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Founder Interview

How Fatura Simples Reached $27K a Month in Revenue With 110 Customers Processing $6M in Monthly GMV (Interview with CEO Felipe Bagetti)

Interview Date
January 26, 2022
Interviewee
Felipe BagettiCEO and Co-Founder
Watch
Watch the full interview

Company Metrics at Interview Time

Revenue (early 2022)

About $27K/month

Customers (2022)

110

Monthly GMV Processed (December 2021)

$6,000,000

Total Funding Raised

$250,000

Team Size (2022)

19

Historical Snapshot

These numbers were reported by Felipe Bagetti during the interview recorded in January 2022 and are a historical snapshot, not current figures. See Fatura Simples’s current numbers.

Key Takeaways

  • 01Fatura Simples had approximately 110 customers as of early 2022
  • 02The company processed about $6,000,000 in GMV in December 2021
  • 03Revenue was approximately $27K per month in early 2022, up from about $14K a month a year earlier
  • 04Revenue roughly doubled year over year, up from about $14,000 per month a year prior
  • 05The company raised approximately $250,000 in a seed or pre-seed round in 2021, selling 20% equity at roughly a $1M pre-money valuation
  • 06Team consisted of 19 people total, including two founders, with only one engineer (the co-founder)
  • 07Fatura Simples white-labels payment infrastructure from Zoop rather than running its own
  • 08The company charges a fixed fee per transaction rather than a percentage of volume
  • 09Founded in 2013 as a software studio, Fatura Simples became the full-time focus around 2018
  • 10The company is now focused on health clinics serving low-income patients in Brazil rather than generic SaaS billing

Company Metrics at Time of Interview

MetricValueSource
Revenue (early 2022)About $27K/monthFounder interview, Jan 2022
Customers (2022)110Founder interview, Jan 2022
Monthly GMV Processed (December 2021)$6,000,000Founder interview, Jan 2022
Revenue One Year Prior (monthly) (2021)About $14,000/monthFounder interview, Jan 2022
Total Funding Raised$250,000Founder interview, Jan 2022
Equity Sold in Seed Round20%Founder interview, Jan 2022
Pre-Money Valuation at Seed (2021)About $1,000,000Founder interview, Jan 2022
Team Size (2022)19Founder interview, Jan 2022
Engineers (2022)1Founder interview, Jan 2022
Co-Founders2Founder interview, Jan 2022
Year Founded2013Founder interview, Jan 2022
Clinics as Paying Customers (2022)About 30Founder interview, Jan 2022

Growth Breakdown

Revenue

Felipe reported approximately $27K per month in revenue in early 2022. This was up from about $14,000 per month a year earlier, representing roughly a doubling over twelve months.

Customers

The company had approximately 110 customers at the time of the interview, of which about 30 were health clinics, the segment Fatura Simples was actively focusing on. The remaining customers were SaaS businesses and other types of operators using the recurring billing platform.

Team

Fatura Simples had 19 people in total, including the two co-founders. Only one engineer, the co-founder, was on the team, with the rest focused on business and operations.

Funding

The company raised approximately $250,000 in a seed or pre-seed round in 2021, selling 20% equity at roughly a $1M pre-money valuation. Prior to that raise, the team had been fully bootstrapped for years, citing a less developed startup ecosystem in Brazil as the reason.

Growth Strategy

Niche Focus on Health Clinics

Felipe credited the shift toward health clinics serving low-income patients as a key strategic move. Clinics operate at much higher transaction volumes than typical SaaS businesses, making them more valuable customers under Fatura Simples's fixed-fee pricing model.

Revenue Tied to Client Growth

Because Fatura Simples charges a fixed fee per transaction rather than a flat subscription, its revenue grows automatically as its clients grow their own customer bases. Felipe noted that when a client grows 10x, Fatura Simples earns 10x more from that client without any additional sales effort.

White-Label Infrastructure to Reduce Complexity

Rather than maintaining its own payment rails, the company moved to white-labeling infrastructure from Zoop. This allowed the team to focus on product and sales while avoiding the regulatory and engineering burden of running proprietary payment infrastructure in Brazil.

Avoiding Commoditized Markets

Felipe explicitly chose to exit the generic SaaS recurring billing market, which he described as crowded with competitors such as Vindi, Superlógica, and Asaas. By moving into health clinics, the company found a segment where it could build a real competitive advantage.

Investor Synergies Beyond Capital

The 2021 seed round was described not just as a financial event but as a strategic shakeup. Felipe said the investor brought synergies that were valuable for the company's future direction, even if not through direct client sharing.

