InterFace Revenue (2024)

[00:00] Hey, folks. My guest today is Daniel Poston. He his vision at interface is to create a reality where every residential real estate team member feels like they're optimized they have an optimized tech stack that has turned them into the iron man of real estate and has enabled them to focus on changing lives through home ownership. Daniel, you ready to [00:15] take us to top? [00:16] >> Absolutely. [00:17] All right. Are you like a scarred broker or something? Where'd you get this idea from? [00:21] >> Yeah. Yeah. I started my career as a real estate agent, selling multi family properties in the Los Angeles area, actually right around where the new NFL stadium was built. [00:36] So far. [00:37] >> Back in 2007, and 2008, so the absolute best time to get into real estate. Sold a couple properties and the market collapsed. And so that was was it for my real estate career. [00:54] When did you realize software was your next step? [01:00] >> It's been quite a path. It actually wasn't the next step at the time. The next step was actually, I played online poker professionally for several years, and online poker requires a very similar skill set to data science and analytics. When you're playing online poker, you're mining data from your opponents, and then you take that data and display it in, like, a heads up display so you can see their statistics of how they play. [01:35] >> Pretty much what I'm doing now is I do that for the real estate industry. So, [01:41] >> yeah, it it definitely has been a a weird path, but it's worked out very well. [01:49] Understood. And so what have you built now? What what what who's buying the software, and what do they use it for? [01:55] >> Right now, our primary product is an integration between real estate CRM Follow-up Boss, which is the best real estate CRM, and there's really not a close second. And then there's a data tracking platform called Sisu. They track how many calls are being made by agents and how many appointments [02:22] What's it called? [02:22] >> See what? [02:23] >> Sisu, s I s u. Website, sisu.co. [02:26] Okay. And so we push data from Follow Up Boss into Sisu. [02:31] >> So real estate teams don't have train their agents on how to use Sisu, they want their agents to stay in Follow Up Boss. [02:43] >> Real estate agents are challenging to manage, they're very much like herding cats. I can say that because I used to be one. [02:53] >> Real estate teams don't want to have to train their agents on multiple different systems. They want to stay in Follow Up Boss, and so we facilitate that. [03:02] They say there's riches in the niches. This is certainly a niche. Are folks paying average per month to use this technology that integrates Boss to Sisu? [03:10] >> What was that? [03:12] What are folks paying on average per month to use this technology? [03:14] >> About $150 a month. [03:18] Okay. And is that per seat, per rep? [03:21] >> No, it's team based model currently, and we're going to be adding a lot more platforms. So we're currently working on an open to close integration. [03:34] >> Open to close is like a transaction management platform that's really you can customize to do whatever you need it to do. Once we have that developed, we'll have pretty much a really solid ecosystem. Follow-up Boss for CRM, that ties into a platform called Ylopo that real estate teams use for marketing. [04:02] 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 [04:25] 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 [04:49] 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 [05:11] 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 [05:37] 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 [05:59] 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. [06:26] >> Then Sisu and Open To Close that that pretty much covers all the bases. [06:32] Understood. But just to be clear, right now, someone can sign up with a team of a thousand people for just pay a $150 a month. Is that right? [06:38] >> Yeah. Currently. [06:39] Okay. How many how many paid what's the best way to do this? How many real estate agents are there under brokers that pay you for access to your technology? [06:50] >> Typically, most teams are like five to 10 agents. [06:54] I see. Okay. And how many total teams on the platform today? [06:57] >> We just passed one fifty. I think we're one sixty five ish. [07:02] >> Oh, congrats. [07:03] Take me back to the first one. What year was that and how did you land the first First [07:08] >> customer, so we're actually [07:14] >> working with We set up a custom integration for the first customer and we're actually resetting that up for them. They went away from Follow-up Boss because their agents blame Follow-up Boss for them not doing their work. So they [07:29] >> really When was that first