of seats is a pretty typical pricing axis to drive expansion revenue. Why weren't you able to figure that out at scoop it?

A So at Scoop it, what's, um, you know, what we found is that if you want to drive the number of seats, you need to do more than software. Uh, and that was a limitation. We didn't have the, the resources to build a service team, and that's what LinkedIn did really, really well. The company actually started not as a SaaS company, uh, but more like a, um, a traditional agency model, and they built the platform that they felt they needed from a technology standpoint. And I think if you want to scale and be able to have 2000, um, you know, people using, um, your software, you need to have a very simple, very, Uh, bottom-up approach, or you need to bring services like project management consulting. Uh, and the other thing LinkFluence now is it's, it's also capable of operating the platform itself for its own customers. So what it does is it's able to derive insights, uh, and operate the platform on behalf of, uh, its clients. So that's the beauty of the model. And that's how they were able to scale to that level that, you know, we failed to do at Scoop it to be really honest.

AI assessment note: “We didn't have the, the resources to build a service team”

Q Okay. Take us through, um, acquisition on these 250 B to B customers. I mean, how are they finding you? How are you closing them?

A So, you know, most of With our, and it's kind of particular because, you know, we've been relying on our free version to get a lot of inbound. Um, so we do really, you know, one thing from a marketing standpoint is we do content marketing and that sounds a bit like, you know, we drink our own Kool-Aid and cause we're a content marketing software company and we do content marketing, but that's been really efficient for us. So our whole model is to get people You know, to discover us either through our free version and then we qualify them with content. So for instance, if you sign up for our free version, you're going to receive our newsletter, uh, which is going to be marketing stuff. If we see you, you're not into this where you're not opening it, you're not clicking on it. We're going to leave you alone and we're not going to send you that newsletter anymore. So we give you a test of it. But if you're a marketer, you're going to find some cool, interesting, uh, content. So you're going to start engaging with that newsletter, with that content. And we're going to qualify you as a marketer and, you know, we're going to try to nurture you all to the point where you're going to say, Hey, maybe I should check out the enterprise version of scoop it. Um, and you have people who kind of go directly, you know, we do the traditional content marketing inbound, uh, playbook where we do c…

AI assessment note: “our whole model is to get people to discover us either through our free version”

Q Yep. So, so what is typical expansion year over year on a single account?

A Uh, so, you know, we, we've got some clients who started at, you know, with a 50 K engagement, 50 K, uh, average contract value, and now are like, you know, multiple hundred Ks. Uh, and that's what we're looking at doing. We, and that's why we focus on large enterprise with global brands, because it gives us an opportunity to work with multiple markets. A lot of those companies, if you take, uh, Danon, for instance, uh, they're also multi brands, which means each of the brand companies will want to have their own implementation of our platform. Uh, so if you multiply that by brands, by markets, and if you cross from digital marketing to consumer insights, uh, to Marcom, uh, you get a lot of, uh, of expansion capabilities.

AI assessment note: “clients who started at, you know, with a 50 K engagement... now are like, you know, multiple hundred Ks”

Q Yeah. Guillaume, the question was if you peel back that onion, do you have your gross, do you know your gross revenue churn per year before you add back expansion?

A Um, So no, not at the top of my head, uh, and bear with me, you know, I've been in the business for, uh, just, uh, just a few weeks. Um, I think, you know, if we look at the, um, and there's a tiering approach we're having there with, you know, with like, you know, uh, maybe if you look at our top 10 clients, we've been growing, um, you know, with them at a, probably a 30, 40%, uh, expansion rates, uh, year to year. Um, and the smaller clients is, you know, going into, you know, from one engagement to becoming tier one client. So the way we look at our model is really, you know, do we go, uh, do we start with local clients in one geography with one team? And can we get them to become then global clients where with multiple geographies, multiple teams? Uh, so for us, that's, that's where we are focusing our activities from a sales point of view. From an account management and CS point of view.

