How Fabl Grew Over 200% a Year Serving Enterprise Content Marketing Clients (Interview with CEO Taj Forer)

Introduction and Company Overview

Nathan Latka

00:00Hello, everyone. My guest today is Taj Forer. He's an experienced publisher, digital media executive, entrepreneur, and artist. He currently serves as CEO of Fabl, the cloud based publishing platform for content marketing, serving a global client base including CBS, Condé Nast, GE, and Ducati among others. He's a cofounder of Daylight, the celebrated international publisher of art books, and is the author of two books of his own critically acclaimed art photography. Taj, are you ready to take us

00:24to the top?

Taj Forer

00:25Ready.

Nathan Latka

00:26Now you're you're you're a pretty you're a pretty creative dude.

Taj Forer

00:28Well, on the edge, come come out of the creative industry for sure. I studied art in undergrad and in graduate school, so that's definitely my background.

What Fabl Does and How It Makes Money

Nathan Latka

00:37That's good. So tell us more about the company. What what do you do and how is Fabl make money?

Taj Forer

00:43Yeah. So we are a cloud publishing company for rich media branded content, servicing branded storytelling, brand newsrooms, native advertising, you know, branded and sponsored content. That sort of simplifies multiple facets of the process for building, deploying, and then analyzing engagement with associated content. So we operate with a SaaS model.

01:11We sell nominally enterprise licenses to operations and media companies. And

Pure SaaS or Hybrid Model

Nathan Latka

01:19And, Taj, is this... It's a pure play SaaS model, or are there professional services set up fees, things like that on top?

Taj Forer

01:25So it's it's it's a hybrid. I mean, we we talk about, Fabl's core product offering, of course, being the technology platform, which is monetized solely through the SaaS subscriptions. On top of that, we have a technology enabled services group, the fabl content group, which does facilitate content strategy, content development, creative services, and associated executions inside client accounts or alongside the client, depending on the need and the sophistication of the in house teams. And then we have

01:59a targeting and distribution offering as well, which is an add on service for native distribution, content discovery, social distribution. And then and then for our b to b clients, we provide qualified lead generation against the content that they're building and deploying with our platform also as an add on service. Service. So core technology being the platform itself, SaaS, and then add on services sort of enabled by the technology.

Enterprise Pricing and ACV

Nathan Latka

02:27When when you're talking enterprise accounts, I mean, we're... We named some of them some of them in the introduction. We're talking, like, grand a month on average, a $100, a million. Can you give us a general range of ACV?

Taj Forer

02:37Yeah. So, I mean, it really depends on the enterprise, of course. I mean, when we sell into a really large brand portfolio, we're talking about multiple brands operating on the account. To give you some framework, we typically charge a 60 k annual SaaS fee per group using the platform.

Nathan Latka

02:56Okay, Taj. Let's move... That's helpful to understand kind of the enterprise size, kind of what you're dealing with in terms groups. And when you say groups, just to be clear, that's like if you sign up to Ducati, right? And they have multiple locations across the world, each one of the locations is a different group.

Taj Forer

03:08That's exactly right. And we also differentiate between like brand marketing and product marketing groups, right? So, you know, it may be that the platform is leveraged as an end to end solution supporting marketing organizations inside the enterprise, building all of the branded microsites and associated marketing deliverables, landing pages to drive registrations or leads against, and then use the platform for the creation of responsive cloud based deliverables for sales enablement and training materials all the way through

03:42sort of post campaign reporting. So the platform is really robust. It it is a, like, full soup to nuts offering that can be used, for, you know, either a branded lifestyle storytelling content section of the.com or an entire... You know, entire enterprise's, you know, web based content creation needs.

Founder Background and Company Origin

Nathan Latka

04:03And then, Taj, let's get more of the backstory here. I mean, it sounds like you have two of your own books. You've got your your own agency on the side. When did you launch this company and kinda why get into the tech side of things?

Taj Forer

04:13Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I've I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. I mean, I came... I sort of, you know, started several small businesses when I was a kid. I went to school knowing that I wasn't just gonna take a nine to five job. I was fortunate to meet a dear friend of mine and my collaborator now for fifteen years in business, Michael Itkoff. We founded our publishing company right out of college, literally like a classic

04:39startup story out of the dorm room. It was a print media company playing in the luxury market. We scaled that brand from a print magazine into a full blown, art book publishing company globally distributed, celebrated in the art and design and sort of couture market. And then inevitably, we began exploring... You know, incrementally exploring revenue opportunities in digital as a publisher that had access to really high value content and pretty significant audiences. And we, through that

05:13process, saw how broken the digital tools were for the creation and distribution

Nathan Latka

05:13Taj, what year

05:20is this, by the way?

