Founder Interview
How Content Launch Built a Content Marketing Platform for SMBs with 15 Paying Accounts in 2018 (Interview with CEO and Founder Jon Wuebben)
- Interviewee
- Jon WuebbenCEO and Founder
Company Metrics at Interview Time
Paying Accounts (2018)
15
Price per User (2018)
$100 per user per month
Team Size (2018)
8
Historical Snapshot
These numbers were reported by Jon Wuebben during the interview and are a historical snapshot, not current figures. See Content Launch’s current numbers.
Key Takeaways
- 01Content Launch had 15 paying accounts at $100 per user per month at the time of the interview
- 02A white-label partnership deal was signed with 700 paid users committed to joining
- 03The team consisted of 8 people spread across North Carolina, Eastern Europe, and Irvine
- 04Agency revenue in 2017 was $35,000, driven by a big video project that came out of nowhere
- 05Jon Wuebben spent five years building the platform, including a full rearchitecture after the alpha product failed
- 06The CTO held equity; developers on the team were offered equity but declined
- 07Jon had run an agency for twelve years before deciding to build a software platform
- 08Content Launch had three revenue streams: SaaS subscriptions, content services, and content ordering
Company Metrics at Time of Interview
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Paying Accounts (2018) | 15 | Founder interview |
| Price per User (2018) | $100 per user per month | Founder interview |
| Agency Revenue (2017) | $35,000 | Founder interview |
| SaaS Revenue (2018) | Probably $3,000 to $4,000 per month | Founder interview |
| Team Size (2018) | 8 | Founder interview |
Growth Breakdown
Revenue
At the time of the interview, Content Launch had three revenue streams: SaaS subscriptions, content services, and content ordering. Asked for subscription revenue alone, Jon first said he did not know it off the top of his head, then estimated it at three or four thousand dollars a month: "Probably realistically, we're probably at three or four thousand." The agency side produced $35,000 in 2017, primarily from a video project, and Jon stated the company was transitioning away from agency work to focus on software.
Customers
Content Launch had 15 paying accounts at $100 per user per month. One agency account alone had 10 users. A white-label partnership deal had been signed with a third-party business application, with 700 paid users committed to joining; those users were still being onboarded and were not yet paying.
Team
The team numbered 8 people at the time of the interview, with members in North Carolina, Eastern Europe handling development, and an operations person in Irvine. The CTO held equity; most team members had equity, but developers did not.
Growth Strategy
White-Label Partnerships
Jon credited a signed white-label partnership with a third-party business application as a key growth lever, with 700 paid users committed to joining through that single deal. Those users were still being onboarded at the time of the interview.
Porting Agency Clients to the Platform
Content Launch had approximately 40 agency clients over the prior two years and was porting them onto the SaaS platform while saying no to new agency-type projects such as video work. Jon said he still had "one foot in the agency world" because the transition took time.
Staged Launch Approach
The company used a phased launch strategy: a beta period, a soft launch, the white-label partnership onboarding, and then a planned full official launch with broader marketing, allowing the team to work through bugs before wide release.
Platform Rearchitecture
After the alpha product failed to gain traction due to poor user experience, Jon rebuilt the platform from the ground up, replacing the development team and redesigning both the front end and back end to create a product users could navigate confidently. He said the rebuild was hard: "We spent twice as much money. It's like twice as long to do."
Best Quotes
“Content Launch is a content marketing platform built for small agencies and SMBs. And so the platform basically enables you to plan, create, and distribute all of your content all in one place.”
“A $100 per user per month.”
“We have about 15 paid accounts and then we have, like I said, a big partnership deal we signed where we have 700 paid users committed to joining that account. So we're off to the races. It took a while, but we're finally there.”
“So 15 companies and then in addition we have content writing revenue as well. So that's another revenue stream for us.”
“The reason we did 35 ks last year in agency revenue is because we were working on a big video project that kind of came out of nowhere. We weren't expecting it.”
“I didn't want to run a big agency where I'm managing clients on a day to day basis. I'd already done that for twelve years. So running a software company was the next thing for me, right?”
“I'm learning how to be a software company CEO too at the same time.”
“I wish that I knew then that to just take a risk, take the big risk.”
What Happened Next
At the time of this interview, Content Launch was in the early stages of its SaaS launch, with 15 paying accounts and a signed white-label partnership whose users were still being onboarded. Jon Wuebben described the company as transitioning away from agency revenue and going all in on the software platform. This page reflects what Jon shared during the recording and is a point-in-time snapshot. Visit the Content Launch company profile for further context.
