CookieFirst Revenue (2024)

[00:00] Folks. My guest today is Tom Van den Bos. Right after business school and education web development, he started a web development agency with his brother in 2010. After that took off, he started focusing and noticing the increased demand in legal tech, privacy SaaS. They launched the web agency and then eventually built their first privacy SaaS tool, Cookie First. Having that background on online marketing and digital design, these are currently his roles at Cookie First as he looks to [00:24] scale the business. Privacy software as a service at cookiefirst.com. Tom, you ready to take us to the top? [00:31] >> Yes. Of course. [00:33] Tom, you ready to go? [00:34] >> Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Yeah. [00:36] So cookiefirst.com is the website. Who who tell us who you're selling to. Who are the customers today? [00:42] >> Well, varies a lot. So it could be small business owners to, yeah, to corporates and everything in between. So we got yeah. It's also from different sectors because, obviously, everybody in every company in the EU needs to comply with the current regulations. So in The US, you might not have these privacy regulations yet, at least not the federal federal federal laws. But in Europe, we do have that. [01:24] So And, Tom, what are what are brands and companies? What are they paying on average per month to use your technology? [01:31] >> Well, we have a per domain pricing and per sub domain pricing. So depends on your plan. Could be €9 a month or €19 a month per domain and per sub domain. Obviously, larger clients, they have multiple websites, multiple domains. So, yeah, we got clients that pay a thousand euros a month, but also, of course, clients which pay just €9 a month. [02:02] Is a thousand dollars a month your highest paying customer? [02:06] >> Well, [02:09] >> I guess it's the highest paying customers could be €1,500 a month. [02:15] Okay. [02:16] >> Yep. [02:16] And how many websites would they be managing probably? [02:19] >> Well, we do I need to to look that up because we do have the bulk discounts. So we have two pillars which we base the monthly fee on, which is the number of domains and the monthly traffic, the combined traffic across all domains and subdomains. Mhmm. So suppose a company would come to us and they say, okay, we got a lot of domains, but small traffic across the domains, then we might be able to [02:55] >> give them a bulk discount. [02:58] Understood. So there's a big range here, $15 a month up to 1,500 per month. But if you look at all your paying customers today, I'm gonna force you into an average here. What's the sweet spot? Is $500 a month a good sweet spot? [03:09] >> So if you would take in the the the average [03:13] Yes. [03:13] >> Okay. [03:18] >> I think average on average, customer would pay [03:25] >> €30 a month. [03:27] 30. So two two domains. Two or three domains. [03:30] >> Yep. [03:30] Okay. Fair enough. Let's get the backstory here. When did you launch the business? [03:36] >> We launched the business in at at the end of two thousand nineteen. So in October, we went live at October 2019, and we did some some prelaunch, soft launch before that. [03:54] 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 2,807 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 [04:18] 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 [04:42] 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 [05:04] 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 [05:30] 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 [05:52] 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 [06:18] interview. [06:19] >> And right from the start, it's headed off because, [06:25] >> yeah, GDPR was kicking in. A lot of requirements at the at the end of twenty nineteen. So, immediately we got got clients on it. [06:36] Do you remember how much total revenue you did your first term business in 2019? [06:41] >> In 2019, it was not it was not that much. I guess it was 15 k, but it was, of course, the last the last two months, and we're just we're just kicking in. [06:54] >> 2020, it was, I guess, almost 300 k euros. [07:04] >> So, yeah, from there, it it grew it grew a lot. [07:08] What are you at today? [07:12] >> Last year, we were we had [07:16] >> was it 885 k? 885 k euros, what we did, and we plan to do next year. Yeah. We hope we hope to do 1,200,000. [07:31] That's well, you it sounds like 885 k euros would be north of a million dollar USD run rate. So so congrats on breaking the million dollar mark. Did you do all this bootstrapped, or have you raised capital? [07:43] >> That's