SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
1697 Opensource Version of Hubspot Moves from Enterprise Service to SMB SaaS
17 Mar 2020
Chapter 1: What is the open source growth marketing platform Erxes?
xyz.io again open source marketing tech platform did about 360 grand in professional services across 15 enterprise accounts over the past 12 months now moving to a six dollar seven dollar a month sas model very interesting space tough mousetrap those selling developers that want to contribute and fork the code that also then interface with marketing teams we'll see if he can make it happen 25 people based in asia right now mostly developers they're operating at break even totally bootstrapped which i love again now jumping into sas and launching the sas offering
Hello, everybody. My guest today is MJ Amartyaivin. He's a social entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of Erx's Inc., an open source growth marketing platform. Marketing, sales, and customer service platform designed to help your business attract more engaged customers.
He's passionate about social entrepreneurship and possesses a strong desire to create new solutions to social problems and then implement them on a large scale to change society for the better. MJ, are you ready to take us to the top? Yep. Okay. Pronounce the name of the company again for me and then spell it because I think it's very difficult.
Okay. It's called Erxes. E-R-X-E-S. Okay.
By the way, I just feel like that's like a really tricky name to like say with a phone or get any viral kind of growth word of mouth marketing on. Do people have no problem spelling that? Sometimes. Okay.
We have problems.
Okay. But it's Erxes.io. Right. All right. Very good. Tell us what the company does and what the business model is. How do you make money?
Okay. So the company is building the open source growth marketing software. So it's basically a, open source of HubSpot. And I would say in two weeks, we are launching our cloud version.
Okay, so just to be clear, you've got it's kind of open source right now version of HubSpot. How are you making money? Is it a SaaS platform?
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Chapter 2: How is Erxes transitioning from enterprise services to a SaaS model?
And are you burning capital right now?
Yeah, I mean, up until this point, we have 100% bootstrap. And currently we are burning around 29,700 a month. Yeah.
$29,700? Right. Okay. So if you haven't raised money, but you're burning about $30,000 in cash every month, who's making up that difference? Are you putting in your own money every month?
Oh, I mean, I would say we totally kind of bootstrapping from the beginning. So it was totally cash positive.
Well, you just told me you're burning almost $30,000. Yeah.
Right. Yeah. We also earn 30K a month.
Oh, OK. So sorry. You just get you gave me gross burn, not net burn. So your bank account is not going down by 30 grand every month.
Right. No.
I see. I see.
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Chapter 3: What is the business model for Erxes and how do they generate revenue?
Good. OK. So you're operating a break even.
Right, yeah.
Got it. Very good. And then 25 developers, you said mostly in Asia. How are you... So just to be clear, if you're doing 360 grand in ARR, that's about 30 grand a month in revenue. That's enough to pay 25 people. You're paying them on average less than almost a grand a month? Yep. Is that just because Asia has really smart people willing to do cheap work?
Yeah. I mean... Yeah, but it's our dream to become, of course, based in the Bay Area and, you know, raise the capital and scale fast.
I'm pitched almost every day by a new CRM founder that wants to come on the show. And usually I say, yes, you guys know on the show, we love covering any B2B SaaS founder, but one story in this space just stands out. And that is a company that was launched in 1996. That means they survived 99. They survived the one, they survived so many different things and they've done it bootstrap.
It's a big CRM. I'm gonna give you some hints here. 50 million users. You guys might know who I'm referencing. It's Zoho.
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Chapter 4: How many customers is Erxes currently serving and what industries are they in?
Now here's where I've seen the CRMs breakthrough. It's the ones that can dedicate the most resources towards putting together a lot of integrations and Zoho CRM integrates with over 300 of the most popular apps out there on the market. It's extremely lightweight to get started with. And it's something that I encourage you to try if you're not sure which CRM you want to get started with.
Again, the integrations ultimately make it worth it. So as companies come and go and change is inevitable, it can be comfortable with Zoho CRM. Sign up with Zoho CRM in two easy steps. You ready for them? Here they are. First, visit ZohoCRM.com, then hit the sign up button. After that, it's super simple. Start your free trial button by clicking the button on the same page.