View Content Launch’s current profile and metricsFull Transcript
Chapters
- 0:00Introduction and What Content Launch Does
- 0:28How Content Launch Compares to HootSuite
- 0:51SaaS Model and Pricing
- 1:02Launch Timeline and Paying Customers
- 1:49Revenue Streams and SaaS Revenue Clarity
- 5:47Why Jon Chose to Build a Platform Over Growing the Agency
- 7:19The Alpha Product Failure and Rearchitecture
- 9:00Holding On to Agency Revenue as a Safety Net
- 11:14Bugs, Product Confidence, and Sales
- 13:31Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions
Introduction and What Content Launch Does
Nathan Latka
00:00Hello, everyone. My guest today is Jon Wuebben. He's the CEO and Founder of Content Launch. He's also the author of three marketing books, including Future Marketing: Winning in the Prosumer Age. Jon, are you ready to take us to the top?
Jon Wuebben
00:12Hey. Ready to go.
Nathan Latka
00:13Alright. Tell us about Content Launch. What do you guys do and how do you make money?
Jon Wuebben
00:17Yeah. So Content Launch is a content marketing platform built for small agencies and SMBs. And so the platform basically enables you to plan, create, and distribute all of your content all in one place.
How Content Launch Compares to HootSuite
Nathan Latka
00:28Okay. And I mean, so how does it compare with like a HootSuite or some of these other solutions?
Jon Wuebben
00:33Yeah. HootSuite is a social media management dashboard or scheduling dashboard app, and we're more straight content. So content planning, like helping with topics, actually distributing the content, getting it out there, whether it's WordPress or HubSpot or Twitter. It's not just the social channel, but also other places where content needs to go.
Nathan Latka
00:33And is it a
SaaS Model and Pricing
Nathan Latka
00:51pure play SaaS model from a revenue perspective?
Jon Wuebben
00:53Yeah, exactly.
Nathan Latka
00:54Okay. I don't want to go on every customer cohort, in general, what do customers pay you per month on average?
Jon Wuebben
01:00A $100 per user per month.
Launch Timeline and Paying Customers
Nathan Latka
01:02Okay. That's fair enough. That's good. And then put this on a timeline for me. When did you launch?
Jon Wuebben
01:06So we were in beta last year. We did a soft launch a couple months ago. We signed a big partnership deal for white label partnership a few months ago, we're onboarding a bunch of users there. We're doing an official launch with all the bells and whistles here in a couple of weeks, so we've been doing it in stages.
Nathan Latka
01:24You've launched this year in 2018. Now are you pre revenue to date?
Jon Wuebben
01:27No, we're generating revenue at this point.
Nathan Latka
01:29Okay, you are generating revenue. That's great. So launch this year, you have some beta customers, it sounds like engaged. What are you at today in terms of paying customers?
Jon Wuebben
01:36We have about 15 paid accounts and then we have, like I said, a big partnership deal we signed where we have 700 paid users committed to joining that account. So we're off to the races. It took a while, but we're finally there.
Revenue Streams and SaaS Revenue Clarity
Nathan Latka
01:49Okay. So 15 folks paying a $100 per month. You guys are doing about $1,500 per month right now?
Jon Wuebben
01:54So 15 companies and then in addition we have content writing revenue as well. So that's another revenue stream for us. We're doing about 15,000 MRR right now.
Nathan Latka
02:03Okay. But is that actual pure play SaaS revenue or is that professional services like writing?
Jon Wuebben
02:08Combination of $3. And then have managed services addition.
Nathan Latka
02:14Okay, Jon, you cut out you cut out there. Pure play SaaS revenue is what right now?
Jon Wuebben
02:19Pure play SaaS with the white label partnership. We probably have about 10,000.
Nathan Latka
02:23Okay. But without that, I'm talking about just revenue you're already making. It sounds like you signed a deal that will be in the future, but it hasn't act... They aren't actually paying yet. So just paying today is what?
Jon Wuebben
02:32Oh, yeah. I mean, ballpark... Well, I mean, were you talking? So the the confusing part is we have three revenue streams. We have the subscription revenue, the content services, and then content ordering. So...
Nathan Latka
02:32I'm just talking pure play SaaS revenue. Just the SaaS revenue.
Jon Wuebben
02:32Yeah. And, you know, off the top of my head, I don't know. I I... I'm not I'm not CFO, so I'd have to talk to him about what what it actually looks like.
Nathan Latka
02:56Jon, come on. Just to be clear, you're just launching. As a CEO, you're literally refreshing revenue dashboards every morning because you're... That's the lifeblood of the company. You're telling me right now, you don't know how much revenue you're doing on a SaaS basis per month.
