SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
Ninety.io Used Community to Hit $2.8m Run Rate, Bootstrapped
25 Oct 2020
Chapter 1: How did Mark Abbott bootstrap 90.io to a $2.8 million run rate?
Well, I've predominantly funded it myself. And then we're to the point now, as you know, we can start to raise some capital in terms of debt. So we're going to do debt. And then, you know, it's possible someday that we'll do equity. I love having control. So that's part of the story here, right? You are listening to Conversations with Nathan Latka.
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My guest today is none other than Mark Abbott. He's an entrepreneur, CEO, and coach with decades of experience across startups, early stage, small and mid-sized companies. His track record includes generating over a billion dollars in gains for his investors.
His dual passion is not just teaching leadership teams how to build extraordinary, productive, humane, and resilient companies, but building every one of the cloud-based tools needed to make the associated journey extremely, extremely easy. Mark, you ready to take us to the top? I am ready. All right. Now you are building these tools for founders that you work with via 90.io.
That's N-I-N-E-T-Y.io. What's the company doing? Are you guys pure play SaaS? We are pure play SaaS and we build an expanding collection of
tools that helps people just build amazing companies so a bunch of different tools meeting tools planning tools goal setting tools feedback tools process management tools just an integrated and expanding collection of core tools people need to build extraordinarily productive humane and resilient companies when did you launch the company what year um We had our first beta users in... 20 what?
2017. 2017. Okay. And how many customers are now paying for the platform today? 1,920. A very specific number. That's great. You're looking at the right dashboards. Walk me, before you get to 1,920, you've got to get your first 100. Where'd you get your first 100 customers from? So I belong to a coaching network of coaches that teach this thing called EOS, the Entrepreneur Operating System.
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Chapter 2: What strategies did Mark use to acquire his first 100 customers?
We do not own the community. No. We're just members up. But if you pull that number out, it looks like our payback period right now, because we have not put that much effort into marketing, our payback period is literally less than three months. Got it. So you're spending like 300, 400 bucks to get a new customer. For the non-community base.
it's lower than that, but I don't even like going there. Right. Yep. Yep. Well, so let me ask you a question then, uh, you know, I built founder path so that founders could click a couple of buttons and raise debt without having to go and raise it, but do a big process, sign a bunch of, you know, term notes, you know, understand revenue based financing, true interest rates.
We have 50 million deploying to founders. We'll have 10 million out here by the end of the month. Uh, I'd love to do a debt deal with you. Okay. Let's talk. Is the number you're looking for, again, you said less than 2.5 million is really what you want.
Chapter 3: How does the Entrepreneur Operating System (EOS) influence 90.io's growth?
The tricky thing with debt is the second you take it, you're paying some sort of interest on it, unless you get a big interest-free interest-only period. So how much cash do you think if you had today, you could deploy it in the next 30 days? How much cash could we deploy in the next 30 days? Well, in the next 30 days, the...
I mean, we're just, you know, our expenses are expensive, so I'm not quite sure I'm tracking with you. I wouldn't deploy a million dollars in the next 30 days, that's for sure. I would deploy it over a period of time. Well, this is something that a lot of founders don't think about when they think about raising debt.
When you raise debt, depending on the facility you raise on, you're paying interest on it, even if it's sitting in your bank. So you want to as closely correlate when you're actually investing the debt dollars to when you're actually drawing the debt so that you're not paying interest on unused capital. Right. Agree with that. Not all the deals we were looking at, we have to draw down. Got it.
So you're looking at some sort of line, you know, credit line products, right? Where you've got, you know, you can take down whatever you, yeah, I see. I see. Very interesting. Well, we'll talk offline more about if we can do a deal together on founderpath.com. You're the exact sort of company that we do these sorts of deals with. So we'll chat more about that later.
In the meantime, though, congrats on the growth. Let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, favorite business book. Um, I have, there's so many, right, but I'll go with traction just because that's core to everything we do. So traction by Gino Wickman. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? There really isn't.
Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building your company besides your own? Besides our own. Um, that's a good, I don't really have a good, good answer. Um, I honestly don't mean we, you know, we use HubSpot and Intercom, love them both. Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night? Probably real sleep is six, but I'm in bed seven plus.
And what's your situation, Mark? Married, single kids? Married with a 21-year-old boy. Okay. And how old are you? I am 60.
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Chapter 4: What is the average revenue per user for 90.io and how is it structured?
60. Last question. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20? Um, I love right where I am. I wouldn't change a damn thing. So no, no, no, it's not a regret thing. It's more like when you're sitting down with your boy, what's something you're telling him in terms of life and business? Yeah, no, there's a lot of stuff, um, that we talk about in terms of life and business.
Uh, you know, I think the key, one of the keys to success is having a very long-term oriented perspective on everything you're doing. Very good. And hey, speaking of long-term, I didn't ask you this, but you're at a call doing $250,000 a month right now. Where were you about a year ago? So we can understand growth rate. Yeah. Last July, we were at $65,000. Okay.
So July, you know, we're obviously recording this in October. So last October you were doing what, like 70, 80,000 a month? Probably. Somewhere in there. Okay. Very good. Let's just call it 80. Yeah, obviously healthy growth. So call it a million dollar run rate up to a $3.2 million run rate today.
Again, guys, 90.io, they built on the back of a community called EOS, Entrepreneur Operating System. They now built these tools to help teams actually measure these goals, make the vision get to work, and then obviously keep people accountable for what they committed to in those goals, scaling nicely with 1,920 customers. Mark, thanks for taking us to the top. You're welcome.