Best Quotes

“Right now we are focused on the health sector on, how can I say this in English is some kind of health assistance plan for low income people? So there are a lot of health clinics for low income people in Brazil that create this kind of plans. So you pay a subscription fee monthly, usually, and you gain a lot of benefits. So these clinics will take care of your health. So we are focusing on these, these kind of customers right now.”
“We started at 2013 as a software studio. And, along the the years, we developed Fatura Simples as a side product, I'd say. But we since the beginning, we wanted to make the shifts and we did. The beta of Fatura Simples was launched at late fourteen And along the next years, we started the shifts. And I'd say three, three to four years now, it's like 100% our focus.”
“We we did not really decided to raise until two years no. Three years ago, we we were going bootstrapped like all the way because the the ecosystem in Brazil was not very good, but it it changed a lot. So we started raising. And, last year, we raised approximately a $250,000 check.”
“There there is a fun thing about this business model is that if our our clients grow, we also grow. So we make one sale and this guy is generating us, I I let's say, a $100 monthly and he grows 10 x, he starts generating 10 x more money for us.”
“We have about 17 employees plus us, two founders.”
“We are white labeling, but we had at some point our own infrastructure. Yeah. Some kind something like that. But, yeah, it's it's hard, and there is a lot of regulations. So we we killed our own infra and started white labeling. Yeah.”
“I wish I I knew that discipline and commitment and consistency goes a lot far than I thought.”

What Happened Next

This interview captured Fatura Simples at an early stage in January 2022, when the company had approximately 110 customers, was processing around $6M in monthly GMV, and had recently closed a $250,000 seed round. Felipe and his co-founder were actively pivoting the business toward health clinics in Brazil as their primary growth segment. For current revenue, customer count, and company status, visit the Fatura Simples profile on GetLatka.

View Fatura Simples’s current profile and metrics

Full Transcript

Chapters

Introduction and Background on Felipe Bagetti

Nathan Latka

00:00Hey, folks. My guest today is Felipe Bagetti. He is passionate about people and business growth. That's why he created Fatura Simples. He's a countryside city guy from Brazil and has no fear of taking risk, has a background in technology, and his experience of living abroad helps him to be an empathetic leader. The company today, again, faturasimples.com.br, is a recurring billing automation platform for business growth. Felipe, are you ready to take us to the top?

Felipe Bagetti

00:25>> Yeah. Sure. Let's go.

Target Customers: Health Clinics in Brazil

Nathan Latka

00:27So recurring billing for who? What kind of customers are you selling to?

Felipe Bagetti

00:32>> Yeah, right now we are focused on the health sector on,

00:39>> how can I say this in English is some kind of health assistance plan for low income people? So there are a lot of health clinics for low income people in Brazil that create this kind of plans. So you pay a subscription fee monthly, usually, and you gain a lot of benefits. So these clinics will take care of your health. So we are focusing on these, these kind of customers right now.

Nathan Latka

01:13So are you selling to the clinic or to the patient?

Felipe Bagetti

01:16>> To the clinic.

Nathan Latka

01:17I see. How many clinics are paying you today?

Felipe Bagetti

01:23>> I'd say about, 30, around this. But, let me say one more thing. This is what we are, focusing right now because we started, with a more generic, positioning. So we have a lot of, SaaS businesses using our subscription, platform so they can automate these processes. But and a lot of other kinds of customers, but this is our focus right now.

Total Customer Base and GMV

Nathan Latka

01:56And in in December, so last month, how much total transaction volume did you process?

Felipe Bagetti

02:04>> About 6,000,000.

Nathan Latka

02:06Okay. Across 30 customers?

Felipe Bagetti

02:09>> No. Across our whole base that we intermediate the the money because we have some money, some sorry. We have some customers that don't use, these two of the of intermediating money. They plug their own processors.

Nathan Latka

02:31I see. So 6,000,000. So how many customers total for the 6,000,000 of GMV?

Felipe Bagetti

02:42>> I'd say about a 100.

Nathan Latka

02:44A 100.

Felipe Bagetti

02:45>> Wow. Okay. A 110, something like that.

Nathan Latka

02:49Okay. Felipe, talk money to me. How do you guys make money?

Felipe Bagetti

02:53>> Oh, we take a a transaction fee. And so you if you make a transaction, we would we will take about it it varies, really, but about 1 Brazilian real to 3 reais 20.

Nathan Latka

03:14And so what percent is that?

Felipe Bagetti

03:17>> It depends, but I'd say it's like half.

Nathan Latka

03:21Okay. So on 6,000,000 of total GMV in December last month, if you take

Felipe Bagetti

03:30>> about You are trying to calculate. Right? Just

Business Model and Transaction Fees

Nathan Latka

03:32ask Not not not try not not trying. I am. 6,000,000 times point 5%. You guys did about 30,000 US dollars in revenue last month?

Felipe Bagetti

03:45>> Just shy of that. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

03:48Oh, what's going on there, YouTube? Good to see you guys. Now imagine this. You love watching these interviews with 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 your

04:11Stripe account, you see your valuation real time. You can see what it 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

04:36a 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

04:58built off random data. Again, you guys hear these interviews on YouTube. All these datas are built from real time valuation data points founders 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

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05:45wanna 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.

