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SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Typeform Breaks $48m Revenue, 40% yoy Growth, $800m Valuation Next?

03 Mar 2021

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 7.015 Nathan Latka

It's all the other shows, and I can be like, David, what was your biggest failure? What was your biggest success story? You know, it's no fun.

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7.116 - 11.29 David Okenev

Or they send you a list of questions, and you're like, oh, geez, I have to pull this inside.

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14.392 - 34.494 Nathan Latka

You are listening to Conversations with Nathan Latka. Now, if you're hearing this, it means you're not currently on our subscriber feed. To subscribe, go to getlatka.com. When you subscribe, you won't hear ads like this one. You'll get the full interviews. Right now, you're only hearing partial interviews.

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35.315 - 46.132 Nathan Latka

And you'll get interviews three weeks earlier from founders, thinkers, and people I find interesting. Like Eric Wan, 18 months before he took Zoom public.

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46.332 - 50.659 Unknown

We got to grow faster. Minimum is 100% over the past several years.

50.757 - 70.697 Nathan Latka

Or bootstrap founders like Vivek of QuestionPro. When I started the company, it was not cool to raise. Or Looker CEO Frank Bean before Google acquired his company for $2.6 billion. We want to see a real pervasive data culture, and then the rest flows behind that. If you'd like to subscribe, go to getlatka.com.

71.177 - 96.487 Nathan Latka

There, you'll find a private RSS feed that you can add to your favorite podcast listening tool, along with other subscriber-only content. 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 David Okenev.

96.607 - 106.159 Nathan Latka

He is building a company, you've probably heard of it, called Typeform. Inside of Typeform, he released a new product called Video Ask, which we'll focus on today. We'll have a lot of fun. David, are you ready to take us to the top?

106.179 - 106.279

Yeah.

Chapter 2: When was the Video Ask product officially launched?

337.167 - 344.434 Nathan Latka

You know, the show doesn't work without founders like you who are game to share these sort of data points, right? Otherwise, you get this business show.

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344.454 - 350.614 David Okenev

I like the show kind of on the spot, like... I don't like things that you have to prepare for. So this is great.

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350.754 - 360.863 Nathan Latka

It's like, just dive into the deeper. It's all the other shows. And I can be like, David, what was your biggest failure? What was your biggest success? You know, it's no fun. Okay.

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360.883 - 365.328 David Okenev

So they send you a list of questions and they're like, Oh geez, I have to prepare all this and sound smart.

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365.348 - 369.752 Nathan Latka

4 million run rate. Okay. Let's go to video. Ask, tell us what the product does.

370.833 - 392.53 David Okenev

Yeah. So it's an async video interaction tool. Essentially you can build a, um, a kind of workflow journey where you can take people through a journey, you ask questions via video, you can collect answers via video, text, audio, multiple choice, you can collect the payment, NPS, and you can do like a series of these things just like a form.

393.431 - 414.265 David Okenev

And the other dimension of it is that, you know, with Typeform, it's just collecting the data and then analyzing it. With Vidiast, there's a step more. You can actually respond. You can respond by video and then you get into an asynchronous video conversation. It's really just a great way to get face-to-face with customers.

414.565 - 421.013 David Okenev

or anyone like, you know, in a business context, of course, like in the most effective and quick and visceral manner.

421.133 - 436.911 Nathan Latka

Yep. So the reason this space is very interesting to me is there are different mousetraps on the peripheries relative to like the spot where you're playing. So for example, you know, Yak, right, has sent me up and said, use our tool to do like video back and forth and ask your audience video questions for your show. Then you have

Chapter 3: How did Typeform's early days influence its growth?

471.242 - 493.223 David Okenev

Like with videos, we have logic, we transcribe everything. We've even released a feature soon where it transcribes live in the browser based on listening. It will jump to a different question. So we're really like... we're really like going deep into like video interaction without it being one of these video interaction tool where you just like put that, you know, like what do you call that?

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493.243 - 503.833 David Okenev

Hotspots. We're really just trying to, yeah, it's, I would say it's kind of like the next generation type form for people that really want to get this wrong.