customer? [07:31] What year? [07:32] >> It was last year. [07:33] Oh, got it. So your guys are brand new, launched in 2020. [07:36] >> Yeah. [07:37] Okay. Very cool. And just to just to be clear, 165 paid accounts at $150 a month, that means you're doing about what? $25,000 a month right now in revenue? [07:47] We're How is it? High. [07:48] >> Probably $15,000 to $20,000. [07:52] Okay. So you have some folks that are maybe on grandfathered plans, maybe a little bit cheaper than a $100 Yeah. A Exactly. I see. I see. Okay. Cool. So so $15.00 to $15 a month is obviously great. Now, did you do this bootstrapped or did you raise capital? [08:04] >> Bootstrap. [08:05] We love that. Very cool. Yeah. Have you had people reaching out? How have you resisted the urge to raise? And why is that important to you, if at all? [08:13] >> I mean, I think we've had a couple people reach out recently. I think we're a pretty good kept secret right now. So I'm I'm assuming we'll get more and more of those. [08:28] Do you own a 100% of the business personally today? [08:32] >> No, it's about 80 to 85%. We actually are in the process of acquiring a [08:40] >> team in India. They built an AI chatbot and didn't have great product market fit. I need the developers. And so we're in the process of merging companies right now. And so they're getting about 15% of the business. [09:00] How'd you guys agree on that? That's hard because you have to value your business, value what 15% is worth, convince the developers that it's worth that amount. How'd you make that happen? [09:08] >> Well, it started with our coaching program. [09:13] >> Dan Martell pretty much introduced the framework that allowed us to do this. We're using the slicing pie model, a slightly [09:25] >> modified slicing pie model, where you measure how much you've put into the business in terms of hours and dollars, and then you convert that to [09:38] >> pie slices, where every hour you put in, [09:44] >> it gets a 2x multiplier, and every dollar that gets put in is a 4x multiplier, and that normalizes everything. [09:55] >> It's a great fair way of distributing equity. So we have that [10:01] So how many dollars did you put in when you did that did that analysis? [10:04] >> It was about 300,000. [10:07] And how many hours? [10:10] >> Since the very beginning of the business, was about four thousand five hundred hours. [10:17] Okay. So how I guess so and then what did you value your hours at? [10:21] >> So my hours, valued at $82.50 an hour. [10:26] I see. So what you're trying to do is [10:32] >> figure out what you're actually risking. So what could I have made if I just went out and got a job rather than start this business? So the team in India, it's a different situation. Their [10:48] >> opportunity cost isn't quite as high as mine. And so at first, we were just doing straight slicing pie model when we first discussed this merger six months ago. Now with us doubling our business, [11:06] >> we did the slicing pie model for their business on how much input they put in. And for my business, we just kind of figured out what we thought the business was worth and did a hybrid approach. [11:18] So just to be clear, if I'm doing this correctly, 4,500 hours at $82.50 per hour would value your time into the business so far in this slice and pie model of $371,000 With a 2X multiplier, that's about $700,000 of value on your hours. Take the 300,000 times a 4X multiplier is 1,200,000 plus the $750,000 puts the total value of the business when you did this at about $2,000,000 Is that accurate? [11:43] >> No. So the first part was, [11:48] Your average, got it. [11:49] >> Yeah. So that essentially what and it wouldn't be dollars. They call them pie slices. But that was that calculation was a pretty spot on. I think you said 670. [12:03] Doesn't matter. I'm trying to get the general idea. So there's basically $750,000 of value you're attributing to the business because of your hours you put in. And then you said $300,000. Is that not accurate? I thought you said there's a forex multiplier on those. [12:16] >> Well, we didn't have cash invested. So where where were you getting that number? [12:23] I just I just asked you how many dollars you put in the business, and you said 300,000. [12:28] >> Did I No. Mishear [12:29] >> the 300,000 was my estimate for how many, like, hour contributions. [12:36] Oh, I see. So there were no dollars contributed. You just took hours. So you valued the business total about 650, $700,000 Yeah. [12:43] >> In this 650, 700,000 slices. [12:48] Well, I don't know what the hell that means. Know what I know what dollars are. What what are in slices? I know what that means. [12:53] >> Well, so they call them pie slices. It's a slicing pie model. And so it's a way to normalize dollar investment versus time investment. And you don't want