EduMESS Revenue, Valuation & Funding (2024)

[00:00] Edumess.com launched back in 2021. They're doing $2,500 per month in revenue right now by helping 60 schools educate their students on how to do software development. He's trained thousands of students and is now codifying that in his platform. Looking to raise 135,000 right now at a 2,000,000 cap. We'll see if it happens, 10 people on the team. Hey folks, my guest today is Chike Okoli. He's got twelve plus years experience as a software developer and trained [00:26] over 500 students in software development. He's now building edumess.com as a training platform. Okay. Chike, you ready to take us to the top? [00:35] >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [00:36] Good to have you. [00:37] >> Good to be here. I'm glad to be here. [00:39] You bet. So who is paying for edumess? Is it the students or employers or somebody else? [00:45] >> Okay. So employers basically are paying for edumess, k 12 schools, and they were expanding to accommodate coaches and traditional institutions who go who train our clients in the business of educating others. So basically, edumess is a software that helps educators of all sizes manage all sizes of school, simplify their work processes, and we implemented AI to help make these processes very seamless. [01:14] And so what does this what does a school pay on average per month to use your training program? [01:20] >> Okay. It ranges from from $48 to $1,200. And so our model is such that, okay, when we come to a school for basically the K-twelve school model, the students range from 200 to 250 on average, on average based on our numbers. And so each each each student pay, in Nigeria, it's between 500 to 1,500. And so when you aggregate that, on average, a school pays around $48 to $1,200 monthly. [01:59] That's 40 the k 12 school pays $48 a month for one student or 10 students? Sorry. [02:05] >> No. No. No. No. The whole school. So we charge we charge I think that's about $1 per student. And so if you have 250 students, you're gonna be paying 250. [02:18] I see. And how many how many schools pay for edumess today? [02:23] >> Okay. So we launched August 2021. That's about sixteen months ago. So we have 60 schools right now. [02:31] Congrats. [02:32] >> Six zero? Yeah. [02:33] Zero. Six zero. [02:34] >> Yep. And and that's that's a total of around sixteen thousand students today. [02:41] Wow. So you're doing about $16,000 a month in revenue? [02:45] >> Well, of course, you experience massive churn rates. And when you when you do the math, so our our monthly recurring revenue is between 2,000 to $10,000 right now. [02:59] What do you mean between? I mean, it should be the exact number. How much revenue did you do last month? [03:05] >> Well, so we aggregate our money timely. And so this year, I'd be able to say this is what by by the end of that time. So academic time is usually three in a year, three to four in a year, first, second time. And so the school gets to use months, January, February, March. And so within this period, we collect our revenue. [03:31] Got it. But okay. [03:32] >> So just So last year. [03:34] The past thirty days, how much revenue have you done? [03:39] >> That's around $2,000 but that's not a good the best way to evaluate our revenue model. Since so, we're in second term, academic term, schools resumed in December. So in March ending, they'll be going on. So they have that window to pay. But last year, we did nearly $25,000 ARR. [04:02] How much? [04:03] >> $25,000. [04:05] 25,000? [04:06] >> Yes. [04:07] That's great. Congratulations. [04:09] >> Thank you very much. 25,000 last year. [04:11] And what do you think you'll do this year? [04:14] >> Well, we hope to we have an ambitious goal. We hope to 10 x, and so we are also raising to help us achieve that. And so we've got some implications. So we hope to 10 x. Our goal is to get us to a $100,000 ARR by the end of twenty twenty three. [04:33] So you're hoping to 10 x. So you did $25,000 last year. You're hoping to get 250,000 this year. Right? That would be 10 x? [04:41] >> Yeah. When you ramp that up, that would be that would be 10 x. [04:46] 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 [05:09] your Stripe account, you see your valuation real time, you can see what 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 get [05:34] 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 not [05:56] 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 going [06:21] 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 you [06:43] 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 interview. [07:10] And you said you're raising right now. How much are you looking to raise? [07:14] >> So we're raising one thirty five thousand dollars. [07:16] 135,000? [07:18] >> Yes. In safe. Yeah. [07:20] What's the cap on the safe? [07:25] >> $2,000,000 valuation cap. [07:28] Why are you worth why are you worth $2,000,000? [07:32] >> So we we put a couple of things in place, and so we look at the market size, looked at [07:42] >> the team that's playing, we look at also, [07:48] >> we look at a couple of factors that we we used on, but I looked at the projection as well. And so within the next within the next five years, we are looking to do over 20,000,000 underlying revenue. [08:03] Got it. Do you have a lead yet on on the note, the SAFE? [08:09] >> Well, I wouldn't say we is a lead, but we have investor who is also on board of advisers who has