How Gruntify Reached $250K in Monthly Revenue with 50 Customers and a 22-Person Team (Interview with Founder Igor Stjepanovic)

Introduction and What Gruntify Does

Nathan Latka

00:00Hey folks, my guest today is Igor Stjepanovic. He loves solving real problems with innovative and creative solutions. His specialty is geospatial technology and real time delivery of cloud and mobile applications. Now building a field workforce automation tool at gruntify.com. Igor, you ready to take us to the top?

Igor Stjepanovic

00:16>> I am, Nathan.

Nathan Latka

00:18Alright, what does field workforce automation mean?

Igor Stjepanovic

00:21>> Well, we help our clients effectively be more productive in the field. So we automate their field operations through technology, make sure the right person receives the right information at the right time. And our aim is really to boost productivity and save money for our clients.

Key Customers: Modus, CoreLogic, City of San Jose

Nathan Latka

00:43And who are these clients? Can you name a couple of them?

Igor Stjepanovic

00:46>> Yeah, sure. We have clients in The United States and in Australia. For example, we have Modus, a company in The United States that's rolling out 5G hardware all over this country. We have CoreLogic as one of our property clients and we have multiple government clients in Australia and in The United States, for example, the city of San Jose.

City of San Jose Use Cases

Nathan Latka

01:11Oh, wow. And so city of San Jose, if they have like repair people, they'll use your tool to manage their repair people? Or how does that work?

Igor Stjepanovic

01:18>> Yeah, well, they actually have multiple uses for our technology, including responses to the fires in the city and emergencies, as well as various housing related use cases.

Nathan Latka

01:31Very interesting. Okay. So what do these companies and cities pay you on average to use your technology per month?

Pricing Plans and Per-Seat Model

Igor Stjepanovic

01:38>> Well, look, that varies. Of course, we have a range of plans. Obviously, professional is our entry level plan and provides for inspections and then if you want to go to more advanced field workflows, you go up to a business plan, which is a charge of $49 per person per month and obviously for our largest clients, we provide a premium service, we call the enterprise plan and that's usually priced on application.

Nathan Latka

02:06Okay. But what would you say? I know there's a lot of different options here, but what would you say a sweet spot? Is the sweet spot like a thousand bucks a month or 3,000 a month or what?

Typical Contract Size and Seat Volumes

Igor Stjepanovic

02:14>> Based on the number of seats, obviously, that varies, but most fit within about 5,000 to about 7,000 a month.

Nathan Latka

02:22I see. And that's usually about how many seats? 6,000 a month?

Igor Stjepanovic

02:26>> That's that's approximately 500, 600 seats.

Nathan Latka

02:30Interesting. Okay. 6 k per month is five okay. Per month is is do you said 50 seats or 500 seats?

Igor Stjepanovic

02:37>> 500. But we provide obviously, you know, for for higher volumes, we provide discounts. So we basically charge less. The more users you have, the less you pay.

Company Origin and 2016 Launch

Nathan Latka

02:49Mhmm. And tell me more of the backstory here. When did you launch the company, Igor?

Igor Stjepanovic

02:53>> We actually launched in Australia out of an innovation challenge. One of our early clients posted a challenge trying to solve a problem for their graffiti and vandalism issues and we pitched our solution and built a prototype, an early prototype which we took from there and then basically modified

Nathan Latka

03:16What year what year was that?

Igor Stjepanovic

03:19>> That was 2016. That was the earliest version of gruntify. We are now in version four of the platform and we've expanded and built a lot of the additional capabilities which of course we didn't have early on, but since our early days, we've expanded across different industries and different geographies as well.

About 50-60 Clients, Shifting to SMB

Nathan Latka

03:42And how many paying customers do you have now today?

Igor Stjepanovic

03:46>> We target, as I said, the predominantly larger clients, so we have about fifty, sixty clients, so not that many, but we are currently focusing on the small to medium sized clients and that's where we see a lot of growth and a lot of interest lately.

Nathan Latka

04:05Oh, 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

04:28your Stripe 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

04:53get 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

05:15not 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

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06:29interview. I mean, if I take, you know, what it would you say 55 customers times 6,000 a month on average, what you guys are doing about $330,000 a month right now in revenue?

$250K a Month, Up From About Half a Year Earlier

Igor Stjepanovic

06:39>> Yeah. Well, yes. Sort of. It's more about $250 at the moment, $250 k, but that's growing and we are obviously this year also launching in Europe, which is a big market opportunity for us, as well as we are starting to grow in Singapore, so across Asia, Asian market there. So we see a lot of opportunities this type of technology

07:08>> this year and beyond.

Nathan Latka

07:09And if you're doing $250,000 a month in revenue today, Igor, what were you doing about a year ago?

Igor Stjepanovic

07:16>> Probably about a half, if that.

Nathan Latka

07:19About a half, so $125,000 a month?

Igor Stjepanovic

07:21>> Yep.

