The Ledger
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Benson: Founders should vest the bulk of their equity upon exit
“The way I would suggest would be a better way to do it is take a small slice of it. Like the amount that you would give like an early VP or someone who's, who's, who's high up in the organization, but not, not a founder and give and invest that portion over fo…”
Benson: Lighter Capital required full 4-year interest on early exit
“They had a term that if we wanted to exit the loan early, like after two years, it was a four-year loan, if we want to pay it off after two years and take our money somewhere else, We had to pay them all the interest as if we had been there for four years”
Zoho customers are significantly less likely to buy software add-ons
“So if someone who's purchased Zoho is, is showing that they're more cost conscience, they're willing to take shortcuts. They want the cheaper thing. And so it, they're less likely to purchase add-ons of this nature.”
Benson: Badger Maps secured $308K upfront via 3-year competitor exclusivity
“I traded for three years, paying three years up front it was like 308,000 dollars or something. I traded away, not, I promised not to sell the product to their two biggest competitors for that three year period”
Benson: 15-minute onboarding calls are viable for $420 annual SaaS plans
“We do reach out to even as just someone who looks like a single seat deal will at least reach out to them and ask them if they have questions about how to use the product. You know, we'll set it up for them, get them successful. That call usually takes 20 minu…”
Benson: Badger Maps pays sales reps straight salaries without commissions
“It's a salaried role. Even, even so all, all these roles are salaried roles, including the sales role.”
Benson: Badger Maps pays around 22% to 23% interest on Lighter Capital debt
“I think it was like 22, 23%.”
Benson: B2B SaaS podcasts should target micro-niches over audience size
“You don't have to have a huge podcast. You have to have a podcast that is very specifically valuable in some way to a very specific group of people, your ideal customer profile. And, you know, some people have larger TAMs than others, and so it can be more bro…”
Benson: Software sales drop severely across November, December, and early January
“There, I've got a seasonality problem, problem being that people don't buy software in November or December and hardly in the first half of January.”
Benson retained 65% equity in Badger Maps while his co-founder held 20%
“65.
And the other co-founder owns like 20.”
Benson: Lighter Capital RBF cost Badger Maps about 18% interest
“I think for me, it worked out to be about 18%, because we weren't that good at growing, but if we had been good at growing, it would have been a lot more expensive.”
Benson: Badger Maps will pivot to home-visit healthcare workers
“So that's where we're going to be looking for, to pivot towards things like that and Bring in new business from that instead of to make up for the lost business in other places.”
Benson: Badger Maps offered 50% discounts to prevent early pandemic churn
“What we landed on was when an individual calls, we should offer them half off for three months.
if they called to quit offer them half off for three months and then and then, and see if they do that instead of quitting.”
Benson: Every Badger Maps employee is an equity owner
“Well, I mean, you could say that, you know, stock is a variable upside, so the success of the company, and everyone is a, is an owner in the company.”
Badger Maps generates roughly 2,000 verified leads per month
“We count things either a first meeting or a signed up trial is, is a, you know, verified lead. And we're doing about 500 a week. So 2000 a month.”
Badger Maps grew 29% in 2022 and expects 15% in 2023
“We grew like 29% last year. I think we're around 15% is where we'll come in for this year, but so it's, but it's off a bigger number.”
Badger Maps revenue shrank 8% in 2020 due to COVID-19
“We still, we shrunk about eight percent in 2020, because as you say, it's a bad time to be meeting your customers face to face.”
Salesforce drives the most leads of any Badger Maps CRM integration
“Salesforce is definitely the largest in terms of like leads and people interested, which makes sense, right?”
Benson: Badger Maps borrowed $1.5M over three tranches from Scaleworks
“I borrowed 1.5 million dollars over three tranches from them.”
Benson self-funded Badger Maps using $1M from early Google work
“I was able to fund the early parts of the business without equity because I had worked at Google and early enough. So I had like a million bucks to just light on fire basically and become broke again. And so that's what I did.”
Benson: Scaleworks debt deal had a four-year term and 17% APR
“The terms on the Scaleworks deal was a four-year deal, 17% APR, so a little better, still for a year.”
Benson borrowed $888,000 in four tranches from Lighter Capital
“And so I borrowed 888,000 dollars, two years and four tranches.”
Benson: Badger Maps generated about $355k MRR in March 2020
“I think we've lost about a grand in MRR so far.
but
The we're at about three 55 right now in MRR.”
Benson: Badger Maps is growing around 80% year-over-year
“Yeah, I mean, we're basically I guess we're, I think we're around doubling maybe 80% growth rate year over year.”
Benson: Badger Maps pays around 19%-20% interest on Lighter Capital debt
“Probably like 19% ish.
20%.”
Benson: Badger Maps raised an additional $320k debt round
“We did another debt round
With the same people we did the original one for another, like, what do we do, like, 320 K?”
Benson: Facebook paid marketing has never worked for Badger Maps
“Facebook has never pented out for us.”
Benson: Badger Maps' customer acquisition cost via Google is around $300
“I think Google's around 300 dollars.”
Benson: Badger Maps ranked as Apple's top sales app for 18 months
“We were the top one in, in the sales apps for about a year and a half until they got rid of the concept of sales as one of their ranking types.”
Benson: Badger Maps did around $1.2M in 2016 revenue
“Total revenue. Yeah, yeah, it was actually right around there.”
Benson: Badger Maps targets $4.5M to $5M in ARR for 2017
“In terms of ARR, I'd like to see it at five. And so yeah. Five million? Yeah, I'd take four and a half though.”
Benson: Word of mouth, SEO, and SEM are Badger Maps' top acquisition channels
“The biggest way they find this is, is through just word of mouth. That's the, we track that as being our, the best way that we find people. Second best is is SEO. Third best is SEM.”
Benson: Badger Maps averages around 3.3% monthly churn
“I think it was at it actually popped up a little bit this last month. I think because people were cleaning up their books, but I guess we average around 3.3%.”
Benson: Badger Maps only sold 8% equity in convertible notes
“I think we did about a. Eight percent convertible note. And this is, you know, eight, eight years ago, seven years ago, we did this. So, but no other equity other than that. So we've sold eight percent of the business in convertible notes, but no, no professio…”
Benson: Badger Maps sales cycle is two to three weeks for individuals
“It's three weeks for an individual person, you know, two to three weeks for an individual and a company can be anything.”
Benson: Badger Maps offers 20% discount for annual upfront subscriptions
“20% is the kind of the standard, if they're gonna, if they, if they're gonna come in, For a year at a time, we knocked 20% off the cost. So it's, you know, it's moving it from a 42 dollar a month price to a 35 dollar”
Benson: Badger Maps operates a pure SaaS model at $35-$74 monthly
“It's pure SaaS. So it's a, it's nine or a 35 or 74 dollars a month. Depending on which version of the product you want to get and kind of a personal line, a business line, an enterprise line.”