eWebinar Revenue (2024)

[00:00] Hey folks, my guest today is Melissa Kwan. She's the co founder and CEO of ewebinar, an automated webinar platform that saves people from doing the same webinar over and over again. She's a third time Founder, Bootstrapper, and Digital Nomad. Her previous company, Spacio, was acquired in 2019. Melissa, you ready to take us to the top? [00:17] >> Yeah. Absolutely. [00:18] That previous company, did you bootstrap that one as well? [00:21] >> I did. Nice. It was much fun. [00:23] I was gonna say, so have you do you have the yin and the yang? Have you raised on one and then bootstrapped the other? Can you compare? [00:30] >> Well, we have never raised venture capital. I mean, had some like family and friends. So, I mean, do you consider that bootstrapping? [00:38] Mean I consider bootstrapping. Someone to me is bootstrapped if they're very capital efficient, which means the way I measure that is you've raised less than 1x your ARR. [00:48] >> Yeah, absolutely. So I've never raised venture capital. I actually, my LinkedIn post today, the title of that is I once took money from an investor and it's private investor. He invested about $250 ks and that made me realize the only person who needs to give you money is your customers. [01:06] This is in Spacio? [01:08] Yes, it was. Okay, come on. Give us a quick detail. What happened? What did you like not like about it? Not, not, nothing against this person, maybe personally, but just in general. [01:16] >> Yeah. I mean, it turns out Nathan that there is no free money. And so it turns out that when you take someone else's money, you are responsible for reporting to them and all these things that you didn't have to do when you were truly your own boss. And I don't think people realize what that means. I didn't even take venture capital. I had nobody on my board and it was still an added layer of pressure that [01:42] >> I didn't have. And while bootstrapping is extremely difficult because I'm also doing it now, I just would never give up the freedom that it comes with. [01:53] Guys, if you're sitting there watching this on YouTube going, amen, give Melissa some love here, hit that like button, comment below. Melissa, tell us about ewebinar. What's the product do? [02:01] >> So exactly as you say, it saves people from doing the exact same webinar over and over again. So you can imagine demos, onboarding trainings, especially for SaaS companies. You are probably constantly doing those things, maybe live on Zoom or something else, or putting it on YouTube, which isn't as interactive. So this product was actually designed for bootstrappers because this was a problem that I personally live with, with Spacio for five years and a product that I [02:30] >> dreamt of having every single day. So you can imagine like how much more efficient you can be if someone else is running all of your demos, onboarding and trainings, and you never have to do them live. [02:41] Yep. So I wanna talk about strategy and then get into your growth and how you've added customers. On the strategy side, I imagine there's people listening right now going, I've thought about automated webinars, but it feels weird inviting my list to an automated webinar. It feels like I'm tricking my users. I'm sure you hear this all the time. How do you get around that? [02:59] >> Well, I think it's only tricking your users when you start by telling them it's live when it's not. Because authenticity, especially when you are bootstrapping is your currency. [03:12] >> You can spend years building your credibility and just seconds to destroy it. So we are advocates of please do not trick your customers. Do not tell them it's live when it's not. You should be open and honest to tell them, hey, this webinar is recorded, but I'm managing the chat, which is exactly what we allow you to do. [03:29] 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 [03:53] 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 [04:17] 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 [04:39] 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 [05:05] out right now and you're raising your seed round. Well, 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 [05:27] 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. [05:54] >> If anyone do the trick, right? [05:56] Because that's my problem. If I say it's a recorded webinar, people are gonna go, well, then I'm not gonna click through the email and attend because it's just recorded. That's boring. But you say, and I'm live managing the chat. That's what you say. That's the trick. [06:07] >> Yeah. I mean, is a trick and it's not because the chat is asynchronous, right? It's like Intercom, it's like Zendesk. So we interact with asynchronous chat every single day on websites, on our support. Why can't we have that on an automated webinar? This is actually the feature that allows you to fully automate your webinars 24/7 and never miss an opportunity to communicate your customer or your prospect. That was actually the missing thing that I had [06:33] >> in my previous