How Aryel Reached €20K MRR and 250 Paying Customers in Under 2 Years (Interview with CEO Mattia Salvi)

Introduction and Overview of Aryel

Nathan Latka

00:00Hey, folks. My guest today is Mattia Salvi. He's the co founder and CEO of aryel, the Italian startup that offers a SaaS AR marketing platform to customers. He's been helping companies in their digital transformation and innovation activities since 2015. Mattia, you ready to take us to the top?

Mattia Salvi

00:13>> Yeah. I'm ready and thanks for this opportunity, Nathan.

How Brands Use AR in Marketing

Nathan Latka

00:16You bet. Okay. So how are companies using AR in their marketing?

Mattia Salvi

00:20>> Yeah. Aryel is a software as a service platform that helps brands and creative agencies to easily launch engaging augmented reality marketing campaigns in the snap without the needs of for coding skills or downloading apps. Our focus is AR marketing and we merge augmented reality with the marketing side with a no code platform that enable marketers to deliver these type of engaging experiences on the entire customer journey. And the platform is built with the vision also to

00:57>> enable them to track data in order to understand if this campaign help them to get a better ROI on, for example, their ecommerce or print media support and on their gamification gamification channel.

Nathan Latka

01:15Understood. So Pirates of the Caribbean, when they're launching, if they wanna create a Snapchat filter with like, you know, a pirate hat or something, they would use you to create that.

Mattia Salvi

01:24>> Yeah.

Pricing and Freemium Model

Nathan Latka

01:25Very cool. Okay. Help me understand what are these brands paying you on average per month to use the technology?

Mattia Salvi

01:31>> Aryel is built as a freemium software as a service model. So it is possible to start with a free plan where you can start to have an initial approach with augmented reality. So this type of account is totally for hobby and for personal users. With €29 per month, it possible as to start with a commercial plan? And yeah, with the different that you can buy inside of the platform, it is possible to boost your account, for

02:14>> example, with white label, custom branding, or you can connect your custom domain and for example, unlock advanced reports.

Nathan Latka

02:24So Mattia, what's the average customer paying you per month? Paid customers?

Mattia Salvi

02:29>> The average price is $150 per month.

Nathan Latka

02:35Okay, interesting. Very cool. Give me the backstory here. When did you launch the business?

Company Founding and First Customer

Mattia Salvi

02:40>> We started on March 2020.

Nathan Latka

02:432020. Okay. Very cool. And how did you guys get the first customer? Do you remember who it was?

Mattia Salvi

02:50>> Sorry. Sorry, Nathan.

Nathan Latka

02:51How did you get your first customer?

Mattia Salvi

02:54>> The first customer when we launched in 2020, we started with a landing page in order to validate the market. So in this scenario, our goal was to

03:09>> tell a story to our possible leads where what is Aryel, what is our goal and which is a possible price for this as a service. So in this opportunity, we gain different leads and we create a small community where

Nathan Latka

03:25Now, Mattia, how did how did I mean, everything you've just described, anyone can do, but how do people get to the landing page?

Mattia Salvi

03:30>> Yeah. On the landing page.

Early Paid Acquisition and Ad Spend

Nathan Latka

03:33How do they find it?

Mattia Salvi

03:35>> Yeah. We we spend about $1,000 on Google and Facebook in order to make some lead generation.

Nathan Latka

03:43Interesting. And do you still spend money on ads today?

Mattia Salvi

03:46>> Yeah. Of course.

Nathan Latka

03:48How much last month did you spend on ads?

Mattia Salvi

03:51>> $10,000.

Nathan Latka

03:52Okay. And how many customers? Like, many free users do you get with that spend?

Mattia Salvi

03:56>> At the moment, we have five more than 5,000 users on our platform where more than 50% is paid today.

Nathan Latka

04:07Wow. That's a huge ratio. So five thousand free users, but 2,500 are paying.

Mattia Salvi

04:13>> Sorry. At the 15 the five thousand five thousand five five thousand thousand thousand user on the platform and the 15% is paid.

Nathan Latka

04:21Yeah. 50%?

Mattia Salvi

04:25>> No. 15%.

Nathan Latka

04:2715%. Okay. Got it. So you've got you've got about 750 paying customers today. Yeah. Is that right?

Mattia Salvi

04:35>> Yeah. Exactly.

Nathan Latka

04:37And then at that $150 average price you just told me, that means you guys are doing about a $110,000 a month in revenue?

