Insight
Seed-stage startups should avoid restrictive feature gating to find product-market fit
“I don't think each stage companies can really get that discerning when it comes to their features. I think it's just right now a prove it point or trying to find product market fit.”
Disclosure
IdealSpot aims to act as 'Google alerts' for commercial retail locations
“Things are always changing in the retail market and giving them the ability to be more reactive to what's happening is what we are hoping to do more and more of, right? So call it Google alerts for your retail location.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Smookler reveals IdealSpot struggles with roughly 20% monthly customer churn
“I would say it's probably around 20%.”
Insight
Self-serve conversion is much harder in B2B SaaS than high-touch sales
“On the self-service side, I mean, that's a much more difficult, you know, not to crack, especially for a B to B for somebody that be able to understand enough, see the value enough and commit money for a service that, you know, they're just learning.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Smookler claims SakeSocial is the largest online Japanese sake retailer
“So we sell Japanese sake online. So we're the largest online retailer of Japanese sake.”
Disclosure
SakeSocial operates as a fully automated e-commerce business with zero employees
“But again, I mean, we ship to most states and it's all outsourced. I have no employees. We have a third party warehouse in Napa Valley. That picks, picks, packs, and ships all of our brews, and again, Shopify on the front end, and it's just yeah, just a fully …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
IdealSpot's average revenue per client is $500 to $1,000 monthly
“What I would say is our average take right now per client is anywhere from 500 to a thousand dollars per month, and it really depends on what they want, right?”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
IdealSpot reaches 10,000 registered users, adding over 1,000 users per month
“So we have over 10,000 registered users on our platform, and they have plotted over 500,000 locations already on our platform, and we're adding about Another thousand plus per month.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
IdealSpot surpasses $50,000 in monthly recurring revenue
“Yeah, we're doing higher than that. So we're on our way to the one millionaire.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Smookler predicts IdealSpot will reach $1 million ARR by late 2018
“Let's just, you know, conservatively speaking, let's just say we'll get there in the next six months.”
Disclosure
IdealSpot dropped its entry-level report pricing from $300 to $100
“We're running that pricing, that a hundred dollar price point right now. I mean, it used to be 300 dollars.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
IdealSpot acquires user signups for a CAC of $15 to $18
“We're about anywhere between 15 to 18 dollars customer acquisition cost from a signup in terms of sale.”
Disclosure
IdealSpot has raised $2.5 million in seed capital to date
“No, we've raised, so we've raised to date two and a half million in seed capital.”
Disclosure
Smookler's automated sake business generates under $1 million in annual revenue
“We do not do a million, more than a million dollars a year.”
Disclosure
IdealSpot spends $15,000 monthly on marketing across Google, Bing, and Twitter
“We are spending about 15 grand total a month all in. And that's spread between right now remarketing Google, Bing and a little bit of Twitter.”
