How Janeapp CEO Alison Taylor grew to $100M revenue and 18K customers in 2025.

hello everyone my guest today is Allison Taylor she does like talking about SAS healthcare growth insurance billing pricing churn customer service sales and human behavior basket of expertise all in one she's lucky to have a little life that allows her to talk about all these things every day as co-founder of a company called Jane Allison are you ready to take us to the top yeah all right so the URL is Jane app comm tell us what the company does and what's your revenue model how do you make money yeah we're a SAS company I don't know how broad your listeners they're all sounds they know SAS okay fantastic so I can talk in acronyms yes I was gonna hate me so I applaud your service yep software as a service yeah so if people pay their monthly fees and and it's based on licenses so the number of practitioners using our service so we have it's a it's a practice management software okay great and you're selling sorry directly to the hospital and then they're buying the seats are your sales yeah so this is where Jane's a little bit different we're actually allied health so specifically for physio Kyra massage naturopath osteo so there's been a lot of there's a lot of options in the space for MDS and GPS and we're kind of going to that next year down and they're very much ignored by the software industry in general interesting I want to dive more to that in a second but on average what are people paying you per month this sort of thing so our base price is 74 but our average customer right now was about 95 we've started with that really we call them VSP is the very small businesses so we started on that that end of the market we're almost consumer but and then we'll go into enterprises we grow so I have to ask you this I mean a trend we see in SAS companies that planets kind of spaces churn is just through the roof maybe it's totally is your space but how are you gonna get in your turn and what is it it's under five percent year-over-year so we're really really sticky and we've done that just by being really perfect so we've had perfect market fit and a really amazing customer service and we don't have any sales stuff Allison what does that mean under five percent is that logo churn a revenue turn or net or gross its revenue turn okay is that net or gross that's gross okay gross and that's annual that's a great number annually yeah that's annual yeah so our our churn is really low because we just have really it's proven to be a perfect product so there's not anything else for them to go to and it's also being quite a bit of a land grab how do you how do you measure you said use the word perfect kind of twice there in the last minute how do you how do you measure that how do you know that well because there is no churn so there's nothing else that they're going to and also because I'm the first customer so I was the customer that started the product what your was a co-founder that was in 2011 I opened my practice and originally and my co-founder created the product for me as he was doing my branding and marketing and so there was nothing out there was solving my own problem and then that's just how Jamie wasn't tell me more about that that initial story what were you yeah what were you teaching what was the problem so not teaching I was opening a practice so small business doing Wham okay yeah physio power massage naturopath osteo it's a multidisciplinary practice and I was looking he was doing my branding my website and we were looking for something for online booking and electronic charting specifically that would work with all the different disciplines and back in 2011 especially everything was just horrific they awful it looks like the page was like half loaded as the page would load and a big this is this is the full experience for my patient and I was spending all this money on t-i-is and building a beautiful practice and so I thought oh that building out of the space got it yeah so I needed something sorry wrong acronym that's on a Saturday s yeah that's not allowed here it's a landlord kind of thing yeah seriously and so I needed something that was going to work with all the different disciplines and I complained a lot and then he just said okay we'll build you something for developer yeah they've done sort of apps just for other clients before but not it wasn't really his main thing but now it's his name thing interesting sometime yeah and so he built me the original version in about six weeks we went live I ran it for a year on a Mac Mini in my clinic and then other people started asking us what it was because they were using my online booking and they were seeing it so that was our full market research we did like half a dozen clinics they're really can we use this they just paying him to do this at the beginning or he had equity and you just an equity you know we were friends and I did say you have to charge me enough that I can be a pain in the ass client so I was like whatever you charge me make sure it's enough when I charge yourself like this it was like thirty thousand oh that's good so he still had to like if you wanted a design change he couldn't just be like oh I can't do this we're not paying me he had to kind of listen otherwise he wasn't getting the last 50 percent there's none of free service I could I actually want to be a pain in the ass yeah that's so funny yeah you absolutely can no problem tell me let's fast forward today how many customers are now on the platform yeah we've got 18,000 practitioners we're all around the world so we started in Canada all right all paying and we don't have a freezer free trial so we find that that's a bad experience for customers to come into an empty account and we also do a lot of work to bring over their data for them so they're all paying and they're all we started in Canada now we're growing really quickly in the US there's actually been some market changes recently that it's accelerated our growth in the US by about six months from what we were excited I know things no although that is fascinating and I can talk about insurance for forever I'm really good at parties like know how to talk about all the things that I never want to talk about I sat in an insurance billing class something's wrong with you it's a really deep rooted problem I wake up at night thinking about gorge billing codes and get all excited I see a tag instead of using a drop-down it's ridiculous anyway so yeah their market changes is there's a competitor that was a free model and they went to a paid model and there's another competitor that cut shut down completely and so all of a sudden we're getting all of these people jumping on board where they were though were they legitimate competitor so like how they were they you know doing many many millions in revenue and oh yeah yeah one's practice Fusion so they were an ad based model in there I