The Exchanges

Q he, this is hitting on like the perfect time, perfect market, but like, you, you've, you've, you've taken the thing, and you've, you've gone like, doing an absolute deal, you've gone like, downstream, right? If you're going that direction, you have to go like, Hootsuite model. High, millions of paying customers at a really low price point versus enterprise, which is I thought the track you were on last time.

A That's a change, and that's an, that's an interesting, that's also an interesting story. Um, so we've, you know, we kind of, like, look ourselves in the mirror, and we, we compare ourselves with, compare ourselves with other presentation platforms. So it turned out we are the only, we are literally the only presentation platform today that's premium only. We all, we offer, um, we offer a free trial that lasts about 14 days, uh, and that's about it. But even in the trial, you're, you know, it's a, it's a limited trial. Uh, you, you can't present when you're in a trial and you can't necessarily download your presentation when you're in a trial. Um, so that's created some, you know, some issues with our, with our free users. So You know, even today we're subscribing around 30,000 new signups every month. So we get 30,000 people who are interested in using Slidebean, who've discovered for one reason or the other, um, and coming to the platform, hopeful to try it and, and excited about it. And then we have a paywall, which, which makes it disengaging for many of them. So we convert an average of the SaaS, uh, an average of a SaaS company, which is around three percent. Uh, so three percent of them become paid customers. So out of these 30,000 people, We get around 900 that eventually become, uh, become paid customers, but we, you know, we've started thinking about the other 29,000, …

AI assessment note: “That's a change, and that's an, that's an interesting, that's also an interesting story.”

Q Good. 3.5%. That's great. And so what would you credit? I mean, that's a dramatic drop. So 15% monthly churn is like, you don't have a SAS business, right? Like you're going to be bankrupt in two months, right? What was the number one thing you did to drive it from 15% churn down to 3.5% monthly churn?

A You know, we, we tried, we, we, we call it the half measure. So we tried to have measures from, you know, offering more features like discounting the price and so on. And you know, that stuff, you know, helped move the churn needle a little bit, but it didn't really make any significant changes. Uh, when we saw, um, and then one of the problems we found was that our product at that point, our product was priced at 29 a month. So actually increasing the pricing was what, uh, helped our churn drop significantly. And by increasing the pricing, I mean, Uh, shifting to a different type of user and changing the business model by offering this one-time presentation option so that people that don't need a subscription don't have to subscribe one. And then, uh, keeping the subscription and the premium value only for the people that really need it.

AI assessment note: “increasing the pricing was what, uh, helped our churn drop significantly”

Q Okay. Got it. So 850 K raised. You're burning 10 to 15 or 10 to 20 grand per month. You've got a team of about 20 people between, uh, or 22 people between New York City, uh, and Costa Rica. Uh, how are you finding, I mean, 2500 customers is not easy. How are you finding new customers and what's your customer acquisition cost?

A So we, we acquire a customer for around a 150 bucks, which is actually very good for us. Um, um, the reason why we were able to bring that cost so low is because we, we kind of hacked SEO. Um, you know, we, we competing in SEO with, you know, with our competitors, Prezi PowerPoint is very hard. They obviously have more years and more presence online. Uh, but we were able to find very specific keywords that businesses, specifically businesses that we're looking to make presentations. We're Googling and we found those keywords with AdWords. So we would advertise and target the keyword through AdWords, confirm that that keyword was actually valuable for us in terms of the type of traffic that it brought. And then we focused our SEO efforts exclusively on those keywords, um, not on the other, like the broad presentation software stuff.

AI assessment note: “we acquire a customer for around a 150 bucks”

Q Yep. Um, what, uh, well, tell me more kind of about the team, right? So you launched in 2014. What are you guys at now in terms of team size and explain to me the dichotomy and why you chose to have office in Costa Rica and an office in New York?

A So I'm originally from Costa Rica, and then I like to think, I'm not a big fan of outsourced teams, and I'm not a big fan or fan of remote work. Like, I don't think that that works significantly well. I still believe that, like, in-office collaboration is the best. So, um, the big difference here is that our Costa Rica team is not really our outsourced team. Like, two of my co-founders are based here, uh, you know, actually, we have a very large team here, around 20 people, and we have a couple people in New York City plus me, uh, who are usually traveling back and forth. Um, so the advantage in Costa Rica is that we could find most of the, most of the talent for dev, for design, for customer support and customer success. We could hire that talent in Costa Rica, uh, significantly lower rate than we would in New York City. So that has given us a higher, a much higher advantage.

AI assessment note: “we have a very large team here, around 20 people, and we have a couple”

Q Good. 3.5%. That's great. And so what would you credit? I mean, that's a dramatic drop. So 15% monthly churn is like, you don't have a SAS business, right? Like you're going to be bankrupt in two months, right? What was the number one thing you did to drive it from 15% churn down to 3.5% monthly churn?

A You know, we, we tried, we, we, we call it the half measure. So we tried to have measures from, you know, offering more features like discounting the price and so on. And you know, that stuff, you know, helped move the churn needle a little bit, but it didn't really make any significant changes. Uh, when we saw, um, and then one of the problems we found was that our product at that point, our product was priced at 29 a month. So actually increasing the pricing was what, uh, helped our churn drop significantly. And by increasing the pricing, I mean, Uh, shifting to a different type of user and changing the business model by offering this one-time presentation option so that people that don't need a subscription don't have to subscribe one. And then, uh, keeping the subscription and the premium value only for the people that really need it.

AI assessment note: “actually increasing the pricing was what, uh, helped our churn drop significantly.”

Q Yeah. Uh, and give me an update on revenue. What are you doing per month now?

A So it's still, it's still on the range of a hundred to a 150 K revenue. It fluctuates a lot. We, we, you know, we run some promos that, um, you know, that spike the revenue up. Uh, we motivate a lot of users to pay yearly, and that's something that any SaaS business should really focus on when, when a customer pays yearly, uh, or prepays an annual plan, you have that revenue upfront and you have that revenue to, to invest again in growth or to invest in the product or to invest in the team. Um, you also don't have to deal with churn for, for a few months. Um, so we focus on that a lot. And then as we change the interface and so, and so on, it fluctuates between those numbers.

AI assessment note: “it's still on the range of a hundred to a 150 K revenue”

Q All right. Last time you were on the show was back in, uh, June of 2017. At that time, you had about two, 2500 customers paying 50 bucks a month doing about 122,000 dollars a month in revenue. Where are you today?

A Um, actually not that far from there, and it's, uh, it's an interesting story. I was actually hesitant to come back and then say that we haven't really grown, uh, our monthly recurring revenue too much, but, uh, for the past year or so, we've been really focused on, uh, improving the app itself and improving so many, so many holes, like so many, uh, holes in the bucket and the funnel and, and, and churn. Um, so we kind of You know, took an important company decision. We, we build ourselves to have a profitable team and then not to force ourselves to be in a position to raise money again, and then use that revenue, uh, simply to improve on the product, knowing full aware that we were gonna, you know, that we were gonna stop most of the growth hacking efforts and simply dedicate on building a more, a much more solid product to support our users much better.

AI assessment note: “actually not that far from there, and it's, uh, it's an interesting story.”