SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
Customer Services SaaS Hits $14k MRR and $2.5m Valuation
15 Jan 2022
Chapter 1: What is the current monthly recurring revenue and customer base?
For the time being, we have around 14K MRR and we have around 60 paying customers. So on an average, they're seeing around $200 from each customer. You are listening to Conversations with Nathan Latka, where I sit down and interview the top SaaS founders, like Eric Wan from Zoom. If you'd like to subscribe, go to getlatka.com.
We've published thousands of these interviews, and if you want to sort through them quickly by revenue or churn, CAC, valuation, or other metrics, the easiest way to do that is to go to getlatka.com and use our filtering tool. It's like a big Excel sheet for all of these podcast interviews. Check it out right now at getlatka.com. Hey folks, my guest today is Shuvo Aramani.
He's the founder and CEO of Alice Labs. It's the company behind myalice.ai.
Chapter 2: How does MyAlice integrate with e-commerce platforms?
They're helping you increase sales through conversations. Shuvo, you ready to take us to the top? Yep, pretty much. So first off, tell us, is this software or is this a consulting firm? So it's a SaaS solution, first of all. So it's a software that's available online. You can subscribe and start using it. So what it does, basically, it integrates for e-commerces.
It integrates all of your channels, like the sales channels, like Messenger, Instagram, Viber, all into one single place. And then it helps you to automate.
Chapter 3: What subscription pricing options does MyAlice offer?
And also your agents can handle the conversations and convert it to sales. So it also connects with e-commerce like Shopify e-commerce so that you can streamline all your operation in one single place. So what are people paying per month on average to use the technology? So we have our subscription starting from $15 per month, and there is the layer of $50 and $300.
And for enterprises, it can go up. For the timing, we have around 14K MRR, and we have around 60 paying customers. So on an average, they're seeing around $200 from each customer. And if you're doing $14,000 a month today, what were you doing exactly a year ago? So... A year ago, we weren't there, honestly speaking.
Chapter 4: How did MyAlice evolve from a chatbot to a SaaS product?
So we started back in 2020, first of all, but we pivoted a lot. So we started with sort of a conversational AI chatbot and then gradually in this year, in April, we raised our sit-down of 500,000 US dollars. And after that, we focused only on the e-commerce side and we started building a SaaS product. Before that, it was sort of a
software that only the enterprise was using mostly for the chatbots. But now we have more focused towards the e-commerce, Shopify e-commerce is stronger so that they can easily connect all their channels and they start automations and help desk as well. And Shibo, did you found this company yourself? Did you have 100% at the beginning equity? I have a few angels from the very beginning.
So I started back my career in software engineering and then moved into business. We have four partners, in a software company, and later on, I moved more towards Alice. So my partners backed up a little, so they have some sort of angel investment, but I have the majority of share in the company. How much do you still own today, equity-wise? 65%. Okay, 65%. And how much do the angels have?
Angels have 15%, and the rest basically gone in our seed round. So you sold 20% in your seed round? Yep.
Chapter 5: What strategies did MyAlice use to achieve $14k MRR?
Okay. This makes a lot of sense. So $500,000 seed round at what was that? A $2 million valuation? Yeah. 2 million pre-money, 2.5 post. Okay. That makes sense. Where'd you invest the money? So mostly, we initially invested our money to make sure that we can work with our GTMs. So a little bit in the product building, a little bit building the GTM strategies.
So far, we haven't spent a single dime in marketing, but that's what we are going to do from January. Because we are mostly after the product market fit, we are trying to see if we can provide the values. And we are now in a stage where we can more or less confidently see that we are providing the value.
Like for our e-commerce customers who are using my alleys, we have been helping them by automating almost 30% of their queries, which is actually saving that time and cost. And also most of the cases we are increasing their sales in between 20 to 40%. So this is through the automations and this is through the increasing efficiency and all the data that we provide them of their customers. Yep.
And you've done this. You've executed well, 60 customers to date. How many people are on your team today? We have 35 people in the team right now. 35? How are you paying 35 people with 14,000 months of revenue? So my company is based out of Bangladesh. So the labor cost in Bangladesh is pretty low. All my engineering team are based out of there. We have around 17 product people right now.
And the rest of the 17 are sort of new hire after the raising. So they are mostly focusing on building the support team.
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Chapter 6: How does MyAlice manage its team and operational costs?
building the inside sales team, and now mostly the marketing team. How many total engineers? Engineers are 11. How many? 11. 11. Okay, 11 engineers. And what are the rest of the folks doing? So six people in the product team, product meaning the product manager, QA, UI, UX, and
Five people in the inside sales team who basically are now targeting different countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Middle East, and trying to onboard people who fall into our ICP. One of our core GTMs is mostly to work with partners. We have partner managers. We have partners in nine countries right now who actually resell our product into those countries.
