How Family-Funded EstateSpace Reached $1M Revenue in 2020 and More Than 50 Client Families (Interview with Founder and CEO Jonathan Fishbeck)

Introduction and Company Overview

Nathan Latka

00:00Hey, guys, my guest today is Jonathan Fishbeck. He's the Founder and CEO of EstateSpace, a technology platform that simplifies lifestyle management service and operations to maintain real property assets to help reduce risk and protection and protect wealth succession. He was previously the Founder and CEO at a design build firm whose focus was advising, designing, constructing and operationalizing sizable estate properties for families and family offices. Jonathan, you ready to take us to the top?

Jonathan Fishbeck

00:25>> Absolutely. Thanks. Thanks, Nathan.

Target Customer Profile

Nathan Latka

00:27Who's thinking about this? Like an 80 year old with 10,000,000 in real estate assets and three nephews and they don't know how to divide it amongst the nephews?

Jonathan Fishbeck

00:34>> No. So our clients are going be typically between the age of like 35 and 55. So we spent a lot of our time working with CEOs, technology founders, entrepreneurs that ended up accumulating a lot of assets very quickly and the level of complexity started to grow very rapidly.

How EstateSpace Helps Clients

Nathan Latka

00:56Interesting. Okay, so tell me how you help them. What's big mistake that a bunch of my listeners right now, maybe they made a million bucks real quick. What's a mistake they might make with that million that you can help them with?

Jonathan Fishbeck

01:06>> Yeah, so I think where we're helping people out is on all of the things that are non financial. So they buy homes, they buy cars, they start to accumulate a lot of things, right? The more money that you make, the more things that you have the ability to buy. And a lot of times people start to accumulate very rapidly. What ends up happening is that they're reacting to managing those things, right? So we help people proactively

01:27>> manage those things where they're saving time, they're saving money. They actually know what they have and where it is at all times. I know what bank accounts I have. I know where all my financial stuff is. I've got a team of people managing it. A lot of times with all of my physical assets, and that's where we really step in to help, you know, you're managing your home in a reactive way. I have a water leak,

01:47>> so now I fix it, whereas we're helping you productively prevent that water leak and ultimately helping you kind of enjoy things you should be able to come home and enjoy, not things that you should be worrying about.

Nathan Latka

01:59Okay, interesting. What am I going to pay you on average per month to use this technology?

Pricing and Per-Seat Model

Jonathan Fishbeck

02:04>> So if you're a single person, you're paying $45 a month. If you have a team of 200, then your per user cost is going to go down based on the number of people that you have. So whether you're a small business, I'm a three time founder, so I've always wanted a platform that I could buy that might cost me a couple $100 for a five, six person team to be able to manage my business, manage my

02:25>> clients, and ultimately not have to do a bunch of rework because I have a system that's intelligent enough to allow me to do all those things, capture that information in a database driven experience to ultimately give people what they need, when they want based on their role, based on their permissions.

Nathan Latka

02:42Now, when did you launch this and where did get the idea? Do you have it before you were doing work at the family office or did you see problems at the family office that gave you the idea?

Jonathan Fishbeck

02:50>> Yeah, so this actually came from my previous venture as working with ultra high net worth families as a general contractor, and we finished a very large project. It took us about six years. There was tens of thousands of pages of documents, and I knew no one would ever look at them, read them. It was very difficult to consume. And so the idea for EstateSpace came about five years ago when we found it impossible to transition a multi $10,000,000 project

03:16>> to the client because there was just so much information. And so what ended up happening is we realized that we were now sucked into the facilities management role when that's not really what our company did. But obviously we adapted, we took care of the client. And so that was kind of the genesis. And then the maturation has really been moving from like the physical asset portfolio to property management, really now to communications and an end to

03:41>> end operational platform that will allow workflows, business intelligence, and again, giving all members of your estate space the right information at any given time so that we're cutting down on a lot of the administrative inefficiencies that go on, especially in private residences.

