How Aida Soft Landed Its First Customer at 60 Seats and $169 Per User (Interview with CEO Joe Long)

Introduction: Joe Long and Aida Soft

Nathan Latka

00:00Hey, folks. My guest today is Joe Long. He's a serial entrepreneur, CFO, COO, CEO for various companies. The secret sauce is fixing and adjusting SMBs for operational efficiency and building perpetual motion teams. He's had four years in the air force, thirty years in around Silicon Valley, and now is focused on certain industries like manufacturing, IT, staffing companies with installers who are actually in the field. He does this via aidasoft.net, his ERP software for flooring companies. Joe,

00:27you ready to take us to the top?

Joe Long

00:29>> I am.

Nathan Latka

00:30Alright. Did I get that right? Aida Soft is your software company?

Origin Story: Spotting the Gap in Flooring ERP

Joe Long

00:34>> That's right. Yep. Aida Soft is a software I started building three years ago, actually.

Nathan Latka

00:39That's amazing. Okay. So where'd you get the idea from?

Joe Long

00:42>> So 2009, I worked for a flooring company and I started in IT early on, but the flooring company had some really antiquated software. 40 years old, started in the eighties. And I thought, wow, we can do better than this. So we built some tools with Excel, built some tools with Access, and then I left the company, so I kinda let it go. Fast forward to 2018, 2019, I found myself back with that same group, different flooring

01:07>> company, still using the same software. So I went out, looked at

01:11>> all Which is what?

Nathan Latka

01:12What were they using?

Joe Long

01:13>> CompuFloor, it's called. CompuFloor. So four main, right? Four main competitors in the flooring industry and it's niche. So everyone built the software who ran a flooring company. And then, yeah, go ahead.

Nathan Latka

01:27No, that's great, I'm just laughing, this is a great story. Who are the other three? So CompuFloor, who else?

Joe Long

01:32>> So there's RFMS, Rollmaster, and those two recently got bought out. So they got bought out by larger companies that are packaging different types of flooring. CompuFloors, one of the independents left, there's another called QFloors. But all of them were started by floor professionals who just needed a better software way back when. So they started in the 80s, in the 90s. I think QFloors was the most recent. But all of them, you know, they're built

01:55>> on old SQL databases and they've all tried to put a new front end on it. Didn't work out. So CompuFloor is actually failing in its transaction. So the inventory isn't accurate, things like that. So I said, well, I'm gonna go ahead and build it now that I have the time and resources.

Nathan Latka

02:10And you're an engineer, are you self taught?

Joe Long

02:13>> No, actually I'm not. I got into the IT world, funny story, back in the Air Force. Right? And when I got out, I found out all of my technology was outdated. So I went into accounting because I could still use computers, still play with Excel, still play with little bits of code. I'm not a coder by any stretch. You know, I learned COBOL, Fortran and BASIC way back when, so didn't keep up with that.

Nathan Latka

02:36So Joe, how do get the MVP built? You start coding us three years ago, how do get the MVP up?

Building the MVP with Outsourced Contractors

Joe Long

02:41>> Right. So what I am good at is building a database. So I built a SQL database, designed it, built the flows around it, and then I outsourced everything. So I think I mentioned when I emailed you that I'm a one man show in terms of that everything else is contracted, everything else is outsourced. And I think I'm gonna keep it that way for a while.

Nathan Latka

02:58I love that. So how many people last month did you pay at least a dollar to do some kind of task for you in Aida Soft?

Team Structure: Six Contractors in India

Joe Long

03:06>> Six. Six.

Nathan Latka

03:07Okay. Okay. Give us a little bit of flavor of what they do.

Joe Long

03:11>> Right. So it's a team out of India. It's a company called Flexin and Seal Logistics. Flexin what? I've got some Flexin, f l e x s I n, and Seal Logistics. So they've done a great job for me. Just contacted and looked up the reviews way back when, and they started working with me over time within the budget that I had.

Development Budget Over Time

Nathan Latka

03:32Which was why? What was the budget?

Joe Long

03:34>> Well, it was about $10,000 a month to begin with, and then it floated up to about $20,000 to $25,000 a month. And now we're just kinda putting icing on the cake, and, you know, we're down to around $10,000 a month.

Nathan Latka

03:45Alright. So how much have you sunk in so far with your own money?

Total Capital Invested: $320K

Joe Long

03:49>> About $320,000

Nathan Latka

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04:15your Stripe account, you see your valuation real time. You can see what it changed over the past eighty eight days and even set goals for valuation this year. Now the secret evaluation is there's many different ways to value a SaaS business. So the reason you're gonna see three or four different valuations inside of your Founderpath dashboard, this is all free by the way, is because depending on who's doing the buying of your SaaS company, you're gonna

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06:15the interview. So how did people are gonna go, wait. How is this guy rich already? Did you have some big exits in your past or or just some savings or what?

