SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
1659 How Brazilian SaaS CEO Hit $70k MRR in 12 Months
08 Feb 2020
Chapter 1: What is Ramper and how did it achieve $70k MRR?
launched ramper back in 2016 now has 700 customers paying 100 bucks per month helping them with inbound seventy thousand dollars per month in revenue up from seven grand a month a year ago they are break even today they've raised 300 grand looking to raise another one million dollars on maybe a seven or eight million dollar pre-money valuation here in q1 of 2019 they've got 35 people in their brazil office less than five percent logo turn per month spending about 300 to 400 bucks to get a new customer so a four or five month gross margin payback period
Hello, everyone. My guest today is Ricardo Coelho. He has worked for 12 years in the Brazilian software industry, first as a marketing professional, as an entrepreneur since 2012. It's CEO and co-founder from a ramper. He's a B2B prospecting. He's in the B2B prospecting space using this automation software. And it's one of the fastest growing Brazilian startups founded in 2016.
And today has more than 700 customers. Ricardo, are you ready to take us to the top?
Chapter 2: What challenges did Ramper face in its early stages?
Let's do it. Okay, so what does Ramper do and what's the business model? How do you make money?
Okay, so we are a SaaS company here in Brazil. And Ramper is a prospecting automation software that helps B2B salespeople to generate more outbound leads without struggling doing prospecting activities like cold calls. So we help them to be build lists based on their ideal customer profile and automate the outreach using code call sequence.
And we integrate it with mailing CRMs and the inbound platforms to automate all the lead generation.
And what do people pay on average per month for this?
In our currency is about 400, but...
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Chapter 3: How does Ramper's business model work?
What currency are you in? In dollar is rials. So each dollar is for time here. So we can consider 100 in MRR.
Yeah, so about $100 per month and 400 rials. Now you have 700 customers, which means you're doing about $70,000 per month in revenue. And exactly a year ago, what were you doing per month in revenue?
about 10 times less than it's about 80 80 per month 80k in MRR yeah so you're doing about 7,000 dollars per month and now you're 70,000 per month yeah is that right yeah okay great and walk me through some more the history here so you launched the company you said in 2016 yep we we built Rumpur uh
during another venture from us, me and my co-founder Henrique, we had a digital marketing agency since 2012 here and we worked with more than 100 B2B companies, working mainly with lead generation and working with all digital marketing channels and we saw that
Active prospecting is the mailing channel for B2B companies to generate leads, but they were struggling using the traditional way that's based on cold call. So we saw that we could automate this process and build up a product.
So 2016 was launched. Have you raised capital today or are you bootstrapped?
We raised a million real capital That could be an angel about $300,000.
$300,000 US dollars. And how many people are on the team today?
35.
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Chapter 4: What strategies does Ramper use for customer acquisition?
That's great. Sao Paulo, Brazil. And are you cash flow positive today or are you burning capital?
We reached break even on this month. And we will raise more money in next quarter.
How much do you want to raise?
Between $5 million to $10 million in real.
So about $1 million to $2 million? Yeah.
It would be a Series A here in Brazil. And if we convert it in dollars, it would be a seat there.
And what valuation do you hope to get?
It's a little difficult to say. It would be six to seven times our ARR. So 30 million reais here in Brazil.
Or about six to seven million United States dollars. Yeah. Do you have a lead investor yet?
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Chapter 5: How has Ramper managed its customer churn rates?
Are they easy to work with so far?
Very easy.
You have to say that because you don't have their money yet, right?
No, no, but I'm sorry. This one is the one that is still working with us. The one that made our first ride.
They put in $300,000 already.
Yeah.
Yeah. Talk to me about churn. What's your churn today?
It's lower than 5% monthly, both logo and revenue.
And do you have expansion revenue or no?
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Chapter 6: What are the financial metrics that Ramper focuses on?
So what are you spending to get a new $100 a month customer?
One to 1.5 thousand in reals here.
Okay, so about $200 to $300? Yeah. Okay, so $300 to get a new $100 a month account means your payback period is about three months. Is that right?
I believe four to five months if we consider gross margin.
I see. Okay, good. By the way, I love that you consider gross margin. A lot of people don't do that, and you really should. So 5% payback. And help me understand, where are you spending this money? What channels are you putting it in?
So we invest in digital channels to generate our leads. So we invest in Google. some display networks facebook ads and we use our our solution to make digital prospecting and we we have a roadshow here in brazil that covered this year and cities more for for education we put physically in a day of sales counting uh
2 000 people in our road show and we are doing the the the last one here in sao paulo next week for 700 people very good very good all right ricardo let's uh let's wrap up here with the famous five number one what's your favorite business book oh it's crossing the chasm number two is there a ceo you're following or studying right now
Well, I'm studying right now Reid Hoffman with his new book, Blitzscaling, but the one that I really like is Mark Benioff from Salesforce.
Number three, what is your favorite online tool?
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Chapter 7: What funding has Ramper secured and future plans?
I really love the new UI from Gmail where you have your inbox, your calendar, your tasks and your notes. Everything you need to work in only a single screen.
Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?
Six to seven.
And what's your situation? Married, single, kids?
Married with three kids.
Wow, and how old are you? Yeah, 31. Holy mackerel, you're busy. Last question, what do you wish your 20-year-old self knew?
Good question. I would do everything faster, I believe.
Even the kids?
Yes.
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Chapter 8: What advice does the guest have for aspiring entrepreneurs?
They are breakeven today. They raised 300 grand, looking to raise another $1 million on maybe a $7 or $8 million pre-money valuation here in Q1 of 2019. They've got 35 people in their Brazil office, less than 5% logo churn per month, spending about $300 to $400 to get a new customer. So a four or five month gross margin payback period. Ricardo, thank you for taking us to the top.