Nathan Latka

03:59Okay, so 2016 was when you launched the company?

Customer Count and Platform Milestones

Jonathan Fishbeck

04:02>> 2017.

Nathan Latka

04:032017. Okay, and now how many customers are you serving today?

Jonathan Fishbeck

04:06>> Yeah, so we have over 50 families. We have multiple billionaires on the platform. We just started scaling a couple of months ago, so it's been a really exciting year. So we've exceeded our sales numbers from last year and the first month of this year, and we're really taking off. We've over the last So from the year of the idea, we had our first release in 'nineteen. Our 2.0 release was in 2020. And then 3.0 is coming

04:31>> out middle of October of twenty twenty one. And that's what we're really excited for because we'll have end to end capabilities. Again, we've got workflows. We have a marketplace for service providers to help our clients on things that we don't do, as well as business intelligence. So those are kind of the three things when you think about EstateSpace. Now we'll have web, both mobile, Android, Apple, so we'll be able to be anywhere that our clients need

04:55>> us to be.

2019 Revenue and Beta Launch

Nathan Latka

04:56Let's talk more about that in a second. But first, taking back to that beautiful sort of year '1, 2019 to get that release out, do you remember revenue that year, total revenue?

Jonathan Fishbeck

05:03>> Yeah, that total revenue that year was probably about $150,000

Nathan Latka

05:08What was going through your head at the year end closeout? Were you exciting or were you bummed or what?

Jonathan Fishbeck

05:13>> No, I think we were psyched, right? So that was kind of like our proof of concept launch. So we kind of saw that as like our beta launch. We got 13 clients and they were spread across ultra high net worth families, family offices, and then supporting service providers. So property management company, we also had an estate management company. And so we got all of the flavors that we were looking for, and then we were able to get

05:37>> a ton of feedback. And then we were And that led to our 2.0 release, which was So we were launched September '19. Second one came in June 2020. And now this October is 3.0. That's probably what I'm most excited about. Again, we try to listen really well and then apply that feedback in a way that benefits all of our customers.

2020 Revenue Growth

Nathan Latka

05:56So $150,000 in 2019, what did you scale up to in 2020?

Jonathan Fishbeck

06:00>> So we did a million in 2020 and we did 1.4 in January of this year and we continue to scale that number up this year.

Nathan Latka

06:07Is that 1.4 cash collected like you pulled a bunch of annual payments in that first month?

Jonathan Fishbeck

06:12>> No, so that was just contracts won and then that was aggregated over a 12-month period.

Nathan Latka

06:18I see. So I guess the way to ask would be like last month, what was your monthly recurring revenue? Would you say?

Jonathan Fishbeck

06:24>> About 175,000.

Nathan Latka

06:27Wow. Okay. Got it. So got it. So you're you're I guess you just broke essentially $2,000,000 run rate. You know, what do think you'll finish the year at?

Jonathan Fishbeck

06:34>> So I'm hoping to throw about another 750 to 1.1 on top of it. That's what I project.

Nathan Latka

06:39Where is the growth coming from? Is it more seats across the same 50 customers or adding brand new families altogether?

Jonathan Fishbeck

06:45>> Yeah. No. It's it's adding it's now that we're now that we have our our web application, coming out, we're able to start onboarding businesses. So we're able to So a lot of our families are going be anywhere from about five to 10 users, Nathan, but businesses can be anywhere from 50 to a couple thousand because EstateSpace is built for everyone in your ecosystem. So you think about a business, right? You might have employees, you have vendors,

07:11>> you have suppliers, you have clients. All of those people are members of your EstateSpace.

Nathan Latka

07:17So Yeah, Nathan, sorry, I wanna make sure my audience doesn't miss this. You're really playing in like the physical asset management space. For example, if you are a CEO and you buy 30 Macs for 30 team members, I could manage those max on your platform. Is that accurate?

Jonathan Fishbeck

07:32>> It is.