Taj Forer

05:22I'm sorry? Oh, what year? So to date myself, yeah, graduated college in o three. That's when we started our previous company. And then it was about four or five years ago that we began recognizing the lack of tools for rich media design focused publishing. And we began building in house technology inside the publishing company to solve those internal problems that we and our customers were facing. And then a couple of years ago, we recognized just how

05:56significant the opportunity was to build the platform out for third party use and

06:04effectively solve these issues that we were very, very successful in solving internally for enterprise clients. And so at that point in time, we began building the technology as the third party cloud platform that it is today, and the uptake has just been exponential.

Customer Count and Account Structure

Nathan Latka

06:23So what has the uptake been? You launched in 2013. What do you have to say in terms of total customers?

Taj Forer

06:28Well, I'll tell you this, we've got over a 100 accounts on the platform.

Nathan Latka

06:32What's an account though? Like, is that a

06:34logo or a group of a logo or?

Taj Forer

06:34No, that would be an individual group using the platform itself. So we've got over a 100 accounts on the platform, some of them are inside a single customer, some of them are independent customers.

Nathan Latka

06:48They're all paid though, right? None of those are freezers.

Taj Forer

06:52Yeah, I mean, we are a for profit business.

Nathan Latka

06:57Well, no. Some those people say, yeah, we have 10,000 customers. And I go, so they're all paying? And they go, oh, no, no. Only 100 are paying. Right? So just to be clear, have 100 groups that are actively using and paying for the product.

Taj Forer

07:10It's a mix. I mean, we've got a 100 accounts on the platform. We have a very healthy customer base that is rapidly growing. And a series of those accounts are in some kind of a pilot

07:26paradigm right now in the process of either deploying initial campaigns, some paid on a pilot basis, not having converted to a full blown enterprise account. First hits for free, then our stuff is good. So you're gonna start paying for it thereafter. But but, yeah, we... We've got a a really healthy dedicated customer base. Our product is very sticky, and we are... We're growing aggressively.

Nathan Latka

07:48Okay. Just to be clear, though, if we ignore all the current pilot programs you're running, I mean, is it fair to say you're north of 80, like, active paying customers?

Taj Forer

07:57I would say that we're we're north of we're north of 50 active accounts on the platform. I I, you know, I I could certainly get back to you with with with the the detail.

Nathan Latka

08:09No. That's okay. I just wanted a minimum. So just to be clear, you got about 50 that are active, they're paying, they loved you for a while, you got another 50 that are piloting right now. Some are free pilots, some are paid pilots, and that's where you get the 100 number from.

Taj Forer

08:20Yep.

Growth Rate and Product Stickiness

Nathan Latka

08:21You mentioned sticky. You said very sticky. Can you quantify that for me? What's churn look like?

Taj Forer

08:25We're really successful in converting pilot accounts to paid accounts, and we have seen our first batch of enterprise renewals as well. We've seen substantial expansion from customers where we might get in through one brand group and then the product performed so well for them that we pretty quickly expand into other areas of the organization.

Nathan Latka

08:45Does that look like...

Taj Forer

08:46I mean,

Nathan Latka

08:46are we talking like 120% year over year or 200% year over year? What's expansion look like?

Taj Forer

08:51Oh, I mean, we're growing at over 200% a year right now, just in terms of growth rate. And we painstakingly built this platform to consolidate the multiple disconnected tools and workflow processes for modern digital marketers into an interface that was built for marketers. So we are very sort of data driven in our product development. We do tremendous listening to our customers and we iterate the product based on the needs of the end user. So it's a

09:29very complex technology stack with an overtly simple, pretty sexy design focused interface that begets you. So marketers begin touching the tool, and they fall in love instantly because it just does everything that they're responsible for doing better, more efficiently, and it's an enjoyable environment to work in.

Renewal Rate and Funding History

Nathan Latka

09:50So, Taj, we can... Mean, I appreciate all that, but we can actually measure that stuff. Right? So you said your first batch of renewals came through. Was it a 90% renewal, a 100% renewal, 50% renewal? I mean, how sticky was it?