Mattia Salvi

04:44>> It depends because we have on we have different type of targets on the customer. We have, for example, freelancer and the small medium and the smaller web agencies that use a very starting plan that comes for 150 per month as average price. But of course, we have also big customers like enterprises or companies that have a more powerful plan with aryel in order to

Nathan Latka

05:16Yeah, Mattia, I understand that. That's why I was asking about the average price that was earlier, right? So are you saying that you're doing more than a $100,000 a month in revenue or less?

Mattia Salvi

05:25>> More, more, more.

Nathan Latka

05:26Oh, you're doing more. Okay, More than so what are you guys at right now? About a 150, $160,000 a month?

Mattia Salvi

05:32>> Yeah. Per month, the average is $250.

Nathan Latka

05:38Oh, I see. Got it. Got it. It. Got it. So if I take $250 a month times seven fifty customers, that's more like $180,000 a month. That's more accurate. That's incredible. You've gone from nothing. You just launched last year to a pretty healthy monthly recurring revenue. Right? Did you have any revenue exactly one year ago?

Mattia Salvi

05:55>> Yeah. We will close the 2020 the 2021 with $300,000 of revenue.

Nathan Latka

06:07Okay. So you finished last year with 300,000 in revenue?

Mattia Salvi

06:10>> Yeah. This year we will finish.

Nathan Latka

06:14I guess I don't understand. If you're doing $180,000 a month in revenue, why would you only do 300,000 total revenue all year this year if you're doing 100 No. And 80

MRR Clarification and Current Revenue

Mattia Salvi

06:25>> Probably that was a misunderstanding. Sorry, Nathan. The average price for each user is €180 per month. Our MRR today is about €20,000 per month.

Nathan Latka

06:46I see. So 25,000 US dollars. You have seven fifty paying customers?

Mattia Salvi

06:52>> Yeah, because in this paid customer, we also consider, for example, customer that comes from a lifetime deal, we run different

Nathan Latka

07:03Lifetime deals. Those are useless in SaaS. How many how many people are paying monthly SaaS fees?

Paying Customer Count

Mattia Salvi

07:10>> At the moment, we have about 250.

Nathan Latka

07:15250. Okay. That makes much more sense. So Yeah. Yeah. You're doing you're doing $25,000 a month today in revenue. What were you doing exactly one year ago?

Mattia Salvi

07:24>> One year ago, we'll close the 2020. We

Revenue Growth from 2020 to 2021

Nathan Latka

07:28No. No. Mattia, in in December of last year, how much revenue

Mattia Salvi

07:32>> December did last year, $5,000.

Nathan Latka

07:35Okay. So you've gone from 5,000 a month to 25,000 a month over the past 12 That's great growth. Have you done that all bootstrapped or did you raise capital?

Seed Round and Fundraising

Mattia Salvi

07:46>> Basically, we are a totally bootstrapped company. We closed the first seed round of $700,000 in November.

Nathan Latka

08:02Sorry. How much? $700,000. $700,000 in November. And that was your that was your pre seed round?

Mattia Salvi

08:12>> The seed round.

Nathan Latka

08:14Seed round. Okay. And most people are selling, you know, somewhere between 10 to 20% of their business in their seed round. Were you guys in that range?

Mattia Salvi

08:21>> Sorry, Nathan.

Nathan Latka

08:22Most people, when you raise equity, you're selling I mean, when you raise capital, you're selling equity. Right? Most people are selling 10 to 20%.

Mattia Salvi

08:32>> Raise totally via SAFE. So at the moment

Nathan Latka

08:36Well, there's a cap. There's a cap usually. There's a 5,000,000 cap?

Mattia Salvi

08:41>> We have a floor of $2,500,000 floor and 8,000,000 of cap.

Nathan Latka

08:49What do you mean 2.5 floor?

Mattia Salvi

08:52>> Because a safe works as a floor and the cap. The floor is the lower valuation and the cap is the higher valuation. Our higher valuation is 8,000,000 today.

Nathan Latka

09:04I sorry. I've seen a lot of SAFE's. I rarely see a minimum. You do just see a cap of of and your and it looks like your cap was 8,000,000. How how does the 2,500,000 floor work?

Mattia Salvi

09:13>> Probably, I don't know if this financial instrument in Italy is different, but you need to specify a range between I see. The comparable item.

Nathan Latka

09:26Interesting. Maybe someone in the audience knows more about that.

Mattia Salvi

09:28>> Oh, the cap is 8,000,000.