indicated interest to invest $10,000. And so we also have our other board advisor who wants to put in 5 k. And so we are due diligence stage hoping to conclude that that phase. [08:33] That's great. And you keep saying we. How many folks are on the team today full time? [08:37] >> Okay. So I have two other cofounders, and I have three engineers. And so that three engineer, the CTO is one of them as well. And so then we have two sales persons who helps to do the sales and marketing. [08:51] So, Chike, just make it easy for me. Total employees of the company today is how many? [08:56] >> 10. [08:56] 10. Okay. Great. And then there's three co founders. [08:59] >> Mhmm. [09:01] Okay. Got it. And and what is your role? Are you business development, marketing, and sales, or how do you split roles? [09:07] >> I'm the CEO. I'm the CEO. And I also I also double up as the VP sales. [09:14] So you're doing all the selling. So what's your plan? How do you go get 60 more schools? [09:20] >> Well, we we've been trying a couple of sales channels, and then right now, we do online ads, but we recently discovered something that worked. We noticed that the school owners are aggregated on WhatsApp platforms, and so we began to run ads. We convinced them to begin to accept our ads directly on their platform. And so nationwide, we've been putting ads on their WhatsApp platform, putting our ads directly in their face, and and it's been giving us [09:47] >> a massive ton of leads. [09:50] Can you name some of the WhatsApp groups that are the big groups that k 12 schools hang out in? [09:55] >> Okay. So there there is they have an association called NAPS, National Association of Private School Proprietors of Nigeria. And so they have another one called APSON. So our focus market APSON? APSON. APSON. Yeah. [10:09] Can you spell it? [10:09] >> The first one is a p s o n. [10:13] AppSon. What's and it's a WhatsApp group in Nigeria that schools hang out in. [10:18] >> Yeah. They created that group. So it's a it's like a body, a governing body. So there are two, one is NAPPS, National Association, NAPPS. And so they created a WhatsApp group, so we approached them. We said, okay, since you guys are here, I mean, in Nigeria alone, we have over in the FCT, we have over 2,000 of them, you know, in different WhatsApp subgroups. And so we we we're targeting them. In Nigeria alone, we have a [10:48] >> total of seven seven thousand private schools, just excluding the government owned schools. [10:54] Understood. That sounds like an exciting growth plan. So you're looking at raising, you've got 60 schools today. You mentioned churn is really high. If if the students are liking the platform, why are the why are the schools churning? [11:08] >> Okay, so we discovered something that we are changing our model to help us. And so the students like it, the parents like it, but because we were depending on the school owners to pay us, right? So we, it's B2B then since the school owner has the appropriate students, and so the school owner collects, it includes a bid on the fee. So we discovered that depending on the passion, on the educator in question, even though this is [11:41] >> solving a problem for them, sometimes they collect this money and, you know, there is that temptation to go back. And so we, what we've done is we've evolved our app in such a way that it gives the parents updates from time to time. So using what we call communication book, so the parents get because of that, we notice [12:07] >> that has started declining, churn rates has started declining. And so that was the issue where the school owner has carried expenses and, oh, suddenly he realized that this hasn't been factored out and and suddenly, so we we we we we we are changing that. [12:26] Understood. We're certainly rooting for you. We hope it goes well. In the meantime, though, let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite book? [12:35] >> Oh, my favorite book. [12:41] >> Advanced Selling Strategies by Brian Tracy. So I think that book has had the most impact on my life. [12:47] Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? [12:55] >> In Nigeria? I wouldn't say that I have one right now. I'm just studying my competitors and and digging [13:05] Number number three, what's your favorite online tool for building edumess? [13:11] >> Well, HubSpot. [13:14] Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night? [13:18] >> Five. [13:19] And what's your what's your situation, Chike? Married, single, kids? [13:23] >> Married, two kids. [13:25] Two kids. And how old are you? [13:28] >> I'm 38. [13:29] >> 38. [13:30] Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20. [13:34] >> I wish I knew how to build a fundable startup on time. [13:39] Guys, there you have it. Edumess.com launched back in 2021. They're doing $2,500 per month in revenue right now by helping 60 schools educate their students on how to do software development. He's trained thousands of students and is now codifying that in his platform. Looking to raise 135,000 right now at a 2,000,000 cap. We'll see if that happens, 10 people on the team. Chike, thanks for taking us to the top. [14:02] >> Thank you, Nathan. Pleasure to be here. [14:05] 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 [14:31] Central. Additionally, remember these recorded Founder interviews go live. We release them here on YouTube every day at 2PM Central. 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