BizMachine Revenue (2025)

[00:00] He launched bizmachine.com as an agency back in 2017. Today, it's almost it's 90% SaaS doing about $1,400,000 in revenue across 250 customers paying on average $350 a month. Those customers are licensing data and seats from his platform, bizmachine, to go close more deals. So it's a B2B SaaS sales tool built and based in Prague and focused on customers that are in Europe. Hey folks, my guest today is Martin Ondas. He's leading bizmachine, the Prague based SaaS [00:26] company that builds B2B sales intelligence and prospecting platform for companies in Central Europe. The mission is to provide maximum depth of intelligence to regional B2B professionals with specialized insights into e commerce, FinTech, ICT, and automotive fleet markets. Martin, you ready to take us to the top? [00:44] >> Hello, very nice to be here. [00:46] It's great to have you. So give me an example of a customer that's paying you guys today. [00:50] >> Well, the range is quite broad from small sales teams of two to four salespeople up to an enterprise with a sales force of two fifty people. So the size doesn't really matter for us. What's more important is that they're really interested in the regional or local sales market, rather than, you know, tapping to an international database. We go quite deep in individual industries and individual use cases for that particular vertical of the customer. [01:22] And so like, should we think of you like an outsourced SDR agency? Or are you using technology here to solve this problem? [01:27] >> We're using technology. So actually, started as an SDR agency, kind of a consulting business about three years ago. About 70% of our revenues was one off project revenues. And at that point, also with COVID started [01:43] What year was that, Martin? [01:44] >> Three years ago, early twenty twenty. [01:47] Okay. And can I ask you how much revenue agency revenue you did in 2020? [01:53] >> Yeah, less than a million dollars. [01:55] Okay. Got it. So you had some traction, but you weren't doing, you know, We four had some traction. [02:00] >> At that point, decided to invest much more into technology, into the platform, into self-service, etcetera. Especially the mission was to bring the insights and advanced analytics benefits that a large corporation could buy from us to bring it to a much smaller sales team. And we knew that we had to invest much more into the platform so that things are not ad hoc and customized all the time, and then they can actually tap to it. Today, this [02:28] >> one kind of project revenue is less than 17%. So 83% is our recurring revenue. And most of that is directly from the platform as a data license and user license, whether used by users and the user interface or an API to their systems. [02:45] And so Martin, what does the average customer pay you per month on the SaaS side of things? [02:51] >> It's $4,000 a year. So that would be like 350 a month. [02:56] And so what if someone's paying you 4,000 a year, how many seats are they getting? What's the date of license look like? What's included in that plan? [03:04] >> They would typically have, you know, four to five seats. So that's kind of the sweet spot. Now we also have others that have two fifty seats. But the median kind of the basic package is four to five seats. And we license data and seats separately. So either you have very broad and detailed data sets, even if it's one seat, it could be quite expensive, or you have many seats. So we can scale both through depth of [03:32] >> data or number of seats that are using it. Typically, the license would include both. [03:37] Yeah. Okay. Very cool. And you mentioned some of your accounts have hundreds of seats or a lot of seats. Don't name the customer, obviously, but what is your largest customer pay per year? [03:47] >> More than a $100,000. [03:49] Okay. So interesting. And that's, and when you say you sell the seats separately from the data license, how do you even package and sell a data license? What does that even mean? [03:58] >> Well, it's always a bit of a negotiation. So above certain size, it's an enterprise deal, obviously. And it would, with the large customers, it would always include user license, data license, some integration, and maybe even custom work on top of that. [04:15] Oh, what's going on there, YouTube? Good to see you guys. Now imagine this, you love watching these interviews with SaaS founders. But imagine if we took all of the valuation data out from over 2807 interviews I've done manually saves you a lot of time. Well, we've done this. We've built it into the beautiful interface inside of Founderpath. Check this out. I'll show you how you can access this in a second, but you log in, you connect [04:38] your 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 [05:03] get a different valuation. A VC is gonna pay a different valuation. Private equity firm is different. If you're gonna do a minority sale, that's different. And if you sell the whole business, that's a different valuation. You can see all those when I hover over here, Right? So the teal is what a VC would pay. Yellow is what private equity and red is if you sold the whole thing outright. Now what's cool about this is this is [05:25] not built