Joe Long

06:23>> Right, so throughout all this time, from 2015 forward, I actually restarted a business that I had started during the internet boom back in 1998 to 2002. It was called Q Associates, and Q Associates was an agency, right, who did staffing and consulting. And the secret sauce is, I do what other companies don't do well for themselves. That's the small and medium sized businesses. So maybe they're really good at manufacturing, maybe they're really good at installing

06:45>> floors, but they're not really good at accounting, IT, HR, payroll. So I come in, I smooth those out, I train people, set up teams, and that's kind of the secret sauce. Time when they're helping, I might say, well, outsource your accounting to me, outsource your HR to me.

Nathan Latka

06:59So you make money over there consulting.

Joe Long

07:02>> Right. Right. So that business is more or less evaporated during COVID, right? Because everything and was

07:09>> everyone wanted the PPP money. So I was able to hang on to them and get some PPP money, which also helped to build this software.

Nathan Latka

07:16That's wild.

Joe Long

07:17>> Also, being

Pricing Model: $169 Per Seat

Nathan Latka

07:19So what do they so let let me say both oh, sorry. We're cutting each other off. I apologize. But you move back into Aida Soft then. Once you get going, you start putting it three years ago. Help me understand today, what's the product and what are customers paying at on average per month for it?

Joe Long

07:31>> Right. So it's an end to end ERP system. So from sales to cash, right, all the way through. It handles inventory, accounting, finance, scheduling, labor rates, the whole nine yards for installer companies with installers in the field. Primarily designed for flooring right now, but it can easily be applied to landscaping or electricians, whoever has vans in the field to keep track of. So the rate per user, $169, and our first customer here has about 60 users.

08:01>> So right out of the gate, we're in pretty good shape. We got

Nathan Latka

08:05that Wait, come on, Joe, you gotta explain, I was gonna say, you gotta explain that. How do you land as your first customer, someone that's gonna pay you 60 seats times a $170 a seat or about 10 k in MRR.

First Customer: 60 Seats at the Company Where Joe Is COO

Joe Long

08:15>> I happen to be the COO of that company.

Nathan Latka

08:19So you control the budget. This is insider trading.

Joe Long

08:22>> Right. Well, yeah, I I don't get to choose whether they accept it. The fact that CompuFloor is failing so badly, can't keep track of the finances makes it really easy for me. So literally CompuFloor is failing across its entire customer base. They've had three project managers who've left over the last eighteen months, lead programmer left. So they're struggling. So, you know, it's a ready made market for me. And I don't mind sharing that because I'm first

08:45>> to the egg.

Nathan Latka

08:47When do you, so I was gonna say, when do you, I mean, doesn't eventually, doesn't Aida Soft start growing so fast that you have to leave another company in the COO role or no?

Joe Long

08:55>> Potentially, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've got a team of people around who are willing to work as a contract basis, so I was also the CFO of an IT IT company that did Oracle implementations. So I'm very familiar with the Oracle database environment, they did implementations, they did upgrades worldwide. So they were global organizations. So I've got contacts around the world who are willing to jump in, do an implementation or talk to customers if need

09:22>> be about, you know, what works for their database. I've got a lot of outsourcing capabilities.

Nathan Latka

09:26Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Okay. So so give me a flavor just because my audience doesn't necessarily know what flooring installation sort of like looks like. Right? So when you say 60 people bought a seat at the company, what are the job titles of some of those 60 people?

Joe Long

09:41>> So customer service, they have case management where they take installer calls from the field, accounting, HR, payroll, the operations group who runs the warehouse and the inventory, does the scheduling for the installers. So they've got three locations. You know, they're one of the top 100 flooring companies in The US.

Nathan Latka

10:01Measured by what? Like square feet of flooring installed Revenue. Per revenue. Okay.

Joe Long

10:06>> No, revenue. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a huge one in the Midwest, the big daddy that's private anyway, not the Sherwin Williams of the world, but

Nathan Latka

10:13Who is it? Who's the biggest one?

Joe Long

10:14>> What are they doing revenue? America's Floor Source. And he's well over 100,000,000. His name is Jason Goldberg.

Nathan Latka

10:20Profitable?

Joe Long

10:21>> He's a yeah. Yeah. I went out and visited their their place and, yeah, he runs a a tight operation.

Nathan Latka

10:27So what software does he use?

