SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
Jamespot Profits $40k/mo on $4m Revenue helping Teams Stay Connected
30 Dec 2020
Chapter 1: Who is Alan Garnet and what is his background?
Hello, everyone. My guest today is a familiar face, Alan Garnet. He is the founder and CEO and serial entrepreneur focused on digital B2B SaaS products. He's president of the nonprofits EFEL, which is Software in Europe, and the hashtag Play Digital Movement. He's also a music electro producer and practitioner, now building a SaaS collaborative platform called JamesSpot.com.
Alan, you ready to take us to the top?
Yeah, ready, Nathan. Happy to talk with you again.
Me too. I feel like the last time you came on, my gosh, it must have been over two years ago. How's the company doing today?
Two years ago. Our company has changed a lot because we have a lot of growth, new customers, a lot of change, you know, in the landscape and, you know, in the landscape of the collaborative tools that change too.
Yep. So in 2018, when we spoke, you were doing about $2.4 million in terms of annual run rate. Where are you at today?
So now in turnover, we are about $4 million turnover.
Okay. So what does that mean?
That means that we have been 25% of growth this year.
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Chapter 2: What is the current revenue and growth rate of JamesSpot?
And then we have, for instance, a French health agency with 80,000 people getting into Gemspot. So you see, it's a huge move. We have also BNP banking, BPI banking. So new customers that then were not used to use our software because now they have to because of the crisis and the need to stay home working.
So how many customers' logos are on your platform today? We've got 250. 250. And how many paid seats?
We've got 400,000. seats.
So 400,000 paid seats across 250 businesses?
You've got some, you have to, we've got about some external that are low price, you know, because you have the full seat. And when you buy a gem spot, you have a package of free external people of your company that you can use. And then after a number, you will pay for the external. So the user, I say, it's the all user we have in all countries in all. and tell us what folks are paying you for.
The pain we try to... What we do for organization is to help them to have their own remote work like you do in your home. As you see, I see you in the back and you choose to put photo in your... And you choose to change the way you work, where you live. We do the same for our customers because with JamSpot, they're going to plug... a lot of apps so they can work like they are.
We have this modularization of how you work. That's what we are very different of other solutions.
Who would you compare yourself to? Who are you closest to?
Well, in Europe, we are close to the part of Microsoft 365, you know, because in this you find all the things to work with documents, communication and chatting and doing, you know, social network inside all those elements. That's what we are close to. And Workspace or Facebook too. So we have major, big competitors.
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Chapter 3: How has COVID-19 impacted customer acquisition for JamesSpot?
Okay. Any quota carrying sales reps?
Sales reps, we want 80 sales reps.
Eight. And Alan, do you give them a quota? Yeah, we do. What's their quota? If I joined your team today, what quota would you give me?
So the quota, and you see it is lower than in the US. It depends on the seniority of the sales. It starts with, you know, I would say $300,000 a year. And it goes up and it doubles when you have four years of experience.
Okay, so someone that's just starting, you expect them to close $300,000 in new annual recurring revenue in their first 12 months. Yeah. I see. Interesting. And obviously, your space churn is really critical. What's your revenue churn over the past 12 months?
In the past 12 months, it was not so much, less than before, because I think that people need our solutions. It's about 8 or 10% a year.
Okay, and how much expansion revenue do you have? What is expansion revenue? All your upsells. So ignore new customer additions, but what you upsell old customers. The exact price for this, sorry. Okay, okay, that's okay. That's okay. You told me last time you had 5% churn and 15% expansion for 110% net revenue retention. Sound like you're still about the same spot?
Yeah, because it's quite the same. We have downsized the churn and the expansion was more because we have a lot of companies that use the JamSpot just for communication. And because of COVID crisis, they use it for home working. So it's much more using. They have to pay more for apps because, you know, we have an inside app store in JamSpot.
You buy for apps to make upsell into the, so they buy some new apps. perhaps, for instance, a video conferencing or, you know, meetings and stuff like this that they didn't choose before. So yeah, we have a better upselling this year. And how are you getting customers today? What's your CAC? A CAC is about, I know it's in euro, I would say in euro, so it's about 10,000 bucks in euros.
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Chapter 4: What differentiates JamesSpot from its competitors?
So I've got a big child that are, you know, adults. How many kids? Three now.
Three? Wow. And how old are you? Oh, guess. I'm 50. Oh, I was going to guess 43. All right.
I win seven euros. It's okay for my living.
All right. Last question, Alan. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20?
Well, I wish, you know... Peace for all the world and hope crisis of COVID will be, you know, fade away.
Guys, there you have it. James Spott competing in the team management space, internal HR tool sort of space, right? They're helping teams stay on the same track with each other. Participating, mainly competing in Europe. They just broke a $4 million run rate up from 3.2 million a year ago. 25% year-over-year growth.
bootstrapped, profiting $40,000 per month in revenue, 250 customers, 35 on the team, 15 engineers. They've got eight sales reps that start off at a $300,000 per year quota, 110% net revenue retention, and an $11,000 CAC for under a 12-month payback period as Elin continues to scale. Alan, thanks for taking us to the top. Thank you from Paris. And see you.
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