SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
MySwimPro Hit 15k Customers, $1m in ARR Selling Swim Instructions
08 Nov 2020
Chapter 1: How did MySwimPro achieve its initial funding?
We've raised about a million dollars in the life of the business. A lot of different sources, like most entrepreneurs, everything from, you know, we did a startup accelerator. We've gotten grants. I've won pitch competitions. We did two rounds of equity crowdfunding, which is actually probably the most, a lot of people ask me about that. We raised online via WeFunder.
So we have 300 investors across 36 different countries through those two campaigns that we did.
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hey guys my guest today is ferris speddy he started my swim pro when he was 23 and since it has grown to over a million downloads named app of the year by apple and has grown to seven figures in revenue they're on 100 remote company distributed across 10 different time zones ferris you ready to take us to the top Let's do it.
Tell you what, man, I was living in LA the past couple of months and I was living in a place with a pool and I've never been a big swimmer because I would paddle. I'd go too quickly. I'd kick too much and I'd paddle too fast. I'd be out of air in like two seconds. And then someone said, Nathan, all you have to do, paddle less, kick less, keep as much of your body underwater.
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Chapter 2: What unique features does MySwimPro offer to swimmers?
And then when you get up to like a thousand or a hundred downloads a day.
So in 20, yeah, we'll go year by year. So 2015, 20 to 30 downloads a day. In 2016 to 2017, we about 10x that over that, you know, 12 to 18 month window. So now we're, you know, 2017, now we're looking at two, 300 downloads per day. 2018, 2019, we've gotten up to about, you know, 800 to 1200 downloads per day.
And the unfortunate thing about the pandemic of 2020, you know, with pool access being shut down for 30 to 50%, we've actually been cut back pretty significantly. You know, now today in 2020, if we're looking at three to 500 downloads per day, just because the pools aren't open and people aren't trying to go swimming right now, but I'm very confident that
2021, when the Olympics comes back around, you know, hopefully next year we'll start to see that traffic go back to normal.
And so today, how many paying customers do you have either on a monthly plan or an active annual plan?
Yeah, we have about between seven, 8,000 paying across both of those. And how much, how many was that last year? We're about flat from last year because of the pandemic.
But that's where we were last year. Was revenue also flat or have you driven up sell revenue this year across the same base?
It's pretty consistent, despite actually getting less traffic incoming. So you know, when it comes to a cash basis, when we get the yearly subscribers to pay all up front, that's really good for the business. So we have less of that now because we have less new people coming in.
But we've added additional revenue streams, including paid sponsorships, which is sort of like an advertising component. So that's kind of balanced it out. So we're about the same. We would have been less probably actually because of everything that's going on.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did MySwimPro face during the pandemic?
And I encourage you guys to do it today. Go to NathanLacke.com forward slash Flippa right now to test out the valuation calculator for free. That's NathanLacke.com forward slash F-L-I-P-P-A. How many total people do you have on your email list, users that have signed up that you can reach with ads?
Yeah, so we have an email list about half a million, social media audience of also about half a million. And then we have the in-app placements. Our YouTube channel alone is about 50 something thousand subscribers going, growing three to 5,000 subscribers per month. So it's a very engaged, you know, people are watching these videos for like 10 minutes. It's a very engaged audience there.
And we're sprinkling in the sponsorship placements throughout all of those channels.
Talk to me first about capitalization as you grew. Have you raised capital to date? And if so, how much?
We've raised about a million dollars in the life of the business. A lot of different sources, like most entrepreneurs. We did a startup accelerator. We've gotten grants. I've won pitch competitions. We did two rounds of equity crowdfunding, which is actually probably the most... A lot of people ask me about that. We raised online via WeFunder.
So we have 300 investors across 36 different countries. through those two campaigns that we did, which total about $600,000 in investment. And then we have a little bit of VC in that and outside of that as well. What year did you do the WeFunder campaign? We did the first one in 2017, and then we did one in 2019. And how much did you do in 2017?
