SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
1746 Infusionsoft Employee #8 Launches New Venture, Passes $175k in MRR, 2500 SMB Customers
05 May 2020
Chapter 1: What motivated Dave Lee to launch PlusThis after Infusionsoft?
Made some money on exiting or selling his shares when he was early on at Infusionsoft. Didn't want to go the VC route again, so launched PlusThis, helping the same kind of market, SMBs, grow and automate, again, marketing and sales more efficiently with his tool PlusThis. Now 2,500 customers paying about 70 bucks a month, so 175 grand per month in terms of run rate or revenue.
Chapter 2: How has PlusThis grown in terms of customer base and revenue?
That's up from 130 grand a month
about a year ago so nice growth especially considering bootstrapped and profitable for the past four years eight people based out there in arizona 4.5 revenue churn per month cac 170 bucks so about a three-month payback period as he looks to scale hello everybody my guest today is dave lee he's a marketing automation pioneer entrepreneur and best-selling author he's the ceo of plus this the number one campaign toolkit for marketing automation users he's been featured on nbc abc cbs and fox television affiliates speaking on marketing automation and small business success
Outside of work, he's usually skiing, kite surfing, wake surfing, or creating amazing experiences with his wife and three boys. Dave, you ready to take us to the top? I'm ready. All right, you bet. Before we get to the software real quick, what's the name of the book? The one that I recently did? The one that you sold that's a best-selling one.
Performance 360.
How many, who'd you do it with? Which publishing company?
It's through, I forget the name of his publishing company, but Nick Nanton out in Florida.
Okay, how many copies did you end up moving?
They did probably 20,000 or something or more. What do you mean they? They did a bunch of the marketing of it.
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Chapter 3: What unique challenges does PlusThis face as a bootstrapped company?
You're the marketing expert king. That's why I asked the question. This is a reflection of your tool. Why would you not use your stuff to drive the sales?
Oh, that whole world of book publishing is a beast that I don't even don't want to touch.
Got it. Which, um, well you're talking like an Amazon bestseller or was it on New York, New York times or what? Yeah. Amazon bestseller. Amazon. Very good. All right. So did the book come before the software? The software came first.
Book came after.
Yeah. Okay. So plus this, what's the company doing and how do you make money? Is it a pure play SAS company?
Pure play SAS company. It was birthed out of our consulting company, marketing automation consulting company. And we quickly found that as we consulted clients, um, They wanted the software to do things that it wouldn't do. So we had a developer start to build these tools that they wanted and eventually spun that out as its own product and business.
Okay, and today on average, what are companies paying per month for this? Right around 70 bucks a month. Okay, and what are they getting for that?
They're getting a tool suite, a toolkit of about 50 to 60 different tools that they can layer on top of their marketing automation platform to make it do even more, to do advanced campaigns and do things that would typically require them to either hire a developer, extensively rig the marketing automation platform, or just do nothing. All three are bad options for most entrepreneurs.
Put this on a timeline for me. When did you launch the company? We launched it in 2014. Okay, 2014. And then today, when you look at what you've scaled to in terms of customers, how many folks are on the platform?
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Chapter 4: What strategies does PlusThis employ to acquire customers?
But I think some nervousness around where the market is going has caused a delay there.
Interesting. All right, let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite business book? I'd have to say the E-Myth, Michael Gerber. It's a classic. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying right now? Uh, Elon. Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building your company?
Oh man.
Uh, I'm going to have to say Google. They're just a beast. Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night? Uh, between eight, eight and a half. Okay. And what's your situation? Married, single kiddos, married with kids, happily married. How many? I've got three boys. Wow. Okay. And how old are you? I'm a 46, 46. Last question. What do you wish your 20 year old self knew?
Oh, just go for it, man. Stop being such a wuss and just do it.
Guys, I heard from Dave, go for it. Made some money on exiting or selling his shares when he was early on at Infusionsoft. Didn't want to go the VC route again, so launched PlusThis, helping the same kind of market, SMBs, grow and automate, again, marketing and sales more efficiently with his tool PlusThis. Now 2,500 customers paying about $70 a month.
a month, so $175,000 per month in terms of run rate or revenue. That's up from $130,000 a month just about a year ago. So nice growth, especially considering bootstrapped and profitable for the past four years. Eight people based out there in Arizona, 4.5% revenue churn per month. CAC, $170, so about a three-month payback period as he looks to scale. Dave, thanks for taking us to the top.
All right. Thank you, Nathan. Appreciate it.
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