AI assessment note: “So no, not at the top of my head”

Q Yep. Yeah. Very good. Okay. So give me, I mean, you just mentioned some enterprise customers. I don't want to go down every cohort, but on average, what would one of these customers pay you per month or per year for the technology?

A So the interesting part in, um, you know, we, we did one of, uh, there was a few months ago that I talked about the Scupid business and how we scaled up to enterprise. Um, one of the things we saw in marketing technology that was the limitation of Scupid is like, how do you scale those deals? Well, the thing is, um, you know, uh, LinkFluence managed to do this. They have a number of clients above one million dollars in revenue on a yearly basis. Um, they start, you know, you know, we, we start, I should say we now, um, At, uh, smaller sizes with, you know, engagement, which can be 20 K, 30 K, 50 K. But if you look at those large global brands, they want those inside the social data to be a global deployment, which means, uh, hundreds or thousands of users. And that's where you go and have, you know, above a million dollars a year of, uh, uh, recurring revenue with, with those larger brands.

AI assessment note: “engagement, which can be 20 K, 30 K, 50 K. But if you look at those large”

Q Oh, very good. I love this. We have, we have, we have cool, the cool factor of the show went up today. All right. Tell us about Scoop It. What are you doing? How do you make money?

A So scuba is, you know, helps marketers, you know, figure out what content to publish. Uh, we started as a curation platform, realizing that a lot of, um, you know, for a lot of people creating content was really hard and curating content was an easier way to, um, to get content published. Uh, so we helped, you know, filter the web for relevant stories. And, uh, more recently we launched a, uh, a new version of our platform, which is called Hawkeye, which Helps you derive some trends, uh, understand, you know, get some insights on what content is out there to kind of guide your content strategy, help you understand what topics to engage and publish content on, uh, what your competitors are doing, what influencers are doing. So we, we monitor the web for you so that you are better at content marketing.

AI assessment note: “helps marketers, you know, figure out what content to publish.”

Q That's great. And I know you're just, you've just joined a couple of weeks ago. Have you dug in yet to kind of understand things like payback period on these, on these new 40,000 dollar ACV accounts?

A So it's, it's actually, um, uh, very interesting because, uh, the company's been growing without doing much marketing, uh, historically. So it hasn't used the traditional, you know, um, uh, SAS playbook, marketing, acquisition, and CAC. Most of those deals came through, you know, um, being diligent, uh, being, doing some networking with those big accounts, being in RFPs. Uh, so it doesn't have a good visibility. And that's one of the things that I want to Um, you know, be more disciplined into understanding is like, you know, what are the, um, uh, what's the, the, the payback period? What's the CAC? What should we, uh, focus on? So there's a lot of things that the company's been doing, which is outside of the typical, uh, uh, SAS playbook, but have been, you know, uh, successful at doing it. I think, uh, now that we're expanding and, you know, obviously you want to be, um, uh, strong and disciplined in, in our acquisition in the U S we were going to have to measure a lot more of those metrics.

AI assessment note: “so it doesn't have a good visibility. And that's one of the things”

Q And do you, the folks that want, if people are listening around, they saying, yes, I need this. I want to use it. I mean, what are customers paying you on average? Would you say per month? Are we talking small, 10 dollar a month or 10,000 a month?

A So we have actually, uh, we have both. We, we started with a freemium model, uh, that, um, you know, is more like for solo entrepreneurs or very small companies. And then, you know, we realized that we needed a B to B version, uh, an enterprise version, uh, Uh, that would be more scalable, that would add, you know, more features, and we have, you know, clients like, uh, uh, IBM, Microsoft, so, you know, very large companies. Our sweet spot tend to be mid-market companies, um, you know, in that, in that range, but we've been covering, uh, the whole range just because we started with a free product, then did freemium, and then the B to B SaaS version.

AI assessment note: “So we have actually, uh, we have both.”