How Data Duopoly Reached 3 Paying Customers and £250,000 in Seed Funding Directing Visitors at Physical Attractions (Interview with Co-Founder and CEO Tanuvi Ethunandan)

Introduction and Company Overview

Nathan Latka

00:00Hey, folks. My guest today is Tanuvi Ethunandan. She's the co founder and CEO of Data Duopoly, a chartered accountant from Ernst and Young and a Cambridge University graduate in economics. She takes the lead on the financial and business strategy at the business. They are focused on incentivizing visitors to explore. Tanuvi, are ready to take us to the top?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

00:17>> Yes.

Who Data Duopoly Serves

Nathan Latka

00:18Okay. What kind of visitors? Is this for B2B SaaS companies to get their visitors or in person places to get visitors? Who are you focused on?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

00:25>> We're focusing on any venue worldwide. We primarily work with visitor attractions like theme parks, museums and venues. So we worked with absolutely fantastic Eden Project here in The UK, which receives over 1,000,000 visitors for a pilot test. And we've now recently launched the National Trust Cornish Tin Co. Partnership, which covers three world heritage mining sites, which is absolutely fantastic to be involved with such an exciting project and directing visitors to the least busy areas.

Origin of the Idea

Nathan Latka

00:55Interesting. So how did you get this idea? Were you working at one of these parks or doing financial analysis on one of them or what?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

01:02>> Actually, the idea came about because me and my co founder was so tired of getting stuck in queues. Everyone's been there, they've had an exciting day out, they go to the visitor center and see the sign turn left. You end up following the same set of people around the whole site, when actually there's loads of space around the site, but you just didn't know. So we thought, how could we incorporate digital to make the physical experience

01:23>> so much better?

Nathan Latka

01:25Interesting. And who's paying you? Is it the amusement park or the historical national monument directly?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

01:30>> Yes. So we charge the venues directly on a SaaS contract.

Nathan Latka

01:33What do they pay on average per month?

Pricing and Contract Structure

Tanuvi Ethunandan

01:36>> So really, it depends on the size of the venue. So we're looking at around £30,000 for medium sized venue to even higher depending on the scale. And we're also looking to work with university campuses.

Nathan Latka

01:48Okay. When you say £30,000 or about $37,000 USD, is that monthly or annually?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

01:53>> That would be annually.

Nathan Latka

01:55Annually. Okay. And when you say the size of the campus, measured by what? Acres or people or what?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

02:00>> Really, it's the number of visitors. So we would normally work with clients that have around more than 250,000 visitors visiting every year.

First Line of Code and MVP

Nathan Latka

02:08Okay. Interesting. When did you write the first line of code for the platform?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

02:12>> So myself, I'm not a technical co founder. So we actually used contractors. So it was actually when we did our MVP. So that was probably really early on. And it was a really ugly manual prototype as many are. You test it out, you try and get out the kinks. And when it's launched to market, it looked a lot better when we had our in house development team.

Nathan Latka

02:32When was that, though? When did you get started on the code?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

02:35>> So for us, really early on, back in about sort of early twenty nineteen.

First Paying Customer

Nathan Latka

02:392019. Okay, very cool. So tell me about your first customer. Who was it and how did you land them?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

02:46>> So really, the National Trust TinCoast, they were our first paying client. And we actually had conversations with the project manager early on, and they were really excited what we do. Then COVID hit, and really the whole world went into lockdown, and people couldn't explore at all. So the world was in desperate need of a chance to go out and explore, but actually understand where the busy areas are and make informed decisions of where to go next.

Nathan Latka

03:12Say that one more time. Your first customer was who?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

03:15>> The National Trust Cornish Tin Coast Partnership.

Nathan Latka

03:18What is that? Is that a national site?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

03:21>> Yeah. So it's actually a collection of three world heritage mining sites based down in Cornwall, Geevor, Levant and Botallack. And what it allows people to do is sort of explore the rich heritage of the coastline, seeing how the mining took place. And we direct them around seeing what the really exciting bits are in the area.