off random data. Again, you guys hear these interviews on YouTube. All these datas are built from real time valuation data points founder share with us on the show. So traction, 1,200,000 seed round, 3.7 raise. They sold 22% of their business. Go in here and filter by the event. Maybe you only wanna see companies that have sold the whole business. Well, here are a bunch that have been acquired the valuation and the multiple. Maybe you're [05:50] going out right now and you're raising your seed round. We'll go in here and look at all this recent seed deals that went down, what they raised, what valuation they raised at, and what percent that they sold. There's never been a larger dataset of SaaS valuations than what you can get now inside of Founderpath. And we're thrilled to bring it to you. Alright. We're gonna go back to the YouTube video here in a second, but if [06:12] you wanna check this tool out, if you wanna jump in and sign up, you can check it out for free to get your valuation at this link. This link, founderpath.com/products/valuations. Or if you go to founderpath.com and hover over products, click on get your valuation here, and go ahead and sign up to give it a whirl. Again, all that valuation data live right inside the platform. I hope to see you there. Alright. Let's jump back into the [06:39] interview. Interesting. Now put this on a timeline for us. Obviously, you it sounds like you pivoted the agency in 2020 to more tech, but when did you launch the agency? What year? [06:48] >> 2017. [06:49] 2017. Okay. And then you pivot in 2020. And I guess fast forward to today, how many customers are you working with? [06:55] >> Two fifty customers. [06:57] Wow. How did you get the first 100? What was the strategy? [07:01] >> Well, some of them were transitioned from the agency business to the platform. So we knew them, we knew what they needed. We transitioned them all the way at the beginning. It was through references mostly. And [07:16] >> I would say the first 20 or 25 were references. And at some point we started cold calling. [07:22] That's amazing. So two fifty Almost like a door to door Salesforce, yeah. [07:27] >> Well, sometimes that's the hustle it requires, [07:30] but two fifty customers paying $350 per month would mean you're doing about $87,000 per month in revenue today. Is that accurate? [07:38] >> So our total revenue is about one point four, one point six million dollars a year. [07:44] Okay. And that's on but that's because you're adding on the agency revenue on top of the SaaS, right? The 17% of the [07:49] >> Yes, one the SaaS only would be one point one, one point three million. [07:55] Yep, yep, yep. And so what do you think what do you think you'll grow to here in 2023? [07:59] >> On the SaaS part, something like 20%. [08:03] Okay. Interesting. And are you guys bootstrapped or have you raised capital? [08:06] >> Totally bootstrapped. So we had some initial seed funding from the founders, three of us. And since then it's bootstrapped. [08:14] Now, you guys nice to each other at the start? Did you split equity '33, '33, '33 or what? [08:19] >> Exactly what we did at the beginning. Yes. [08:22] Was that the right decision? [08:25] >> Maybe not, but let's see. [08:27] Well, tell us what you learned. A lot of first time founders are listening and maybe they're in the middle of an equity negotiation right now at their first SaaS company. What can they learn from you? [08:34] >> Yeah, look, there's always pros and cons. I'm coming now back and listen to other war stories of what other entrepreneurs have seen and done. And if I look at it today, of those three founders, I'm the only one active now in the company. [08:53] So Were the other two on a vesting schedule, or did you buy back their equity? [08:58] >> Not yet. [08:59] Are you working on it? [09:00] >> Not yet. We're negotiating, discussing, we had a spin off, etcetera. So it's a bit complex, but everything will be right. [09:08] So is that a mistake not to have all the founders on vesting schedules because now you have 60% of the equity not active in the company? [09:15] >> I think it was a mistake. You know, we say, we have a saying here that [09:22] >> friends need good setup and good friends need even a better setup. Having a formal structure is not in the detriment of a relationship. It's the opposite. So it probably would have been a bit easier. [09:36] Interesting. Interesting. Okay. Well, you're scaling nice today. I guess walk me through how many folks are full time at the company. [09:42] >> We're 20 people. [09:44] 20 people. And how many of those folks are engineers? [09:48] >> Exactly half. So 10 engineers. Yeah. [09:53] And are you an engineer [09:55] >> That by includes data scientists, data engineers, and software engineers. Yeah. [09:57] Are you an engineer? [09:59] >> No. No. I used to be a long time ago, but not for the last fifteen years. [10:03] You're a Lotus guy. Right? [10:05] >> No. I worked for SAP as a software engineer. [10:08] Ah, okay. [10:08] >> Long time ago. Yeah. [10:09] Very very cool. So you've bootstrapped today. Now tell me why you've decided to bootstrap. [10:17] >> Well, at the beginning, it was more to keep the control of the company. So that was the primary motivation. And it