Interview
How Genially Reached 7,000,000 Users and Turned Profitable by 2020 (Interview with Alberto López)
- Interview Date
- September 29, 2020
- Interviewee
- Alberto LópezVP of Business Development
Company Metrics at Interview Time
Total Users (Free and Paid) (2020)
More than 7,000,000
Team Size (2020)
70
Gross Churn (2020)
2% per month
Engineers (2020)
15
Cash in Bank (2020)
Around 2,000,000
Historical Snapshot
These numbers were reported by Alberto López during the interview recorded in September 2020 and are a historical snapshot, not current figures. See Genially’s current numbers.
Key Takeaways
- 01Genially had more than 7,000,000 free and paid users worldwide as of September 2020
- 02The company was founded in 2015 and began monetizing in 2017
- 03Average contract value is around €60 a year, driven largely by teachers who make up about 80% of paying customers
- 04The most affordable plan is the student plan at €15 a year
- 05Gross churn was 2% per month at the time of the interview
- 06The team had 70 full-time employees including 15 engineers and 5 quota-carrying sales reps
- 07Genially had gone through breakeven and become profitable since COVID-19
- 08The company had raised around 5,000,000 from VCs and had approximately 2,000,000 in cash in the bank
- 09Growth came from word of mouth carried by the Genially logo in users' creations, and from an ambassador program whose members run webinars
- 10The company had 150 ambassadors, mostly educators, who spread the product within their networks
Company Metrics at Time of Interview
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Total Users (Free and Paid) (2020) | More than 7,000,000 | Interview, Sep 2020 |
| Free-to-Paid Conversion Rate (2020) | Just under 1% | Interview, Sep 2020 |
| Average Contract Value (2020) | Around €60 a year | Interview, Sep 2020 |
| Student Plan Price (2020) | €15 a year | Interview, Sep 2020 |
| Gross Churn (2020) | 2% per month | Interview, Sep 2020 |
| Expansion MRR (September 2020) | €5,000 | Interview, Sep 2020 |
| Team Size (2020) | 70 | Interview, Sep 2020 |
| Engineers (2020) | 15 | Interview, Sep 2020 |
| Sales Reps (Quota-Carrying) (2020) | 5 | Interview, Sep 2020 |
| Ambassadors (2020) | 150 | Interview, Sep 2020 |
| Total Funding Raised from VCs (2020) | Around 5,000,000 | Interview, Sep 2020 |
| Cash in Bank (2020) | Around 2,000,000 | Interview, Sep 2020 |
| Year Founded | 2015 | Interview, Sep 2020 |
Growth Breakdown
Users and Customers
Genially had more than 7,000,000 free and paid users at the time of the interview, with a free-to-paid conversion rate of just under 1%. Teachers account for approximately 80% of paying customers, with an average contract value of around €60 a year.
Team
The company had grown to 70 full-time employees by September 2020, including 15 engineers and 5 quota-carrying sales reps who handled a high volume of inbound leads.
Profitability and Funding
Since COVID-19, Alberto said, Genially had gone through breakeven and become profitable. It had raised around 5,000,000 from VCs in total, half of its last round was secondary money, and cash in the bank was around 2,000,000 at the time of the interview. He said Genially was going to raise 10,000,000 in around two months, a round its current VC partners had advised.
Churn and Expansion
Gross churn was 2% per month at interview time. Expansion MRR in September 2020 was approximately €5,000, driven primarily by seat upgrades and plan upgrades within the existing customer base.
Growth Strategy
Powered-By Viral Loop
Genially's logo sits in the creations people make with it, and Alberto credits word of mouth for the company's growth: "We we grow and grow because of word-of-mouth. Because, you know, we have a logo in the creations."
Ambassador Program
Genially built a network of 150 ambassadors, mostly educators, who received a free master plan in exchange for running webinars and spreading the product within their professional networks. The program was deliberately focused on the education segment.