think they primarily market to MDS but we our market doesn't have anything and so they've been using all the software that's designed for Indies and doctors and so they been we've had a huge influx from that and it's just people all of a sudden we're looking out there like what's it what's out there looking what's around and we've had it's just word of mouth growth so we're in facebook groups and people just talk about us we don't even see it it's kind of invisible to us so sometimes I'm like what do we do if it just takes off so quickly that we can't handle the growth yep bootstrap terview raised rates dropped oh that's great that's great yeah and Allison I one way Tribune is math right so 18,000 people at the ARPU you told me earlier 95 bucks I mean that puts you guys at 1.7 million a month is that accurate so 18,000 users we lumped together part-time practitioners so a lot of our practitioners will work like one day a week or two days a week or the hub smaller practices and we love together so we're at 4.7 million is our arr that's great okay yeah so we're still we're still teeny-tiny and the world of well I'd yourself some give yourself some credit though I mean that's a very respectable business it would give you a lot of credit for doing that totally bootstrap so four point seven million today that's about three hundred ninety grand per month in revenue where were you at twelve months ago with your growth rate we've doubled so 105 percent I think those are our revenue increase last year and the same with the year before so we're hoping to get a 100 percent again this year yeah so March 2017 you're doing somewhere around called 180 grand and you've again more than doubled that yeah I know prime Alice and I just said in March March 2017 you're about 180 grand in revenue you've more than double that today we have yeah yeah and what you increasing sorry what's your goal for this year to double again that's great that's yeah it's tough I can do it it's tough that's good I love it talk about you just tell me about your acquisition right tell me more about that what's it what's it decrease to um what's it it's increased Oh it's increased oh yeah yeah it's increase I mean what we want to see is a diversification from geographies as well as disciplines and that's how our town gets to be big enough to be worthwhile so last year actually we spent the year building out our software to accommodate us insurance which is a little bit different than Canadian insurance and we're like this is the play if it doesn't work in the US our town is just too small like all of Canada is the size of California so if my lifestyle business which is fine we could have gone in that direction but then this is just the we have over five hundred and fifty clinics in the u.s. very suddenly that just picked us up before we're actually really ready we're not doing any marketing down there or down where you are yeah yeah yeah down there where are you breakfast tacos the breakfast suckers are amazing down here or the breakfast decker tacos it's a war and crafts beer you're supposed yeah good yes we've been to Austin and - what's the other one where's the war who started the breakfast taco it's a war between oh gosh I always thought it was Austin no didn't you know there two cities that are very close and you guys both have Wilson in San Antonio Houston Dallas Wayne that you've created I'm gonna email you later with some research and get back to me that's great give me some more economics here what's the team size today um we just hired eight people this month there were up to like 36 people okay and we need to be up to 50 by the end of the year why do you say it like that we need to be up to 50 we don't want to stop this is a problem being bootstrapped is that you make more money and that money is used to pay for more staff and so we're always like our team works their butt off like we can't we're not we're working harder than 36 people yeah so the number of clients that everyone it's representing it's just it's not a good number so we're trying to hire hire hire but it's you know they have to train the staff so this is the bootstrap problem you're behind you're always behind are you operating right now at a premium pretty close to break-even oh we're profitable okay but I mean my point is are you reinvesting pretty much everything oh yeah we are but it's actually we have a million unspent in our budget right now so we're trying to actually hire in advance to train a million in your budget or a million sitting in the bank you've already collected a millionaire budgeted for the coming year okay but that assumes obviously a growth rate right it assumes a very reasonable growth rate okay it what we've never won we've never not hit our targets that's great goodbye to you that we've created like five years ago when we've hit our targets every time I actually don't know what we'd do if we didn't he's missed it that's good very good and is that whole team all 36 they're all based up in Canada we just hired one contract contractor CRA - CRA I listen to this we just hired a one contractor in Nashville and then the rest are in Canada yeah mostly local like in our office and then you talked earlier about like a lot of this is word-of-mouth marketing and have you tested channels where you know you can pay and get great growth I mean do you have an acquisition cost in any channels our acquisition cost is 40 bucks and what we we ascribed to that is like we do the trade shows so the associations will do local trade shows whether their membership comes to get continuing education credits and we've only done those so far in Canada the UK and Australia and we just did our first one in the u.s. yes last week actually tell me give me the actually sort of paint that picture the one the u.s. so like how much did you invest in that event well we always try to like mix other things endurance we went to visit stripe because we're doing payment processing partnership with them so we always try to mix them in so it's sort of R&D mixed with marketing it's sort of hard to actually divide it into this in other words that plane ticket for the three team members you trip down it's like stripe plus the event plus three other things the customer meeting yeah so we do and then the conference's are not just marketing because we're also doing R&D so we're getting in front of the customers the potential customers my co-founder I do as many as we can our other team members always want to go and we take them all that's great so we go fan the booth like we're the booth babes and we find people's reaction to our products and with 100 grand or sorry sorry I meant about 390 grand or four point seven million bucks an AR are you take the 18 thousand people paying you I mean the average one that is about twenty two ish bucks right if you're paying 40 bucks from your payback periods two months that's super super healthy is it accurate