was relatively easy for us to sell projects consulting. [10:30] >> And after a while, I would say one year ago, if you had asked me one year ago, would have said, No, we're on a path to go and get venture funding to accelerate the growth. Now, you know what happened with the multiples and everything. So we're bootstrapping another year, I would say. [10:43] That's awesome. What about exit scenarios? I mean, it sounds like there's an opportunity right now because you're sort of trying to figure out a bunch of equity that's not active anymore. I mean, if someone came in today and just offered you 3,000,000 all cash for the whole company, would you sell? [10:58] >> No. Probably not. Probably not. [11:01] You had to think about that. [11:03] >> Yeah. I need to convert to crowns, Czech crowns, you know. [11:08] Let me phrase it differently. [11:10] >> Think there's more potential than that. I would be much more interested in a strategic buyer that sees benefit in the technology and the IP that we have and wants to develop it further. [11:22] Well, let's say it is that, let's say it is, Martin, let's say, let's say it is that kind of buyer. Yeah. Yeah. Let's say it is that buyer, they come they offer, you know, three x your annual revenues, all cash upfront. [11:36] >> Three x is borderline and the team would have to agree with it. [11:39] Interesting. Okay. Does the team own equity? [11:42] >> No, but we will be having an ESOP plan. [11:45] Ah, okay. Very good. Very good. Love that. Well, I love how you're building the company. I love how you're scaling. What's the plan to go from, you know, two fifty customers to 500 customers? Is it just cold calling and hustling or what's the growth strategy? [11:57] >> So right now our CAC is about 4.5 months of recurring revenue. So about $1,200 Yeah, something like that. So between four and five months. And it's mostly sales, very little marketing. We'll be growing the marketing portion, but we have to learn as we go. Yep. So I think [12:21] >> over the last year we more than tripled the inbound leads generation and the references and everything. So it's looking good and let's see where it takes us. [12:31] More room for you. In the meantime though, let's wrap up here with Famous Five. Number one, what's your favorite business book? [12:39] >> Probably Principles from Ray Dalio. [12:42] Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? [12:46] >> Quite recently, I checked out lots of Patrick Bet David, you know him from Valuetainment. You know, I get inspired by people who are [12:59] >> kind of hustlers go through a difficult story and are successful in the end. And it's a very different life story to mine. And I like to see that. [13:08] Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building bizmachine? [13:11] >> Oh, I have a favorite one every month, but I think Make and Slack. Make and Slack. [13:16] Okay. Number four, [13:18] how many hours of sleep do get every night? [13:20] >> During week or weekend? [13:24] During week. [13:24] >> Six to seven. [13:25] Six to seven during the week. Okay. [13:27] And what's your situation? Married? Single? Kids? [13:30] >> Well, I'm married. I have five kids. [13:32] You have five kids? [13:34] >> Yes. [13:34] Oh my gosh. You're a busy guy. How old are you? [13:37] >> I'm 47. [13:38] 37? [13:40] >> 47. [13:41] 40. 47. Wow. Okay. 47, five kids, you still get seven hours of sleep. This is incredible. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20, Martin? [13:51] >> Trust your own judgment more. [13:54] Guys, there you have it. He launched bizmachine.com as an agency back in 2017. Today, it's almost it's 90% SaaS doing about $1,400,000 in revenue across 250 customers paying on average $350 a month. Those customers are licensing data and seats from his platform bizmachine to go close more deals. So it's a B2B SaaS sales tool built and based in Prague and focused on customers that are in Europe. Martin, thanks for taking us to the top. [14:19] >> Thank you, Nathan. [14:20] One 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 [14:45] Central. Additionally, remember these recorded founder interviews go live. We release them here on YouTube every day at 2PM Central. To make sure you don't miss any of that, make sure you click the subscribe button below here on YouTube, the big red button, and then click the little bell notification to make sure you get notifications when we do go live. I wouldn't want you to miss breaking news in the SaaS world, whether it's an acquisition, a big [15:08] fundraise, a big sale, a big profitability statement or something else. I don't want you to miss it. Additionally, if you want to take this conversation deeper and further, we have by far the largest private Slack community for B2B SaaS founders. You want to get in there. We've probably talked about your tool if you're running a company or your firm if you're investing. You can go in there and quickly search and see what people are saying. Sign [15:29] up for 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. 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 [15:49] got to push them away. Click the thumbs up below to counter them and know that I appreciate your guys'support. All right. I'll be in the comments. See you.