SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
EP 413: SaaS, $242k MRR, $13 Million Raised to Re-Invent Business Email with Mathilde Collin of FrontApp
10 Sep 2016
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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 top. Five and six million. He is hell-bent on global domination.
Chapter 2: What inspired Mathilde Collin to start Front App?
We just broke our 100,000 unit sold mark. And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Okay, Top Tribe, this week's winner of the $100 is Zach Faron. He's a 22-year-old Apple employee, and he's listening to the show and loving it. For your chance to win $100 every Monday, simply subscribe to the podcast on iTunes now, and then text the word NATHAN to 33444 to prove that you did it to enter.
Chapter 3: What were the early revenue milestones for Front App?
Folks, many of you heard I made a big league acquisition of a business. NathanLacka.com forward slash send later is the name of the business. And I didn't want to give up equity to a developer because I'm a business guy. So what I did is I used a website to find a guy named He Sheming. I paid He over $12,000 to help me build send later.
And the site that I am using now is called Toptal at NathanLacka.com forward slash T-O-P-T-A-L. I will build SendLater into a big business and I will take it public by the time I turn 30. I'll tell you more later on in the episode. Top Tribe, this is episode 413. Coming up tomorrow morning, you're going to hear from Michael Litt.
Chapter 4: How did Front App secure funding and why was it necessary?
He's raised $70 million. He has a $30,000 annual contract value. He's a SaaS business called Vidyard. Top Tribe, good morning, everyone. You're going to want to hold tight to your coffee this morning. Our guest is Mathilde Collin, and she is the CEO and co-founder at Front. That's frontapp.com. Okay, Mathilde, are you ready to take us to the top?
I'm ready.
Okay, let's do this. First things first, what is Front App and how the heck do you make money?
So Front is an inbox for teams. So the basic idea is any company has shared email accounts like support ads, sales ads, etc. And we make it easy for them to manage those. How we make money, every user pay per month.
Chapter 5: What strategies does Front App use for customer acquisition?
And so we make two millions in revenues after two years.
So, okay, great. So it's a SaaS company.
Yeah.
What year was it founded in?
What year? 2014.
Okay, 2014. And what was your first year revenue?
I think 10K.
10K. I know. It's always a funny question because it's always really embarrassing, right?
Yeah, it is.
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Chapter 6: How does Front App maintain a low customer churn rate?
I have no hope. Exactly.
So tell me real quick before we get into where you've grown it to, why did you start this thing? How old were you?
I was 22. I was raised in France. I think you can hear my accent. And so one of the things that struck me when I was a kid is a lot of people around me didn't like their job. And I think I was a happy kid at that time and I was very depressed that... If I was to become an adult, I would hate five days per week and 50 weeks per year.
And so one of the ideas I had to solve that issue is if I start my company, then I think I will be able to create a great place to work. And so that's how I started to think about building my own company. Very naive, but it's true.
I love that. Okay, so you did 10K in 2014.
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Chapter 7: What is the significance of team size and expenses for Front App?
What was 2015 revenue?
One million.
One million. OK, very good. And and what did you have since this is a SaaS company? Let's get into some of those metrics. So tell us actually and tell us first, you said front up teams are using it to better manage their email, correct?
Correct.
OK, great. And using things like sales at company dot com or support at company dot com email addresses like that, right?
Right.
Very cool. OK, so as of last month, so let's say July of 2016, how many paying customers do you have?
Twelve hundred and ten companies.
OK, great.
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Chapter 8: What are Mathilde's goals for Front App's future?
And what do they pay you on average monthly?
On average, 200 and something.
Okay, about 200.
Yeah, but it's very wide. So we have companies of two users, and then we have companies as big as Cisco using the product. And so teams of hundreds of people.
So is it fair if I just do the math, 1,210 customers times an average monthly kind of cost of 200 means you're doing about $242,000 in revenue per month?
Correct.
Okay, great. So fast growing business, great success story here. Tell us about funding history. Are you self-funded?
So we started in France, then we received some funding from Y Combinator because we went to YC in summer 14. And then after YC, we raised our seed 3 millions. And then two months ago, we raised our Series A 10 millions.
Congratulations. That's very exciting. Thank you. So let me ask you, why did you decide, you know, everyone says raise capital, raise capital, TechCrunch says raise capital, but sometimes raising capital is like the death warrant. Why did you decide to raise capital?
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