SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
Life Planning SaaS Hits $5k in MRR, Raises $1m on $6m Seed Round
25 Jan 2022
Chapter 1: What funding strategies did ReadyWin use in its early days?
In 2021, we raised close to a million dollars through strategic partners with professionals, so legal and financial partners.
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 Sachin Bala.
He's the co-founder and chief marketing officer at ReadyWin. With over 15 years experience in the marketing advertising industry, he's worked on iconic brands like Apple, Rogers, Campbell's, Visa, and others before moving into the tech sector.
This is when he joined an automotive scale-up that grew to over 800 employees in just three years and was ultimately acquired by a Fortune 1000 US-based company. Now, again, CMO at ReadyWin there on day one. Sachin, you ready to take us to the top? Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
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Chapter 2: What unique challenges did Sachin face in the startup world?
You worded that very carefully in your bio. Can you not share what that automotive startup was that you were with? No, 100%. It was called TradeRev. TradeRev. Interesting. Okay. And I imagine there was like a big earn out there. You didn't want to stick around for a while? So, you know...
TradeRev was an amazing opportunity. I was there within the first 50 employees. I was, you know, we were working there and we helped grow that company really quickly. And then when we got acquired, we went into a corporate culture, you know, car, the company that bought us, you know, there was at that time close to about 15,000 employees, part of car.
So they asked me to run international marketing in 2019 and I enjoyed it.
Chapter 3: How does ReadyWin differentiate itself in the life planning market?
But what I really missed was that startup culture. You know, with TradeRev, you were building, there was a hustle, you were nimble, you were agile. And I really was looking to get back into it. And more importantly, I actually learned a lot during my TradeRev days. Business modeling, strategy, sales, operations. And at some point, I wanted to take a bet on myself.
And so my partner and the founder of Ready When, Jesse Bade, he had an idea late in 2019. He's been a trusted BC notary for over 15 plus years. He was also the president of the BC... a notary public society out there. And so when he came to me with this idea of Ready When, I was instantly intrigued because I did my competitive research. There wasn't anything really like that.
And we always say, and if there was, he would have been using it. But also my parents passed away, both of them. My mom went first, my dad went second, and it was really hard. And when I had to become the executive of the state, you know, it was difficult and I wanted to make things easier for people when they had to deal with, you know, the worst of times.
And so who is paying you for this? Is it, is it like children nervous about managing their parents' estates when they pass?
So we kind of, we have three client bases, I would say. Three avenues that we kind of describe as our core clients. One is we have, you know, people like, I would say, early adopters who want to become proactive planners so that they're information is all in one place. So for instance, my wife, you know, she doesn't know where all the information really lies.
So I want to be better prepared and make her part of my team and create that accessibility, which ReadyOne allows. So she now knows where all that information lives and she doesn't need to go to it Often she doesn't need to go to it at all, actually, but it's there and she has the, and I and her both have peace of mind. And who are the second two such in, uh, uh, parents. So aging parents.
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Chapter 4: What are the primary client bases for ReadyWin's services?
So now that, uh, you know, my wife, her parents are aging. We're actually doing their ready when account for them and putting it in there. And the third is the professionals. So we're going through, uh, B2B to C channels to drive that volume because ultimately name their title professional title. Yeah. uh, notaries, financial planners, legal professionals.
And then we're also working with tier a corporate, uh, clients, uh, insurance companies, life insurance companies, um, providing, uh, the service as a value add. And also in some cases as a revenue driver to help, uh, build their businesses up as well.
And such, and what are, I know I'm sure you have a wide range, but on average, what are these customers paying you per month, per year to use the technology?
So right now we charge $50 per year, $5 per month, or right now we're offering $500 for a lifetime membership.
Okay. And what's the thinking behind that? Obviously, when you offer a lifetime membership plan, it decreases your ability to drive expansion revenue over time. Maybe investors don't like that, but also it creates a little bit of lock-in.
100%. And for us as a startup, getting that additional revenue right now is critical because We're thinking that right now we might do this 500 just to get a sense of what their appetite is for a service like this. There's not a lot of services like ours out there, and we know people hesitate when it comes to to thinking and acting upon their passing.
So what actually resonates and we're figuring that out slowly but fast over the past two years. And the price point is one of those things as a startup, as you know, they fluctuate and they change quite often. So right now we're doing it just to drive some additional revenue into the system. Understood.
Yep. So moving forward, when did you guys launch the business? When was the start date?
Yep. So we officially launched ReadyWin as a beta in November 2020. And then we launched our MVP in spring of 2021. And we've been constantly iterating over the course of this year.
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Chapter 5: How much does ReadyWin charge for its services?
So you've had this year to sort of build up the customer base. How many customers are you serving now today?
So just about a week ago, we hit actually over 1,000 customers, which was fantastic. We're getting great feedback. But more importantly, we've had over close to over 1,200, we call them items, entered into ReadyWend. That could be information or documentation.
Across the 1,000 customers.
Correct. Interesting. And out of that, more than 70% are paying customers.
Wow.
Got it. So $700 are paying customers.
Right.
Got it. So can I take $700 times $5 a month to get your revenue?
Well, yeah. Some are doing the $50. Some did the $500. But yeah, it's a cross around the $50 and the $500.
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Chapter 6: What milestones has ReadyWin achieved since its launch?
So we've been, we did do a raise to help us fund the project. You know, we've done two friends and family raises so far. The last raise that we did was really focused on strategic.
Sorry, what year such in and how much?
Yeah. So first year, the first in 2020, we raised close to over a little over 100,000 to help us build the prototype and carry us through for a few months. And then later this year, sorry, in 2021, we raised close to a million dollars through strategic partners with professionals. So legal and financial partners.
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Or how did you guys split equity early on?
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Chapter 7: What are the future funding plans for ReadyWin?
Did you just split it down the middle or what?
No, we didn't split it down the middle. Jesse, our partner and the founder, he actually had the idea. So we've been working with him. I've been there since literally day one. I came up with the name and everything. So and the branding. So the CMO title was just given because effectively the branding and UX fell in my lap.
He took on the CEO title just because he's run a few more businesses than I have. And together, we are doing that. So in terms of equity, we split it in a very fair way. And we're constantly, like, working it out as we consider options and our other partners who come into the mix.
When most people are raising their seed rounds, say, you're selling between 10% and 20% of the business. Is that about what you guys did? Correct. OK, got it. So a million on like six or seven or eight pre something like that. Right. Yeah. Interesting. Any plans to raise additional capital?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely next year in 2022 around. Well, we're going to start the VC tours in January. And then, you know, the goal is to have some funding in place by May.
How are you? You're a marketing guy. So let me ask you this.
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Chapter 8: How does ReadyWin ensure customer acquisition and retention?
What's your CAC to get a new $5 a month customer? Pardon? Say that again? What's your customer acquisition cost to get a new $5 a month customer?
Yeah. Sorry. Hold on for one second.
The noise is fine. We can just keep going.
Yeah. Hold on. I just got to tell my... Shelly? Shelly? Yeah. Can you just stop for a second? I'm just on an interview.
Oh, sorry.
Sorry, go ahead.
So what's your CAC? What do you charge to get a new five? What do you pay to get a new $5 a month customer?
So right now, actually, we're not charging a lot. We're doing a lot of social. And most of our volume right now is coming through the B2B to C path. So we're not really creating a lot of cost per acquisition.
How many partners like a notary have driven you at least one customer?
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