Chapter 1: How did Atrium achieve $14 million in revenue?
We got started in January. We didn't really, really get going until like February, March. So it was about 3 million on three quarters of a year. And what do you think you'll break this year? We'll do north of 14 this year.
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My guest today is Chris Heineken. He's the CEO of Atrium, leading a world-class team and empowering companies to embrace the next generation of tech through the power of AI. Chris, you ready to take us to the top?
I'm ready to go, Nathan.
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Chapter 2: What consulting services does Atrium provide for AI?
And so typically they're coming to us and wanting to improve things like lead conversion, customer churn, employee productivity, those types of things with machine learning and AI, and weave that into the investments they've already made in cloud infrastructure like a salesforce.com. So the level of engagement that we have with them can span
you know, a hundred, $200,000 on up from there, depending upon how robust they want to build artificial intelligence into their infrastructure.
Are these typically one time or is that a hundred thousand dollars like for a year? It's like a, you know, a retainer. They want you always live.
The interesting thing about what we do is we do a lot of decision support outsourcing. So some companies we're working with have, for example, data science teams that can build and maintain the algorithms once we get them going. Many of our customers don't have that. And often they will work with us to help support, do the care and feeding of the work that we're implementing.
So it actually, we see both scenarios.
And how many of these customers are you serving now today?
We have just north of 30 customers today. So we've been in business for 18 months. We got going in early 2018, and it's been a fantastic ride for the last 18 months. And it's a really interesting kind of captivating space. It's kind of a little bit Wild West pioneering days. And that's what it kind of feels like when we're working with our customers.
Many of the largest SaaS companies today start off as agencies, like what's your building? And then they realize, oh my gosh, we're solving the same problem for every customer. You then build some code around it. And before you know it, you spin that out as your own SaaS product. Are you seeing that pattern internally with the stuff you're working on AI today?
We definitely see a lot of patterns and industry patterns, if you will. We work with, for example... Some universities, for profit, not for profit, and some of the challenges they're looking to solve for, whether it's enrollment and improving their enrollment or improving their student attrition.
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Chapter 3: What is the typical pricing model for Atrium's consulting services?
So it was about 3 million on three quarters of a year.
Right. And what do you think you'll break this year?
Well, we'll do north of 14 this year.
Yeah, I mean, it's, again, really incredible growth. Now, can you keep going back to the same customers over and over and selling them new stuff? Or do you have to go, you know, sell, you know, a million dollars worth of new product every single month?
If we do it right, we're going to be going back to these customers for a long time. And historically, the agency, you talk about us as an agency, it's interesting, a lot of the Like digital agencies, the thing that's great about them is they have a lot of repeat business, repeat customers. You get into our space, which is more like technology systems integration.
A lot of the project-based companies really struggle with having long-term customer relationships. They tend to have ā it's on and off a lot of nomadic existence. And from our perspective, our key for are we doing this right is ā How long of a customer relationship are we having? And that's why it's so critical for us.
You asked that question about, you know, how much recurring work are we doing and do we have any kind of product? The key for us is being able to help companies do the care and feeding on the work that we're doing long term. So the predictive models, the analytics, so that we're around for multiple years. That's really going to be kind of, I think, the single biggest challenge.
inflection point for us as far as whether we can figure that out or not yeah you're seeing a trend today where private equity firms are coming in and doing a big secondary round into into agencies once they hit 20 30 million kind of in in annual revenues you're not quite there yet but you might be there soon right if someone came in and offered you guys you know the early founders early employees are like call it 20 million dollars in a secondary in exchange for you name it x percent of the company um that would obviously get you guys early liquidity would you look at a deal like that or no
That's not in our vision right now. I mean, our point of view is we're in for a really long haul. We want to be in a space where we can control our own destiny. If we feel like there's an area where we can point the investment to something that's going to dramatically accelerate us either through IP, service offering, geography, we'll certainly look at it. But for now...
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Chapter 4: How does Atrium help companies integrate AI into their operations?
Oh boy, that's a good one. Recency, I'll give you start with why. I think an entrepreneur, when you're starting to get going, you really need to gut check yourself as far as why are you doing this and that you're in it for the long haul.
Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?
I got a fascination with Elon Musk. I think it's tremendous what he's doing in the space.
Yeah. Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building your company?
Google. We do a ton with Google, whether it's you know, conferencing, sharing docs, instant message, email. They're an amazing provider for a startup company.
Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?
I'm good for six to seven and I need every one of those.
What's your situation? You married, single kids?
I'm married. I have three daughters. I have a 17 year old, 13 year old and an 11 year old to keep me busy.
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Chapter 5: What challenges do companies face when implementing AI solutions?
All right. And how old are you? I'm 45. Just turned 45 two days ago.
Congratulations. That's exciting. All right. Last question. What do you wish your 20-year-old self knew?
Enjoy the ride. This is the third time I've gone through kind of a startup incarnation. And for entrepreneurs, it's very easy to be always looking at what's next. Take like 30 seconds and think about and enjoy the ride that you're on.
Guys, Chris building atrium. They do consulting specifically in the AI space. They have over 30 customers will break 14 million revenue this year. up from 3 million in 2018. Their team is about 85 folks right now as they look to continue to scale. He says he is not looking at getting into the product space for AI.
If I was a betting man, I'd say they're probably going to end up sitting on a billion dollar AI idea over the next couple of years. We'll see what happens, Chris. In the meantime, thanks for taking us to the top.
Great meeting you, Nathan. Thank you for having me.
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