SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
854 How He Uses Internal Software To Make His $2m+ Agency more Valuable
25 Nov 2017
Chapter 1: Who is Harpreet Singh and what does his agency do?
Harpreet Singh, again, one of the founders of Quantum with his wife. They're doing very well. Back in 2016, they did about $1.7 million in revenue. On track to do over $2 million here in 2017, serving 15 customers that pay on average $150,000 per year. They've got about a 50% margin with their team of 40 based between U.S. and India.
About 70% of their customers renew year over year, which is great. Founded in 2013. This is The Top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base. You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have. I'm now at $20,000 per talk. Five and six million.
He is hell-bent on global domination. We just broke our 100,000-unit soul mark. And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Many of you listening right now don't have time to listen to every B2B SaaS CEO that I've interviewed.
If you want to get access to the database I've created with year-over-year growth rates, customer accounts, margins, and many, many other data metrics and data points, you can go to getlatka.com. Here's the thing, though. This database... I keep it to myself. It's so freaking valuable.
And to preserve the quality of the data and make sure that the people that have access to it have a true advantage, I'm only letting 10 companies on each month. So we're full this month, but you can go to getlatka.com to get on the waiting list for next month. And look, there's big people on the waiting list. I mean, the biggest VCs you've ever heard of. You've probably heard of them.
They're big, private equity, billions and billions under management. So it's an impressive waiting list. Go get on now at getlatka.com. Hello, everybody. My guest today is Harpreet Singh. He is one of the co-founders of a company called Quantum. He's in a lot of positions based on kind of data science, especially at big companies like Target, Sapient, Cibo, many other locations.
Looking forward to having him on. Harpreet, are you ready to take us to the top?
Sure.
Let's do it. Good. So tell us what Quantum does and what's your guys' revenue model? How do you make money?
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Chapter 2: What is Quantum's revenue model and how do they make money?
Last year, we did about 1.7, I want to say.
Still healthy.
Yeah. So this year, we expect to go beyond 2, but I'm just being conservative. You never know. It's still a favorite of the year to go. What do you got now? I cannot share, but we are projecting to. You're on track?
Yes, we are on track. Okay, good. You're on track. Good stuff. All right. So, I mean, look, one of the things I'm curious about is very rarely do I hear about an agency raising capital because it's hard to sell an agency at a good multiple. What did the pitch sound like to those angels or whoever you raised that $500,000 in equity from if it wasn't a SaaS kind of pitch?
Yeah, so they invested in us because of the technology, right? So we were actually doing AI and machine learning and data science before it was cool to do so. We did not know we were doing AI.
By the way, I would challenge you on that because a lot of people just throw it in their marketing decks and it's really bullshit. But I know you did data at Target and some other places. So I believe you when you say you do real AI and machine learning.
Yeah, no, we are proud of that. Yes, I've had the sort of fortune to do this for big companies and in kind of really advanced sort of technology. So, yes. And as I said, I would not have said we are doing AI if that's how we began. We began with math. And it just ends kind of four years hence. It just happens that we are squarely in the middle of the AI space.
But the people, the company that invested in us, it was a strategic investment. The founders, so it was a $200 million plus company, their revenue, large company. These were all sort of ex-IBM, ex-McKinsey guys. So they knew we were doing AI. We were doing math. So they invested in it for their technology because they thought that there's a lot of promise.
In an agency and business model, typically margins are much lower than SaaS. What are your gross margins around?
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Harpreet face when launching his company?
so you know when your emails get opened. It's great if you're in sales or CEO or trying to be more productive. So listen, I bought the whole company on the spot and I want to tell you how I did it. I've showed the deal, by the way, to big, smart people, private equity firms, VCs, and they're dumbfounded. They go, Nathan, how did you do this? We've never seen a deal like this.
How did you do this? So I did an unbelievable deal. And I want to show you the income report. So for me to send you the income report, go to www.thetopinbox.com. Click the red button that says install this on Gmail. And when you do that, my email will appear. It'll appear in a little Gmail pop-up window. Send me an email and I'll apply immediately with the income report.
And you can see how I'm buying and growing small B2B SaaS companies. That's www.thetopinbox.com. Totally free to try and use. www.thetopinbox.com. All right, Harpreet, let's wrap up here with the famous five. These are one-word answers. Number one, what's your favorite business book?
So there's a book called Built to Lust. That's my favorite business book.
Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying right now?
Yeah, that's a good question. It has been various CEOs. Sorry, I'm not brief, but I would say the CEO that I'm following the most is Satya Nadella, the Microsoft guy. He's really turned it around. So that's the CEO I follow and study now. It has been Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, right now it's Satya Nadella.
Number three, is there a favorite online tool you have, like acuity scheduling?
Yeah. So actually my favorite online tool is Google Docs. I can do everything in Google Docs. So you name it and it happens.
Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?
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