Abel Zhao, CEO of Free D Group, explains why the company charges a subscription fee in addition to transaction take rates and revenue sharing.
0:00 / 0:37exact quote · 37.5s
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“Well, because actually when you're creating a SaaS feed that actually creates from the customer perspective, you don't charge them anything, actually that lowered the stickiness and then also lower the loyalty we find. And then, so when you charge them anything, it becomes actually, they treat the platform more you know, valuable, actually take it more seriously because they put more efforts into it because actually we, when we actually generate that revenue, the GMV, the take rates, the revenue, the profit that we get from that, we actually do a profit sharing with our partners. So therefore they actually ended up actually probably making more money by using our platforms. But if you don't charge that, that actually the engagement from the customer side, it can be, could be lowered.”
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More from Abel Zhao
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Free D Group's largest enterprise contract is a $7M Korean smart city
“And then there's a big guys out there. So the governments or telcos or airports and stuff like that, that could actually go from a 100,000 dollars to all the way to seven million dollars per project. That's basically the largest one we have, which is a smart c…”
Abel ZhaoJan 20, 2023▶ 5:40Bootstrapped to $35m Revenue, $15m recurring, $20m One Time Connecting Smart cities in Japan with local farmers
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Free D Group expects $100 million in 2023 revenue, 50% ARR
“So we're hoping that actually with all those strategic alignments put into place, it will help us to achieve the a hundred million revenue this year. And the amount that at least we're looking at, hoping that at least 50% of that's ARR.”
Abel ZhaoJan 20, 2023▶ 15:18Bootstrapped to $35m Revenue, $15m recurring, $20m One Time Connecting Smart cities in Japan with local farmers
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Free D Group's take rate: under 2% in China, 10-20% in EMEA
“I mean typically, for example, if we, because actually we work with a wide range of suppliers for all the other the merchants from different markets, for example, if it's in China the other the take rate's actually quite quite, quite sad. We're talking about b…”
Abel ZhaoJan 20, 2023▶ 4:30Bootstrapped to $35m Revenue, $15m recurring, $20m One Time Connecting Smart cities in Japan with local farmers
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Free D Group maintains a 10% weighted average take rate
“I would say around 10%.”
Abel ZhaoJan 20, 2023▶ 4:59Bootstrapped to $35m Revenue, $15m recurring, $20m One Time Connecting Smart cities in Japan with local farmers
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Large corporations generated 60-65% of Free D Group's 2022 revenue
“From the test fee side, one time solution to right now, if you look at 20, 22 number those actually, the total large corporation state takes about 60, 65%, and then the small merchants takes about 30%.”
Abel ZhaoJan 20, 2023▶ 7:01Bootstrapped to $35m Revenue, $15m recurring, $20m One Time Connecting Smart cities in Japan with local farmers
Opinion
Zhao says competing in B2C travel against Greater China incumbents is suicidal
“We realized that actually what we're trying to do on the B to C side, it's kind of, especially in this part of the market, greater China area, it's suicidal. So basically we cannot compete with the big guys.”
Abel ZhaoJan 20, 2023▶ 9:20Bootstrapped to $35m Revenue, $15m recurring, $20m One Time Connecting Smart cities in Japan with local farmers
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