to call it $670,000 because then that has tax consequences. So it's not a dollar valuation, it's a way of figuring out who has what equity. So I put in 670,000 slices, then one of my developers, he works a thousand hours at $20 an hour in India, and if I pay [13:27] >> him in pie slices, now he has [13:32] >> 20,000, 40,000 slices. And so if he has 40,000 slices and I have 650,000 slices, now we know how much equity this person has. [13:44] So if this deal closes, how many total pie slices will exist? [13:50] >> It would be I just looked at the number. [13:55] >> It was just shy of 900,000. [13:58] Okay. So they will own approximately a 130,000 slices to your 770,000? [14:06] >> Exactly. Or a 15% to 85% split? [14:10] >> Exactly. [14:11] Which we're not calling dollars because you don't want tax consequences. [14:14] >> Exactly. [14:15] Understood. Okay. That was very helpful. Talk to me about the rest of your story here. How many folks are on your team today pre acquisition? [14:22] >> Pre acquisition, [14:28] >> six, five, six. [14:29] Full time? [14:30] >> No. [14:31] How many full time? [14:35] >> Me. That's it. [14:37] Okay. So where are the other four? [14:40] >> Those are the acquisition. So they are [14:45] I said pre pre acquisition. How many folks on the team? [14:48] >> So, yeah, five, six. Five, six team [14:51] members. [14:51] So who who are the other four? [14:53] >> Oh, the other four for so I have a developer. [15:00] >> He's the one that actually started the team we're acquiring. I have Alexandra [15:07] Hold on. Pre pre pre pre acquisition. So just to be clear so what's actually happening here is the developer that you founded the business with had another business Exactly. Which you're now bringing into the business. [15:17] >> Exactly. [15:18] I see. Okay. Interesting. [15:22] Got it. Where and how did you event how did you meet him? How was the first time you got connected to him? [15:27] >> I was working for a real estate team. I was a chief data officer and hired him as my assistant. [15:34] Oh, okay. Very interesting. But how did you find him? [15:37] >> Upwork. [15:38] Okay. Very cool. So you put a little project. What was the first project you gave on Upwork? Do you remember the title? [15:45] >> I think it was developer assistant. [15:48] And what was that what the task say? What were you having to do? [15:51] >> It was, I don't even remember. It probably wasn't very sophisticated. It was, you know, very early. I mean, I just taught myself how to code a few years ago right after my poker career. So [16:07] Yeah. But was it like a scraping job? Was it writing some Python or JavaScript? Was it setting up a MySQL database? [16:14] >> Oh, no. We were building a platform similar to Sisu. So I was building Sisu like platform, which is like a data tracking platform for real estate teams, [16:29] >> essentially, because that's what we needed at the real estate company that I was working at. And so I was hiring him to assist me with that. [16:36] Understood. Heck of a story. We hope you keep doubling every year, Daniel. This is great. But in the meantime, let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, favorite business book. [16:49] >> I guess seven Habits of Highly Effective People. [16:54] Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? [17:01] >> Musk. Elon Musk. [17:02] Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building interface? [17:08] >> It just got shut down, Stackery. [17:11] Give me a different one that's not shut down. [17:18] >> Circle CI. [17:20] Okay. Fair enough. Number four, how many hours of sleep do get every night? [17:24] >> At least six, [17:25] except What's the last your situation? Married, single, kids? [17:30] >> Single. [17:31] Okay. And how old are you? [17:34] >> 39. [17:34] Last question, Daniel. Take us home here. Something you wish you knew when you were 20. [17:40] >> To meditate. [17:43] Guys, there you have InterFace.re. He's a scarred real estate agent, said, you know what? I'm gonna build some software to fix this issue. Launched it. It's very specific. He's helping agents connect their systems on Follow Up Boss to this thing called Sisu, sisu.co, which is like effectively lead tracking. He's a got 165 customers paying a $150 a month on average right now. Just broke $15,000 a month in revenue, totally bootstrapped, less than twelve months old. Just him [18:06] building it now with a team of four or five contractors as well. Met his co founder, a technical co founder on Upwork. Daniel, thanks for taking us to the top. [18:13] >> Awesome. Thank you. [18:16] 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 [18:41] Central. Additionally, remember these recorded founder interviews go live. We release them here on YouTube every day at 2PM Central. 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