Customer Acquisition Channels

Nathan Latka

07:33Yeah. So it's not just like you own a mansion and you need to do like tax planning. It's like you're really again, this is an asset class is growing very quick. There are a lot of SaaS companies in this space growing quickly. You're in this space. Yes. Interesting. Okay. How are you finding customers?

Jonathan Fishbeck

07:48>> So it's kind of threefold. So we're campaigning for very specific people. So we're finding people through LinkedIn. We have an extensive network. Part of the beauty about EstateSpace is myself, my partner, we were able to roll up about eighteen years of human capital into this company. Our whole network was really applicable. And then we have a team that's out doing outreach. We have a digital inbound funnel as well. So we're advertising, we're marketing, but we're targeting

08:20>> the people that we feel that we can really have the biggest impact on. And so that's the high net worth individuals, executive family offices, and then the supporting service providers. And when I say that, we're focusing on more of a luxury market as our go to market. So like a luxury contract management company or a consultant that's helping with something to do with more on the estate management or property management side. Those are kind of the

08:50>> main targets that we're going after from a B2B perspective.

Nathan Latka

08:54Last month, how much did you spend

08:55on just paid ads?

Jonathan Fishbeck

08:57>> Probably about $3.

Nathan Latka

09:00And how many? That's not a ton. Yeah. How many new customers did you have last month?

Jonathan Fishbeck

09:04>> One.

Nathan Latka

09:05Okay. Okay.

09:08So is that sort of the right CAC? You're willing to spend about $3 to get a new customer?

Jonathan Fishbeck

09:12>> No. So right now, because we're sunsetting 2.0 and releasing 3.0, we're starting to pivot our marketing and our messaging. Our website will be turning over next month. So we have, I'd say, a handful of referrals that are coming on for the 2.0 release, which was mobile centric, mobile first, with a very simple web supporting application. And so not to confuse our upcoming buyers and a lot of the people that are in our pipeline, we're going to

09:42>> be pivoting all of that. So I'm kind of okay with that. But typically, on average, 3,000 to $5,000 is going to get us 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 eyeballs. And then from there, we're looking at about 500 leads that probably end up somewhere around 150 of sales qualified leads that typically from there, we start working down about anywhere from 20% to 50% by the time that you get down to it. That 5,000 should really lead to about 10

10:11>> customers in a month.

Ownership Structure and Bootstrapping

Nathan Latka

10:12I see. Now, have you bootstrapped all this or do you guys raise?

Jonathan Fishbeck

10:15>> Family owned and operated, built in The United States.

Nathan Latka

10:18I love that. So do you own 100%?

Jonathan Fishbeck

10:20>> So myself, then my family, and then I'd say there's we have eight stakeholders, but myself and my family, we own 88% of the company in year five.

Nathan Latka

10:31That's very cool. Any plans to raise or do you want to stay bootstrapped?

Jonathan Fishbeck

10:35>> So we were going to have plans to raise, but we ended up really getting the right clients and the right people in the company. And then we're scaling now. So there's no I've taken that off the table, given how exhausting it was to raise some of money just internally right now. So no plans of like a formal series A at this point. What do

Nathan Latka

10:55you mean by that raising money internally?

Jonathan Fishbeck

10:57>> Just mean working with myself and my direct family to figure out what capital we wanted to allocate to this venture. Right. So that ended up, know, it's just all very time consuming. Was looking to raise with family and friends. I'd say I think we raised somewhere around a million dollars. And then we've also had, you know, great, we had a client that came on that's also

Nathan Latka

11:21What year was that? Sorry, when you raised a million?

Jonathan Fishbeck

11:24>> Well, that was 2019.

Nathan Latka

11:26Okay, so you did sort of raise, but it was all family and friends.

Jonathan Fishbeck

11:29>> Yeah, well, it was like three family and friends. And then to date, we've invested just over $7,000,000 across the company, and that's about a million of that was not my direct family.

Nathan Latka

11:42I see. I see. What would you value the company at today?

