SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
1675 Doesn't The CEO Have to Be The First Salesperson?
24 Feb 2020
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
ThoughtBose, again, building and helping sports teams, sports organizations stay more efficient. 125 using them right now, paying 42 bucks a month. So about 5,000, 6,000 per month right now in revenue up from nothing a year ago. So again, just getting the wheels going here. Raised about 250 grand from friends and family. 20 people in India building the team, obviously cost savings there.
10% logo churn per year currently as Srini looks to scale. Hello, everybody. My guest today is Srini Chidoretti. He is the founder, CEO, marketer, and architect of Athopos, a sports management platform. Srini, are you ready to take us to the top?
Yes, Nathan, I am.
Okay, tell us about the company. What do you guys do, and what's the revenue model? How do you make money?
Okay, so we provide a complete platform for youth sports organizations, including everybody in the organization. So we make money through a subscription model, And also, we take a cut from the transactions that happens on the platform.
Plus, we have a few other revenue models we're working on, which is a marketplace where we want to connect all the sports organizations and its members to the service providers, like uniform providers and background checks and stuff like that.
So when you mean sports teams, you mean like the local kind of kiddie league soccer team with 12 students, 12 people on it and 20 parents?
Yeah, so basically sports teams can use our platform as well. But earlier we supported them directly. Now we are kind of moving away. So now we are focusing entirely on the sports organizations. That is a local sports club or sports league or academy or some kind of association or rec department or any organization that conducts organized sporting activities.
I see. So what's the average one of these organizations pay you per month or per year to use your technology?
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Chapter 2: How does Thapos generate revenue through its platform?
So you can manage your player registrations. You can collect your online payments. Then you can make teams. You can make schedules. And you'll get your website built just out of the platform automatically. And then all your customers, that is your parents, players, and anybody, they can access the website. They can download the mobile app. Everything is included. It's all in one solution.
Interesting. Srini, when did you launch the company? What year?
So my last company was, I forgot the year, so that is somewhere around 2007. So yeah, we tried to knock out that Craigslist. We thought, okay, Craigslist, we can beat it. So in the process, we knocked out ourselves because it's not easy to beat Craigslist.
So when did you launch the company?
So we did, I think, around 2004.
2004, okay, very good. Now, have you bootstrapped the company or raised capital?
Oh, you mean you're talking about my last company?
No, no, I'm talking about, yeah, I'm talking about Thapos. When did you launch Thapos?
Okay, sorry. Thapos we launched in 2014. 2014, okay.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did the founder face with his first startup?
Yeah, but don't you, Srini, I mean, I don't mean to push you here, but don't you have to make time to sell? I mean, you're the founder. You have to make time to sell before you can hire someone else to come in and try and figure out how to sell, right?
True. I agree. So I agree. Definitely, I have to make time. That's what I'm going to do. But also, at the same time, you have to keep your product ready and available and can be usable. And also, whatever is the existing customers, you don't want to lose them. You want to support them. You want to make sure you're supporting them. So you have to take care of them.
So then, of course, bring in new sales. That's how I think.
Yeah, but can't the team in India do that where you're paying them nothing? I mean, the most viable use of your time right now is driving sales, in my opinion, is driving sales.
Correct. I agree. So that's where I should be focusing. But unfortunately, again, my team, yes, they can do up to some extent, but they're not there yet where they can talk to the customers directly and understand the customers.
What's churned today?
So churn we have since our early customers, most of them I talk to them directly and so we have very low churn. How low? Maybe less than 10%.
10% per month? Yeah, not per month, per year. Okay, 10% logo churn per year. That's great. And then again, whether it's you or the salesperson you hire, how are you gonna go get a thousand more customers? What's the plan?
Yeah, so the plan is not just one. It's a multi-channel based.
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Chapter 4: How much funding has Thapos raised and from whom?
So basically we're going to use SEO, both organic and paid. So right now, we do get a lot of traffic through search engines, and we're going to optimize that. Then we're going to do some paid campaigns on top of that. Then we're going to utilize some social media.
We are doing a little bit of social media, but we do have some traction there a little bit, but we're going to focus more on that and generate more leads that way. And also I'm working with a few industry insiders, for example, various executives in various sports organizations.
So I'm talking to them and trying to forge a partnership where we can work out, we are trying to work out a revenue share model. So we are working on multiple things. So again, going forward, that's where I'm going to focus to make sure the sales will materialize.
You guys hear me joke all the time that I am horrible at managing big teams. It was one of the things I struggled with at my first SaaS company, Heyo. And you also know that I'm getting more and more founders come on the show where their teams are almost completely remote. Well, here's the secret they don't tell you.
A lot of these remote teams actually start by a founder with an idea using freelancer talent, right? The tricky part is it's really hard to find quality freelancer talent. In fact, I wrote about this in my book. It's one of the sections people read and ping me about the most, but finding that talent is really difficult.
So for example, when I wanted to come up with a new magazine cover, the design, I had to figure out how to get designs done cheaply and quickly with talented people. And I used fiber to do that. I'm going, wow, I love if I could figure out a way to get a discount for my people to use fiber. And thankfully it's taken me a little bit of time, but I finally have gotten a discount. So,
Here's the cool thing. If you want to use Fiverr to find freelance talent, you can take five and check out fiverr.com, F-I-V-E-R-R.com. And you'll get 10% off your first order by using my code T-O-P. That's top. It's super easy. So don't waste any more time and get the services you deserve by going to fiverr.com and using the code top. Again, super proud to be able to do this.
Over the next several months, I'm going to tell you guys little stories of how I use freelance talent on Fiverr to do things like do web queries, parse information I need, database management, Excel sheet building, competitive intelligence on my competitors, all kinds of stuff. I'll download it to you over the next several months and document how I'm doing it.
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Chapter 5: How many sports organizations are currently using Thapos?
But for now, get started at Fiverr.com and use code TOP for 10% off. All right, let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite business book?
Google. So I don't know. I don't follow any one book, so I'm more of a business.
Okay, so none. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?
Again, not one.
Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building the company?
So I built a leg tool. So is it from a sales perspective?
Just a tool that you, well, you don't do sales. So no, a tool that you use like daily.
Rally.
Spell it.
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