Jon Wuebben
03:07So maybe I'm confused by the question. Are you asking for just subscription revenue? Is that what you're asking for?
Nathan Latka
03:12Yes. Pure play SaaS revenue, not content writing, not professional services. It's the reason I wanna get this number is because I think you're just starting and there's viable lessons when you're just starting. I think you're you're at like $1,500 a month, $100 a month by 15 customers.
Jon Wuebben
03:26Okay. So the... Okay. What we got confused there and I apologize is we have 15 accounts that are... They're paying now, not 15 users. Right? So some of the accounts we have multiple users, we have one agency that's 10 users. So and I don't look at the dashboards every morning because I'm busy doing all kinds of stuff, getting the marketing campaigns going. And once we get to 15, 20 ks in MRR, then I'm gonna be looking
03:49at that. Probably realistically, we're probably at three or four thousand.
Nathan Latka
03:52Okay. Got it. That's interesting to me. So I mean, most people right when they launch a... I mean, I remember when I launched my first company, that was like the literally sales were the first thing I thought of every morning. Was literally refreshing the dashboard. You're telling me you have the ability to just ignore that dopamine hit and totally remove yourself from looking at any sales numbers?
04:12Just Impressive.
Jon Wuebben
04:12I I see
04:13it differently than most people. I'm a marketing guy, right? I'm not a sales guy.
Nathan Latka
04:16You're the founder though, right?
Jon Wuebben
04:18Yeah. But... Woah.
04:19Slow down. Slow down one second.
04:21So so we signed this big white label partnership, right, with this third party. It's another business application. And we have committed, guaranteed an agreement, you know, 700 paid users. So I don't you know, because we signed that deal a few months ago, I see it differently. It's not like
04:35we're and the other thing is we have agency revenue still. So we still have our agency, right? So that's supporting the business. So this is not the end all be all. The startup the software is just one division of our company. So in other words, last year in our agency, we made $35,000 right? So that's why I don't it's not the imperative for me to look at sales every morning. I mean, yeah, I do want I'm
04:55curious. I'm not interested in that. But it's not the end all be all. I'm looking at I'm the visionary of the company, right? I'm trying to scheduling the next phase, actually going be a year now.
05:06So I leave all the sales stuff to my sales guys and I got a great sales team so I I trust them and I know they're gonna they're gonna hit their objectives.
Nathan Latka
05:14Okay. So a couple thousand call it 3,000 per month right now in pure play SaaS revenue with your new SaaS product line. You had an agency in the past that you kind of spun this out of. I totally understand that and you have a separate content writing kind of business as well. Walk me through team size today. How many folks on the team and where's everyone based?
Jon Wuebben
05:29So we have eight people. We have people in North Carolina. We have people in... Actually in Eastern Europe, some developers there. We have operations guy in Irvine. So yeah, we have eight eight on our team right now and we're lean and mean. Now we go... We all wear a lot of hats.
Why Jon Chose to Build a Platform Over Growing the Agency
Nathan Latka
05:47So what... At what point... First off, a lot of the most successful SaaS companies are born out of agencies. But some to... Like where I've seen some work and some not work are people try and do both for too long, so neither one of them gets full attention and they just end up diluted. Where they seem to really work, you know, the best example I would say is Ryan Holmes at HootSuite, know, as an agency, He
06:09grew it to about three, four million bucks in in just professional service revenue. Everyone kept asking for them to manage manually their posting. So he said, gonna build software for this. And then he shut down that agency. He totally washed away 4 or $5,000,000 in revenue and went all in on HootSuite. Now you know they do over $200,000,000 a year in revenue. So question to you is, why launch a SaaS company at all and what do
06:30you have to see on the SaaS side or the agency side to decide to go all in on that one thing?
Jon Wuebben
06:34Yeah. Because I had a choice five years ago. Do I grow my agency and become another big agency or do I build a platform? That was the choice I had and I decided to build platform.
06:42I didn't want...
Nathan Latka
06:42Wait. Why choice? Why was that the choice though?
Jon Wuebben
06:44We can... I'm I'm getting to that, man. Slow down. So the reason I made that decision is because I didn't want to run a big agency. I didn't want to run a big agency where I'm managing clients on a day to day basis. I'd already done that for twelve years. So running a software company was the next thing for me, right? And so I really worked well with software developers. I love conceptualizing things. I love building
07:05stuff. So for me, it was an easy... Easiest decision on that side. It was a hard decision, the fact that I knew it
07:10was going take a lot
07:11of time and I knew it was going take a lot of money. But for me, all roads were pointing towards building a platform. So that's what we did.