company. And I think Nathan, anyone who even says like, Oh, I feel like tricking my customers. They've probably looked at other solutions before and thought, Oh, this is super scammy. And I was one of those people. [06:44] Or they got suckered into someone else's marketing that was selling a live webinar. They spent time, they showed up and they realized it wasn't. And then they just hated those automated webinars for everyone. [06:53] >> Well, yeah, exactly. I think this is actually one of the biggest hurdles that we have to get through is how do we change that preconceived notion and build truly the Netflix of webinars, not the scammy automated webinars that people might know of previously. [07:08] So Melissa, what do you charge for this? What do customers pay per month on average? [07:11] >> So it starts at 49 a month. We charge by number of published webinars. So once you publish it, you can set a recurring schedule so you can run it a 100 times, 200 times per month, and then it kind of goes up from there. So we do not charge by number of users or number of attendees like most other people do. [07:29] Interesting. And so obviously some people pay 50. What is the big Can you tell me what the Don't name the customer. What's the biggest customer pay you per month? [07:35] >> So we max out at $10 per webinar per month. And our biggest customers has about right now, two ten webinars and counting. Per month? So per month. [07:47] So that's like $2 k a month then from your biggest customer. [07:51] >> Yeah. And you can imagine the manpower that actually substitutes to run 200 webinars concurrently every single month. [07:59] Crazy. Huge. I totally get it. [08:00] >> That's it's amazing. [08:01] I mean, I we do webinars and there are a lot of freaking work, so that makes sense to me. All right. So you started at $50 a month and then put all this on a timeline for me. When did you launch the business? What year? [08:13] >> July 2020. So it's been two years since the product has seen the light of day. We built it for about a year and a half it So was actually like [08:24] >> my co founder, we had a dev team. So one thing I learned coming into this business is I do not like managing people. So our entire team is outsourced. [08:34] I love you, Melissa. I love you. You know how long it took me to admit that publicly? You know, people, I'm like, you know what? Everyone talks about a big team and 300 people and these team retreats and celebrating birthdays in the office. I'm going, I don't want to do any of this. [08:48] >> Don't want full time people. I don't. I don't like hiring. I don't like firing. Like I don't like those emotions. I love building businesses. I love sales. I love innovation, but I came into this business actually thinking I do not need any employees, including a co founder. So I actually hired a dev shop to start with, unfortunately. [09:07] What did you use? [09:09] >> Well, because it didn't work out. I don't, yeah, I didn't actually wanna say, yeah, don't wanna share it. [09:15] Tell me why, what was the lesson? Can you tell me the lesson there? Why didn't it work? Was it your fault or their fault? [09:20] >> I mean, I don't think it was anyone's fault, right? I think a lot of dev shops starts with, Hey, I can do this. I can take the contract because it's a big contract. And then you go into a product realizing if you don't have a person thinking about this product every single day, every living moment, that's as invested as you, it's like having a restaurant without a chef. So I came in thinking, hey, this dev shop can [09:44] >> be my CTO and all my product things. And I can just go do what I do best, which is build the business, But it just doesn't work out like that. So I think they hugely underestimated what it took to build a product because they'd never built a product before. And it turns out like my life partner, David, I did not know that he could code as well. He actually [10:08] >> fixing things for me because he was like criticizing this, criticizing that. And I'm like, why don't you go fix it? I can't fix it. And so he started coding for us and I was like, wait a second, you're actually like the 1% of the 1% coder. So I was like, why am I paying these people? Why don't I just end my relationship with them? And we work out an arrangement for you to be my co founder. [10:28] >> So he actually came in about a year into the business and we worked in an arrangement that works based on that. And now he's my co founder. So we built that for a year and a half before we put ewebinar out on the market about two years ago. [10:41] Let me break that down for a second. So tell me the painful number. How much money do you sink into this dev shop that didn't work before you cut it off? [10:48] >> 350,000. [10:50] Oh, my God. [10:53] >> It would have been more if I kept going. [10:55] Yeah. Okay. Fair. [10:56] Wow. Okay. 350 ks. [10:57] How could you not tell earlier? Why did it take you 350 ks? Why couldn't you cut off at 35 ks? [11:04] >> Well, okay. So here's the number, right? So we sunk a lot of money into