SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
1298 Conga Passes 11k Customers, $80m ARR, Q1 2019 IPO?
12 Feb 2019
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
keep your heart above your head.
Chapter 2: What is Conga's growth story since Matthew Schiltz became CEO?
Conga founded in 2006, found itself with a brand new CEO in the form of Matt coming in about two and a half years ago. The company passed $50 million in revenue in 2017. That's a run rate that was up over 100% year over year from 2016. They are on track now to break a
hundred million here in 2018 with the announcement of a new funding round bringing total capital raise to 130 million they've scaled their customer base from 8,000 paying customers to over 11,000 net dollar retention annually really impressive number here 130 percent underlying that less than 10 percent gross revenue churn annually 500 of their team again headquarters in Denver but spread around amongst locations all around happy to get a little bit more aggressive on payback period with 24 months simply because he understands that the cohort is sticky
They stay, they land with one product and then expand to the suite that Congo offers as they modernize their business. This is the Top Entrepreneurs Podcast, where founders share how they started their companies and got filthy rich or crash and burn.
Chapter 3: How did Conga achieve over $50 million in revenue in 2017?
Each episode features revenue numbers, customer counts, and other insider information that creates business news headlines. We went from a couple of 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. Hello, everyone. My guest today is Matt Schultz.
He's an experienced senior executive with a proven track record in building successful high growth technology in cloud companies, ranging from private startups to public companies. Today, he's the CEO at Congup. directing the company's growth strategy, which includes financing, driving global sales, and expanding product offerings.
His extensive executive management leadership experience is driving strong company growth, which has resulted in several Inc. 500, Fast 50, and Top 100 Places to Work awards. Past CEO successes include Insightful Corporation, Cortlink, DocuSign, Tier 3, and Blue Box Group.
He's received several industry accolades in recognition of his past successes and is considered as an expert in software, technology, and cloud business practices. Matt, are you ready to take us to the top? Absolutely, Nathan. All right. So last time you came on, you shared a little bit about kind of where Congo was. I know you have some updates.
So why don't we start off first for people that missed that first interview. Tell us what your core product does. Yeah, thanks, by the way, that intro. Am I hired? That's a lot of pressure after hearing all that, right? I better say something smart. You better. My audience will kill you on Twitter. That's right. You mentioned I was a CEO of DocuSign, an electronic signature company.
They've been in the news quite a bit lately, having just completed their IPO and reached a $9 billion market cap. By the way, you think that's fair? Absolutely. I mean, if you look at the comparables in the marketplace, you know, I think you could make a, and people are making a pretty good argument that they're actually undervalued at this point. Yeah.
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Chapter 4: What strategies did Conga implement to reach 11,000 customers?
So leveraging my experience around electronic documents, electronic signatures, and put together a lot of the original senior management team from DocuSign. We're now here at Conga, and Conga is a digital transformation company, and they're focused on digital document transformation. So all the way from creating documents, negotiating documents, managing them, redlining them,
signing them and managing them through the entire life cycle. So a superset of what we did with electronic signing at DocuSign. And last time you came on, you'd kind of shared that you'd scaled well past 8,000 customers. What are you guys at today? Close to 11,000 now. Yeah, definitely strong growth. close to 800,000 users now. And we really don't see it slowing down. Yep.
You articulated that in 2017, you finished out, but we're sorry, you had a hundred percent year over year growth from 2016 to 2017, finishing 2017, I believe you said with $50 million in annual revenue, that was a run rate. What do you expect you to do this year? Do you think you double, you get past a hundred? Yeah, we're going to cross a hundred this year. What month do you think, do you know?
Uh, in fourth quarter. Fourth quarter. Very good. And where are you today? Can you share? Uh, close to that. Okay. Um, yeah, yeah, we are. We're right on track, um, to cross a hundred this year. So that's a, that's quite a benchmark for SaaS companies. Um, you know, less than, you know, if you look at the numbers and the numbers vary, but
There are some reports out there that, you know, less than 0.04% of startups actually make it to $100 million in recurring revenue. So, we're on an exciting track. It is a good story. And my goal with this interview is to get through these numbers quickly so people understand what you've achieved from a quantitative perspective.
But then I want to dig deep into more of the qualitative things you're doing, the levers you're pulling to drive this kind of growth. So, again, right now, 11,000 customers. call it, you know, 80 million-ish in ARR, but you had about between six and seven million a month today. And you think over the next six months, by the end of the year, you'll definitely pass that hundred million mark.
Funding, you have a big, I think, funding announcement. Last time you came on, you were at, I think, 77 million raised. What do you have today? So we announced a funding round in conjunction with our latest acquisitions. And so, you know, total to date, a little north of 130 million.