Nathan Latka
07:17Okay. You said that was five years ago?
Jon Wuebben
07:18Yep.
The Alpha Product Failure and Rearchitecture
Nathan Latka
07:19Okay. But I thought you just said you're just now kind of launching the the SaaS platform. So what happened in the four years before that?
Jon Wuebben
07:26Yeah. So that's the part that a lot of people, a lot of, you know, startups, a lot of entrepreneurs kind of don't understand or don't appreciate is that it's not easy, right? We had an alpha product two and a half years ago. It was not ready. It was not ready for prime time. We went through the whole thing. We spent a lot of money. We marketed it, and it just was not good enough. We couldn't compete.
07:45So we took it down. We rearchitected the entire front end. We redid a bunch of stuff on the back end. And so what we have now is far and away better than we had two and a half years ago. So yeah, I mean, was hard. We spent twice as much money. It's like twice as long to do.
Nathan Latka
07:59Was the product, Jon?
Jon Wuebben
08:00It was tons. It was the same product. It was just... It just didn't do the same thing. It didn't look the same. Right? So that's the part of the story that a lot of people don't know is that that's what we had to go through to get where we are now.
Nathan Latka
08:12Okay. I'm trying to... Yeah. It's always difficult. It's always hard, but I'm trying to dissect. So what I heard you say was it didn't work because it wasn't architected right and it looks differently. Now it's architected the right way and it looks different. Am I hearing... Is it accurate?
Jon Wuebben
08:26Completely different product. I mean, the user experience was substandard with the first... The alpha product. People didn't know where to click, where to go. Users were confused. We were in love with our ugly baby, right? We were... We thought it was great. And we used it internally and it was great, but we couldn't get buy in. We couldn't get people to pay for it. So yeah, we had to reinvent it. We had to reinvent the platform.
08:46We had to take a step back and we had to... I got rid of my developers. I actually went through a lawsuit with some developers, and I won in that lawsuit. So that was the... Mean, whenever you start a company there's good, bad and the ugly and that was the ugly part.
Holding On to Agency Revenue as a Safety Net
Nathan Latka
09:00Okay. So back to my initial question which was five years ago you said you had to make this decision and I said why did you do this and you said well I asked myself do I want to run a big agency or build software and you said software. But you still have agency revenue. So why are you holding on to that safety net? Why not cut it completely and force yourself to go all in on the
09:16SaaS product? You even said it, you don't even think about the SaaS product each morning, you don't look at the revenue numbers.
Jon Wuebben
09:20Yeah, well no we have done that. Mean that's just been recently. So we did divest it. The reason we did 35 ks last year in agency revenue is because we were working on a big video project that kind of came out of nowhere. We weren't expecting it. It's clearly not a software kind of project, so that still fell under agency type of project. And we've done a lot of video in the past for IBM and other
09:40companies. So we're now saying no to those kind of projects. What we're doing is porting over all the agency clients into the platform. And we have about 40 agency clients for the last two years we're doing that. So now, yeah, we're all in. It's all about software moving forward.
Nathan Latka
09:54But but Jon, so I hate to be blunt here and you have to forgive me, but you you mean you just said each morning you don't even look at sales numbers because you're dealing about the visionary and looking at other stuff and other revenue streams and parts of the company. I mean, if you were all in, you'd be all in on the SaaS product. You're not right now based off what you told me. I'm just trying
10:08to understand why strategically.
Jon Wuebben
10:09Your opinion?
Nathan Latka
10:10I mean... Well, sorry, Jon. Sorry. I don't want my opinion. I want the... I want facts. So if I'm wrong, tell me I'm wrong.
Jon Wuebben
10:16No. I I don't think you're wrong. It's just way... One way of seeing it. You see it that way and I see it different. I don't I don't wanna get caught up in the minutiae of, oh, how much how much sales did we do last night? How many sales did do last week? Because I I don't think that's a healthy way to... Healthy place to be.
Nathan Latka
10:30No, Jon. That's not that's not what I'm referencing. All I'm referencing is I've seen companies again we've done 3,000 these interviews. We we we can look at some different patterns. We've seen patterns that are good, bad or ugly and sometimes they're just a pattern and it doesn't mean anything. One of the things for sure is people tend to have safety nets in life and some of them tend to be money safety nets and they hold on
10:48to the safety nets on things, whether it's getting a college degree or holding on to revenue or corporate job. You've got a cash flow producing agency, $35,000 last year. It's a great safety net. But a lot of times people they will never actually drive and push the software product if they don't cut the safety net. I'm just trying to get in your head. I'm not saying tell me your QuickBooks analytics dashboard, but you told me that
11:08you were not focused exclusively on the software product earlier in the interview. So I'm just trying to understand why are you not 100% on that?
