SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
1605 How He Gets Movers, Trash Companies, Internet Providers To Pay Him Referral Fees on 13,000+ New Home Owners
16 Dec 2019
Chapter 1: What inspired Venkatesh to start MoveEasy?
move easy. They work with over 22,000 brokerages that are brokers that have signed up on the platform. They onboard them for free. They don't make money from them. However, they then process moves every year, 13,000 moves, a percentage of those moves. They then make money on by helping them set up things like trash, electric, cable, internet, wifi, you know, things like this.
And they're doing, they're doing, they're working hard in the next six months to break a million bucks in terms of run rate, just raised 700 grand on convertible note, 12 people and hoping to hope with an eye towards profitability in the next six to 12 months. Hello, everybody. My guest today is Venkatesh Ganapathy.
He's the founder of Move Easy, founded the company as a result of his own moving experience five years ago. Before that, he was a consultant with AT Kearney, a management consulting firm in Chicago.
Chapter 2: How does MoveEasy make money from new homeowners?
He's a proud Buckeye and lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife. Venkatesh, are you ready to take us to the top? Yes, sir. All right. Move Easy. How's the company work and what is your business model? How do you make money?
So what we do is basically help people move and make their overall process of move simple and stress-free. Essentially, you just have everything they need during the moving process, be it finding the right moving companies, helping with their utilities, internet, cable, and even once they move in with the home services that they need, like cleaners, painters, etc.,
The way we make money is it's completely free for consumers. We work with real estate brokerages and private label this entire platform so that they can invite their clients. And it's free for them as well. But we are authorized dealers for a lot of these service providers.
So as a result, we would basically once we say someone wants to set up internet and cable, we'll actually complete the entire process for them and then charge those companies a fee for doing so.
So you charge like Spectrum and Comcast a fee?
Yeah, so those guys or moving companies, so we have relationships in the moving space and insurance and home services. So all of these guys, the relationship is not like a lead provider. So we don't just pass along the contact information. It is Truly like a concierge where we help them with the entire process, give the customer all different options.
And then once they choose one, we'll actually go ahead and schedule the installation for them. So that's that much work that a company like Spectrum or AT&T does not have to do. All they're doing is just the final aspect of installing the service and activating it.
So are you like an agency on steroids or is this more like a SaaS model?
It's a combination, actually. So the SaaS component is on the real estate brokerage side. So when we sign up a brokerage, say a Remax or a Keller Williams, we will basically private label it for that particular brokerage. So every agent, every real estate agent has their own personalized branded site with their colors, with their branding, with their headshot.
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Chapter 3: What services does MoveEasy provide to simplify moving?
It's still free though. There is no fee on the, on that end.
Well, what's a license then? What do you mean? A license means money.
Um, correct. Sorry. Uh, then I misspoke. It's not a, there is no fee for a brokerage or real estate. Uh, the licensing is primarily from a contract basis that, you know, we basically personalize it, white label it for them. We create individual accounts for all of these guys.
What do you charge for that?
We do not. That's what I'm saying. So we do not charge anything to the brokerage or the real estate agent.
Okay. So is there a SaaS component to this business or no, it's basically a referral fee to Comcast and Spectrum and other home service providers?
You can say so.
Yep. But I don't want to make up the term. I mean, is that how you think about the business? Is that accurate?
Yes. The only difference is that we don't, it's not a referral, but it's actually success-based. So once someone activates a service, that's when we get paid.
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Chapter 4: How does MoveEasy partner with real estate brokerages?
About how much revenue will you close the year with?
I know you love numbers and I really hate to give you this, man, but I cannot share exact revenue numbers or my burn rate. But what I can tell you is that we've grown from, so to give you an idea, we basically, as I said, we have about 22,000 agents right now. We bootstrapped up until now and we are breaking out.
We are up to about 12 employees and we are getting ready to get to a cashflow break even in about six months time. It's still bootstrapped. No. So we just raised about $700,000. Okay.
From angels or like, was that equity or is it debt? Uh, it's convertible debt. Okay. So you just raised the debt financing that would make it harder for you to get to cashflow positive. So you just told me though, you're about to be cashflow positive. So those two things contradict in my head.
So because it's convertible debt, the idea is that these would mandatorily convert into equity once we do a next round financing, say at a series A level in about a year. So our goal is basically to get to cash flow positive and at that point of time, raise a bigger round. at which point these investors will all convert into equity.
You know, Venkatesh, I understand that. But you just basically, there's now 700 grand in your bank account, 700 grand more than what your revenues are. The only reason you'd raise control debt is if you're going to invest it to drive growth, which means you're going to be burning more cash, not less. But you just told me you're working towards breakeven.
So those two things usually don't go together.
Yes, and what I'm saying is that that number would be raised combined with what we are burning today after having grown to our team size, we'll still be able to cash flow break even in this next six months. To give you an idea, we have access to about 120,000 customers worldwide. who are gonna be using this platform in the next six months.
And that is a- Yeah, but Venkatesh, I don't really, the problem is I don't really understand what that means because you haven't really given, I don't actually really understand if you're making revenue at all. I've heard 22,000 free users, non-exclusive, 13,000 moves. It's really hard.
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Chapter 5: What is the SaaS component of MoveEasy's business model?
I hate to do this, man. I'm really sorry. Well, by the way, it's nothing.
It's nothing you're doing. The numbers just don't make sense. Like you can't have you can't have 13,000 people that you say are worth on average 450. And then I multiply and you say no, that doesn't make like something those math is math like that something is different with the numbers.
So we have processed about 13,000 moves. That's how many people have actually been or have gone through the system in terms of using different services. A person... who actually uses some of our monetized services, that's essentially a percentage of the overall 13,000. That is approximately 450 to 500.
Yeah, okay. Got it. Got it. I won't push you harder here, because I think the model you're still maybe working on, or there's just a lot of things I don't understand about the model, because you're working, you're very vertically integrated, which is obviously a big advantage. But I mean, have you passed the million dollar a year mark at this point?
Or are you hoping to hit that the next couple of months?
uh we've not passed that and that that's what we're hoping to to hit in the next six to seven months okay so you that's kind of why you raise the 700 grand you hope to use that to drive to you know maybe a million run rate then you'll be kind of cash or positive then you can go raise more money if you want that is correct okay that's really helpful um talk to me about lifetime value is it kind of a one hit and done 450 bucks because people have to keep moving right in order to pay you more anything uh
Yeah, Venkatesh, my question was about lifetime value of a customer. So they pay you one time $450 when they move. Are they just worth that one time to you?
Nathan, I'm sorry. I lost you again.
Yeah, it's no problem. We can hear and see you clearly. You're moving fine. There's nothing wrong with the connection. Can you hear me now?
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