Eugene Levin, Chief Strategy Officer at SEMrush, responds to Nathan Latka asking if SEMrush will reach $80 million ARR within 2018.
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Levin: SEMrush net retention tops 100%, a rarity for SEO tools
“So so that's slightly above hundred percent, which is yet again, really unseen in our industry.”
Insight
Staged capital tranches allow venture investors to optimize their IRR
“They had an obligation to fund in certain point, but there was no big difference if money sits on their balance sheet, or not, not, not even balance sheet, or on our balance sheet, or it sits with them. In this case, they can optimize their, you know, IRR, whi…”
Assertion Supported
Levin: SEMrush Left Its Entire $40M Funding Round on Balance Sheet
“We raised some money, but frankly speaking, we didn't touch You know, this round. It's pretty much all on the balance sheet.”
Insight
Levin: Growing Companies Should Hold Cash Reserves Scaled to Expenses
“As company gets bigger technically you want to have certain amount of money on the balance sheet comparable to your revenue, like monthly revenue or, you know, better say monthly expenses. In case things happen, you want to be able to run the business for a wh…”
Insight
Levin: Churn among low-paying customers naturally raises SaaS average check size
“Another factor factor is that your low paying customers turn faster than your you know, your best customers who pay more.
So I think, you know, average check in general is a combination of those factors.
If you do nothing, if you stop acquiring new customers…”
Disclosure
Levin: SEMrush will not hike prices to protect broad market reach
“Even, even if we at some point say, Hey,
It would make a lot of sense to hike prices.
we would not do this because the goal is to have very, very broad presence to have as many marketers as possible.”