Nathan Latka

07:22And what's driven most of the growth? Is it the current 50 customers buying more seats? Or is it brand new customers coming in?

Word-of-Mouth Is the Growth Engine

Igor Stjepanovic

07:30>> Well, we are growing through mostly at the moment word-of-mouth. So our happy customers are referring us to other customers. We don't have we are not investing a lot in marketing and sales, which is something we would like to change this year. We are also investing in our partner partner sort of program, but the growth is coming mostly through an organic sort of word-of-mouth growth.

Nathan Latka

07:54It's the best way to do it. And have you done this all bootstrapped or did you decide to raise capital?

100% Bootstrapped, Reinvesting Revenue

Igor Stjepanovic

07:58>> Now we are 100% bootstrapped at the moment, but

Nathan Latka

08:01Hey, I love that. That's awesome.

Igor Stjepanovic

08:05>> And we've done that for a number of years. Obviously, we are very conservative with with our money. So with the money that we earn, we invest and reinvest back into the business. So that's that's been working okay. But we are hitting the stage where I think we should really accelerate our growth because the platform is starting to be very mature. We have validated it in the marketplace. So it's all about growth now and Uh-oh.

Nathan Latka

08:29Raising round. Uh-oh. The raise is coming. Alright. So how you you might you might go to the dark side then. How much would you look at raising this year?

Why He's Open to Outside Money, and Where It Would Go

Igor Stjepanovic

08:37>> We're looking to raise between 5 and 10,000,000, hopefully, to grow internationally. So that's really our aim. And, that's that's what we're working on the moment.

Nathan Latka

08:49But right now, Art, you're the sole founder? Do you own a 100% of the business?

Igor Stjepanovic

08:52>> Yes.

Nathan Latka

08:53That's amazing.

Igor Stjepanovic

08:54>> No co founders, No,

08:57>> unfortunately not. I've been a lone wolf for for a while now. But How'd

Nathan Latka

09:03you get the MVP live? Did you code it yourself?

The First Team of Three and His Technical Background

Igor Stjepanovic

09:06>> No. No. Well, actually, we had a team of three early on, so I was I did not code it myself, but I do come from technical background, as you might appreciate. I used to be a geospatial computer programmer back in the day. So I come from that dark side. Yeah, you're right.

Nathan Latka

09:24Okay. But what happened to the other three peep two people though?

Igor Stjepanovic

09:27>> They're still here. They are still with me. Now we have about 22. So we have grown, you know, slightly over the last four or five years and every year we would put on, you know, two or three, five people depending on what was needed. But we are growing organically, as I said.

Nathan Latka

09:45But, Igor, how did you get those first two people to do work for you without giving them equity? Did you have a bunch of money you could pay them, like a full salary?

GIS People Origins and How Gruntify Was Spun Out

Igor Stjepanovic

09:52>> That's a great question. No, we gruntify was born out of another company, which I started called GIS People, and that's a professional services company servicing oil and gas and mining clients. That company actually is the one that developed gruntify and then gruntify was spun out of that company and became an entity of its own. It became it took over our other operations really, became our primary focus, but it that startup, if you like, was really part

10:25>> of of GIS people business initially.

Nathan Latka

10:28So that consulting business back in 2016, how much revenue did it do that year? Was it a big agency?

Igor Stjepanovic

10:34>> No, it was about 3 or $4,000,000 at the time. So we invested part of that, I guess, revenue in this gruntify business because we noticed, we started receiving a lot of inquiries about field operations and helping clients automate their workflows And we didn't really find a great solution and so we decided to build our own. And that's how really gruntify emerged and it went from there.

Nathan Latka

11:05That's amazing. Yeah. So agency, you take the way you are to pay pay these other two people as you pay them as agency employees and then spun the IP out. You own a 100% of the of the new IP, gruntify.

Igor Stjepanovic

11:16>> 100%. Correct. Yes.

Nathan Latka

11:18I see. Okay. So you want to raise 5 to 10,000,000. It sounds like this year to put the pedal to the metal, you know, go a little bit faster. How much equity are you willing to sell for $5,000,000?

Igor Stjepanovic

11:28>> Well, that really, I guess, you know, depends on the arrangements that we negotiate with our investors. You're looking probably about 20% of the business, 20%, 25% maximum, again depending on what other than the money, what else they can bring to the table because some people might be able to open some doors and create introductions and sometimes that's a lot more valuable than the money itself. At the moment, money is somewhat cheap as they say, you know,

11:59>> and and there's plenty of it around, but good connections and introductions are to me worth more than than just money itself.

Nathan Latka

12:07So if someone's listening right now and they're a top tier VC and they think you'd get a longer have Igor and you're comfortable writing a $5,000,000 check at a 20,000,000 pre-money valuation, 25,000,000 post, buying about 20% of the business, Igor they should email you.

Igor Stjepanovic

12:19>> They should reach out to me right now.

