SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
IamIP Hits $60k/mo, $3m Raised, 100 Customers Helping With Patent Management
17 Jul 2020
Chapter 1: How much revenue is IAMIP currently generating monthly?
Currently, we are at, I would say, pure software. We are approximately at the 60,000 US dollar a month, monthly-wise. And then in addition to that, our customers pay to get support, which is an additional 10,000, I would say, US dollar a month on that. You are listening to Conversations with Nathan Latka. Now if you're hearing this, it means you're not currently on our subscriber feed.
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Chapter 2: What makes IAMIP's patent management platform unique?
Eric Wan, 18 months before he took Zoom public. Eric Wan, 18 months before he took Zoom public. Eric Wan, 18 months before he took Zoom public. Eric Wan, 18 months before he took Zoom public. Eric Wan, 18 months before he took Zoom public. Eric Wan, 18 months before he took Zoom public. Eric Wan, 18 months before he took Zoom public. Eric Wan, 18 months before he took Zoom public.
Eric Wan, 18 months before he took Zoom public. Eric Wan, 18 months before he took Zoom public. Eric Wan, 18 months before he took Zoom public. Eric Wan, 18 months before he took Zoom public. Eric Wan, 18 months before he took Zoom public. Eric Wan, 18 months before We want to see a real pervasive data culture, and then the rest flows behind that.
Chapter 3: How has IAMIP's customer base grown over the years?
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My guest today is Dimitri Anokaro. He's a patent entrepreneur that teaches and trains technology companies and IP managers how to make a patent management process more efficient and transparent using his company as tool, imip.com. Dimitri, you ready to take us to the top? Of course. All right. So who the heck gets excited about patents? Most people run when they hear the word patents.
They see it's boring and it's slow and it stems innovation. That's correct.
Chapter 4: What funding has IAMIP secured and how is it being used?
That's correct. And that's why we decided to make it a little bit more, you know, sexy, fancy, and more, you know, trendy. So how do you do that? I mean, are you a SaaS model or you're more an agency? SaaS model. Okay. So how do people pay you? Per seat is how they pay us. And then we have a different solution for the three groups because we are a B2B enterprise.
and uh depending on the size of the company you get you know you buy your solutions like a solo team and enterprise edition so three editions and then the more users you know the more expensive it gets so so what do you what do you currently have i mean on average what are companies paying you know per month or per year to use your technology i would say approximately 10 000 us dollar a year
The beautiful thing here is that even though we are a SaaS company, these companies pay one year upfront every year. So liquidity-wise, it's quite good as a startup. Okay, and you founded the company in 2014, correct? Yes, correct. And walk us through, you know, last time you came on was back about two years ago almost, April 2017.
Chapter 5: What strategies does IAMIP use to acquire new customers?
You had about 62 customers. What do you have today? Okay. We are almost at the 100, almost at the 100. We had to actually deep dive a little bit in our technology platform. So we went into a generation or two of it, which delayed us a little bit, so to say, from a sales process. And then in between that, we also got our second investor as well from Germany. Okay, so how much total raise now?
We have now raised approximately 3 million US dollar-ish, I would say. Yeah, so you raised, the last round was a $2 million raise. I would say even lower, actually. It was a little lower than that, but that was what we have raised. Was it all equity or was there some debt involved? No, everything was equity. And the plan was, so to say, to get the two partners.
Chapter 6: What is the customer conversion process for IAMIP?
And that's why we have one Swedish investor and one German investor, because these two markets are important for us right now at this stage. And so walk me through kind of how you're using capital on the growth company to scale. So you had 14 folks on the team about two and a half years ago. What are you at today? We are, I would say, at around 20 currently.
And the reason is because, you know, people coming and go, you know, particularly in the sales, it's quite tricky to keep them to stay. The core team around IMIP is still the same. Luckily, everybody is still there. So what we have spent, I would say, a lot of money was
attract fortune 500 companies because they are the ones paying a lot of money for the solution and then secondly was to say to test the different models to scale because that's quite challenging in the b2b enterprise i must say so yeah very different well okay so with those changes though and with those upgrades i mean help me understand the scale you're at today right so what run rate have you passed uh currently we are at uh i would say pure software we are approximately at the 60 000 euros dollar a month
monthly-wise. Okay. And then in addition to that, our customers pay, you know, to get support at the college so they can access us through Intercom and talk to us, which is an additional 10,000, I would say, US dollar a month on that. So do you think you break a million in revenue this year? It depends.
Chapter 7: How does IAMIP handle customer churn and retention?
It really depends. You know, we have some really huge, crazy customers, but, you know, it depends when they want to sign with you. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like right now you're at about, what, something like $700,000 in sales so far this year? Yeah. And you got what, two or three months left. You could do it. We could, we could, let's hope for the best. Let's hope for the best. Very good.
All right. Um, walk me through how you got those extra customers. So you got 40 extra customers over the past two years. Where, where'd you get them from? It's mainly outpounding.
Chapter 8: What are the future growth plans for IAMIP?
And this is, as I said, I mean, we don't really have like a clear, I mean, we haven't defined the strategy, how to grow. So our strategy account wants to do outpounding. So we call them directly through, we find them in our platform. And then from there we go. And then of course, mouth to mouth. So some of them has recommended as well. And then they call into us.
And now for the last four months, we're also playing a lot with social media. And now we start to get like two or three inbounds a month, which is quite new for us. How much are you paying on social media?
be honest zero i thought you just said i thought you just said you're paying a lot on social media no we actually we are getting a lot of customers to social media we don't we have invested time to see how to use it so we're using content marketing you know simple linkedin we write blogs articles and through that people start to come in and show curiosity i see i see okay and what's the process look like is it kind of a demo to a free trial to pay it or what's the
The usual process is that regardless if they reach out to us, that we need to make a qualification to really see that they fit into the needs that they have. Because as you said, it can be also very old people that don't get this digital way. And once they pass their qualification, we see them as a call. What is that though? Is that qualification a call or what?
It's like, you know, we ask them some questions, you know, how they work today, what would they like to obtain with such type of solution, you know, when can they decide to change. But is it email or is it someone getting on the phone with them? Like this, like we do now. Okay. Like a Zoom meeting. So let's say they qualify on the call, then what? Then what after that?
Then usually they want to test it, the platform, the bigger customers, because they maybe want to test out some features and then we allow them to play with it for two to four weeks. When I say play, we define some specific KPIs so they can measure the outcome out of that. The smaller ones, they usually buy it immediately, and we give them actually a grace period of one month so they can test it.
If they don't want to continue, then they just wait for the one month and then they go, but that has never happened. Otherwise, they don't pay it at all. And that's because the smaller customers, they don't really know what they want. They just want to get the data. Yeah. That doesn't make sense for a lot of the place. So after the test, how many typically each month are converting to paid?
Uh, immediately, I would say right now we have like an approximately 50, 15. Some of them are already in a contract. So we need to reach out a little bit later on, but the one idea when you, they test the platform for two to four weeks and then they can convert to paid. You're saying almost a hundred percent of the people convert to paid. No, 50, 50%. Oh, 50%. Okay. Convert to paid.
And the reason for some of them, they want to see some additional things that they don't have. And some of them maybe are in a contract and they need to wait until a renewal period for them so they can jump in. That's good. So what's growth look like, right? So if you're doing 70,000 ish or 80,000 per month today, right? What were you doing about a year ago? Do you remember?
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