like branding and design. Like, I am not a founder that's like, okay, let's do this not cheap. I'm all about ROI. So what is the maximum output that I can get for the minimum input? And that doesn't mean paying the least, right? That means finding the Pareto efficiency. So what we did was And [11:27] you have a beautiful website, so it pays So [11:30] >> we hired the best person we thought we could get to do all the branding, the design, and that costs a lot of money. I mean, that in itself was probably 65,000, right? And I'm saying like every single page of the website, every single page of the first version of the app and the branding and all that back and forth, right? And then you've got like dev shops charge in phases. So it was broken down into four [11:56] >> phases, right? We basically went through three phases before I was like, okay, I actually don't think continuing this makes sense because another mistake was my friend owned the dev shop. [12:09] Ah, that's So tricky. [12:10] >> Was really difficult for me to say, Hey, you're not delivering, because there was no reason for me to doubt him because I am not technical. So it wasn't really until David was looking through the code because he was always going to be the bridge between this dev shop and us moving our quote unquote in house team to Vietnam. So we actually, all our developers are from Vietnam and David is our CTO who still codes, but actually [12:35] >> manages the team over there. As he was looking at the code, he was like, wait a second, like this isn't the way it should be done. And that's when he stepped in and that's when I had to have that hard conversation with my friend and say, Hey, I actually don't think this is going to end well. And you are actually sinking too many resources to try to make this happen. So it was a no win situation [12:55] >> for both of Yeah, smart move. [12:57] Okay, so you bring in David. Now negotiating with a life partner for equity and business is not easy. So are we talking like 10%, 20% here? Was it like a fifty fifty split? [13:05] >> So another thing I learned in my previous business is while I have no doubt that there are some CTOs out there that can also build a business, but I am a firm believer that a CTO is a great product technology partner, but the business is built by the CEO. So in my previous business, it was a fifty fifty split. But coming to this one, and because they had been there for my previous life, I was like, hey, [13:38] >> based on my previous experience, what do you think is a fair number for you to feel invested and for you to feel like a co founder, but also know that I'm going to be building the business around the product. So the split between us is 35, 65. It was something that [13:58] Melissa, held to her guns. [13:59] I love that story. [14:00] >> Yeah. Mean, he yeah, I mean, he put out that number. It was something that he felt was fair. Frankly, also think it's fair. [14:07] I love that. Okay. Talk to me a little more. There's people watching this right now here on YouTube, on iTunes going, man, I want to use contractors too. I don't like full time employees. So you learned what not to do, but you still how many contractors did you pay at least a dollar last month? [14:19] >> So our burn right now so I don't pay myself. David and I don't pay ourselves because I had previous exit. We were able to kind of ride off that. So we're lucky in that way. [14:30] Melissa, was that like, like, you super rich or was that like a million dollar exit and you have, you know, a year Yeah. [14:34] >> Or was. Two So I'm not allowed to say the number based on our previous contract, but it was my personal exit was like in the low 7 figures. [14:44] Okay. So plenty of flexibility. Yeah. [14:46] >> Some flexibility, but like for people hearing this, like, don't forget that I sunk a decade into that. So if you take that exit, like absolutely life changing. But if you divide it by 10, Yeah. Like, that's like having like an amazing sales job at SAP. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And having all the benefits and all that stuff. But, you know, it could have gone the other way as well. [15:08] Yep. So what do you can I ask what are your total expenses now per month? [15:11] >> Yeah. So Sorry. I lost my train of thought. It's about 60,000 is our burn. So for where we are and if you've seen the product, like that is extremely efficient. We do not total hire [15:24] expenses or your net burn? [15:27] >> My total expense. [15:29] It. And so are you making you're making more than 60 ks in MRR yet or no? [15:34] >> No. So my the only thing that matters to me right now is profitability. So we just crossed 500 ks ARR. Thank you. But I'm still not paying myself. For people out there, it really takes a lot. But yeah, so we're about 20 ks right now from that. I think we'll see it this year. [15:56] Yeah. So just to be clear, you're doing about $40,000 a month in recurring revenue, 60 expenses, you're burning 20 ks a month, but growing. I mean, so if you're at 45 ks per 40 per month right now in revenue, where