The Exchanges

Q Okay. And then tell me some more of the backstory here, because it sounds like you may have come in through the investor, right? In an investor round or something like that. Tell me the story. When, when did the real founders or the original, not the real one, the original founders found the company and why'd you, and how did you decide to jump in?

A Yeah, Chetan Ahuja, who started a company in 2013, uh, was at Google back then, and he was very frustrating with the state of mobile data and, and mobile content delivery, so he tried to promote his idea at Google. Uh, of course, large company, things didn't move fast enough, so he, he, he left Google and started back at Zoom. It's a very, uh, uh, complicated technology. We, he basically built a, a mobile networking stack Uh, that works differently was designed just for mobile applications, and when, um, uh, you know, it took him a while to build it with a small team of engineers bootstrapped, and then I was at Akamai back then, after the acquisition of Kotendo, I was looking for cool, cutting-edge technologies to bring into Akamai, and we were looking at everyone out there, uh, PackedZoom seemed to be the only technology that worked, uh, but didn't have much, uh, uh, commercial traction, and it was very interesting. Uh, at the same time, the investors were looking for a CEO with more of a business background to come and lead a company, redefine the go-to market. When I met Shaitan and the team, I realized that the go-to market.

AI assessment note: “Chetan Ahuja, who started a company in 2013, uh, was at Google back then”

Q Oh, wow. Ok, so, so you feel pretty good then. I mean, it sounds like in about, since you've been there, which has been less than 12 months, you've gone from very little to about halfway to, to 10 or fifteen million, so call it, you're at seven or eight million now. You think you'll be able to double it by the end of the year?

A Oh yeah, yeah. We're doubling our activity every quarter since I joined. Ah, well, it's easy when the numbers are small, and it's getting more and more challenging, but, but you know, ah, we were able to double, ah, every quarter, and, ah, we're not planning to do it ourselves. This business is, ah, ah, relying heavily on partnerships, so I expect that a company like Packageo, ah, like Cotendo back in the days, like other startups I work with in this space, 60% of the revenue is going to come through partnerships. So we're, uh, we're already, uh, uh, making great progress there. We have, uh, one large, uh, partnership with China Cash. It's a large CDN public company selling us exclusively in China. We're working on additional partnership with other CDNs, but most importantly, resellers. So we have already, uh, three European resellers, uh, selling us in countries like France and Spain and the UK. Uh, and we're expanding to, uh, Asia and Latin America.

AI assessment note: “Oh yeah, yeah. We're doubling our activity every quarter since I joined.”

Q me back, like, I'm curious as a CEO like you that's coming in, obviously you're goal setting every year. What's like a number that you and the, and the technical co-founders and the team, like what's a, what's the number at the end of this year where if you hit it, everyone's celebrating. It could be a revenue number or a customer number or a usage number. What's the number?

A Well, we have, we have, we're tracking a few KPIs. Uh, we're tracking, you know, number of SDK installs, uh, that's, that indicates, uh, how many people trust our SDK, how many people were able to get it into their app into production. Uh, and, uh, you know, a good number for us will be in the tens of the millions, and we're, we're, we're, uh, uh, making good progress toward this number. Uh, there's another KPI called Daily Active Users, which is basically, it ties very closely to MRR, and Daily Active Users, again, our goal is to hit, you know, uh, where it may, we're, we're going to be in the, anything between, uh, 15 to twenty million Daily Active Users there.

AI assessment note: “anything between, uh, 15 to twenty million Daily Active Users”

Q it sounds like you guys Are making good progress. It's, it's higher than 400, but less than 4000 in terms of monthly revenue from each customer. And you guys are getting close to that magical 88,000 dollar mark. What do you want to get that to by like the December, 2017? Like, are you thinking about trying to double that to one 60 or triple it to two 40 or?

A Well, again, uh, my, my message to the team, I ask from the team, I know it's, it's, it's, uh, it's pretty high, uh, bar is to keep doubling every quarter until we're getting to serious numbers, and that means on all KPIs. You look at, uh, SDK installation, you look at, uh, daily active users, you look at MRR, that's what we want to do. Now we're getting to a point that, you know, numbers, you know, start to add up, and, uh, we want, uh, to get some help. We're getting some help. We're opening, we just opened, Uh, our office, uh, in Asia, uh, started to hire some people there, and, um, very soon we're going to announce our presence in Europe, and that is going to help us out. So far, those numbers, everything I mentioned, we were able to accomplish it with, you know, very small sales team.

AI assessment note: “is to keep doubling every quarter until we're getting to serious numbers”

Q So tell us what, tell us what PacketZoom does, and what's the business model? How do you make money?

A Well, PackedZoom makes mobile application works better, especially where networks fail to deliver, so think about the wrong part of the building, think about the wrong part of the country, think about the wrong part of, on the globe, right? Developing countries where mobile networks are not working well. We all use mobile devices and mobile applications more specifically, more and more, and we're seeing this in all the reports, right? This is Uh, our best friend, the mobile phone, the small screen, uh, we're using applications more and more, and we're trying to buy, we're trying to entertain ourselves. Uh, oftentimes we're in locations where networks do not deliver the right quality, and that's where Package Zoom comes in. We would like to take away all the hassle has to do with networking, because there are just too many networks out there, right?

AI assessment note: “PackedZoom makes mobile application works better, especially where networks fail to deliver”

Q one of the dangerous things about, like, you have 68 customers, um, so it's a, it's like a small, it's a small cohort to run analysis on, but if you assume zero percent churn, it becomes dangerous when you try and figure out lifetime value because you can get so Super inflated numbers. Um, how do you think about lifetime value in, in terms of dollars and, and or months?

A Well, I think there'll be churn, uh, you know, logical churn. People, uh, will, uh, shut down the business. People will find a more attractive or a nicer salesperson to work with, but I hope that, uh, I know that the product we have is very unique. Actually, it's the only product that is working, uh, with millions of daily active users, so I hope that, you know, this advantage will translate into, uh, a commercial, uh, advantage that, Uh, will, uh, be hard to, uh, close by any competitor. So again, the fact that it takes a long time to develop this product, the fact that we have the market leadership and we have distraction, the momentum, I think will, uh, eventually end up being a dual advantage, uh, only, only game in town. That's what we want to be.

AI assessment note: “I know that the product we have is very unique.”