Insight
SaaS companies with sub-$1 payback periods should spend more, Whitmire advises
“And the target for that is if you're below a dollar, you are a hyper efficient sales organization and you should be spending a lot more money on, on sales and marketing.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
FloQast clients reduce month-end close time by 30%, says Mike Whitmire
“And ultimately what happens is by helping with all three of these pain points, our clients are able to cut time off their clothes. They cut about 30% off their clothes time.”
Insight
Top-down enterprise sales inevitably fail without end-user buy-in, Whitmire argues
“So that was a really early lesson for us to actually not sell to a company where we don't have buy-in from the controller or who people who are ultimately going to be the users. So we've, there have been a couple of times where we have not moved forward with a…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
FloQast averages negative 12 percent net revenue churn, says Mike Whitmire
“-12, I believe is our average.”
Insight
Billing SaaS customers annually upfront is life-changing, says Mike Whitmire
“Bill, it just, if anyone could take anything away from this interview, it's bill annually up front. It's a life-changing move for a business.”
Disclosure
FloQast averages $15K to $20K annual contract value, says Mike Whitmire
“So we think about things annually and our average customer has 10 to 15 accountants is roughly the size of the department. And so that's going to work out to 15 to 20,000 dollar contracts with prices inching up every quarter as we grow out our solution.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
FloQast nears 500 customers three years after Q1 2015 launch
“So today we have about 400 customers. We're creeping towards, towards 500. We've been selling the product for three years now. So we went to market in Q one of 2015 was really when we started selling the product. So after three years, you have about just over …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
FloQast revenue is growing 300 percent year-over-year, says Mike Whitmire
“From a revenue perspective, it's closer to about 300% is what we're growing.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mike Whitmire confirms FloQast's ARR run rate is roughly $8 million
“That is, but yeah, confidential, we don't like to share it, but you're, you can get a back of the napkin calc there pretty easily.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Most FloQast customer churn is driven by M&A, says Mike Whitmire
“Most of our customers who churn are actually because they got acquired by another company as they were trying to grow. So the acquiring company will buy them and say, ah, we're not taking on any of your software or we use a competing product. And so we're goin…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
FloQast saw a dozen customer IPOs in 18 months, says Whitmire
“So we, we've had about a dozen IPOs on Flowcast in the last year and a half”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
FloQast spends about $16,000 to acquire a customer, says Mike Whitmire
“So we're spending about 16,000 dollars.”
Disclosure
Mike Whitmire used a $25K Cornerstone option grant to launch FloQast
“I'd gotten a very small option grant when I went to cornerstone, which ended up being worth I'll just tell you numbers, like 25 grand or something to that effect.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
FloQast reaches 95 employees and opens new Los Angeles headquarters
“And we have about 95 employees today just moving into our new headquarters in LA.”
Disclosure
Amplify LA acquired 5 percent of FloQast for $50,000 early on
“50 grand for five percent.”