Taj Forer

10:02Oh, we saw a 100% renewal from all of our initial contracts.

Nathan Latka

10:05Okay, that's great. Okay, so a 100% renewal. And then have you bootstrapped the company or have you raised?

Taj Forer

10:10We bootstrapped for a while and then we raised small round to build out the enterprise version of the platform once we had taken the beta to market and saw it was working.

Nathan Latka

10:20Okay. So total raise is what? How much?

Taj Forer

10:22We've raised only about a million bucks of external capital.

Nathan Latka

10:26Okay, got it. You couldn't resist the urge, couldn't just stay bootstrapped,

Taj Forer

10:31know, other people's money is just too sweet.

Nathan Latka

10:33Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. And it sounds like you're doing well, right? I mean, at 50 customers, you said earlier, minimum and each group paying $60,000 ACV, I can just multiply that and you guys are doing I mean, what, you're north of $250K a month now at this point, right?

Taj Forer

10:45Yeah, we're pretty bulletproof about sharing our revenue being an early stage company, but we're off and running and not shutting off the lights anytime soon, that's

Nathan Latka

10:55Yeah, for yeah. Sorry, Taj, just to be clear, those are numbers that you gave me. You said fifty minimum groups paying, and then you said earlier in the interview that it was a $60K ACV. So I'm just multiplying those two. Are one of those numbers wrong?

Taj Forer

11:05Well, you know, we get deals done when we need to get them done. So often we'll discount it. So I'm not gonna give a specific number, but, you're in the ballpark.

Nathan Latka

11:13Okay. Got it. So that general ballpark. And then I wanna give you credit for the growth because it seems like you're growing super fast. So 200... Let's assume you're doing call it $202,150 grand right now per month, 200% year over year growth. I mean, you were doing what? Just $50K or $60K about a year ago?

Taj Forer

11:27Yeah. I mean, we were doing less than that a year ago.

Revenue Mix: New Customers vs. Expansion

Nathan Latka

11:31Okay. Yeah. So I mean, that's that's that's obviously super healthy growth. And is most of the is most of the additional revenue coming from expanding accounts when you're renewing them or adding brand new pilot accounts?

Taj Forer

11:43It's a it's a hybrid of both. I mean, we can only extract so much revenue out of an existing customer unless we have sold into... Like, let... Let's take a, you know, CPG brand. You know, if we if we if we sold into one of Procter and Gamble's, you know, consumer brands and then, wow, the product is performing incredibly well and we're driving increased e commerce conversions, beautiful. That might expand into a massive account for us.

12:12We've got influence most of the time. So we typically sell into the top. And as a result, we're focused on servicing those customers, maybe driving ancillary long tail revenues through our services offerings. But from a pure SaaS play, we're interested in scaling our revenues by adding new customers to the customer base.

Nathan Latka

12:12Good.

Taj Forer

12:12I will say that as it relates to native advertising and working with publishing and media companies, you know, oftentimes, those relationships are a bit

12:38more nuanced from a, you know, like, just cost of doing business perspective as well as a revenue perspective, namely because they operate like agencies. So, you know, the internal custom content groups within the large publishing companies, they're producing problem solving solutions for their clients executed through content that is distributed against the audience that the client has interest in reaching. Right? And so as a result, their financial models often preclude them from paying for SaaS licenses. So

13:12there's... There two sides to that coin for us. One, we might not

13:22revenues off of that customer from a lifetime perspective or even, you know, contract perspective. But what we can do is drive unlimited revenues if we're successful in getting inside that business, receiving a price per campaign published fee, establishing a minimum so we can forecast against that. And those accounts actually do require a fair amount of ongoing cultivation simply because that's how they work, and we know that we can make a lot more money off of those

13:49accounts when we're inside them actively driving volume usage. In that way...

Team Size and Location

Nathan Latka

13:54So, Taj, there's... I don't mean to cut you off, but we're running out of time here. Some some quick questions to wrap this up. Team size today, what are you at?

Taj Forer

14:00We've got just over 22 people. I think it's 24 as of a new design team we just brought up.

Nathan Latka

14:05And where are you guys all based?

Taj Forer

14:07We're in New York and San Francisco for the most part.

CAC and Sales Team Breakdown

Nathan Latka

14:10Okay. CAC, what are spending to acquire these new customers fully weighted? So including any sales team, you know, content people, things like that.