Nathan Latka

03:38Very interesting. Okay, that was your first customer. How many customers are you serving now today?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

03:43>> So at the moment, we're working with them. We've got a really strong sales pipeline. So we're also working with a local company to develop gamified trails. We're also working with university campuses, which is really exciting. So found with the university, our first sort of pilot site, and we're using our same technology to help students and staff navigate around the campus.

Nathan Latka

04:02So I love pilots. I understand the need to do that to drive paying customers. National Trust Partnership was your first customer paying. How many are paying you though today?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

04:11>> At the moment, those are the only ones that we've got a strong

Nathan Latka

04:13or three?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

04:15>> So three at the moment.

Nathan Latka

04:16Okay. Got it. Three. So this is great. So how did you guys survive COVID? I mean, that's all you have to deal with cutting expenses. I mean, that's a big deal.

Surviving COVID and Raising the Seed Round

Tanuvi Ethunandan

04:23>> So we were actually really early on. So we only incorporated in October 2019. So we were a team of two, myself and my co founder, Erin Morris. So we kept ourselves really lean. We bootstrapped the company. We sort of took trains, stopped from very dubious Airbnb when we went to trade shows in London, the works. But really, we then managed to secure our first seed round of a £250,000, and that's when it changed. And we did

04:49>> that during COVID. And the real reason for that was we secured our first paying client during then. But actually, more importantly, there was actually a big need. People suddenly realized they need to understand where their visitors are on-site, knowing that they've just sold a million tickets per day isn't enough. They need to know actually where are people on-site, and that's where we can really help. So we managed to get backing from the European Space Agency for

Investors and Team Growth

Tanuvi Ethunandan

05:14>> our seed round, also another organization in aerospace and some fantastic angel investors. And that enabled us to grow our team from two to six and very shortly becoming seven, which really has ramped up our sales pipeline and our sort of development capabilities, which has been hugely exciting.

Equity Split and Incubator Background

Nathan Latka

05:33How much equity did you have to sell to raise the $275,000

Tanuvi Ethunandan

05:37>> Yeah. So for us, we had to give about 10% equity away, but I would like to say we came from an incubator beforehand. So they had a stake in the business at the very starting point.

Nathan Latka

05:47I see. So the pre seed folks took about 10%. How much did the incubator take?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

05:52>> So they took a lot more. It was 24.9% at the beginning.

Nathan Latka

05:57Okay. And who was that incubator?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

05:59>> So that's actually Launchpad and they're based down in Cornwall. And really, they were the people that brought Erin and myself together. So they took us individuals with no business idea and they gave us a year and funded us for masters in entrepreneurship and said, can you start up a business?

Nathan Latka

06:16How much capital they give you if any?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

06:18>> So they didn't give us capital per se, but they gave support and expertise. But really it was down to Erin and myself to do the hard work. And that's where we've got to today.

Nathan Latka

06:28So Tanuvi, you and Erin own 65% today and the incubator has 25 and the pre seed is 10?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

06:34>> Exactly. About 66% between Erin and myself.

Burn Rate and Cost Structure

Nathan Latka

06:37Very cool. Okay. What a great story. Now you're growing today. The team is six people. How are you thinking about burn? I mean, can you self fund off customer revenue yet?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

06:48>> So at the moment for us, actually, we are using our seed money, but for us, we're quite lean. We don't pay for office space. We've sort of adapted to the hybrid working. We've got some free office space at the moment in Cornwall, which is fantastic. It means we can meet once a week. But actually, we work with a developer in The Philippines, which keeps the cost really low, and he's absolutely fantastic. An integral part of the

07:09>> team.

Nathan Latka

07:10How'd you find him?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

07:11>> Amazing. And I think COVID taught us that we can

Nathan Latka

07:14actually How did you find him?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

07:16>> Oh, sorry. I thought you meant how we find him with how it goes. How we found him was we were advertising the role. He applied and we went through an interview process.