And once you're kind of, obviously, once you're kind of on that track and you're raising capital and you find a growth channel, you obviously want to keep pouring kind of gas on the fire. Can you help us understand the economics around each kind of customer?
So if, again, if you're doing kind of 80 right now, run right with 11,000 customers, is it fair to say kind of average customer paying 500, 600 bucks a month, something like that? Yeah, there's quite a range because our business is definitely a land and expand business.
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Chapter 5: How does Conga's digital transformation approach differ from traditional methods?
And the founders were like, we've been at this a long time. We'd like to sell a majority share of the company and bring in an investment partner to see if they can grow it to the next level. We've run our playbook and done a good job, but we think the business has lots of upside. So it was a very friendly thing. It was the founders getting some liquidity. At the same time,
the investors bringing in a new management team and working capital to see if we could accelerate the growth rate. And that was the investment thesis and it's paid off.
Last question before we wrap up here, assuming you're able to effectively reinvest the 47 you just brought in and you do aggressively, you know, you know, plow past that a hundred million AR bark in Q4 this year, do you file to go public in Q1, 2019? Um, You know, we haven't made any public announcements on that, but, you know, we're certainly a coveted IPO candidate for 2019.
You know, I think you and I talked about it a bit in the past, you know, my experience with DocuSign, et cetera. You know, I'm one of these CEOs that says you don't go public just to go public. You do it for a darn good reason. So our temptation and our motivation around the public offering would be We're in a trusted transaction business.
If you trust your data and your documents and your contracts to Conga, that's a very mission-critical trust. And so we would like eventually a public brand behind that. And so nothing to announce. I don't have a scoop for you, but You know, it wouldn't be a shock if you see the company taking steps toward that in 2019. And give me the, give me the, argue the opposite side.
Give me the one reason it would make zero sense to go public. Well, I think because we're growing so fast that we don't want to take the time to put in all the rigor and infrastructure and reporting and regulation and things that might slow, potentially slow you down.
Uh, you know, going public is a non-zero cost, uh, not only in dollars, but in people's time and effort, uh, that you're not applying to pure activities that, you know, grow the business. So there, there's the, there's the argument against it. Guys, there you have a good stuff. Matt, let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite business book?
Well, I'm old school, Nathan. Crossing the chasm kind of guy. I'm a big Jeffrey Moore guy. He's great. That's in my top two, along with the seven habits, you know, highly effective. You know, it's just, I think it's brilliant. Number two, Matt, is there a CEO you're following or studying right now? You know, I follow and study people. Mostly CEOs that are not household names.
They're people we do partnerships or businesses with, you know. Yeah, give me a unique one. I don't want someone everyone knows. Yeah, well, you know, I mean, for example, you know, Dan Springer at DocuSign, I think he's done a great job. And, you know, recently with the public offering, but more importantly, what they're doing with the, you know, the operating system.
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Chapter 6: What are Conga's current revenue projections for 2018?
Thanks for asking. Uh, our oldest daughter just turned 25. Uh, uh, And just graduated from graduate school. And our son is 22 and just graduated from undergraduate school. So we're proud of them. And now they're joining Congo, right? That's how that works? I wish. And Matt, how old are you? Me? Yeah, you. I'm 50. I'm a young 58. 58. All right. Take us home. Your last question.
What do you wish your 20-year-old self knew? Oh, wow. You don't have that long left in this recording, I guess. You know, I don't know. I think probably, you know, the saying, you know, coaching I got from a mentor early on, you know, just keep your heart above your head. And that's what's really paid off. So for me, I passionately care about our people.
and uh uh you know i care and i keep my heart above my head and just try to keep uh everybody's best interest in mind when we're building this company and that's paid off you know i've had people fortunately work for me with me for going on three or four companies now um And I think it's a good rule in life. Guys, there you have it. Keep your heart above your head.
Conga founded in 2006, found itself with a brand new CEO in the form of Matt coming in about two and a half years ago. The company passed $50 million. in revenue in 2017. That's a run rate that was up over 100% year over year from 2016. They are on track now to break $100 million here in 2018 with the announcement of a new funding round, bringing total capital raise to $130 million.
They've scaled their customer base from 8,000 paying customers to over 11,000. Net dollar retention annually, really impressive number here, 130%. Underlying that, less than 10%. gross revenue churn annually. 500 of their team, again, headquarters in Denver, but spread amongst remote locations all around.
Happy to get a little bit more aggressive on payback period with 24 months, simply because he understands that the cohort is sticky. They stay, they land with one product and then expand to the suite that Conga offers as they modernize their business. Matt, thank you so much for taking us to the top. Thanks, Nathan. Good to spend time with you.
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