Taj Forer

14:18I mean, lot of our growth... Yeah. Our CAC is really low, actually. A lot of our growth is organic. There's a tremendous amount of sort of word-of-mouth marketing. And to be honest, we've never marketing campaign. We we never had our big, you know, here we are, here's the

Nathan Latka

14:35I totally get that. I totally get that. But of your team of 22, how many of them are marketing people, salespeople, content people?

Taj Forer

14:41We have a lot of product people. We've got a

14:46sales and biz dev team totaling seven.

Nathan Latka

14:49And

Taj Forer

14:51then we've got a product and design team that effectively comprises the rest of the company. So we're very product focused, and and we're, you know, a mean and lean group.

Nathan Latka

15:05Yeah. Yeah. I mean... So, look, a team of seven on sales and business development assume a minimum salary of $60K. I'm sure they're probably more than that if you're in New York and San Francisco. That's that's $420K a year right there that is basically put into your fully weighted CAC, I mean, your equation there, right? So like, I mean, maybe a better question to ask is like, how quickly do you like to recover your capital on

15:22a new group paying you?

Profit Margin and Sales Incentives

Taj Forer

15:24Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, I guess all paths lead to Rome, right? We

15:34try to maintain an 80% profit margin on our customer accounts, let's put it that way. And and then we also do a really good job of incenting our biz dev and sales team to, you know, align against win. So we provide commissions to everyone that's doing BD and sales for us. Yeah. And we provide additional sweeteners for for the larger accounts so that if there's attribution and we drive, you know, significant growth inside those accounts, that

16:03that attribution, you know, originated with the rep, you know, that that that brought that account in.

CAC Cap and Payback Period

Nathan Latka

16:08So... Taj, just to be clear, gross margin wouldn't account for CAC stuff. Right? Because gross... Like, CAC is like stuff that's below the line. That's not server costs and, you know, pricing fees. So I'm just curious, like, you have a $60,000 first year ACV. Do you generally spend up to that amount to acquire the customer and you have a one year payback? What does the actual data look like?

Taj Forer

16:25Oh, no, it's much better than that.

Nathan Latka

16:25I mean, is it?

16:32Just saying you're much better at like, I don't know what that means.

Taj Forer

16:32Well, no,

16:35we try not to spend more than 20 k acquiring a 60 k account.

Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions

Nathan Latka

16:41Got it. Perfect. So no more than 20 k CAC and that means your payback period is significantly less than six months, which is great. That's healthy. Cool. Alright. Let's wrap up here, man, with the famous five. Number one, what is your favorite business book?

Taj Forer

16:53Oh, man, it changes, but right now I'd say it's Getting Naked by Patrick Lencioni.

Nathan Latka

16:58Okay.

16:59Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying right now?

Taj Forer

17:03I've actually been dipping into the Steve Jobs archives recently, watching some of his early product release videos and getting a new perspective on his leadership,

17:17kind of fresh eyes on that. It's been interesting.

Nathan Latka

17:19All right, number three, what's your favorite online tool for growing the business besides your own?

Taj Forer

17:24Pipedrive.

Nathan Latka

17:25Number four, how many hours of sleep do get every night?

Taj Forer

17:28Oh, at least eight.

Nathan Latka

17:29That's good. And what's your situation? Married, single, you have kids?

Taj Forer

17:33Married with kids.

Nathan Latka

17:35How many? Wives, kids.

Taj Forer

17:36Two

17:37kids, one wife.

Nathan Latka

17:37Two kids, one wife. All right, and how old are you?

Taj Forer

17:41I am 36.

Nathan Latka

17:42All right, last question, Taj. What do wish your 20 year old self knew?

Taj Forer

17:49Year old self knew that shit is never easy.

Nathan Latka

17:55There you guys have it, stuff is never easy from Taj. He launched his company, Fabl, back in 2013 after building his own publishing arm, publishing books, staying in the creative space, he decided to jump into software. They've since raised about a million bucks with a team of 22 in New York City and San Francisco to help really enterprise clients do content at scale and really manage at scale, monetize at scale. They've got 50 paying customers doing

18:18around $200K per month right now in revenue. That's up 200% year over year. Taj, congrats, man, and thanks for taking us to the top.

Taj Forer

18:25Thanks so much. Appreciate it.