SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
Webboss Raised $500k on $1m Vlauation in 2015. Where are they now?
29 Aug 2021
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
We're doing around about 20,000 a month now. And back then, it was probably about five or six, I would say. We've not grown a lot, but we've had to sort of split our work between development and service, which is not really what we want to do. You are listening to conversations with Nathan Latka.
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Hey folks, my guest today is Kev Wilson. He founded his company webboss.io in 2011 along with his son Luke. They've put over 40,000 hours of development into the system and they believe it's the world's most powerful CMS website builder and hosting platform. It's already used by many of the UK's largest companies and August 19th sees webboss launched globally as a feature deal by AppSumo.
Kev, you ready to take us to the top? Yeah, sure. Okay. So what is this? I mean, should people think of this like an alternative to WordPress? Absolutely. I mean, every time we see a new system come up, everybody says, this is the alternative to WordPress. And we look at them and they're not, but we really are. I mean, we spent a long time developing this.
Probably in hindsight, we could have done things a bit differently. How long? When did you launch? We actually launched about five years ago. really, but we were forced into that. So in England, getting the investment for this sort of project isn't the same as the US. Yeah. You've raised, you've raised money. How much? About half a million dollars. When did you do that raise?
That was about six years ago. Okay. So in like 2015? Yeah. Okay. And, and, and so you raised, sorry, you said 500,000? Yes. Yeah. And, and what was that on a cap? Like, did it have a valuation on it or no? That was just on a million pounds basis. Pre-money or post-money? That was pre. Okay. So 1.5 posts. And then you're building now today. So tell me about a customer that's using you guys.
How do they use you? What we've done is because, as I say, we wanted a couple of million investment. This has been very hard to get in the UK for our sort of product. A bit old-fashioned in most investors. So we started looking for referral partners.
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Chapter 2: What is Webboss and how does it compare to WordPress?
Is it still you and Luke? We've got four at the moment. We get a bit higher sometimes. We get a bit busy. We might need a few more designers to keep the service model going. But the core developers, there's just two. It's Luke and Ollie. And so, okay, so two developers. Do you develop two or no? Not really. I usually come up with the ideas and get them to do the work. Yeah, that's good.
You do all the fun stuff and then they do all the labor, you know? Yeah. All right. Fair enough. Are you guys profitable today? We're borderline breakeven. Okay. And how many customers are paying you something monthly, monthly SaaS? Obviously, it's around about 200. 200? Yeah. Okay. And are they sticky? What does churn look like? It's virtually nil. Honestly, it is.
We've got customers going back. I mean, we started rolling out properly probably about four years ago. Before that, we were obviously building sites to test it, and those customers are still with us. In fact, one customer going back almost 10 years is just having the new rebuild done. Yeah. There's no need to leave. That's what's different about WebBoss. It really is everything.
Chapter 3: How much funding did Webboss raise and what was the valuation?
You can expand it. Well, it sounds like they pay you like two or three grand to build the thing, whether it's the app or the website. And then they can manage updates, color changes, things like that using WebBoss. So they're never going to cancel. Absolutely, yeah. And also you can archive a design. You can also stack multiple designs.
So for seasonal changes like Easter, Christmas, you can have them and just switch them at any time. The way we built the system, it's modular. So if you want to change your design, you don't want to alter your content, it just flips it automatically. And Kev, how did you guys split up equity? How much do you own?
Not as much as we would like to really, because I say investment in the UK is a bit different, but me and Luke own just over half of the company. Remote teams are all the rage right now. In fact, many companies want to stay this way, even post-pandemic. And the reasoning's obvious. Hiring talent from anywhere in the world means you can bring on better talent. But the challenges are very real.
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Chapter 4: How did Webboss grow its customer base and revenue?
Check it out today before you miss out. anyone else own anything besides the investors or it's just you, Luke, and the investors? Just me, Luke, and the investors. Okay. Would you sell the company today for a million all cash up front? No. You said that very quickly. I know because it's worth a lot more than that. How much would you sell for?
I'm not in any rush to sell at the moment because, I mean, we hope AppSumo will really sort of get us out there. I mean, the big problem we've got is because we've had no marketing. If we try and sell directly, people have never heard of us.