all yeah. We've been bootstrapped, and there's a lot of there's a lot of VCs that are interested, so we get contacted by people all the time. However and we are of course, we are we're we're interested in that, but we think it's it might be too early. We're currently working on a few other privacy SaaS tools, which we want to do which we want to launch first, see how that goes. And right after the launch [08:21] >> and we get a couple of customers on those platforms, then we want to start funding. [08:27] Mhmm. And why do you want to go raise capital? You obviously have to give up equity if you want to do that. [08:33] >> Yeah, I know. But I guess we might need it to really [08:41] >> yeah, to to to get more more budget for for marketing. [08:46] Mhmm. What are you currently spending per month on marketing? [08:51] >> I guess last year, we spent €200,000. Yeah. The whole year. [09:00] Was that mainly on? Google Ads, Facebook Ads, something else? [09:02] >> It was it was it was LinkedIn ads and but may mainly Google Ads. Yep. [09:10] Interesting. So with that Google Ad spend, how much do you have to pay to get a new $40 a month customer? [09:21] >> This was told. [09:24] >> One of my team members told me this number, but I I'm sorry. I I I don't have an answer right now for you. [09:32] No problem. How many customers do you how many customers do you have today? [09:37] >> 35,000. [09:38] 30 those are all paying customers? [09:42] >> Not all. So I need to take a look here. [09:48] >> So it's yeah. [09:49] I think you have about 2,100 paying, something like that. [09:54] >> No. It's it should be more. Actually, I don't know where you got your [09:58] Well, if you're doing if you're doing if you're doing I'm just using your numbers. If you're doing $85,000 a month in revenue divided by a $40 average, that's 2,125 customers. [10:08] >> That could be, but there is there might be a little bit [10:15] >> it might be a little bit off because we do work with resellers which have a discounted price. So [10:26] >> I I I need to to take a look at that number. [10:30] Well, so what what's your guess? I mean, how many paying customers do you have do you own? [10:37] >> You want me to look it up? [10:39] Yeah. [10:41] >> Yeah, I think it's 5,000 or something. [10:43] Okay. About 5,000. Cool. So average ARPU might be lower than 40. That's because sometimes you sell through resellers, so you don't actually make the full $40. [10:53] >> No. No, that's right. But there because resellers, they [11:01] >> get the pricing for a 30% discount. They could transfer it for 30% discount. [11:07] Got it. It. So so do they typically charge more than so that they make a margin? Or in other words, what do you what what kickback do we get here? [11:16] >> Of course, they can use our own pricing so they can they can have the 30% margin, but they also can charge an additional fee or an implementation fee if they would like. [11:31] So that's How many resellers drove you at least a dollar of revenue last year? [11:37] >> I get I guess we got 350 resellers. [11:43] 350? [11:46] >> Of those paying of those paying customers are resellers. [11:50] So my question was how many resellers drove you at least one customer last year? [11:58] Do you know? [11:59] >> Okay. So that's [12:04] >> so that that is at least the 350. [12:08] So a reseller only drives you one customer each? [12:11] >> No, no, no, no. Of course. [12:13] So Tom, the question is you have three fifty customers last year from resellers. [12:18] >> No. It's gonna be three fifty resellers. [12:21] Okay. My question was how many customers last year did you get from resellers? So if there's three fifty resellers, there's gonna be more customers from the resellers unless they all only signed up one customer. [12:34] >> Oh, that's probably a lot more because most we got resellers who do with like, 80 clients or or a 100. But I can yeah. I I can say there are resellers who only have three domains of one of one customer. [12:51] I see. How are you signing up? That's a lot of resellers to manage, 350. How are you finding them and managing them? [12:59] >> Oh, I found them partially through LinkedIn, but also just like like Google does, they send business owners cards. So I went through the [13:17] >> chamber of commerce lists and got the addresses. So I mailed those people. So we got a number of ways to reach these resellers. [13:30] What are some other ways? Chamber of Commerce and direct mail is a great idea. What are some other things you tested? [13:36] >> Through LinkedIn, of course, and LinkedIn advertising, sales navigator, [13:42] >> those kinds