Webinars
The webinars on the tape are the ambassadors' own. In return for a free Master plan, Alberto says, "they help us by making webinars, by making cross selling from cross marketing and to spread the word to spread the word within their networks."
Influencer Marketing
The influencers here are Genially's own users: the ambassadors are people who love the tool, and the community lives on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok. Rather than a cash commission, Genially has at times paid for their travel ("we usually don't pay in in cash").
Inbound-Led Sales
Genially generated more than 300 inbound leads per day from organic traffic and word-of-mouth, allowing the 5-person sales team to focus on converting and expanding existing interest rather than outbound prospecting.
Best Quotes
“I want to make sure that now the audience know that now we have more than 7,000,000 users.”
“Free and paid. Our conversion rate is around... It's a little bit lower than 1%.”
“2% in this moment.”
“We are now since COVID, since COVID nineteen, we are... We we we went through the breakeven. Now we are profitable.”
“We're going to raise 10,000,000 in around two months. And if you ask me why, I don't know why, because we have to actually have the most of the money in the bank. We don't need the money back.”
What Happened Next
At the time of this interview in September 2020, Genially had more than 7,000,000 users, a team of 70, and had recently reached profitability. Alberto said the company was going to raise 10,000,000 in around two months, a round its current VC partners had advised. Visit the Genially company profile on GetLatka for current figures and any updates since this recording.
View Genially’s current profile and metricsFull Transcript
Chapters
- 0:00Introduction and Company Overview
- 0:217 Million Users and What Genially Does
- 0:57Free vs Paid Users and Conversion Rate
- 1:14Pricing Plans, Average Contract Value and MRR
- 2:31Launched 2015, Monetized 2017, Growing by Word of Mouth
- 3:31Funding the Early Years and the Agency Origin
- 4:39Co-Founders, Cap Table, First Customers and Ambassadors
- 8:20Team Size, Engineers and Sales Reps
- 9:30Genially vs Canva: Product Positioning
- 10:26Churn, Expansion Revenue and Upsells
- 12:44Fundraising Plans and Cash in Bank
- 13:50Profitability Since COVID-19
- 14:15Plans for the Next Raise: The US and Other Markets
- 15:43Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions
Introduction and Company Overview
Nathan Latka
00:00Hello, everyone. My guest today is Alberto Lopez. He launched Genially to provide a tool to create interactive communication experiences and more engaging content for more than 2,000,000 of his current users worldwide. He participates in tasks such as the business development strategy, funding process, and public relationships. Alberto, are you ready to take us to the top?
Alberto López
00:17Yes. Hello. Thank you.
Nathan Latka
00:18Thanks for coming on. And just to be clear, are you one of the co founders?
7 Million Users and What Genially Does
Alberto López
00:21Yes. I'm one of the co founders. Alright. I want to make sure that now the audience know that now we have more than 7,000,000 users.
Nathan Latka
00:31So what does that mean? What's the company doing? What are they using?
Alberto López
00:34Well, we provide a tool to make all kind of interactive content so that you are able to learn once one tool, and you can create almost everything. You can create infographics, presentations, video presentations, gamification experiences, and everything that you can imagine. We save money and time to people because you have just to learn one one only tool.
Free vs Paid Users and Conversion Rate
Nathan Latka
00:57And when you say 7,000,000 users, are those free and paid sign ups?
Alberto López
01:02Yeah. Free and paid. Our conversion rate is around... It's a little bit lower than 1%. So we have, yes, more
Nathan Latka
01:02So
01:10you have about 60,000 customers?
Alberto López
01:13Yes, exactly.
Pricing Plans, Average Contract Value and MRR
Nathan Latka
01:14Okay. Got it. So 60,000 customers and about how much do you charge per month on average?
Alberto López
01:19Oh, it depends. We have different plans. We have monthly plans and yearly plans. Our most expensive plan is $250 a year, by which you can use everything. And our most affordable plan is the student one, which is €15 a year. But you will find some challenges for you... For the use.