Jonathan Fishbeck

11:46>> So we keep it really simple. So we're just 10x ARR. So by the end of this year, my goal is to get us somewhere to that 20,000,000 mark. And that's just a kind of a middle of the line conservative SaaS model because we are pure SaaS.

Nathan Latka

12:00Yep. I mean, I personally would argue you're worth more than if you're already at $100,000 per month in revenue. Right. So it's about a $2,200,000 run rate. I'd say like minimum 60. Although you all you investors listening are going to like that I'm building Jonathan up like this, but I would say at least $6,670,000,000.

Jonathan Fishbeck

12:15>> Yeah. I mean, like you, right?

Nathan Latka

12:18You can pay me the commission after their call.

Team Size and Engineering Hires

Jonathan Fishbeck

12:21>> All right.

Nathan Latka

12:21No, just kidding, Jonathan. What's the team size today? How many folks?

Jonathan Fishbeck

12:24>> So we just scaled the company. So we were at six about six months ago, and now we're at 13 going to 15. That's mainly consists first, we tripled our development team. And then from there,

Nathan Latka

12:36we How many developers?

Jonathan Fishbeck

12:38>> We have eight total developers. And now we're starting to add salespeople. And then from there, we'll backfill customer success. And that'll be a great problem to have.

Sales Reps and Quotas

Nathan Latka

12:48How many quota carrying sales reps do you have?

Jonathan Fishbeck

12:51>> Three.

Nathan Latka

12:52And what's the quota?

Jonathan Fishbeck

12:53>> So they're just coming on right now. They just are actually that team's growing Monday of next week. But their quotas to come out of the gate is going to be to get acclimated. And then as 3.0 hits, we'll expect to see anywhere from five to 10 sales per person per month.

Nathan Latka

13:12Got it. What does that mean in terms of new ARR in the first twelve months you want them to drive?

Jonathan Fishbeck

13:15>> So, I mean, if you're just going kind of on average deal flow size, I mean, one of them should be bringing in anywhere from 10 to 25,000 at best, I would say to start.

Nathan Latka

13:25Yep. So call it like a $300,000 first year quota on the high side, dollars 25,000 a month, right? And new MRR. Yep. Yeah. Interesting. That's always the hardest part is when you're making those first three hires, like what quota do you give them, but also give them time to ramp up. They don't want to overwhelm them on day one and then they get demotivated.

Jonathan Fishbeck

13:44>> Yeah. So it's kind of one of those things where we're just super transparent, Nathan, right? So we just tell them kind of where they are. They know they're coming in on the ground level, gave them the opportunity to sell what we have now, but it's kind of maybe counterproductive to their long term goals. So they're coming all in on three point zero's release, and that's really great, right? Because ultimately they're going to know the company, they're

14:07>> going to know the client, they're going to know the product, and they're going to be able to make sure that everyone's a great fit. Now, one of the great things about where we're going with three point zero, everything's user driven. We've integrated Stripe right into the platform. We're in the process of getting SOC compliance and really taking our company to the next level. And all of that for our clients means easy buying. So you're able to

14:30>> just click to sign up, page, click to sign in and go. And then from there, it's software as a service. And we're supporting all your technology needs, but we've built an affiliate partner program to help someone that has any size house do all of the digital cataloging. We have partners to help you with advice. Being in the space as a consultant and an owner rep for about a decade now, the hardest thing for most of our

14:55>> families, most of our clients, is getting good advice at the right time and finding really great people to help them. And so we try to not only unblock the road from an intuitive technology platform perspective, but also surround them with a marketplace of service providers that can help them accelerate and maximize the things that estate space can do for their family. Now,

Profitability and Burn Rate

Nathan Latka

15:15you mentioned obviously you're bootstrapping this, right? You put 7,000,000 in yourself and then 1,000,000 from sort of outsiders. But are you guys profitable today or burning capital?

Jonathan Fishbeck

15:23>> We're still burning a little bit. Our profitability is we're probably about Well, not probably. We're $350k of annual recurring away from breakeven.