were you exactly a year ago? [16:09] >> So I have that number. I think it was like, I wanna say it's like 10 or something like [16:16] Okay, you've grown. So where's the growth coming from? But tell us real quick last two minutes here. How are you signing up new customers? [16:22] >> So truth be told, we have not fully figured that out yet. Marketing is not something that I know well, but our biggest user acquisition channel is word-of-mouth. For our price point of product, one on one sales does not work. Like outreach doesn't make sense. So we are investing heavily in SEO and content. So our website traffic is going up significantly every month, but our number of demos is kind of staying stagnant and our conversion rate, by [16:55] >> the way, we only do demos through ewebinar. I do not do live demos, which is kind of amazing. Our conversion rate from demo to trial is 25% and all that converts on its own. And our trial to pay conversion rate is actually close to 70% every single month. [17:12] Okay. Those numbers work. And how many customers paying today? [17:17] >> I think we just crossed five fifty. [17:20] Five fifty. You're getting some momentum here. This is great. Love this story. And just to be clear, just so everyone hears it again, bootstrapped, No capital raise except your own. [17:28] >> Yeah. No. Friends and family as well. Also our own. Of course, Yeah. [17:33] Fair enough. And you really are two people on the team and then everyone else is contractors. Right? Two FTEs? [17:39] >> Well, I mean, David's also a contractor. So Okay. Like, literally everybody is Our COO, our partnerships person, our dev team, we have multiple content writers. I mean, I think everybody should choose where they want to spend their time. That is like a core belief. [17:56] What dev shop do you use now? Do you want to share them? [17:59] >> Yeah, it's HD Websoft from Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh. We chose it because number one, we love Vietnam and we love going there. Number two, I had a lot of friends that tried them and said they were the best. However, I do not recommend it if you do not have a senior dev, senior engineer or CTO that actually manages the team. [18:21] Yep, yep. And real quick on the content, what dev shop or how did you, sorry, not dev shop, but where did you find your writers? [18:28] >> Man, that is so hard. Our COO actually turns out to be He's a great writer. He went to school as a playwright. So he actually heads most of our content. And then a lot of the writers that help us, I just find through referrals through LinkedIn. We've tried a lot of them. We probably have tried over 20 writers. [18:46] Wow. [18:47] >> And we now have like three or four that we work with regularly. [18:50] Yeah, very cool. Melissa, this is a great story. Let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, what's your last business book you read? [18:59] >> Man, I would say The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs. Highly recommend it. [19:03] Yeah, that's a good one. [19:04] Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? [19:08] >> Wow, it doesn't come off from the top of my head. That's okay. Justin, no, you know what? Justin Welsh, I am following him religiously. [19:15] Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building your own business besides ewebinar? [19:21] >> Definitely Slack. [19:23] Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night? [19:28] >> Nine or ten, like a baby. Awesome. I love that. And what's your situation? [19:32] Well, it seems like you have a life partner, David, right? Any kids? [19:35] >> No. Ewebinar is my kid. Yeah. And I think that's enough. [19:40] Okay. And do you mind me asking, Melissa, how old how old are you? [19:43] >> I am turning 39. [19:46] 39. Happy early birthday. [19:48] Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20. [19:54] >> Start your own business early. [19:57] Guys, there you have a really great story here. Ewebinar launched back in 2020. She burned three fifty k on an MVP before she learned that Dev Shop just wasn't going to work. She ended up bringing in her life partner, giving him 20, 35, I think the 35% is what she said. But guess what? She's really the only full time employee here. And they're now doing $42, $43,000 a month in revenue, five fifty customers to help you run automated [20:16] webinars with asynchronous live chat or asynchronous chat next to the webinar. That's the secret sauce. They're up again from $10,000 a month just a year ago. So healthy growth, all bootstrapped. She's a one woman wrecking machine. Melissa, thanks for taking us to the top. [20:30] >> Thanks so much, Nathan. [20:33] 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 [20:58] 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 [21:20] 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 want to 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 [21:42] 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 to counter those people. We [22:01] got 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.