Bugs, Product Confidence, and Sales
Jon Wuebben
11:14Well, I think I am. Maybe I just didn't communicate that correctly. Look, I'm wearing a lot of hats and and yeah, maybe my... I still do have one foot in the agency world. It's... It takes time to transition and I'm... You know, we're getting through that. I think one of the problems for me, here's the honest truth, is that we've had over the last few months, we've had some bugs, some troubling bugs with the platform that,
11:35you know, I'm not a software developer, so it's frustrating for me. I talk to my team about them and they keep happening, so we're working through those. So until I have a product that's pretty much bug free and it works the way it's supposed to work, then I'm going to be a little cautious, right? So I do have to be a little bit hesitant in terms of if we've got a bug that can't be fixed in
11:56two, three weeks and we're still having the issue, then I don't feel confident enough to release it widely to a bunch of new customers. So for me, that's been a learning experience. That's been something I've had to kind of understand, okay, this is how software development is. And by the way, Facebook has bugs every day. Google has bugs every day. It's the nature of software. But... So that's part of it for me. So, yeah. I mean,
12:19I'm probably not giving you the exact answer that you want to hear, but that's...
Nathan Latka
12:19There
12:22are no answers that I want to hear. This is about you. I mean what I will tell you, I try and predict what my audience is thinking. My audience hears that what they're gonna think is what you just said. It's it's the business leaders role like there's always gonna be bugs and if that business leader never wants to make a sale because they're worried about the next bug, they're never gonna grow. So right the question to
12:41you is, how do you do both? You have to be able to handle bugs and drive sales confidently at the same time. How do you do both?
Jon Wuebben
12:46There's there's bugs. The platform is important. Full of functionality applications in terms of ordering content. So that's why we've had to kind of just kind of push pause and say, okay, what's what's going on here? And just in the last couple of days, we've gotten some resolutions. So it's... There's different levels of, I guess, bug fixing, if you will, and so we're going through that. We're going through the growing pains just like any new software application
13:09does and I'm learning how to be a software company CEO too at the same time.
Nathan Latka
13:13Does your dev team have equity? I mean, they motivated that way or are you trying to keep them as just salaried employees?
Jon Wuebben
13:18Yeah. So the CTO does, our CTO. I've offered equity to developers. They weren't real excited about that. I mean they wanted... It's a personal choice. Most of the people on our team do have equity, but the developers don't.
Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions
Nathan Latka
13:31Yeah, interesting. Okay, very good. Let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, what is your favorite business book?
Jon Wuebben
13:38Probably a biography of Steve Jobs.
Nathan Latka
13:41Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying right now?
Jon Wuebben
13:44Elon Musk.
Nathan Latka
13:45Number three, what is your favorite online tool for building your business?
Jon Wuebben
13:49Online tool? In the past, it's been HubSpot. I think currently, it's probably our own tool.
Nathan Latka
13:55Number four. How many hours of sleep do get every night?
Jon Wuebben
13:58Six and a half.
Nathan Latka
13:58Six and a Okay. Great. And what's your situation? Married, single, kids?
Jon Wuebben
14:02Single.
Nathan Latka
14:03Single. No kiddos yet?
Jon Wuebben
14:04No kids.
Nathan Latka
14:05None none run around that you don't know about?
Jon Wuebben
14:07No.
Nathan Latka
14:08Alright, Jon. And how old are you?
Jon Wuebben
14:0947.
Nathan Latka
14:1047.
14:11Last question. What do you wish your 20 year old self knew?
Jon Wuebben
14:19I wish that I knew then that to just take a risk, take the big risk.
Nathan Latka
14:24Guys, take a big risk earlier from Jon. Built a great agency producing revenue, but decided about five years ago, does not wanna be in the agency business long. So we launched Content Launch which is really a software platform. It's gone through some growing pains but is now just going through kind of beta launch phase here in 2018. 30 customers paying call, you know, a $100 per month each. So they're about $3,000, $4,000, something like that per month
14:48in pure play SaaS revenue as he looks to shift more of his focus, more of his energy strictly on the SaaS revenue and away from agency or content writing or other professional services stuff. Jon, thank you so much for taking us to the top.
Jon Wuebben
14:59Thanks, Nathan. Appreciate the time.