SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
SalesPanda Launches Insurance Broker Pages at Scale, Profitable, Hits $400k Revenue
09 Aug 2020
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
So we are around 300, 400K, I would say, but some of them are a little higher, some are lower, but yeah, something like that. You are listening to Conversations with Nathan Latke. Now, if you're hearing this, it means you're not currently on our subscriber feed. To subscribe, go to getlatke.com. When you subscribe, you won't hear ads like this one. You'll get the full interviews.
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Now look, I never want money to be the reason you can't listen to episodes. On the checkout page, you'll see an option to request free access. I grant 100% of those requests, no questions asked. Hello, everyone. My guest today is Samit Arora. He's a digital marketing enthusiast and career sales guy. From selling auto components to computer software, his life has circled around customers.
And after having worked for 15 years in companies like IBM, PwC, TCS, he decided to venture out on his own. His current company is SalesPanda.com. And it's an effort to help companies leverage the digital reach of their sales teams and channel partners to grow their customer outreach by 20 times. Sumit, you ready to take us to the top? Right, absolutely.
Okay, so SalesPanda, is it a SaaS platform and when did you launch? So yeah, SalesPanda is a SaaS platform. We started building it around 2015. But, you know, the real enterprise fit we found somewhere around 17, 18, right? So, initially started with SMBs with smaller customers.
But while we were working on the, you know, digital automation space, we came across an opportunity around distributed sales and marketing. Now, which basically means, you know, how can you help your channel partners and, you know, your brand scales and remote sales team leverage digital automation space? And the BFSI, the financial services, is where we really found a niche.
And we found that there are thousands of these insurance agents, distributors, who are extremely good sellers, but not able to leverage digital, especially in today's world where end customers are evaluating products online. So the companies, the insurance companies, and all these financial services companies were looking for
You know, a way where they could actually tap into the reach of these guys digitally. So we blended the two and we found a good niche for ourselves. And today we have some of the largest insurance companies in India as customers. How many customers do you have? So we have around 10 customers. Initially, we started with smaller ones. But then we have three very large enterprise customers.
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Chapter 2: What inspired Samit Arora to start SalesPanda?
So, the base is set. If we raise funds, maybe early next year, we will look at for either a cross-vertical expansion or maybe an overseas geography. We saw different geographies and verticals. to, you know, that kind of scale up might need funds. But as of now, we have cash flow. So later this year or early next year, if you do decide to raise, how much do you think you'll raise?
So our expectation to start, we don't want to raise too many funds. I mean, we want to go slow. So maybe a million dollars is what we have in mind. And again, right now, you're cash flow positive. Yeah, so because these are running paid clients, right? And for every client, we're kind of scaling up with more users. We're getting new prospects. So it's a running product now.
What's the team look like today? How many engineers? So overall, we are a team of around 20 people in-house. And we have around five, seven people outsourced in a different location. So half of them are the technology team. Then we also have, you know, when we... Give these platforms, some of these customers also ask us for digital content as a service.
We do top it up with some enablement, like in the COVID period, we launched a six-week digital knowledge series for these agents. So we educated them around, you know, how does Google work? How does Facebook work? So idea is to help these guys, agents to leverage. So we have content writers, designers, we have technology guys,
So around 20, 22 people, we have 20 total, 10 engineers, any quota carrying sales reps. So, uh, this, uh, the remaining 10 out of that around three, four people, but we, we, what we've done and earlier we had a beat on street also, but in this COVID period, we've shut that down. We have everybody in out. We have around a three member sales team. Got it. Three on the sales team.
Do they all have a quota? Yes, they have a quota. And you need to add me also.
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Chapter 3: What is SalesPanda and when was it launched?
I've been a period seller. So you sell the most, right? So the way it works is we start off, you know, with people on LinkedIn, connect to them, talk to them. And if somebody's interested, I have a call with them or my team has a call. And if it matures to a level where, you know, some CXO level guys coming, I love to go and do a demo myself also, even now.
Now, Sami, can I back into your revenue here? 10 customers paying a minimum of $2,000 per month would mean you're doing more than $20,000 a month right now in revenue. Is that accurate? So we are on 300, 400K, I would say, but some of them are a little higher, some are lower, but it's something like that. Sorry, you said you're doing 300,000 to 400,000 per year? Yeah. Yeah.
In that range, that's where we are right now because we also give some services as an optional item along with the platform right now. So just to repeat that back to you to make sure I understand, 10 customers paying $3,000, somewhere around $3,000 per month on average, means you're doing $36,000 per month, which means annually you're doing between $300,000 and $500,000 plus your services, right?
No, so all put together is around that range because not every customer pays that. Some of them are, you know, you can say annually 10K to 20K. Some of them are even 50K. So, you know, we have a mix of small and large customers. Yes, Samit, sorry. How much revenue did you do last month? So we have, I don't look at that, but annually we do around 300K type. Got it.
Chapter 4: How does SalesPanda help insurance companies leverage digital marketing?
300. Okay, perfect. Yeah, so I get it. You have you have some services you do, but it's mostly SaaS. And those SaaS customers are all different. Some pay 2000 a month, some pay way more, but on average 2000 a month. You got it. Yeah. Very cool. Okay, what's next? How do you go from 10 customers to 20?
Yeah, so what we are looking at is, you know, first, I think we're finding a niche in the BFSI space. BFSI means insurance, mutual fund, financial services. So what we are getting interest from is, you know, this NBFC, smaller financial services companies. We're getting interest from, you know, banks who have direct selling agents for loans, right?
We're getting interest from mutual fund, other insurance companies, both in the life and non-life. That itself is a huge segment to go after. Plus, like I said, we are doing some two dipstick pilots in different geographies, one in real estate, one in education. They haven't yielded real revenue results, but there is interest.
So the idea is to go deeper into the geography right now we are in, the verticals, and then also look at other verticals as we scale. If it works, absolutely we can grow much faster. We actually want to cross a million in a year. That's the plan. I think you can do it. I'm rooting for you. I hope so. All right.
And you know, interesting is in the COVID period, people are actually looking at more digital options. That's interesting. I get it. All right. Samit, let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite business book? Uh, my favorite business book. I have, which one did I read? Can you take the next one? Yeah, you can just say none. That's okay.
Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? I used to follow Steve Jobs. Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building your company? Favorite? Online tool for building your company. Online tool. I like Intercom. Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night? I sleep around seven, eight hours. And what's your situation, Samit?
Married, single, do you have kids? I have two kids. I have two daughters, married. Married with two kids. And how old are you? I am 47. 47. Last question. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20? What I wish at 20. Yeah. I mean, you know, when I started this building, the startup, you know, I had to do a lot of unlearning.
If you ask me, you know, in corporate, you get used to, you know, certain way of working. I've worked in corporate and sales, you know, you get these deals and you're used to a lot of things, you know, I had to go through a lot of unlearning to start. Had I started that time, I would have actually experimented much more very early during the startup.
So that's one thing, you know, maybe I would have started up much earlier that time. Guys, SalesPanda.com is giving power to insurance brokers by helping them launch at-scale marketing pages, a distributed marketing platform. They've got 10 customers right now that pay between $2,000 and $3,000 per month. So call it $20,000, $36,000 to $30,000 per month in revenue.
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