Nathan Latka
01:45And so what is the... Just because you have free, pro, master, and team, you have a bunch of different plans, and you have professional and education there. So there's a lot of things going on here. Can you just sort give me an average? What's the average customer pay per month, would you say?
Alberto López
01:56The average, we could say around 60.
Nathan Latka
02:0060?
Alberto López
02:01€60 a year.
Nathan Latka
02:0260 a year?
Alberto López
02:03€60 a year. Yes.
Nathan Latka
02:05Okay. I'm trying to hear if you're saying $1.06 or 60. 60?
Alberto López
02:0860. 60.
Nathan Latka
02:09Got it. 60 a year.
Alberto López
02:11Yep. That's for teachers. Teachers are around 80% of our clients.
Nathan Latka
02:18Now can I take 60,000 customers times $5 a month? You're doing about $300,000 per month in revenue?
Alberto López
02:25Yes. Our our MRR in this moment is around 300k MRR.
Launched 2015, Monetized 2017, Growing by Word of Mouth
Nathan Latka
02:31300,000. That's that's great. I mean, Let's let's dive into this backstory and how you built this. What year did you launch?
Alberto López
02:38Well, we launched it in 2015, and... But we didn't we didn't start to monetize till 2017. We started very slowly,
02:50but now we we are growing really, really fast. We are growing at a rate of 15% monthly average. So, yes, our marketing approach actually is it's reality. We we grow and grow because of word-of-mouth. Because, you know, we have a logo in the creations. We have around 70,000,000 creations all around the world. So more and
03:20more
Nathan Latka
03:20On what basis? 17,000,000 things created daily, weekly, monthly?
Alberto López
03:25In in total. Total.
Nathan Latka
03:27How many per month?
Alberto López
03:29Per month. I don't have this data.
Funding the Early Years and the Agency Origin
Nathan Latka
03:31Okay. Got it. So you launched in 2015. You started monetizing 2017. How did you fund the company for the first two years if you had no revenue coming in?
Alberto López
03:40Well, actually, we based our first year from other company. We were actually Genially come from another company called Covantis. In that company, we were a communication agency. Our clients, we... That was big corporates and also education corporates. They wanted to edit the creation we developed for them. But since they didn't have knowledge or background in design or computing, they couldn't. So we suddenly thought that it was a good opportunity for us to create something that by
04:16which people without knowledge in our background in in design could create these things. So for the first year, we were working at the same time in that agency and also in in Genially. So I'll I'll... Also, another two cofounders
04:35came, so they invested their own time. Also...
Co-Founders, Cap Table, First Customers and Ambassadors
Nathan Latka
04:39You have three you have three founders, you plus two others?
Alberto López
04:42No. Me and Juan Rubio, which is the is the CEO. Is the CTO, and Luis Garcia, which is the who is the
Nathan Latka
04:53So four four cofounders.
Alberto López
04:56Four cofounders. Yeah. You could say that.
Nathan Latka
04:59And did you guys... I mean, that's a tough conversation to have. You're spinning a company out of an agency. There's four cofounders. Do you guys just split equity '25, '25, '25, '25 or no?
Alberto López
05:07No. No. No. It's much more complicated. The cap... Our cap table is difficult because in in the other company, in the in the, we we were four cofounders. So we own 25% of that company. So the cap table is a little bit complicated in this moment, because we have raised around $5,000,000 In this moment, a lot of different VCs came, so the cap table is not like that at this moment.
Nathan Latka
05:41So does the agency own any portion of Genially?
Alberto López
05:45Yes.
Nathan Latka
05:46How much does the agency get to keep?
Alberto López
05:50In this moment? Yes. Well, I think the data I cannot share with you. I'm sorry.
Nathan Latka
05:55A range is fine.
Alberto López
05:59Around, I could say, 20%.
Nathan Latka
06:04Okay. Got it. And so you gave it to agency because you basically built this in the agency and then spun it out. You four co founders then each own some amount of equity, and then investors who put in $5,000,000 own some equity as well.
