SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
1224 CrispThinking passes $10m in ARR helping Enterprise Manage Social Media
30 Nov 2018
Chapter 1: What is CrispThinking and how does it help manage social media risks?
pick the right people around you. He's helping folks, large brands manage social media, especially when things start trending or there's risks associated with user-generated content. $7 million raised, team of 75 people based between the UK, US and other remote locations, serving over 100 paying customers. First year ACB is north of six figures.
So 6 million in ARR about a year ago, now up to 10 million, hoping to go about above 17 million by the end of the year this year. 110% net revenue retention annually. This is the Top Entrepreneurs Podcast, where founders share how they started their companies and got filthy rich or crash and burn.
Each episode features revenue numbers, customer counts, and other insider information that creates business news headlines. We went from a couple hundred thousand dollars to 2.7 million. I had no money when I started the company. It was $160 million, which is the size of many IPOs. We're a bit strapped. We have like 22,000 customers.
With over 5 million downloads in a very short amount of time, major outlets like Inc. are calling us the fastest growing business show on iTunes. I'm your host, Nathan Latka, and here's today's episode.
Chapter 2: What has been the growth trajectory of CrispThinking's revenue?
Hello, everyone. My guest today is Adam Hildreth. He's one of the foremost global experts on how to keep people safe from the dangers resulting from user generated content posted online. He's worked with global brands, governments and law enforcement for the past 12 years on issues including child grooming, security threats and reputational issues. Adam, are you ready to take us to the top?
I am indeed, yeah.
Okay, good. So tell us first, I mean, kind of what the company does and is this a B2C player or B2B player? Are moms buying this to protect their kids or are businesses protecting this to protect from, you know, foreign hackers?
So we're a sole B2B play, generally dealing with large enterprise global blue chip companies, helping them manage the risks of user generated content on social media. So everything from people posting offensive content on their Facebook pages, to social PR crisis, to threats to their executives and staff.
Okay, and so let's go with the first example you gave, which are, you know, posts, images posted on Facebook. Facebook has enough issue trying to figure out what's, you know, not an appropriate picture on Facebook or not. I mean, how do you help them or who do you work with at Facebook to help figure that out?
So we've spent 12 years developing some very sophisticated AI that understands a brand's nuanced requirements around images, text, posts, video. And the thing that's unique about our service versus anything else that's out there is we actually apply a human wrapper. So AI does all the heavy lifting for 99% of the content.
And sometimes we just verify it with a human to make sure that AI isn't making those mistakes. Of course, AI learns from that feedback loop as well.
Can you give me a specific example, actually name a company you're working with and tell me how they're using you?
Yeah, sure. So we work with Coca-Cola, we work with Disney, we work with Chanel. So again, large global brands.
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Chapter 3: How does CrispThinking utilize AI in their services?
Am I way underestimating?
Yeah, we'll be above 10 million.
Oh, that's great. Annualized. Yeah. You're past that already or you'll pass it this year? We're already past that. Oh, you're already past that. Good. Well, yeah. And just to be clear, 800 grand per month is 10 million annually.
Yeah, absolutely.
And we've passed that. What do you think you'll grow to? I mean, how aggressively are you growing? Where were you 12 months ago?
So we're growing at circa 70% year on year. We expect to be growing further than that, going into the 100% plus from this point forward.
So about a year ago, you were doing what, call it 6 million in ARR? Yeah, circa that. Yep. And then you think you'll be able to get up to call it 17-ish by the end of this year? We will be, yeah. Where's most of that growth coming from?
All direct sales at the moment. So going out with new brand customers. I mean, this space is absolutely on fire. If anyone looking at social media, how toxic and illegal content is being dealt with, how they're managing the content that's there, the space is absolutely huge. We've spent 12 years educating the market. Now sort of the media has done that education for us. So it's inbound.
Everyone's on top of this.
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Chapter 4: What specific brands does CrispThinking work with?
Yep. Um, but in terms of like actual revenue growth, would you say it's more coming from expansion revenue across your current customer base or bringing on net new customers?
Uh, both. So mixture of both.
Okay. There's no, there's no one core strategy. You're driving harder.
Oh, sorry. Two seconds.
Can you repeat that? Yeah. Adam, there's no one core that you're driving harder. No, absolutely. It's both equal. Okay, great. And then of the 75 people, you were breaking down R&D, but how many of them are salespeople?
Oh, a handful, even less than that. So we are now in a big sales and marketing expansion exercise.
So you have like five so far and you're hiring more?
Absolutely. So everything else was in engineering and support side.
Okay. Churn is critical in a business like this. Talk to me about your churn. Tiny, very, very tiny amount of churn. Are you talking gross or are you talking logo churn or revenue churn or both or what?
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Chapter 5: How does CrispThinking handle inappropriate user-generated content?
Got it. All right, last few economics questions here before we wrap up with the famous five. Akak, what are you willing to spend to acquire one of these six-figure first-year ACB customers?
We don't give out that information at the moment.
Okay, well, let me ask it differently. I mean, how aggressive are you being with payback period? How quickly do you like to get paid back? Oh, a year. A year. Okay, good. So if it's a six-figure ACV, you're totally comfortable spending first-year ACV on acquisition?
Yeah, but it's a lot less than that at the moment.
Okay. So you're way south of a 12-month payback period.
Correct. Yeah. That's our maximum period that we've have yet.
Got it. And, um, in articulate kind of the market conditions that would make you say, I'll be more aggressive with payback. In other words, you'll be more patient in terms of getting paid back versus getting it down to one month.
Um, what market conditions would judge that? Um, I don't know because we haven't really had that trouble, to be honest. This is a market that's pretty self-explanatory. It works well and we charge, it's a high-end ticket that's there. So I'm not sure what would really affect that from our perspective.
Well, if you wanted to beat out some of your other competitors in terms of acquisition and you can afford to wait longer to get paid back, you might be able to grow faster, for example. That might be one condition.
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