The first campaign was $130,000, and then about $460,000 in 2019. What's the secret to making that work? So this is the most common question I get. I get at least one question per week about how to raise online equity crowdfunding. And I've made a few videos about this because people are so interested. So the key is to figure out where is your loyal audience? Like who knows who you are already?
Because that's what you have control over.
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Chapter 4: How did MySwimPro's revenue evolve from 2015 to 2019?
So if you have an email list, or people know who you, the entrepreneur, if you're a category expert or something, right? That's what you have to leverage. So for us, it was an email list. And it was my personal network. And you have to be just build out the strategy, your campaign, like last year, our campaign was open for three weeks that you could invest.
So I primed, you know, all the people that I knew that were on my existing list, email list, like personal list, separate from our, you know, company member list, and then build out the strategy. And then three weeks, we raised half a million dollars.
It was over. Of the $500,000 you raised in 2019, how much of that did you get committed before you clicked launch on WeFunder?
Oh, that's a good question. I think it was maybe a third or maybe a little bit less. Maybe a quarter that was committed. There were a lot of... So you can invest before it even opens publicly and no one can see the total. And then there's people who are soft committed. So I would say if you include the soft committed, didn't actually put the money in yet on day one, that was probably a third.
Yeah. Yeah, this is the secret I've gotten out of all the people I've interviewed that have done crowdfunding. If you want to raise $200,000, what you do is you say, we're raising $300,000. You will go get soft commits of $200,000 so that you hit $200,000 on day one. And so you're definitely going to hit your target. And then other people who you don't know coming into the last $100,000.
And then the momentum and the press you get gets another $100,000. And then boom, you raise net new $200,000. You have to prime it. A lot of people don't understand that. Yeah, very interesting. And you had an audience to do that, which makes a ton of sense. So talk to me about team today. How many people?
We have 10 full-time and two part-time distributed across five countries. How many engineers? About half the team. So half the team is on the marketing side, I would say, and half is on the engineering side. And it's a good mix, but we're still growing.
Churn's critical in a SaaS company. It's certainly critical in a B2C subscription company like this. What's your churn look like today, especially considering COVID?
Oh, yeah. I mean, we're lucky if we're keeping at this point for yearly subscribers, like 30, 40% over a year. So it's not very good compared to when I speak with other apps. So that's something we're continuously focusing on improving. It's another reason why the yearly subscription is very valuable as compared to the monthly, just because getting someone to pay 12 times compared to once.
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Chapter 5: How did MySwimPro adapt its pricing model over the years?
That makes sense. All right. Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?
Okay, so now I'm getting like eight hours of sleep. I was before, it's all over the place. Sometimes it's like five or six. Eight is a lot for me. Normally it's less than that.
Got it, fair enough, eight. And what's your situation? Married, single, kids? I'm single, eligible. Eligible and no kids running around, right? Nope. All right, Ferris, how old are you? I just turned 29 a few days ago. Well, congrats, happy late birthday. Thank you, thank you. All right, last question. Take us back nine years. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20?
So I gave a TEDx talk and I gave this quote by Bill Gates. I'll say it here. So he says, and this is what I wish I realized more at the time, that most people overestimate what they can do in one year, but they underestimate what they can do in 10 years.
And it's the concept that you just got to stick with it, compound the impact of whatever it is you're working on, and you'd be surprised what you can do in 10 years.
Guys, MySwimPro, they're going to break, or they broke a million dollars in revenue last year from 20,000 bucks a year back in 2016. Launched in 2015, three co-founders, again, helping people understand how to do workouts related to anything in the water and swimming. They charge 180 bucks a year or 30 bucks a month. They have over 7,500 customers paying.
Also now putting ads to their platform to folks that want to spend on ads. They've done this all, raising a million bucks. Team of 10 today, five engineers as they look to continue to scale. They're testing some paid spend. call it $150 CAC right now to get one of those $180 per year accounts, trying to get that down so they can scale the channel. Ferris, thanks for taking us to the top.
Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
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