Chapter 5: What challenges did Webboss face in the UK market?
yeah, to put something like reach or rhyming or something because I've heard of them. So they'll buy it without question. So we've been after funds for marketing, but I think hopefully AppSumo, we're a featured deal with AppSumo. They approached us as well. It goes out on the 19th of August. So hopefully.
Lifetime deals, which is what AppSumo is known for, can destroy the economics of a SaaS business for a variety of reasons. How did they convince you to give and agree to a lifetime price point? Because I'm looking at, if we were to raise the money and invested that in marketing, I'd probably do the same to get the same amount of return. And it's only a short thing for a lifetime deal.
What do you mean? Hold on, is it lifetime or is it a short-term thing? It's lifetime. So it's lifetime. But we can, I mean, if we sell 10,000, I hope we could, you know, if we do 10,000 sales, that would fit into our running costs quite comfortably. Okay. Sort of an ongoing cost. I'm not worried about that. Yes, I can understand why people think like that.
But to get our name out globally, I mean, we would have to spend a few hundred thousand dollars in marketing to do that. That's possible. It's not going to cost us that much in servicing those sites. I mean, you sort of will get this. It's like a drug. You'll get the hit of initial cash from the absolute deal.
But if you can't convert any of those into monthly recurring plans to grow your 4,000 a month and stacking sales, it just all goes away the month or two after that. And you're stuck supporting thousands of new people that love deals that are going to overwhelm your support channels. And that's all you're going to do all day, every day. So how do you think about that?
Because we're always adding to the system. So there's always going to be no updates. We're going to be doing a fulfillment package as a fulfillment partner we're working with. A lot of companies want to work with us. The problem we have is that end users don't know about us. I say that's why we need marketing. So we'll add a fulfillment plugin to the system or modules, we call them.
And so that's an extra monthly charge if you want that. So we're adding things all the time. Yeah, but how many do you think? People on AppSumo are people, they're like JCPenney shoppers. They love deals. They're Groupon shoppers, right? So how do you convert them into a monthly recurring plan?
What gives you so much confidence that you're just going to add a feature and they're going to start paying monthly? Well, to be honest, I'm not looking at the AppSumo deal as the main conversion. I'm just looking at the AppSumo promotion as getting a name out there in front of a lot of people because once they've bought their deals, that's it, isn't it? They're not going to be buying.
If they want another site, they're going to have to pay the full back for it. And if they are developers, they're going to have to pay the ongoing rate, which is normal. Well, that's why I'm asking you. So you believe that a large chunk of these folks will start paying you monthly in the future? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
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Chapter 6: What is the revenue model for Webboss and how does it break down?
Well, we'll see what happens, Kev. In the meantime, let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, you said you don't read a ton of books. We're going to skip it. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? Apart from you. Oh, that's... Now you can't... You should have gave me all these compliments at the beginning. Then I would have gone easier on you, you know? I like the big guys.
I mean, they're in the UK, Richard Branson, to be honest. I mean, that's... Number three. I like the big ones. I mean, I like Elon Musk because he's out of the box. Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building webboss? I didn't do that side of it, so I wouldn't even want to answer that question. What's your favorite online tool? Webboss, actually. Okay, except webboss.
Yes, I know any, Jake. Sorry. It's a good point, actually, because I don't tend to do anything else. Okay, great. We'll skip it. Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night? About six. And what's your situation? Married, single, kiddos? We know you have one. Married with three kids. Three kids. Okay, very cool. And how old are you? I'm not telling you that. You can skip that.
Okay. No problem. Last question. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20? How to structure an investment deal properly. How to what? structure and investment deal properly. Are you not on good terms with your investors? Um, it could have been better. It's not, we're not on bad terms. I said that we didn't know we were new to this when we got involved. And, uh,
I think if I knew what I know now, it'd be handled a lot differently. All right, guys, there you have it. WebBoss.io, easily create websites and apps. They were doing $20,000 a month about a year ago, still doing about $20,000 a month because of COVID. They've been flat, but they've got over 200 customers. They're about breakeven today with a team of four. Kev, thanks for taking us to the top.
Thank you.
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