06:12What's the future plan? Are you trying to work with more SaaS companies or are you only focusing on clinics moving forward?

Felipe Bagetti

06:20>> We are focusing on clinics and the tangent, like the, the similar kinds of, of operations. Because, you see, SaaS companies don't we we don't have we don't really have

06:37>> differential, a competitive differential. Does that really make sense?

Nathan Latka

06:43It does. You don't have competitive differentiation. Who does mostly recurring billing for SaaS companies in Sao Paulo? Who are your competitors there?

Felipe Bagetti

06:52>> Oh, yeah. We have a there is a company called Vindi.

07:00>> Yugu, there is another one. Superlógica, Asaas. There are a bunch of them. So that's the problem. You see? There is a there is a bunch of them doing the same thing. So the the fee, each one, has the ability to take.

07:18>> The the the space is competitive, so there is not much margin there. So we are going in another direction.

Nathan Latka

07:26That's a really I think it's a super smart move. When did you launch the company?

Company History: From Studio to Focused Product

Felipe Bagetti

07:31>> Oh, we started at 2013 as a software studio. And, along the the years, we developed Fatura Simples as a side product, I'd say. But we since the beginning, we wanted to make the shifts and we did. The beta of Fatura Simples was launched at late fourteen And along the next years, we started the shifts. And I'd say three, three to four years now, it's like 100% our focus.

Nathan Latka

08:15So Fatura, you launched as a studio in 2013. You worked on many side projects. By 2016, Fatura was really your main focus and you've been focused on Fatura full time for the last four years.

Felipe Bagetti

08:30>> Yeah. That's pretty much it.

Team Size and Co-Founders

Nathan Latka

08:32Okay. Very cool. And you keep saying we. How many co founders do you have?

Felipe Bagetti

08:37>> I have a just one partner. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

08:40Okay. And have you guys bootstrapped so far? Did you decide to raise?

Fundraising: Seed Round and Equity Sold

Felipe Bagetti

08:45>> We we did not really decided to raise until two years no. Three years ago, we we were going bootstrapped like all the way because the the ecosystem in Brazil was not very good, but it it changed a lot. So we started raising. And, last year, we raised approximately a $250,000 check.

09:22>> I'd say around that because we raised it in Brazilian real, so I don't remember the the

09:33>> the dollar price at the time.

Nathan Latka

09:34That was your seed. That was your seed round.

Felipe Bagetti

09:37>> Yeah. I'd say seed or pre-seed. I don't really know.

Nathan Latka

09:43How much Felipe, how much equity did you sell? Was it a 5,000,000 cap on a note?

Felipe Bagetti

09:51>> Sorry. What did you ask?

Nathan Latka

09:53How much equity did you sell for $250,000?

Felipe Bagetti

09:57>> Oh, yeah. You are pretty straightforward.

Nathan Latka

10:02Damn America. Damn Americans. You know? This is American podcast hosts.

Felipe Bagetti

10:06>> Yeah. We sold 20%. 20.

Valuation and Investor Synergies

Nathan Latka

10:12So this is about a million dollar pre money valuation and a million 2 post.

10:20It's a lot of conversions for you, but I think that's right.

Felipe Bagetti

10:23>> Yeah. Yeah. About that.

Nathan Latka

10:26Do you regret it, or was it the right move?

Felipe Bagetti

10:28>> Oh, it was the right move for us at the time. We have a lot of synergies with our investor, like, not really exchanging clients or something like that, but future wise. And, we needed a a shakeup, I'd say. So it was good.

Nathan Latka

10:55If you're doing about

Felipe Bagetti

10:56>> It has been good. Has been good.

10:59>> Yeah.

Revenue Growth: From $14K to $27K per Month

Nathan Latka

11:00If you're doing about $27,000 per month today in revenue, what were you doing exactly a year ago? Do you remember?

Felipe Bagetti

11:07>> Yeah. About half.

Nathan Latka

11:10So this is good grow this is your fastest growing twelve months over the past six years. Right?

Felipe Bagetti

11:18>> In total volume, yes. But percentage wise, not really because, you know, when you are really small.

Nathan Latka

11:24Well, yeah. Yeah. A a dollar to $6 is, you know, 600%. Yeah. What drove the growth from 14,000 a month to 27,000 a month? Is it the focus on clinics and health?

