SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
LetSign Gives out Digital Certificates, 18 Customers, $2k MRR, Pandemic Helps?
12 Aug 2020
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
It's different. Some people pay around £100 and some plans are £270. Plans are also there. The number of certificates differs there. We talked about the average earlier, though, and you said £100 per month. Is that the average? Yeah, yeah. Only a few. Only a few are having a higher pay. That is a premium thing. You are listening to Conversations with Nathan Latka.
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My guest today is Bastin Robbins. He's a seasoned data scientist who has successfully built data products for different verticals, some for the largest FMCGs in retail, banking, telecom, social government, all from scratch and deployed it successfully. He's now launched a company called LetSign.org, which is essentially doing digital certificates in a click.
Bastin, you ready to take us to the top? Yeah, yeah, sure, Bastin. Okay, what is a digital certificate? So, you know, like right now, most of credentials, whatever the universities or the organization, they give for accomplishment of any kind of course or anything else, like it's a certificate.
of paper formats but ultimately what that problem is in the present day scenario you cannot use this every time whenever you go for an interview with your resumes so what happens is like most probably we are fully connected with LinkedIn so we should be able to add these into LinkedIn profile which was an added point for a recruiter to source you.
So these kinds of certificates which is digitally created are easily verifiable so that it is an added point for any kind of profiles which is digitally present. Interesting. And what's your revenue model? Is it a SaaS model? Yeah, it's a SaaS model. It's like a month-on-month subscription model. And who's buying? Who are you selling to?
We initially started focusing on different organizations, but we understood that our segment is mainly on the education sectors. Most of the universities are buying this product because they feel this is simplifying the process of creating even thousands of certificates just with the click of a button. And what do universities pay you on average per month to use the technology?
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Chapter 2: What is a digital certificate and how does it work?
The answer is simple. I use HostGator.com to keep the thing cranking along. They've got a 45-day money-back guarantee, which is great. I used their free website builder to get the site up because it's ideal for WordPress. It's just what I use. They've got 4,500 templates and a free e-commerce plugin as well. And 24 seven support, which we love, right? We love that. I bug the hell out of them.
They always get back to me. So I've got you 30% off along with $100 in free AdWords credit. To grab it, just go to HostGator.com forward slash Nathan, but you got to do it now. Again, HostGator.com forward slash Nathan. Have you bootstrapped this or raised capital? No, no, we are purely a bootstrap company. I'm not looking for a capital because I feel it is more... Pardon? Who is we?
Uh, myself and there are two of my colleagues are there. So there, one person is taking care of all the, uh, growth hacking and, and the person, uh, gives more of the technical ideas. So myself, I like code and I go and sell. So it's like both. And, and, and okay. So there's three of you guys. Did you just split equity three ways? 33, 33, 33? Uh, no, it's not like founding partners.
Like, uh, we have, uh, one person out of this two person, like one person is an employee who's just doing things for us. We just pay some amount of small salary from whatever revenue we get from this model. So you have really two people, you and somebody else that actually own the business. Yeah, it's one of my colleagues, yes. And you guys just split it 50-50? Yeah, we are in the 50-50 model.
Very cool. Interesting. So no interest in raising capital. So when do you make the decision to leave your current job and do this full time? My current job, it's mainly like on data science perspective. So I most of the time work remote. So I get enough time to work on that same password. And even my own existing company itself
It's asking, can we take Let's Sign into it and let's run it as a full-time product within our organization? So I was telling, no, I just want to keep it independent and let it grow more. Because that's where the real fun comes in. When a product is going into a VZ's hand, I feel like I get restricted that way. So here I can play around with it and do a lot of things into it.
Why not quit your job so that you can go all in on Let's Sign? Then you have to make it work. You'll be more motivated. Yeah. That is the plan for this year. I was planning to completely shift to Let's Sign and apply a lot of my ideologies into it. But let me see once this pandemic comes to a point.
And by the way, this pandemic situation was really helpful for us because most people are going online for online classes and a lot of webinars are happening now. The demand is high. People are looking for us. This is a bigger argument that you should immediately start doing it full-time. You're proving my point. Sure, sure.
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Chapter 3: What is the revenue model for LetSign?
Definitely, we'll do it. Why not do it? What are you waiting for? No, no, I'm not waiting for it because in the present company, Clever is it also, I have an equity. I'm also one of the co-founders of the company, which is purely a data science company. So it's like both are my babies, so I have to take care of both. What is the other company?
It's called Clever Insight, the same company where I'm working now.
Chapter 4: Who are the primary customers for LetSign's digital certificates?
It's purely a data science company. I see. I see. Interesting. And is that a SaaS model? Yes, we are bringing a SaaS model in the same company, which is more on building machine learning APIs as a service. So still now it's not yet launched because we have our platform, which has been deployed. But right now we are moving more onto a fast model so we can reach to the global audience.
So I see on Clever Insight, you do like, you know, banking and finance insights. So what's like a tool you would build for a banking and finance firm? Basically, we have our product called Neuron AI. It's a platform. It's not a complete box product. So the platform is like a server. We deploy it on the customer intranet. And from there, the data pulls into the system.
And from there, it starts generating insights for them. So in banking and finance, we directly don't touch to the transactional records. But in the other areas where the BPO and all these sectors come, we play a major role in that specific domain. And Mike's your partner there? Pardon?
Chapter 5: What pricing plans does LetSign offer for universities?
Is Mike your partner there? Yeah, he's a person from the US. So basically, the company is located in Menlo Park. And it is known as MindShare Learning Center in the US. In India, it's called as Clever and Set Private Limited. Oh, I see. I see. Very cool. All right, let's wrap up here, Bastian, with the famous five. Number one, favorite business book? Stay Angry, Stay Foolish.
Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? Definitely. I really follow Elon Musk. Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building your company? I feel WhatsApp. Number four, what's your, or how many hours of sleep do you get every night? I get eight hours of sleep. And what's your situation, Bustin? Married, single, kids? I was married, but now single. Okay, any kids?
No, no. No kids, and how old are you? I'm 31. 31. Last question, what do you wish your 20-year-old self knew? Pardon, I didn't get your question. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20? I wish I was able to learn about business at the age of 20 rather than a lot of science. Guys, there you have it. Letsign.org giving out digital certificates when students complete learning courses.
They're doing this at scale. Again, all digital. They've got 10 universities currently paying $100 a month. So they're doing about, sorry, more. They have 18 customers paying about $100 per month. So doing about $2,000 a month in revenue. This is, he owns 50% of the company. It's one of the companies that he's involved in. He's hoping to go full-time on this later this year. All bootstrap.
Bustin, thanks for taking us to the top. Thank you, Nathan. Thank you for giving this opportunity to share my experience.
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