SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
How She Bootstrapped to $4m in ARR Helping You Fight Negative Reviews
22 Sep 2022
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I haven't had any outside investments. So we're bootstrapped and it's definitely been, I've needed to be patient because it's evolved over time and the software has continued to improve year after year. But I'd say within the first year and a half, I knew that I needed to make moves quickly.
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 Brynn Gibbs.
She's the founder and chief executive officer of Consumer Fusion, founded in 2013 after she began helping close family friends with fake negative review removal for their businesses. Brynn, you ready to take us to the top?
Sure am. Thanks for having me today.
Very frustrating. It's like that person that just hates you, so they're going to get back to you by posting like this fake bad online review. You help them get rid of that, huh?
Exactly. So Consumer Fusion's specialty niche in the reputation management space is identifying and helping remove inappropriate, illegitimate, negative reviews and photos across different directory review sites and social media platforms.
I love this. Okay, so who is paying you? Is it companies paying you or is it individuals paying you?
Good question. So our clientele is made up of SMBs and also we're heavy in the franchising space. So brands will hire us to represent their whole system as a whole.
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Chapter 2: What inspired Brynn to start Consumer Fusion?
Yeah.
Oh gosh. I mean, it was pretty small, but I want to say maybe around like, it was under a hundred thousand, but I was also doing it myself too.
Yeah. When did you realize, oh my gosh, instead of doing this as a service, I should hire a developer and start building technology here.
Well, so for us, MRR is everything. And I was just seeing the long-term picture and realizing, okay, if I want to continue growing the way that we are, I need to have a platform. A, for my backend, but also for my customers to use. And I always had the vision of enterprise level. So like how brands can manage multiple locations at once.
So it was pretty quick at the starting point where I knew I needed software. And... I haven't had any outside investments. So we're bootstrapped and it's definitely been, I've needed to be patient because it's evolved over time and the software has continued to improve year after year. But I'd say within the first year and a half, I knew that I needed to make moves quickly.
And how many customers today?
So because we are in franchising and like one brand could have hundreds of locations, I can't give you like an exact amount, but we have several thousand users on the platform between SMB and franchising.
How many, I guess the right question, like let's just be specific, like how many unique brands are using the platform? Ignore number of locations or stores, but how many brands?
So I would say there's about 40 brands and then the rest are SMBs.
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Chapter 3: How does Consumer Fusion help clients with negative reviews?
I see. Can you name one of the brands and then name one of the SMBs so we can understand the difference?
Yeah. So College Hunks Hauling Junk is one of our brands in the franchising space. And then an SMB is anything from a local attorney, dentist, plastic surgeon, auto repair. We're in all verticals.
So how many SMBs? Hunks Hauling Junk is in your 40 brands. How many SMBs use it?
About 3,000.
Oh, wow. Okay. Got it. So you've got like 3,040 paying customers effectively. Yeah. Can I take that 3,000 number times that $300 a month price point to back into your MRR, which would be like a million a month?
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Chapter 4: Who are the typical clients of Consumer Fusion?
So no, because they're not all at that price.
Okay. So that's not an average.
Yeah.
Well, but if that's an average, that would be an average across what, if it's not an average across the 3,000.
Well, so that would be average for the SMBs, but not necessarily in the franchising space.
Okay. But you just mentioned there's 3,000 SMBs that are paying, right?
Yes.
So can I take that 3,000 SMBs times a $299 a month price point? Is that the right average for those SMBs?
You know what? No, it's not. If I'm being honest, it's not.
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Chapter 5: What pricing model does Consumer Fusion use for its services?
Okay, can you give me a range if you're not comfortable sharing a specific, like under a million revenue, more than a million revenue?
It's under a million in revenue, yes.
Okay, got it. Why is there such a big... So I guess, are those 3,000 you're quoting, are those free users? Like that's a big gap between like 3,000 paying 300 bucks a month versus not.
So a lot of it is just sometimes... they don't need our services to a certain extent and their price points can change and we'll do what we can to retain the client on a monthly basis. So it's just more so like say they're part of a spam attack and we have to put a lot of effort into the account at one point, but then things kind of like tame down a little bit.
It's just, we see a lot of movement that way.
So, but are all 3000 like paying per month right now or some of them are not paying, but they're still using your free tools?
So some of them are, we'll like to get our foot in the door. We'll do free pilots to help earn their future business. Some people do temporarily go on hold. I don't know the exact number right now for how many are not paying, but the majority are paying.
Okay. Got it. So if we take 3000, like paying, right. And you're under a million revenue, let's just assume you're a million and run rate. That'd be $3,000, $80,000 a month. They're paying on average, something closer to like 25 bucks a month.
In the franchising space, that is the right number per month per location.
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Chapter 6: How did Brynn acquire her first customers?
So the company is called Oxygile. We were connected through a colleague several years ago and they have just continued to grow with us.
Interesting. So they're still like a dev shop.
Yeah.
And are you paying sort of, you know, most dev shops like Symform could ask like $35 an hour for development talent. Is that sort of what you're paying?
It's a little bit higher than that. Lately, there is just heavy need for developers. So we have seen the rates increase, but it is cheaper for us to have them overseas than domestic.
And are all these 22 folks full-time, you know, because what I'm trying to back into is are any of them working for free? Because if you're under a million in revenue, paying 22 full-time salaries would be a lot.
So a lot of it is entry-level positions, but everyone here is full-time. Yes.
I see. Got it. So 20 times full-time plus another six who are outsourced engineers, but they're on your full-time.
The engineers are all not necessarily full-time. That's just depending on the workload and the projects that we're rolling out.
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