Nathan Latka

15:35Of annual recurring.

Jonathan Fishbeck

15:36>> Of annual recurring.

Nathan Latka

15:37Yeah. So like that basically means $125,000 a month last year in revenue, spend like maybe a total of $220 or something on all expenses.

Jonathan Fishbeck

15:45>> Yeah. So our expenses are less than what we're bringing in, but it's but from a from where we're going to grow this year, I want I need another $350k of annual recurring to support the scale and the growth that I have coming on.

Nathan Latka

15:58I see. So, but if we just look last month, right? So what's last month?

Jonathan Fishbeck

16:02>> Last month, we made more than we spent by about $15,000 Okay,

Nathan Latka

16:08that's great. So profitable last month. But again, you're about to keep reinvesting in growth. So you'll need to keep adding up.

Jonathan Fishbeck

16:13>> So I'd say it's not a perfect model when it comes to profitability. We just need to continue to keep building, keep growing, keep selling.

Famous Five: Books, Tools, and Advice

Nathan Latka

16:21Yeah, I like that. All right. That should be the model for every SaaS founder, Jonathan. Let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite book?

Jonathan Fishbeck

16:28>> I'd say my favorite book of all time is going to have to be The E Myth Revisited.

Nathan Latka

16:35Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Jonathan Fishbeck

16:38>> Absolutely. So, I mean, I follow like Bezos. I Amazon. I like to follow Apple. I like to follow Netflix. I'm a huge fan of those three for a number of different reasons. But yeah, I'd say those are probably the top three that I follow.

Nathan Latka

16:56Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building a estate space?

Jonathan Fishbeck

16:59>> I would say my favorite online tool for building a estate space.

Nathan Latka

17:04Besides your own.

Jonathan Fishbeck

17:06>> Okay. Yeah, I would probably have to say I would put InVision up there from a design to development perspective. It does a lot. So I'd say InVision.

Nathan Latka

17:14Number four here. How many hours of sleep do you get every night?

Jonathan Fishbeck

17:18>> Seven. Seven? That's pretty good. And what's your situation?

Nathan Latka

17:20Married, single kids?

Jonathan Fishbeck

17:21>> I'm happily married to my wife, Vanessa. I have three kids, a daughter of 15, a son who's four and another son who's two. I've got two beautiful dogs and five birds.

Nathan Latka

17:33That's amazing.

Jonathan Fishbeck

17:34>> How old are you, Jonathan? Jonathan, I

17:37>> just turned 39, June 3.

Nathan Latka

17:39Wow, okay, last question here. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20?

Advice for Young Founders

Jonathan Fishbeck

17:43>> I wish I would have told myself to get good advice before I started a company. And not just good advice, right? I got that. I think it was getting good advice from somebody that was in the space that I was going into. So I was actually just asked a question of like, if I had $1,000 what would I spend it on? I've watched that same question get asked. But my answer was simple. I would pay for

18:07>> really, really good advice because it's intrinsic, right? It's going to carry on value with me forever. So that's what I wish I knew. And that's kind of what I as I mentor and help other young CEOs and entrepreneurs, it's get good advice from somebody that's been in the space that you want to go into that's already done it because the mistakes early are the ones that cost the most.

Nathan Latka

18:30Guys, at estatespace.com, if you're buying 50 Macs for your team, they'll help you track all those Macs real time, call it in physical asset management, right? $150,000 a year in revenue back in 2019 grew to a million last year. And this year, they're already at a $2,200,000 run rate. They've done all this bootstrapped using their own internal capital. They have over 50 customers that have average $3,500 per year for the platform. They were profitable last month,

18:52$15,000 as they look to continue to scale with their team of 13 today, eight engineers, and their first three sales reps coming on board with $300,000 quota. We'll see what happens next. Jonathan, thanks for taking us to the top.

Jonathan Fishbeck

19:03>> Awesome. Nathan, appreciate your time.

Nathan Latka

19:06One 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 one

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20:14are saying. Sign 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 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

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