Nathan Latka

07:24Where did you advertise, though?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

07:26>> On LinkedIn, on AngelList, the usual sort of hotspots, but it actually came through a direct connection.

Nathan Latka

07:33Very interesting. So he's developing. Can I ask what you pay him per month?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

07:36>> Yeah, you can do. So for us, we sort of do a sort of about £2,000 a month, but that is for specific project costs.

Nathan Latka

07:47I see. Interesting. Okay. So six people now today. What do the six people do?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

07:52>> So we have a variety. So myself, I take sort of the business and financial side of things. My co founder is an award-winning film director. So she actually takes the lead on the product design and the UI and UX. We have a sort of lead developer based in The Philippines, which is fantastic, a full stack developer. We also have two in-house developers at the moment here in Cornwall. One sort of a mid level developer sort of

08:15>> taking charge on the back end side of things. And then we also have more on the upside, front end development, a junior developer, and we have a sales and marketing lead. And the new team member hopefully joining us later this month is a junior marketing assistant, willing to ramp up that sales cycle.

Nathan Latka

08:31So how much are you guys burning per month right now?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

08:33>> So at the moment, it's not too bad. We sort of have about a runway in the bank account probably for around another eight to nine months, actually.

Nathan Latka

08:42Okay. Okay, that's pretty good. So what's the plan then? Do you think you have enough customers to be profitable or you're gonna go raise again?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

08:47>> So I think profitable with startups, that's not the aim. The aim is to get that customer base and get that recurring revenue up. So for us at the moment, it's really pushing on that sale. So we're going to as many trade shows as possible. So we went to the visitor attractions conference down in London, we're going to the family attractions expo in Birmingham. We're actually going to Leisure Up in France as well, a key retail and

09:10>> leisure industry trade show, really to get our name out there. Now that COVID is allowing travel restrictions to slightly be lifted, that's really important for us to get our name out there. But for us, really, we are going to be looking to do an avocado round that sort of EIS funded here in The UK, which means sort of the enterprise relief fund, which is sort of quite beneficial to invest in startups.

Revenue Discussion

Nathan Latka

09:34And what's revenue today?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

09:36>> So revenue today is ongoing. So for us, our focus is actually driving more sales in our pipeline. I would say I'm going to be slightly cautious about saying the revenue to date, but I'm certainly happy to have a conversation with anyone who might be interested further.

Nathan Latka

09:51You mentioned $3,000 average per month, right? And you said you have three paying customers today. Can we multiply those together? You're doing about $9,000, $10,000 a month in revenue?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

10:01>> Potentially, but really for us, it's actually driving that future sales pipeline and actually obtaining the data. Because I think the data insights are really powerful for us.

Nathan Latka

10:10Well, I mean, every startup wants to get more sales. So this statement is helpful. I'm trying to get a sense of how you've executed so far. So, I mean, are all three of those customers actually paying customers or are some of them still on a pilot?

Path to 100 Customers

Tanuvi Ethunandan

10:22>> So they're all paying customers, which is why.

Nathan Latka

10:24They are. Okay. That's great. Well, congratulations. That's a big step to go from nothing to three paying, especially in your space during COVID. So nice work there.

Tanuvi Ethunandan

10:31>> That's fantastic. Thank you.

Nathan Latka

10:33How do you get your next 100 customers? Is it going to trade shows? Is it ads? Something else?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

10:38>> Yes. And I think that's a challenge for everyone. But for us, we are actually talking to as many people as possible and using our existing clients with case studies. And I think that's really powerful to see the value we can give to them. So actually showcasing that if we can understand visitors dwell time and actually say, did you know that if you know that the visitor is spending more time here, they can actually increase the concession

11:00>> we spend on-site. That's really powerful and using incentives to drive them away from the busy areas. So what's quite unique? It's very easy to sort of say, okay, great. There's a big crowd congregating in this area. But what can I do about it? If we can say we can connect to a few visitors and say, do you wanna get a half price coffee at the quiet cafe over there? Or equally, if you're at a zoo, the

11:23>> penguin talk at 3PM is really busy, but 5PM is looking quite quiet. So why don't you get a half price ice cream right now? That's really powerful and can drive an increase in sales. So I think that's really where one of our USPs are.