Alberto López
06:16Exactly.
Nathan Latka
06:17I see. Okay. How did you get your first thousand customers? Do you remember?
Alberto López
06:22Well, yes, my colleagues, they did very well because they built a community around the product itself. I remember myself launching this typical text to my colleagues, to my family. Please register here because it's interesting a tool for you. You can create your presentations for your sales team. You can create your CV and you can create many things. And also, we built a community of of, how do call it, ambassadors.
Nathan Latka
06:57Where where can I view the community?
Alberto López
07:00Well, the community is in social networks, in Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, we are also in TikTok.
Nathan Latka
07:09How many ambassadors do you have?
Alberto López
07:13150 in this one.
Nathan Latka
07:14Okay. So you have 150 ambassadors. There's currently 87 people following your guys' LinkedIn page. So not all the ambassadors follow you on LinkedIn. I mean, help me understand exactly how the ambassador program works.
Alberto López
07:26Well, the ambassador programs consist mainly... It is more focused in education. This usually consists of people who are in love with
07:39with the tool, we give them a free master plan, which is our most advanced plan. And they help us by making webinars, by making cross selling from cross marketing and to spread the word to spread the word within their networks.
Nathan Latka
07:59Got it. And this is obviously a super smart plan. If they help you get sales, do you give them a commission or no?
Alberto López
08:06Well, sometimes we pay we pay them by, for example, when people could travel around the world, we could pay the travel for them, but we we usually don't pay in in cash.
Team Size, Engineers and Sales Reps
Nathan Latka
08:20Okay. How many people are on the team full time today, ignoring the ambassadors?
Alberto López
08:2570.
Nathan Latka
08:26Seven zero?
Alberto López
08:27Seven zero.
Nathan Latka
08:28How many of them are engineers?
Alberto López
08:30Around 15.
Nathan Latka
08:32One five. Okay. And do you have any full time quota carrying sales reps or no?
Alberto López
08:39Oh, yes. Have we a team. We have a sales team. And actually, we don't we don't like to call them reps because we we don't... For example, we don't do leads generation because we receive every day more than
08:59three three hundred leads because we have, you you know, thousand and thousand of people go to our website and start creating. And we we have several...
Nathan Latka
09:11Yeah. Burkha, that... That's fine. I'm not I'm not... That's that's great you have so much inbound. All I'm asking is how many people are full time on your team that have a quota?
Alberto López
09:21In sales team, five.
Nathan Latka
09:24Five. Okay. Got it. And again, they're handling all those inbound leads that you get every day.
Alberto López
09:29Yes. Excellent.
Genially vs Canva: Product Positioning
Nathan Latka
09:30Yep. Yep. Fascinating. So talk to to me a little bit more about the product. I mean, should people think about this sort of like a Canva?
Alberto López
09:36Yep. It's similar to Canva, but I would say that Genially is more it's more, like, more interactive because Canva is more focused on on on designers. Like, Canva is thought for... To to create online and to download your creation, you know, like a... For a communication piece to be to be downloaded and to be printed. But Genially, it's more focused to to con... To be consumed... The the content... For the content to be consumed online. We
10:08are more more interactive in this sense, and we are also more versatile because with Thamma, you can create presentations and and dossiers, for example. But with Genially, can create a very wide range of of pieces of communication, different pieces of communication.
Churn, Expansion Revenue and Upsells
Nathan Latka
10:26And and, you know, when you sell to students, right, churn is obviously gonna be an issue. Right? So what is your guys' gross churn per month currently?
Alberto López
10:342% in this moment.
Nathan Latka
10:36Okay. That's actually not... So 24% annually. That's actually not that bad.
Alberto López
10:40No. It's not that bad. Of course, we have to... There's a a way to to improve, but it's not that bad. The the students actually are not our focus in this moment. We have... We want to have a plan for them because we have millions literally, But they usually don't charge too much. Actually, they pay €15, and most of them, they renew. But we know, we are aware that most of them are going to be free
11:06forever. Yeah. We are happy with that.