Joe Long

10:30>> CompuFloor. Ah, okay.

Nathan Latka

10:32You already signed him up.

Joe Long

10:33>> He will be.

Nathan Latka

10:35That's awesome. What what would you get him to switch off of?

Joe Long

10:37>> Well,

Pipeline: 10 Prospective Customers Identified

Joe Long

10:39>> they're they're on CompuFloor, and then they they augment it with an access database. So, you know, they they've done a lot of workarounds there. And really, this is the story with every CompuFloor shop. Right? There there's gonna be a CompuFloor shop probably in every major market. I know of about 10 customers right now that I'll I'll be talking with or, you know, putting in the pipeline. Two of them are there. I'm already in conversation with

Competitive Landscape: CompuFloor, RFMS, Rollmaster, QFloors

Nathan Latka

10:59What's CompuFloor's revenue, you think?

Joe Long

11:02>> You know, I've tried to find that out. I've heard two numbers. Like I talked to one of their project managers when he left. And he didn't wanna give up a lot of information, he was just gone two months. But I got the idea that they had two fifty to three fifty customers. The problem that they did, you know, they didn't take a SaaS model. They were all on prem way back when. So they've taken the on

11:24>> prem and they're trying to make a SaaS model. But instead of reinventing the whole thing, they just slapped the front end on top of their database and it doesn't work well.

Nathan Latka

11:31Interesting. But so what do you think their revenue is? Like, 10,000,000 a year?

Joe Long

11:37>> If that, yeah. I mean, you know, they have a layered approach. So this company pays approximately what they pay for Aida Soft. Right? That's they're running the same thing, $10,000 a month or so. But CompuFloor charges them $800 just to create a license. Just to create a license. And, you know, just selling points like that are a slam dunk. Why would you pay $800 to create a user?

Nathan Latka

12:01Yeah. So why not

Joe Long

12:03>> But, yeah, let's say they're in the neighborhood of 4 or 5,000,000,

Nathan Latka

12:06I guess. You know, I'm thinking a lot about, like, how I wanna spend the rest of my life. And what I'm what I'm realizing is, know, I've seen enough, like, sales, SaaS tools and marketing SaaS tools, you know, selling to other SaaS companies. I love these sort of niche tools that are doing 5 to 10,000,000 a month, especially on prem trying to move to SaaS. You and should just team up and go buy this thing.

Joe Long

12:29>> Oh, you know what? I floated that idea to him. They ignored me. So it's run by a 70 year old guy who's a bit of a kingpin. That's why the employees cite that they leave. Oh. It's because he's too dictatorial. He won't shake it loose. He's got a son who's been trying to, drag it into the future, as I understand it. I've talked to him a couple of times. But yeah, by the user base, right? What

12:49>> Rollmaster got bought by Broad Loom. And they're not really changing it. They're talking about rolling out an ERP system in a year or two. But they've just taken the same on prem Windows based software that looks like it's from the 1990s, and they've packaged it with a couple of other things. Same with RFMS. RFMS just bought by twenty twenty comp something group.

Nathan Latka

13:10So you but you don't think this guy will sell? You don't think he's willing to sell?

Joe Long

13:15>> He'll be pretty motivated as soon as the dominoes start to fall, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I thought about going to Rollmaster and RFMS and telling them the same thing. It's like, look, guys, give me your customer base. I'll you know, whatever your profit is, I'm sure I can match that

Nathan Latka

13:28because Well, so what are you at right now? $60.11 k in MRR? Is that total today?

Joe Long

13:33>> Yep. That's right.

Nathan Latka

13:34Okay. And nothing a year ago. Right?

Joe Long

13:37>> That's right. Yeah. Okay. Now this just rolled out to paying.

Nathan Latka

13:42Yep. What do you think you'll hit this year? Total MRR, like December this year?

Joe Long

13:49>> I think for the next two months, we're gonna perfect it here. Because once you have this reference here, the others will just fall in. So I'd say, you know, by June, they'll probably be 10. And that's just a matter of a rate of implementation that you can do this and get everybody But after that, you know, when you've got two or three references, they'll be calling.

Growth Strategy: Perpetual Motion Contract Teams

Nathan Latka

14:08Just trying get a sense of if you're a killer or not. Right? If you sense this is a big space, like, if and you you wanna go after like, are you willing to do whatever it takes to go sign up these users? Because this just feels like to me, like, there's only 500 potential clients in The US. You know, they only have a maximum of a 100 seats at pops. There's only 50,000 seats you can sign

14:26up at $170 a month. Like, let's go freaking win them.

