SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
Technical Co-Founder Hits $35k in MRR, Won't Sell for $10m Today, EP 264: Gil Allouche
07 Jun 2016
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base. You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have.
Chapter 2: What was Gil Allouche's background before co-founding Metadata?
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Chapter 3: How does Gil suggest co-founders discuss equity splits?
Good morning, Top Tribe. You are listening to episode 264 of The Top. And coming up tomorrow morning, bright and early, you'll hear from Anand Kulkarni. He's 31, is doing 700 grand per month by automating the sales process with his $8 million in capital he's raised. Okay, Top Tribe, good morning, good morning.
Our guest this morning is Gil Alush, and he's a software engineer turned VP of marketing for B2B companies. His expertise is in artificial intelligence and digital marketing, and he's an advocate of data-driven decision-making.
Prioring to Metadata.io, okay, prior to that business, Gil ran marketing for Karmosphere, which is now FICO, Kubol, I think is how you pronounce it, and Silver Spotfire, which is now Tib... Gil, are you ready to take us to the top? I'm ready. All right, let's do this. It's going to be a lot of fun. So, metadata looks like your main focus right now. What did you do before metadata?
So, previous to metadata, I ran marketing for a few B2B companies. As you mentioned, Demcubal is now a C-round big data service company. Previously, KarmaSphere, another big data company acquired by FICO. And then previously, SilverSpotfire, it's a business unit within Demcubal. PotFast was acquired by Tipco and now it's acquired by Hedge Fund.
What was the thing that you did right before Metadata?
Right before Metadata, I was an interim VP marketing consultant. So I would join B2B companies as a consultant for anything from one to three months. set up their marketing, demand generation, create a few content for them, start their marketing automation, help them with, you know, with the analysis of persona, and then help them hire their first marketing hire.
So kind of help them start up their marketing.
Okay.
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Chapter 4: How did Metadata achieve $35k in monthly recurring revenue?
And how, Gil, how old are you? I'm 33 years old. Okay. 33. So what got you, I mean, what got you kind of into the marketing automation space to start?
So I'm a software engineer at heart, a big kind of computer geek. PHP? No, not PHP specifically. I've started with GW Basic, Pascal. I went into .NET. I did a little bit of web development, etc. I specifically concentrated a lot around artificial intelligence and robotics. And then essentially post-MBA days, I did my MBA at Babson College back in Boston.
And after my MBA, I did a little bit of management consulting, hated it. And then moved right into marketing, where I took the niche of digital marketing and data-driven marketing, which is a piece that I liked a lot. I'm not really the Don Draper kind of marketing person.
And so doing technical marketing and growth hacking seemed something that I was good at and something that became kind of a big niche.
So metadata.io is your main focus now. How much revenue did you guys do in February 2016? And what are people paying for?
In February 2016, we are at 35K monthly recurring revenue with around 85% margin.
Okay, gross margin or net? Gross margin. Gross margin, yeah. And what about net margin? Are you guys cashflow positive or negative?
It's a tough question. We're barely paying ourselves salaries. So yeah, it's easy to say that we're cashflow positive, but that's just because Our operational costs are super, super low. We're at the moment in the process of raising our round seed.
Okay. And how much are you going to raise in the seed round? Probably a couple of millions. Like, I mean, do you already have, is it going to be convertible note or debt or equity?
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Chapter 5: What is Metadata's approach to amplifying content marketing?
You're not sure yet.
Yeah, we're still trying to figure it out with them. There are a couple of changes within the organization.
So here's the question I'm building up to, and maybe, I mean, a lot of this is you're acting on incomplete data, but you're good at that because of your roles you've had in the past. So what are you willing to spend to acquire a new customer?
That's a great question. We're still trying to figure it out. We're not at scale in terms of sales operation and everything. So you're right about not having enough data. But I'm willing to spend anything about $2,000, $3,000 to acquire a customer today.
Okay. And is it fair to say that you're kind of backing in to that number because you think that they'll pay you over their full lifetime somewhere around $10,000 or $20,000?
Yeah. I would say it's relatively easy for us to get them. to about 20, 24 ATV. And that is because we're- And just, hey, go for the audience.
What does ATV stand for?
Annual total revenue. So actually annual total value.
Yep. Yep. Great. Yeah, that's good. And so you said your team's eight folks and you're really targeting mid-market and enterprise.
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