And you'll also be happy to know that Zoho CRM offers a version that's completely free, totally free. So check it out. Sign up with Zoho, the world's favorite CRM. If you want my special stuff, you go to ZohoCRM.com forward slash top. That's Zoho, Z-O-H-O-C-R-M.com forward slash top. why is it your dream to be in the Bay Area and raise a bunch of capital?
There's a lot of companies in the Bay Area that have raised a lot of capital that are broke and about to go bankrupt.
I mean, true. I'm originally from Mongolia and it's been eight years, I would say. I mean, my first application to YC was in 2011. And then since after that, we've been, you know, building a lot of products, sending application. At the same time, we were trying to uh, you know, uh, do the client work and stuff like that. So that's pretty much, uh, yeah. Hard work. Yeah.
Okay. That doesn't answer my question though. Why do you want to move to the Bay area and raise a bunch of capital?
Uh, I would say, um, The biggest reason is in my country, IT is really kind of undervalued. And there are so many mining companies that are eating our country. And then there are no youngsters actually having someone who look up and think of building maybe a tech company or becoming one of the... you know, CEOs, they think of more likely how they could become a truck driver or something.
So sorry, MJ, you're not answering my question. So why would you want to move away from that? In other words, you're, you're someone that's doing something different in your country. You, that means you have, you can attract more talent and you have less competition. There's not as many software companies you're competing with for salaries.
My question is why do you want to move to the Bay area and raise a bunch of money?
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Chapter 5: What challenges does Erxes face in growing their customer base?
Why? So most open source models that start open source, I think WordPress, there's some cybersecurity companies that started open source. I mean, they hit millions of users before they started thinking about a paid option. Why? Why do you only have 500 people using open that your open source code?
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things we are lacking now. You know, kind of trying to build an audience and engage with the developer community.
Well, that's because marketing and development are not usually the same person. There's very few marketers who are also developers, so it's a difficult sale for you. Yeah. How do you bridge that? I mean, you have to figure out that mousetrap if you want to go big.
True. That's why I'm really with you.
You want me to sell your product? I want, I want 20% MJ. Why not? All right. Very good. And, um, give me a sense, uh, give me a sense here of growth. So you said you launched December of 2017. Um, uh, you, you, so you've been in business for about what? 13, 14 months. Yep. Okay. Or sorry, sorry. 24 months.
Yeah.
Yeah. A little over two years. Yeah. Okay. And you said last year you did 360 grand about in sales. What did you do in year one? Do you remember?
Um,
So, I mean, for enterprise customers are mostly for, you know, sustain. It's just for, it's not about we're trying to build or, you know, scale up in the end. All the Asian countries are trying to build enterprise customers. We're just kind of sustaining. And then we're focusing on the SaaS model.
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Chapter 6: Why is Erxes moving to a SaaS model and what are the expected benefits?
All right. Very good. Well, look, I hope the SaaS launch goes well. You should come back on once you get it going and we'll touch base and see how it's going. But for now, let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite business book?
Chapter 7: How does the team structure at Erxes support their business goals?
I would say Drive by Daniel Pink. Drive by Daniel Pink. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? Elon Musk. Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building your company?
I would say real-time bored.
Real-time bored. Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night? Sorry? How many hours of sleep do you get every night?
I would say seven, yeah.
And what's your situation? Married, single, kids? Married, three kids. Oh, wow. And how old are you? Seven, five, and three. How old are you? I'm 33. 33. Last question. What do you wish your 20-year-old self knew?
Just fail very fast and just do it.
Guys, FailFaster's got a beautiful site, irksys.io. Again, open source marketing tech platform. Did about 360 grand in professional services across 15 enterprise accounts over the past 12 months. Now moving to a $6, $7 a month SaaS model. Very interesting space, tough mousetrap though, selling developers that wanna contribute and fork the code that also then interface with marketing teams.
We'll see if he can make it happen. 25 people based in Asia right now, mostly developers. They're operating at break even, totally bootstrapped, which I love. Again, now jumping into SaaS and launching the SaaS offering. MJ, thanks for taking us to the top.
Great. Thank you.
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