Nathan Latka
11:09So 24% churn, do you have expansion revenue? Do you have ways to upsell customers or no?
Alberto López
11:15Yes, yes.
Nathan Latka
11:16How much expansion do you see annually?
Alberto López
11:19Annually, I don't have the data.
Nathan Latka
11:21More monthly is fine.
Alberto López
11:24Wait. Wait a second. Example, this this month, September,
11:31well, 5,000 expansion. 5... €5,000 expansion.
Nathan Latka
11:37Okay, got it. Into a base that is essentially 300,000. So about 1.8%.
Alberto López
11:43It is MRR.
Nathan Latka
11:46Yeah, so you saw 5,000 a new MRR into a base that's 300,000 MRR. So about 1.7% expansion monthly.
Alberto López
11:53Yeah. Yes. Approximately, yes.
Nathan Latka
11:55Yeah. That's great.
11:56And what are you upselling typically?
11:58Is it number of seats or feature based upsells
Alberto López
11:58Yes.
Nathan Latka
11:58Or
Alberto López
12:01Seats mainly it's seats because... Well, you can also upgrade your plan. If you are... If you're a student, you can upgrade to a to a plan. If you're a native class, if you're a teacher, you can upgrade to the plan... To a master plan. But most of the of the upsells are for seats.
Nathan Latka
12:19Mhmm. That makes a lot of sense. Any big progress coming up that we should know about?
Alberto López
12:23Of course. We want to implement the seats, the automatic seats, because now... Nowadays, it's a nightmare. If you want to buy more seats, you have to contact our sales team, which is quite crazy, crazy. And we are we are working on, on implementing the seats, the automatic seats system and the the seats administrator.
Fundraising Plans and Cash in Bank
Nathan Latka
12:44Alberto, are you guys still... You did this last raise of, I think it was €4,500,000 or something like that back in February 2020, so fairly recently. Are you now burning capital today on a monthly basis, reinvesting to drive growth?
Alberto López
12:58Yes. We're going to raise 10,000,000 in around two months. And if you ask me why, I don't know why, because we have to actually have the most of the money in the bank. We don't need the money back.
Nathan Latka
13:11So you still... You... Just to be clear, you still have $4,000,000 in the bank?
Alberto López
13:14Around 2,000,000.
Nathan Latka
13:15Okay. Got it.
Alberto López
13:16Because half of it, you have mentioned 4,500,000, but but half of it was secondary secondary secondary money. So it was for for for people who who sold a little a little bit ago originally. So we want to to create a round. We want to raise money again just to to be to be in the market, you know, for a possible exit in the future. So our VCs, our current partners have advised us to, you know, to
13:48to create this this round.
Profitability Since COVID-19
Nathan Latka
13:50How much are you how much are you burning per month right now in terms of cash?
Alberto López
13:54I don't have the data, Nathan. I have to let you know later. I don't I don't know the data.
Nathan Latka
14:00A range is fine. I mean, you basically breakeven? Are you burning like a 100
Alberto López
14:00Yeah.
Nathan Latka
14:00Grand a
Alberto López
14:04We are now since COVID, since COVID nineteen, we are... We
14:11we we went through the breakeven. Now we are profitable.
Plans for the Next Raise: The US and Other Markets
Nathan Latka
14:15Oh, got it. Got it. So so you look to raise later this year. So let's say you go do raise $10,000,000. What would you spend that money on?
Alberto López
14:24We want to grow more in The States. Our CEO moved there in one one year ago, but we have to to grow our team there. We we we need to build our network there. And also, have more projects, more technical project apart from the seats. We want to we want to create this. You know, are are you familiar with Scrum?
Nathan Latka
14:51Am I telling you... Am I familiar with Scrum?
Alberto López
14:54Yes.
Nathan Latka
14:55Agile development Scrum. Yeah.