Joe Long

14:29>> Yeah. So you noticed in my bio, one of my things is to create perpetual motion machine, perpetual motion teams. What I mean by that is you set up a crew of people and you turn them loose. You got a person who's failing and putting them into the pipeline. And then you got a team that goes out and implements, I don't have to be in on that like I am now, right? I'm the subject matter expert, I'm

Implementation Speed and Vertical Expansion Plans

Joe Long

14:47>> the guy who can close it, I know the industry. But once the industry has references, can create these teams and send them off to do this one after another because CompuFloor isn't, the business isn't complicated. The ERP system isn't necessarily complicated compared to a NetSuite or an Oracle. So it's really lift and shift plug and play, probably implementing inside of a week. So, put these teams in motion on a contract basis, Right? There's tons of contractors

15:13>> out there who do implementations. And then we'll work on making it for landscaping and making it for construction teams in the field. So one of the opportunities

Nathan Latka

15:23Sorry. Was gonna say, I hope you scale because you reach out to my emails. I told you I was I told my whole list. I said, I'm I'm hunting for who's gonna build, you know, a $100,000,000 company 1% because they're gonna use contractors. And you said, I'm using contractors pretty well. And I said, you gotta come on the show, but I hope you scale. I hope it works.

Joe Long

15:38>> Yeah. Well, I've got something else in the works that I'll bring to you in a couple of months. If that works, it'll be worth talking about right now.

Nathan Latka

15:43Whatever's doing the most money. That's what I wanna know about.

Joe Long

15:47>> Yeah. That's what I'm looking at. Next I'll tell you the the next one if it works, if this little algorithm I think I've got figured out.

Nathan Latka

15:54Why not this one, though? It sounds like you're onto something good here. You can replace an ugly legacy player. Why not this one?

Joe Long

15:59>> I I will do this one, but I'll also do the other.

Nathan Latka

16:02No. You can't do You can't all stuff. You can't do all this stuff, then nothing works. You gotta how do you is it is it hard? Like, you feel like you can balance all three, all four things at once?

Joe Long

16:13>> No. I mean, with Q Associates, I was literally, you know, the secret sauce, hanging out in five positions with five different companies, COO, CFO, different different positions at different points in time. And, you know, for me, it's it's not that difficult. For me, it's, you know, not me doing the work as much as showing and telling other people how to do the work, finding the right teams, perpetual motion teams.

Nathan Latka

16:35Love that. Alright. We're out of time,

Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions

Joe Long

16:37>> Joe.

Nathan Latka

16:37Let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, favorite business one.

Joe Long

16:39>> You know, it's a throwback. It's think and grow rich. It's what got me started in entrepreneurial mode.

Nathan Latka

16:45It's a good one. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Joe Long

16:48>> I like Tim Cook on the big the big stage, but Arvind Sharma, the CEO of IT Convergence, he's he's a great mentor.

Nathan Latka

16:57Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building Aida Soft?

Joe Long

17:01>> Oh, that's a good one. SQL database is what what I started it with.

Nathan Latka

17:06Number four, how many hours of sleep do get every night?

Joe Long

17:09>> Six to eight.

Nathan Latka

17:10Okay. And situation, married, single kids?

Joe Long

17:14>> I got three grown kids and a nice girlfriend.

Nathan Latka

17:17Three grown kids. Okay. And how old are you?

Joe Long

17:20>> 53.

17:21>> 53.

Nathan Latka

17:22Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20.

Joe Long

17:25>> Don't get married, start a business.

Closing Remarks and Wrap-Up

Nathan Latka

17:29Guys, there you have it. Don't get married. Start a business. Aidasoft.net, he launched it to scratch his own itch. He's working at a flooring company that had a terrible ERP. So I'm gonna build it myself. He then signed him up as his first customer on his new software platform. Now doing $10k a month in revenue, hoping to double that, triple that over the next six to twelve months. What I love about this is a one guy

17:44shop. He's got six contractors that he's done a great job managing. High, high revenue per employee at these scales. Joe, thank you for taking us to the top.

Joe Long

17:52>> Thank you very much.

Nathan Latka

17:55One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM central. It's called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it deal or bust. One founder comes on, three hungry buyers, they try and do a deal live and the founder shares back end dashboards, their expenses, their revenue, ARPU CAC, LTV, you name it, they share it and the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch every Thursday 1PM

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19:04for that at nathanlatka.com/slack. In the meantime, I'm hanging out with you here on YouTube. I'll be in the comments for the next thirty minutes. Feel free to let me know what you thought about this episode and if you enjoyed it, click the thumbs up. We get a lot of haters that are mad at how aggressive I am on these shows, but I do it so that we can all learn. We have to counter those people. We

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