The rest of the people are mostly marketing people. So a few of them are part-timers, pretty young people, but they are now working on mostly the designs, productions. I mean, we want to also educate the people. If a partner brings in a $200 a month customer, how much do you pay back to the partner? 20% to 30%, depending on their total sales.
Okay, so $40 to $50 a month is going back to the partner if you got a customer from them. Okay, so of the $14,000 in MR you're making today, how much do you have to pay out per month to partners?
Chapter 7: What role do partners play in MyAlice's sales strategy?
Around $2,000. $2,000? Because all of them are not from partners, yeah. Okay, got it. Okay, so that's not too high. That's sort of your affiliate cut. And which partners are selling the most? So we have a partner in Myanmar that's totaling 40%. We have now another partner in Philippines that's almost closing to 25% of the whole partner sales.
And I think rest are distributed in Singapore, Malaysia, Nepal, Dubai as well. Do you guys care about valuation right now, specifically your valuation? Do you think you might raise soon or sell a portion of the company? There is no other tool on the internet that you can use to get a better and higher valuation than FounderPath's new valuation tool.
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a higher valuation and less dilution, which is the name of the game, less dilution. Check it out today at founderpath.com forward slash products. That's plural forward slash valuations. Again, both plural founderpath.com forward slash products forward slash valuations. Talk to me about how you're getting these new customers, right?
So you're paying 20% out to these folks, the people that come direct, are you doing paid ads or no? No, we haven't spent nothing in ads so far. As I said, our core GTM was focused on building the inside sales team and the partners till now. But as we are now eyeing more towards the product market fit, so starting from January, we're investing in the marketing.
So we have around almost $300,000 in our pocket right now. And we are going to invest most of them in the marketing starting from January. We'll be launching in AppSumo. We'll be launching in ProductHand and a few other campaigns for Shopify marketplaces and e-commerce marketplaces as well. Got it. $300,000 in the bank today.
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Chapter 8: Why is MyAlice launching on AppSumo and what are the expected benefits?
Very good. And then, I mean, you mentioned AppSumo. Why would you launch an AppSumo and sell lifetime plans? It reduces your ability to drive true recurring revenue. Yeah, so we wanted to make sure that we have the initial tractions, first of all. And secondly, we have the amount of trust as well, as you can understand, majority of our customers now from the APAC region.
And we also want to target the North America region. So AppSumo gives us a platform where we can onboard the initial level of customers and at least get the feedbacks out of them and help them on board and also take the name MyAlice out there. So money is actually not our core goal in case of AppSumo, but mostly trust and also the attractions that we can build from this campaign.
Yeah, but why would you want to put your product in front of discount shoppers effectively, which is what AppSumo users are? Enterprises that are going to pay you 10, 20, 30 grand a month in four years are not hanging on AppSumo today. So even if LTD is basically limited by monthly active users, so it's not like you can use it as you want.
So if your MAU grows, then you will have to pay extra as well. Well, I mean, AppSumo will push you to give away a ton to their users to get a deal done. And usually it's a lifetime plan that's pretty feature rich. So how do you plan to enter that negotiation? So honestly speaking, our goal was to make sure we got the early adopters from around the world and we also get the impression.
So I think AppSumo helps us to do that. Of course, there are pros and cons. I mean, we are giving away the LTDs, but in return, we want to get some advisors and some customers who are the world whom we can at least play around and see how our product goes with them. All right. Well, we'll see how it works on that note. Let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, favorite business book.
Yeah, I would say Shudok from Phil Knight. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? Not CEO, but let's say CTO Dharmesh sir from HubSpot. Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building the business? I use Amplitude and MetaBase a lot to understand how much value I'm providing and also the traction.
And of course, a little bit biased, but we also provide our support with MyAlice. Number four, how many hours of sleep are you getting every night? Six. And what's your situation? Married, single, kids? Kids. How many? I have a kid. Okay, one kid. And are you single or married? Married. I'm married. Okay, married, one kid. And how old are you? I am 28. I got married pretty early. Last question.
What's something you wish you knew when you were 20? Sorry? Something you wish you knew when you were 20. Uh... I think I wanted to work for companies like Google, Microsoft, as I am from the software engineer background. But I think, I believe what I'm doing right now, I'm pretty satisfied with that. So it's not about something that you would change.
It's just something you wish you knew when you were 20. Oh, I wish I knew. I think I wanted to know more about the technology verticals. I mean, I'm from Bangladesh, and we here are a little bit far behind when you think about the North American culture. I mean, in there, people are thinking about metaverse, NFT, and in here, people are not getting most of their advantages they can.
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