Alberto López
14:57Yeah. I'm sorry. Scrum. It's an LTE. LTE is a it's a technology by which you can you can monitor who is doing any part, any click or any
Nathan Latka
15:12Got it.
Alberto López
15:13Some technology like that. So we have to implement this technology. And, yes, we want to grow the team in The States and actually in other markets because since the the COVID nineteen, we have been, like... We have seen, like, how Genially is growing in other markets, like, for for example, in Brazil, in India, and in Asia in general. So we want to make the most of those... Of that import... Opportunity for us to grow faster.
Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions
Nathan Latka
15:43Yep. Very good. Well, look, hey. We're we're out of time, Albert, though. It's clearly a fascinating story here. Let's wrap up quickly with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite business book?
Alberto López
15:52Well,
15:54are you familiar with... What's the name? Don't remember his name. The guy who created Salesforce.
Nathan Latka
16:01Marc Benioff?
Alberto López
16:03Yes.
Nathan Latka
16:04Behind the Cloud? Yeah.
16:06Very good. Number number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?
Alberto López
16:10A what?
Nathan Latka
16:11Is there a CEO you're following or studying?
Alberto López
16:14Well, the guy from Tesla. I love him.
Nathan Latka
16:20Elon Musk?
Alberto López
16:21Elon Musk.
Nathan Latka
16:22Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building Genially?
Alberto López
16:26Online tool.
Nathan Latka
16:27Your favorite online tool.
Alberto López
16:29What what does it mean? I'm sorry.
Nathan Latka
16:31A tool that you use online, an online tool. Slack
Alberto López
16:34An an online tool. Okay. I'm sorry.
Nathan Latka
16:37Yeah. No. You're fine.
Alberto López
16:38We use a lot of ChartMogul.
Nathan Latka
16:41Okay. Good. Good. Good company. And
Alberto López
16:43also Slack, of course.
Nathan Latka
16:45Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night, Alberto?
Alberto López
16:48How many what? Sorry.
Nathan Latka
16:50Sleep.
Alberto López
16:51Oh, a day.
Nathan Latka
16:52Hours of sleep.
Alberto López
16:54Well, now since I have been... I have recently be a father, I slept I sleep to a few hours. Let's say now five hours.
Nathan Latka
17:05Five hours. And just one new kid?
Alberto López
17:06I know the kid...
Nathan Latka
17:07You just just being a father. Only one or you have more?
Alberto López
17:10I have more. I have two two daughters.
Nathan Latka
17:12Okay. So...
Alberto López
17:13I want another one.
Nathan Latka
17:14Married with married with two kids?
Alberto López
17:16Yes.
Nathan Latka
17:17And how old are you?
Alberto López
17:1938.
Nathan Latka
17:2038. Last question.
17:21What's something you wish you knew when you were 20?
Alberto López
17:26Very good question. And it was 20. Wow. Maybe I would like to to know more about the the problem the problem... The big crisis of them. How do you call it? The crisis is in English. The dot-com, the dot-com crisis. Are you familiar with that?
Nathan Latka
17:47The dot-com crash.
Alberto López
17:48The, the dot-com crash. Yes.
Nathan Latka
17:50Very good, guys. Alberto from Genially, they're a so called a Canva competitor, but built more exclusively for online, more interactive content. They've got 60,000 customers paying on average $5 per month doing 3,600,000 in terms of annual run rate right now. They raised $5,000,000 to do that most recently, 4,000,000, 4,500,000 in February 2020, but 50% of that was secondary. They'll do another $10,000,000 round here in Q4 of twenty twenty. So watch out for that 70 people, seven
18:13zero on the team right now, 15 engineers, five quota carrying reps. They churn 24% of their customers, call it annually, but have about 20% expansion. So net revenue retention about 96% as they look to continue to scale. Alberto, thanks for taking us to the top.
Alberto López
18:26Thank you, Nissan. Thank you so much.
Nathan Latka
18:30One 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
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