Nathan Latka

09:30Yeah. Yeah. Cap is 8,000,000. Okay. That's great. And and so so you're not you say you're bootstrapped. You're not bootstrapped. You've now raised you've you're on the venture path now.

Mattia Salvi

09:38>> Yeah. At the moment, yeah, but until September until sorry. October 2021, we we was totally bootstrapped.

Nathan Latka

09:46And did you said we. Do you have a cofounder?

Co-Founders and Equity Split

Mattia Salvi

09:49>> Yeah. We have four co founder Luca and Leonardo was the first guys who started this project with me. They are two software engineers.

Nathan Latka

10:01Did you three just split it? Did you split the equity equally?

Mattia Salvi

10:05>> I have more equity. I have the free 34% of aryel.

Nathan Latka

10:14Yep. And

Mattia Salvi

10:15>> then there is Luca and Leonardo. They have both 28%. And in the next month also Vincenzo, who is product, head of product, comes into Aryel with 5%.

Nathan Latka

10:29With five. Okay. So 34 to you, 28% to Luca and Leonardo, and then 5% to Vincenzo.

Mattia Salvi

10:34>> Yeah. And then we have a smaller percentage reserved for partners and other guys of the team.

Team Size and Sales Reps

Nathan Latka

10:42For employees. What is the team today? How many people?

Mattia Salvi

10:45>> 15 people. One five. Yeah. 15 people. We

Nathan Latka

10:49have How many engineers?

10:51Five engineers.

10:53Okay. And any sales reps or no?

Mattia Salvi

10:55>> Yeah. At the moment, we have three sales.

Nathan Latka

10:58Pay two sales?

Mattia Salvi

11:00>> Three sales.

Nathan Latka

11:01Three. Very cool. Talk to me a little bit more about how you're driving growth. Obviously, you're spending money on Facebook ads. What's it cost you to get a new $150 a month customer?

Mattia Salvi

11:10>> The cost of them?

Cost Per Lead on Google

Nathan Latka

11:11The cost to get a new customer.

Mattia Salvi

11:15>> It's quite it's quite different today to measure the customer acquisition cost. I can tell you that at the moment on Google, our cost per lead is about $10 per lead.

Nathan Latka

11:27Okay, and you need about six leads because you convert 15% to paid. So you spend about $60 in a new paid account, something like that.

Mattia Salvi

11:34>> Yeah.

Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions

Nathan Latka

11:35Interesting. Very cool. Great story here, Mattia. Let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, favorite book.

Mattia Salvi

11:41>> Favorite book.

11:44>> Favorite book. I don't know the exact title in

11:53>> English, in Italy. The the name of the book is Cashvertising.

11:57>> Okay.

Nathan Latka

11:58Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

12:02A CEO you're studying.

12:07Is there a CEO or a founder that you're following?

Mattia Salvi

12:11>> A CEO, yeah, I love Elon Musk.

Nathan Latka

12:14Number three, what's your favorite online tool?

Mattia Salvi

12:18>> Online tool, Miro.

Nathan Latka

12:19Miro. Alright. Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?

Mattia Salvi

12:27>> How many?

Nathan Latka

12:28Do you sleep? Hours.

Mattia Salvi

12:30>> Yeah. Six hours.

Nathan Latka

12:33Six. Okay. And what's your situation? Married? Single? Kids?

Mattia Salvi

12:37>> Yeah. I'm in I have a girl.

Nathan Latka

12:42Not married? No kids? How old are you?

Mattia Salvi

12:45>> I'm 25.

12:46>> 25.

Nathan Latka

12:47Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20.

Mattia Salvi

12:51>> In your 20?

Nathan Latka

12:53Something you wish you knew when you were 20.

Mattia Salvi

13:00>> Sorry, Nathan. It's not I I don't understand.

Nathan Latka

13:03So when you were 20 years old? Yeah. What's something that you wish you knew?

Mattia Salvi

13:08>> Yeah. I I wish to to create a company like an aryel probably.

Nathan Latka

13:14Guys, there you have it, aryel.io. If your consumer brand or any brand wanna create a VR experience or AR experience for marketing, check them out. They were doing $5,000 a month in revenue a year ago, now doing $25,000 a month in revenue. They just raised $700,000 and their seed round at an $8,000,000 cap with their team of 15 and over two fifty customers. Mattia, thanks for taking us to the top.

Mattia Salvi

13:34>> Thanks again, Nathan, and I hope to speak to you soon.

Nathan Latka

13:38One 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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