Opinion
Balogh: Revenue-based financing is much cheaper than equity for SaaS
“I would argue a lot cheaper than equity, and it's still kind of ratchets with you as you grow.”
Disclosure
Balogh: MarketMuse debt deal has no balloon payment or warrant coverage
“We do not have a balloon payment and we don't have any warrant coverage on this either.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Balogh: Five major clients make up over 50% of MarketMuse's revenue
“We do have three major clients that make up, or five major clients for us to make up a third, more than, no, 50% of our revenue”
Insight
Balogh: Customer lifetime value is irrelevant in first two years of sales
“The LT, you know, lifetime value in the first two years of sales is to me irrelevant. So I don't look at it.”
Disclosure
Balogh: MarketMuse is an AI-driven agency 90% delivered through software
“We are what Tomas Tungus would call an AI-driven agency, so we essentially provide an agency-type service where it's, you know, 90% delivered through software, but we found, especially for larger clients and for the platform buyers, it's always helpful to have…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Balogh: MarketMuse will surpass $20M to $25M ARR within five years
“I do believe we'll get north of twenty million ARR or Twenty-five million ARR within five years.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Balogh: MarketMuse's largest annual customer contract exceeds $1 million
“And it really scales up to our largest deal right now is, is over a million for the year.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Balogh: MarketMuse finished 2018 at around $2M in SaaS ARR
“2018, we ended at around two, under two million in ARR from software. We actually had to reclass quite a bit. At that time, we were building content plans through professional services, through tech enabled services. So we ended up basically reclassing, let's …”
Assertion Supported
Balogh: MarketMuse has raised nearly $10M across equity and debt
“So then we rate, once we launched a platform, we raised another million from insiders. Then the following year we raised 2.75 delivered in multiple tranches from a debt provider and we just raised another 2.5. So we're close to 10 raised.”
Disclosure
Balogh: RevUp achieved a 3x return on MarketMuse's $100K RBF facility
“We actually used another revenue based financing line years ago from a company called RevUp. They're based in Providence, Rhode Island, and they did a hundred K in RBF, and it panned out really well, and they ended up making a three X on us, so it was a win-wi…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Balogh: MarketMuse generates almost $400,000 per month in recurring revenue
“No, we're higher than that. We're almost double that now.”
Disclosure
Balogh: MarketMuse is targeting 20% annual gross churn
“We're shooting for a 20% annual gross retention including all of our types of businesses. So self-serve, enterprise, mid-market, SMB, you know, different verticals, inbound, outbound, which is very limited, but we do it Et cetera. 20% gross. Gross annual churn…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Balogh: MarketMuse serves well over 100 enterprise and midsize publishing clients
“We're well above a hundred customers most of them larger kind of enterprise or even midsize or enterprise publishing entities.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Balogh: MarketMuse's average customer pays $5,000 per month
“Five grand a month is, is, is, is a good average for.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Balogh: MarketMuse generated roughly $35,000 in MRR in late 2016
“In 2016 we were closer to 35 K MRRs, about 300 and change, about closer to 400 K ARRs.”
Disclosure
Balogh: MarketMuse is raising a $3 million funding round
“So we're raising three in this round.”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Balogh: MarketMuse will close remaining $1 million in 2–3 weeks
“And yeah, so I imagine in the next two, three weeks, we'll have the remaining million.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Balogh: MarketMuse churn reached upper teens including failed POCs
“And then there were some additional companies that we had, we should not have taken them on as clients, so they churned out pretty quickly. It's a bit of a toss up internally, whether we categorize those as failed POCs or just a regular churn. But if you inclu…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Balogh: MarketMuse spends about $9,000 to acquire a customer
“So we, we're spending about nine grand in acquiring a customer.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Balogh: 80% of MarketMuse expenditures are salary-based
“80% of our expenditures are salary based.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Balogh: MarketMuse typically burns about $50k per month
“We we've always been burning just a little bit, so we've typically been burning about fifty-k a month.”
Disclosure
Balogh: MarketMuse charges $399 monthly for self-serve tier
“One is a self-serve, which is three 99 a month. So anyone can actually go in and even try that for free on our site.”
Disclosure
Balogh: MarketMuse platform tier costs $18k to $60k annually
“So right now that is 18 to 60 K a year for the full platform, depending on kind of how big your team is and so on.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Balogh: MarketMuse has 30-35 self-serve customers two months post-launch
“Right now I'm guessing around 30, 35, I think, was the last, we just launched that less than two months ago”