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503.853 - 511.34 Nathan Latka

Well, there's also a use case here where there are CPG brands that always want to collect the video testimonials. And this is a great way to do that.

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511.48 - 515.143 David Okenev

That's a strong use case for us. But I think, you know, recruitment,

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515.377 - 536.981 David Okenev

feedback, you know, just like embedding a video on your website, just as a widget, as a contact form where you can just say, and we have loads of customers using this, just like presenting themselves on the website because they realize that if they put their own personal brand and actually talk to people, they actually get more engagement. And then people might respond by video, audio or text.

537.702 - 543.949 David Okenev

And then, you know, you're suddenly in a conversation with that person because you can reply back. So it's just a really quick way of just like,

544.385 - 570.426 David Okenev

actually like going jumping through all the hoops so you can actually get a meeting and actually create a meaningful and personal connection now do you have the luxury of not having to worry about revenue because you're built inside of tight form which makes revenue in other words do you have a plan for video ads it's a double-edged edged sword because we have the luxury of not having to raise capital or worrying about like running out of funds but you know i i i i

570.929 - 577.478 David Okenev

needs to be successful for us to like carry it on. So I've had that pressure as kind of like the lead on the project.

577.498 - 580.462 Nathan Latka

What does that feel like, David? What does that pressure feel like? What number are you trying to hit?

Chapter 4: What insights can you share about Typeform's customer base?

725.478 - 738.369 David Okenev

Like, we had a big management change, like, two years ago. Actually, I stepped down. I was the CEO. And the company's been performing, like, really, really well. And I think, you know, the momentum's really there now.

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738.449 - 740.411 Nathan Latka

Is Robert – I just don't know because I only know you as Robert.

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740.491 - 746.717 David Okenev

Robert stepped down. Robert stepped down, like, a little bit of time after we both stepped down as CEOs.

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747.157 - 747.958 Nathan Latka

Is he still active?

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748.178 - 748.238

No.

749.585 - 756.536 Nathan Latka

Active on the board level. So you're way more active than he is in terms of operations.

756.556 - 766.832 David Okenev

Yeah. I mean, I'm totally in the weeds. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm product designing, product managing and, and, and, and even coding now. So yeah, totally back, back to square one and loving it.

767.032 - 783.577 Nathan Latka

This is great. Okay. This is very interesting. Do you see, I mean, it'd be very interesting internally to see if the video ask product can eventually overtake the type form product in terms of total revenue. I always cheekily say so, but that's just to create that sense of competition. Talk to me about churn.

783.618 - 791.129 Nathan Latka

So when someone installs a video ask, I assume you want to get them to send two videos in at least 10 minutes to drastically increase that they stick around. What does churn look like today?

Chapter 5: What has been Typeform's funding journey?

821.899 - 835.566 David Okenev

So that's like indicating more and more usage. Plus like strong kind of like higher SMB and enterprise. means that in terms of MRR churn, I think we will probably outperform our main product.

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835.807 - 841.156 Nathan Latka

What's it at today? Do you know what it's at today? The what? The MRR churn? Yeah.

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841.817 - 847.066 David Okenev

Yeah, I think it's around 3%, 3%, 4%.

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848.127 - 850.271 Nathan Latka

That is actually not horrible for this price point.

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850.291 - 865.155 David Okenev

No, no, no. No, I mean, it's higher on time. But it's just typical of this. of this kind of business. We see the same thing with like SurveyMonkey and all. It's just that people use these types of tools like people do to do like campaigns and then they come back and so forth.

865.175 - 869.92 Nathan Latka

Are you in any talks to be acquired by SurveyMonkey? No.

869.94 - 887.68 David Okenev

No, but you know, we did have those conversations. I have met with the SurveyMonkey CEO a couple of times, just casual conversations, but that was way in the past. Just for fun. But no, no, nothing happening there, I can assure you.

888.421 - 895.911 Nathan Latka

All right. Well, look, there's a relationship there, so we'll see what happens. Now, your guys' last round of funding was when?

895.932 - 898.095 David Okenev

A while ago now.

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