DocSend CEO Russ Heddleston reflects on taking on $1 million in venture debt post-seed and cautions founders about the trade-offs.
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“The ratio of venture debt to money in the bank that you have, it's really a insurance policy and it extends your runway a little bit, but it can really come back to bite you. Depending on like a few different scenarios, how it ends and things like that. Well, obviously those sorts of things, but even if you get like a pretty good term sheet, just the way venture debt is structured it will extend your runway some in some scenarios, but it's also kind of scary in terms of just the rights they have over you.”
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Disclosure
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“We actually did get approached by a hedge fund. About buying the company. And that would have been awful for everyone, but I thought that was flattering in a way, I guess that they were like, we've seen so many of your links that we would like we would like ac…”
Russ HeddlestonFeb 25, 2017▶ 6:38EP 581: DocSend $11M Raised, 2800+ Company Customers, 10,000+ Seats Because Links > Attachments For Docs with CEO Russ Heddleston
Insight
Heddleston: One-time fundraising decks cannot sustain a large SaaS business
“You can't build a big business around, around like one time, right? After a few months they successfully raised and they're gone or it didn't work”
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Insight
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“We found that like selling to a team at 10 is the same amount of time as selling to a team at 30. And if you have outbound, it's expensive. And so, you know, it needs to make sense. If you get up into the hundreds of salespeople, the time it takes to get that …”
Russ HeddlestonFeb 25, 2017▶ 9:46EP 581: DocSend $11M Raised, 2800+ Company Customers, 10,000+ Seats Because Links > Attachments For Docs with CEO Russ Heddleston
Insight
Heddleston: SaaS businesses should target under 1% monthly churn
“One percent monthly is kind of a general target for companies to aim for. If it's much above that, then that's pretty worrying.”
Russ HeddlestonFeb 25, 2017▶ 19:30EP 581: DocSend $11M Raised, 2800+ Company Customers, 10,000+ Seats Because Links > Attachments For Docs with CEO Russ Heddleston
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Heddleston: DocSend has had zero churn among customers with 10+ seats
“In the enterprise, we haven't had a customer churn yet of 10 or larger seats and they mostly expand.”
Russ HeddlestonFeb 25, 2017▶ 19:44EP 581: DocSend $11M Raised, 2800+ Company Customers, 10,000+ Seats Because Links > Attachments For Docs with CEO Russ Heddleston
Disclosure
Heddleston: DocSend targets outbound at 30+ seat teams for $30k ACV
“If there's screen sharing, if there's Salesforce involved in there, I think it comes out to around like 70 or 80 dollars a user a month. So let's just say roughly a thousand dollars a user a year. We for our outbound only target teams of 30 and above. So that'…”
Russ HeddlestonFeb 25, 2017▶ 9:28EP 581: DocSend $11M Raised, 2800+ Company Customers, 10,000+ Seats Because Links > Attachments For Docs with CEO Russ Heddleston
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