Nathan Latka

11:36What's the average visitor to the National Trust Partnership mining site spend per day or per visit on concessions?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

11:42>> So for at the moment, it's been quite a quiet time because now it's winter. And as you can imagine, it's quite rainy and windy. So we don't actually know how much necessary they spend, but we can definitely see how much footfall we're changing.

Nathan Latka

11:55Does that mean that they churn during slow times when they're closed?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

11:59>> Sorry. Could you repeat the question?

Nathan Latka

12:01Does that mean they cancel, they stop paying you during slow times when they're closed?

Contract Model and Churn

Tanuvi Ethunandan

12:05>> No. We charge on a twelve month based contract. So it means it doesn't matter how many visitors are using it. We wanna encourage as many people as possible to keep using the platform.

Nathan Latka

12:16Yeah. But if someone's paying you for 250,000 visits a year, but COVID or rain or storms or hurricanes or snow, whatever, only means they have 5,000 users per year, they're gonna feel like they're paying you for something they're not getting. So how do you manage churn?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

12:28>> Oh, no. So we really sort of operate in saying, actually, this is your upfront sort of your twelve month license fee contract based on your expected number of visitors. So really what we can give is your data insights into the visitors that are coming. We purposely didn't wanna say, we're gonna charge you per visitor because there's an incentive for the venue to say, actually, we don't want everyone to download the app. So there's not going to

12:51>> be that sort of self promotion to get the most out of the data obtained.

Famous Five

Nathan Latka

12:55That makes total sense, Tanuvi. This makes I'm excited to see what you guys do over the next year. In the meantime, though, let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite business book?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

13:03>> My favorite business book? Oh my gosh. This is quite a hard one. There's just so many. Wouldn't say it's an orthodox one, but Nudge by Thaler and Sunstein is one of my core principles because it's all about behavioral science, and that's what I love.

Nathan Latka

13:15Number two is there is Founder you're following or studying?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

13:18>> Yes. I think Nick Telson is amazing. Design My Night, I think it's such an amazing story. And I think for us, you know, just learning more about that has been great.

Nathan Latka

13:26Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building Data Duopoly?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

13:31>> Favorite online tool by far, I've really found that two things, Marvel and non technical cofounders prototyping has been so useful. And Trello, I mean, everyone uses it just to help organizing the team.

Nathan Latka

13:43Tanuvi, what's your situation? How many hours of sleep do get every night?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

13:46>> Not too many, but I love what I do, and I couldn't I wouldn't be doing what I do unless I love it.

Nathan Latka

13:51What do you average, though? How many?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

13:53>> Hours of sleep, probably pretty good. Definitely eight to nine.

Nathan Latka

13:56Eight to nine. Okay. And what's your situation? Married, single, kids?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

13:59>> I'm a single graduate and doing loving my business.

Nathan Latka

14:03Okay.

14:04Not not married. No kiddos. Do you mind me asking how old you are?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

14:08>> Yeah, I'm 27 years old.

Nathan Latka

14:10Last question. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20?

Tanuvi Ethunandan

14:13>> To have the confidence to just do it and don't necessarily go for a graduate role.

Closing Remarks

Nathan Latka

14:18Guys, she joined an accelerator back in 2019 who helped her co founder Erin. They own 65% today and the incubator owns 25%. And they raised a seed round selling 10% of the business as they scale Data Duopoly, an easy way for historical sites or physical attractions like amusement parks to understand where visitors are spending time, how to increase concession venue, and how to drive foot traffic to less popular but very valuable areas. They have three paying

14:44customers today looking to scale with their team of six over the next twelve months. Tanuvi, thank you for taking us to the top.

Tanuvi Ethunandan

14:49>> Thank you very much.

Nathan Latka

14:52One 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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