of ways, yes. [13:45] So sales navigator, direct mail, anything else? [13:50] >> Yeah. And Google Ads, of course, and [13:54] >> Google AdSense. So Benary [13:56] So you'll run Google Ads not just to target customers directly, but also to target resellers? [14:00] >> Yeah. Because it's more profitable to target resellers, of course, because you you only have to explain the tool once, of course, and then the reseller can do can, yeah, take that knowledge to own clients, to some clients, and then it would would be quicker and less support for us. [14:25] I understand. How many peaks folks are on your team today? [14:31] >> We got nine. [14:33] Nine. And how many of those are engineers? [14:37] >> Six. [14:38] Six. Six engineers. Why do you laugh when I ask that? [14:42] >> Well, because we as a team, we wear many hats, but what's needed the most at the time at this time is we need the the engineers. We do the online marketing and the management ourselves, also legal aspects. We recently [15:04] >> we recently added a team member who is responsible for the legal aspects, and that's more like a like a privacy expert. But what we need now is to [15:17] >> people that can free us from our own time. So my brother and I, [15:25] >> we need to delegate a few other things like marketing marketing stuff. [15:30] So Tom, do you [15:31] and your brother, since you guys are bootstrapped, do you guys own together a 100% of the business? [15:35] >> Yep. [15:36] Would you guys consider selling for $5,000,000 today, all cash upfront? [15:43] >> Think that would be [15:46] >> not enough, but of course, that that is something that I need to discuss because, yeah, we're both 50% shareholder. So I can't take that. I can't answer that question right now. [15:58] Right. We'll see what happens. In the meantime, though, congrats on the growth. Let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite book? [16:05] >> My favorite book? Actually, I got it right here. [16:14] >> It's a data protection implementation guide. [16:17] Sounds thrilling. [16:19] >> He would like he would like that if I if he saw this. [16:25] I I've never been more excited looking at a book title than I have looking at that one. [16:30] >> Okay. It's it's it's about legal tech and legal frameworks. [16:34] >> No, I'm kidding. It takes a special kind of person to get excited about that stuff. So congratulations. I mean, that's a key part of your niche is staying on top of all that stuff. Clearly you are. [16:44] Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? [16:48] >> Well, I do follow Andrew Gazdecki, which might be a an acquaintance of yours. [16:55] Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building a business? [17:06] >> For build for building the business? Yeah. I'm a I'm a designer, but so for shaping the tool and the UX, we use UXPIN. UXPIN. I don't know. Don't know. [17:18] Number four, [17:19] how many hours of sleep do you get every night? [17:23] >> Six. [17:24] And what's your situation? Married, single, kids? [17:27] >> Both. I'm I'm married and I have two kids. [17:30] Two kiddos. Okay. And how old are you? [17:33] >> I'm 37. [17:34] 37. Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20. [17:39] >> I'm sorry? [17:40] What's Something you wish you knew when you were 20. [17:44] >> What I wished for? [17:46] Something you wish you knew back when you were 20 years old. [17:51] That's [18:01] >> Don't party too hard and don't game. [18:05] Guys, there we have it. Cookiefirst.com, making it easy for folks, especially back in 2019, brands in the EU to comply with new regulation, new laws. They had $15,000 in revenue in 2019, 350,000 in 2020, 1,000,000 last year closing and hoping to grow this year. All bootstrapped, which we love. We're 35,000 free users, 5,000 of which are paid. Pay on average between, call it, 10 and $40 per month, scaling nicely with their team of nine. Tom, thanks [18:30] for taking us to the top. [18:32] >> Okay. [18:35] 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 [19:00] 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 [19:22] fundraise, a big sale, a big profitability statement or something else. I don't want you to miss it. Additionally, if you wanna take this conversation deeper and further, we have by far the largest private Slack community for B2B SaaS founders. You wanna 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 up for [19:44] 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 got [20:04] to push them away. Click the thumbs up below to counter them and know that I appreciate your guys'support. Alright, I'll be in the comments. See you.