SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
1 Customer Pays $600k/yr, How Social Marketing Company Facelift Broke $25m ARR
13 Mar 2021
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
So can I take $1,000 times $1,500 a month to back into your revenue? You're doing about $1.5 million a month?
No, it's more. It's more.
And have you still bootstrapped?
No, no, no. Oh, Taya. Sadly not. Sadly not.
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Chapter 2: How does Facelift's social media management platform compare to competitors?
No, we have raised after three years, three and a half years, we have raised 15 million.
One five?
One five. Yeah. And then we grew up to about 10 million AR.
What year was that? 10 million?
Yeah.
10 million was 2017. Okay. Yeah. 2016, 2017. And then we got a strategic investor on board. It's one of the largest German media groups called DuMont. They were really active in three business sections. One was media, the other business information. Then they started with acquiring our company. They started the third pillar, marketing technology. So we were the anchor investment.
And then we grew it up to, this year, $25 million.
Now, you did the $15 million raise, I believe, in 2014, correct?
Right, 2014, yeah.
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Chapter 3: What was the backstory behind Facelift's founding and first customer?
Sure. But actually, we have a very good positioning in Europe and we were ranked in Forrester quite well. So that was our decision not to raise more. And also from an entrepreneur's perspective, we had a lot of shares when we sold our company. I mean, both of us, we had about... Wait, what do you mean when you sold the company? No, our strategic investor is, so to say, the owner now.
And we moved up to the holding structure.
Oh, so that $15 million deal, they bought more than 50% of the company.
No, no, no. That was the super angel investment we had back in 2014. And then in 2017, we started selling the company to a strategic investor who where we now have a share on the holding structure. So we swapped basically.
How much do the strategic investor invest or put in?
That I can't tell.
Okay.
But the valuation was much higher. So for us as an entrepreneur, we did a very good deal, I have to say.
If my research team digs, wouldn't they be able to find that data? Don't you have to disclose that in Europe? Like government filing?
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Chapter 4: How much revenue is Facelift generating currently?
If it's three, it's 4,500.
4,500 is the LTV?
LTV keg ratio is three. I guess so, yeah.
I'm very confused.
Yeah, I'm too.
What lifetime value, when a customer signs up for you, for $1,500 a month is what they're paying you?
Ah, sorry. No, it's much larger. It's the customer 12, 13. Let me think. I wasn't sorry. I was miscalculating it. So it's 15 times 12 times three. So, yeah, I don't know the exact number, but I know the CLV CAC ratio is about three.
So that can get a lot of founders in trouble though. You can have super healthy CAC to LTV ratios, but if your payback period is really long, you get stuck in a cash gap and it kills the business.
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Chapter 5: What funding has Facelift received and how has it impacted growth?
So that's why I'm asking about the payback period. What is your payback period?
Yeah, I can't tell you.
What do you spend to get a new customer? You don't know?
I can't tell you these numbers right now.
Interesting. I think that'll surprise people that you don't know what that is off the top of your head or at least a range.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm very sorry. I'm sorry. I don't have the numbers yet hand. I'm more on the product side.
I see. So how who owns the metrics?
Mike, my co founder, he owns the metrics in this term. So I'm more I'm more on the process and company side.
I see. I see. I see. Which customer are you most proud of? And like, I guess what's your the customer that pays you the most? Would they? What do they pay you per year?
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