Nathan Latka

12:23Very cool. Alright. And you definitely want to go through the equity route. I mean, if someone offered you 2 or $3,000,000 in debt, but you keep all your equity, would you look at doing that or no?

Igor Stjepanovic

12:33>> We would consider that, but like I said, it depends what else they can bring to the table. We are able to source money from the banks and whatnot. Yeah. That's a problem, but they're really looking for strategic partners and potentially bigger businesses that can, you know, facilitate introductions and help us win more work as well as just, you know, help us kind of tool up in our marketing and sales departments which is where most of the

13:00>> money would be invested in.

Team Composition: 22 People, 18 Engineers

Nathan Latka

13:02You mentioned 22 folks on your team right now, how many of them are engineers?

Igor Stjepanovic

13:08>> Other than myself, the Chief Financial Officer and the Chief Operational COO, there would be effectively all of them are software engineers, testers. We have we use the scrum methodology and and agile. So we have, you know, scrum masters and product owners and those kinds of folks. But yeah, there would be about eighteen, nineteen of them.

No Sales Team, No Paid Marketing

Nathan Latka

13:33No sales team, no paid marketing spend, all organic?

Igor Stjepanovic

13:37>> At the moment, no. Correct. All organic.

Nathan Latka

13:39Interesting. And what's net dollar retention over the past twelve months?

Igor Stjepanovic

13:43>> Our we literally don't lose any clients. Once we win them, they stick with us.

Nathan Latka

13:48What about expansion though? If someone pays you $5 a month from a year ago, were you able to upsell them to $6 a month in 2022?

How Large Accounts Expand Over Time

Igor Stjepanovic

13:55>> Yes, yes. We see especially from our larger clients, they start off with one project and then they introduce additional projects and additional teams. So we've had with some of our large clients, we've had basically clients come in and purchase say 100 licenses, now they're over a thousand.

Nathan Latka

14:16Wow.

Igor Stjepanovic

14:16>> So it's, you know, really depends, but most of the clients grow over time quite significantly.

Famous Five Rapid Fire

Nathan Latka

14:24Hey, Igor, I love this story. Congrats. Let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, favorite business book.

Igor Stjepanovic

14:30>> Yeah. Well, it's thank you for your nice words, Nathan. Really appreciate it.

Nathan Latka

14:34You bet. Let's wrap up here. Favorite business book, number one.

Igor Stjepanovic

14:39>> Look, I don't know. You got me now on the spot that there are so many

14:47>> can't think of them, but anything to do with startups, anything to do with innovation and not necessarily IT centric, read a lot.

Nathan Latka

14:56Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Igor Stjepanovic

15:01>> Not a single one again, there are many. I followed, you know, Elon Musk's of the world and CEOs of Google, Microsoft, and so on. But again, not a single person. I follow multiple people.

Nathan Latka

15:15Number three, Igor, is there a favorite online tool that you use to build gruntify?

Igor Stjepanovic

15:22>> We do use again a lot of tools, but we we love Trello. Trello and Atlassian software called Jira. We use those tools a lot, so we love that.

Nathan Latka

15:32Number number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?

Igor Stjepanovic

15:35>> Can you repeat that? Sorry.

Nathan Latka

15:36How many hours of sleep do you get on the average Not many.

Igor Stjepanovic

15:41>> Usually about six to seven. That's that's sort of enough for me. Yeah. I get get by.

Nathan Latka

15:47And Igor, what's your situation? Married? Single? Kids?

Igor Stjepanovic

15:51>> I'm married with four children. Live in Australia. Great place.

Nathan Latka

15:56Wow. Four kids. And how old are you?

Igor Stjepanovic

16:00>> I'm 46 and so soon to be 47. So heading towards the fifties, unfortunately.

Nathan Latka

16:08Happy early birthday. Last last question, Igor, something you wish you knew when you were 20.

Igor Stjepanovic

16:17>> Well, I wish I knew how much I didn't know at the time. So, you know, you're all all all those things you think you know and makes all those assumptions. So I think I I wish I had more of an open mind back then, but I guess you learn as you as you grow older that, hey, the world is a wonderful place and there's a lot of things you really don't know. And the more you you

16:40>> you experience the world, the more you realize how much more there is to know.

Nathan Latka

16:44Guys, gruntify.com is a bootstrap SaaS coming out of Australia with $3,000,000 in terms of run rate, up from 1,500,000 just a year ago. Saying, you know what, it's time to raise and grow faster, targeting a 5 ish million dollar raise at selling 20% of the business. They help customers like Modus in the city of San Jose here in The United States manage their field sales teams. Really sharp technical team of 22, mainly engineers of 18. We'll

17:07see what happens next. Igor, thanks for taking us to the top.

Igor Stjepanovic

17:10>> Nathan, thanks for this opportunity. Take care.

Nathan Latka

17:14One 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, 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 Central.

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