What Drove Growth: Client Expansion and Clinic Focus

Felipe Bagetti

11:42>> Not exactly this, but kind of because we started, there, there is a fun thing about this business model is that if our our clients grow, we also grow. So we make one sale and this guy is generating us, I I let's say, a $100 monthly and he grows 10 x, he starts generating 10 x more money for us. Mhmm. And, some some clients grew in the last year, and it drove our our revenue up. And, this

12:22>> new new segment, these clinics, they operate in a much higher volume than a SaaS business, for example. If you have a SaaS business that had, let's say, 2,000 customers, it's a big SaaS business. If you if you have a clinic that has 2,000 customers, it's it's just validated the the business, you know, it's starting to grow. So

12:56>> the the fee that we take is not percentage. You you asked you asked me if how how much it was. I'd say about half percent, but we take a a fixed fee. Like, it does not change if you transact 100 or 1,000. We take the same fee. So for us, the volume of customers that our client has is really important.

Fixed-Fee Pricing Model Explained

Nathan Latka

13:25Mhmm. Understood. And help me understand your team today. How many folks are full time?

Felipe Bagetti

13:31>> How many what?

Nathan Latka

13:33How many employees?

Felipe Bagetti

13:34>> Oh, yeah.

13:35>> We have about 17 employees plus us, two founders.

Nathan Latka

13:43How many of you guys are engineers?

Felipe Bagetti

13:46>> Just just one.

Nathan Latka

13:47You?

Felipe Bagetti

13:48>> Just no. Just my founder. Just my my cofounder.

Nathan Latka

13:54So building I

Felipe Bagetti

13:55>> I I am also or I was, but I don't I don't code for Fatura Simples. I'm just in the business side.

Nathan Latka

14:05Building payments rails and code is very difficult. How did one person build it? Or are you guys sitting? Are you using someone else's technology to facilitate the payment? You're white labeling.

White-Labeling Zoop for Payment Infrastructure

Felipe Bagetti

14:17>> We are white labeling, but we had at some point our own infrastructure. Yeah. Some kind something like that. But,

14:31>> yeah, it's it's hard, and there is a lot of regulations. So we we killed our own infra and started white labeling. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

14:45Who are you white labeling now?

Felipe Bagetti

14:48>> Zoop, Z-O-O-P.

Nathan Latka

14:52Are they good?

Felipe Bagetti

14:57>> Yeah.

14:59>> There there ain't much there ain't many, options in Brazil for what we want. So, yes, I'd recommend them, but I also want something that some things that they don't have yet. But, you know, it's part of the game.

Nathan Latka

15:18Yep. Very cool story, Felipe. Let's wrap up here with your famous five. Number one, what's your favorite book?

Felipe Bagetti

15:27>> Oh, that's a hard one.

15:31>> Let me see. I'd say right now that

15:36>> Can't Hurt Me from David Goggins — top five. I'm not sure how is my my favorite one, but for sure, this is top five. Oh, sorry. There is another one I'd like to mention.

15:51>> I don't really know if there is English version, but there is a guy in Brazil called David

15:59>> that he crossed the Atlantic in a rowing boat alone, and he has a lot of other cool stories. And he has a book that he talks about his life and planning that that is called

Famous Five: Books, Tools, and Life Lessons

Felipe Bagetti

16:17>> It's there is no time to waste.

Nathan Latka

16:23Great. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Felipe Bagetti

16:32>> Just one. I I wouldn't wouldn't say automation, really.

Nathan Latka

16:38Okay. Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building your business?

Felipe Bagetti

16:48>> I'd say Jira.

Nathan Latka

16:49Number Just management.

16:51How many hours of sleep do you get every night?

Felipe Bagetti

16:55>> Seven.

Nathan Latka

16:56And what's your situation, Felipe? Married, single, kids?

Felipe Bagetti

17:01>> Single.

Closing Reflections and Wrap-Up

Nathan Latka

17:02Okay. And how old are you? 30. 30. Last question. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20?

Felipe Bagetti

17:14>> I wish I I knew that discipline and commitment and consistency goes a lot far than I thought.

Nathan Latka

17:25Guys, there you have it.

Felipe Bagetti

17:27>> Faturasimples.com.br — say it for me, Felipe. Go.

Nathan Latka

17:34Fatura what?

Felipe Bagetti

17:36>> Fatura Simples.

Nathan Latka

17:38He says it so much better than I do. Faturasimples.com.br. They launched back in, call it, 2013 as a venture studio. Eventually realized, wow, this payments gateway they're building for clinics is really taking off. In 2018, they focused full time on that, raised a seed round last year, $250,000 at a million dollar valuation. Sold 20% today, over a 100 customers, they did $6,000,000 in GMV in December. They make about half a percent of that. Doing about $27,000 a month

18:03in revenue today, up from $14,000 a month just a year ago. Healthy growth rate, 17 people on the team with one engineer as they look to continue to scale. Felipe, thanks for taking us to the top.

Felipe Bagetti

18:14>> Thank you, Nathan.

Nathan Latka

18:16One 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

18:42Central. 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

19:04fundraise, 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

19:26for 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

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