yeah it's pretty good yeah so it's about a half a mile you get back very quick really quick yeah how have you I'm sure you've been approached by investors why and how have you resisted the urge to raise capital well we're both of that my co-founder and myself were really driven by how the job being fun so we absolutely adore our jobs like it's you can beat it it's amazing there's so much to learn and do and grow and explore and so we're growing this company and and we've never had a zero cash date so all of these things that we're learning about what happens we're just trying to be really what is that a zero cash date I know did you know this exists no you take investment and then all of a sudden you have a date where you're gonna run out of money because you're spending more than you make so basically your actual yeah yeah this whole idea of a runway I'm like what we just that's a thing like you can run out of money and not have enough money to pay your staff and we don't have a date like that so we get to do this because it's super fun and we get to build the product exactly the way we want in the cusp treat the customer is the way we wanted we don't have there's no pressure to be a huge sales organization where we have we don't have to hire I don't we just don't have to listen to anyone on that side of things that we get to grow it the way we want but the we just learned about a zero cash dated faster like look listen Jason Jason is now a VC and I'm gonna get so much flak for this because a lot of them listen to the show but VCS don't make money unless they can pry in cash and it either goes big but here's what they don't tell you they may either want you to go big or fail quickly it's the time all that happens as they want you to do something faster quit or like fail or succeed what is it the IRR whatever I'm reading the business of venture capital right now because if I needed if we're ever gonna go down that path I want to know as much as they know when they're sitting on the other side of the table so this is the book I'm reading and there is something called the IRR I think right and it's investment divided by time and there's a list here called the narwhal list did you know that a narwhal is no it's a whale with a horn okay like a like a unicorn in the water I think some of those on Friday night you saw one that's what they call Canadian unicorns they're like they're narwhals oh my gosh this is the thing VCS have to sell the story like the ego story associated to raising capital otherwise no one would raise capital because the economics rarely make sense totally I understand I get like it's a job they're taking money from someone they're lg's and they're having to make a return on that I totally I I mean it makes complete sense why they're doing it the way they're doing it it's just do I want that for my business and realistically I actually have the exact same goal as a VC like I want to grow this thing huge yeah so bringing in a VC on board I don't know it wouldn't change it as long as everything's going well so then I want to know what happens when it doesn't go well do I hate my job now it's faster that's the thing like all the extra money we'll do is make whatever you're doing happen faster either fail or succeed coin-operated model we don't have a put a million dollars into these sales reps you have a word of mouth bro so we have we don't have a tested so we put it all into product market fit like we know what we would do if we took investment and when you think about it all the time and we do get like six emails a day from you know different I don't know how you're supposed to choose you know we got an email we had a call with Bessemer and I had no idea who they were and I'm on the call just and people after like Bessemer you were talking about tomorrow I don't know I don't know that is known ie you they ji think I think going into those calls between naive is actually even if you know everything actually a great way to do it because then they're always feeling like they have to convince you and you hold all the leverage which you do but look I mean all those forms are wonderful and some of them can add real interesting kind of strategic components like for example your space I mean I wonder why a company like Booker right hasn't like partnered with you hardcore they just are sorry not Booker but mind/body just bought my body yeah I just bought Booker yeah yeah it's like there can be sometimes strategic reasons that make sense but otherwise not not really yeah it depends on the path you want to go and I think we're not growing a huge business for an exit we're growing a business to be a sustainable responsible business that provides a great service and so you have to get into a fund that's okay with a bit of a longer run and with a lower multiplier like and do those they're starting to come up because I think founder based funds like people who have their own business and are there it's a new sort of tier VCS that are coming out of X founders and it's kind of fascinating yep and then and then all the angel networks I did yeah we've chosen to bootstrap and honestly we go to talks sometimes the people who are like bootstrap but they didn't choose to bootstrap they were turned down for funding multiple times people like you people like you oh yeah I'm good I like it when you start a sentence like well people like you don't spend time doing that telling their story like this right because you don't need to write a piano the people that like bootstrap and want to brag about the bootstrap story do it because none of their other stories are working right right that's what they lean on the message doesn't get out there and actually I was saying I should put out a press release like we should do a press release Jain raise 0 dollars he's so funny do that I was I'm gonna have you back on the show I'll be back on the show and you know or actually maybe on this episode that will be the headline oh I'm gonna say on this episode I will use that as a headline say profitable company raises zero capital and well that's so that narwall was list I was mentioning that they published here in Canada some text company thing they say the way that they come up with that metric is number of dollars divided by years of company number of dollars of funding divided by numbers of years your company's being around about revenue that is matter probability doesn't matter so I'm like this is their list and they count the velocity lives because the finder though look who's publishing and I guarantee you it's a VC that has to sell that story but it's also because that's the metric that they used as a VC to determine whether the fund succeeded or not yeah and so I'm like they're trying to apply it to private like to all these other company I'm like this is ridiculous is the most ridiculous number and it's very buried like to find out how they made this list you have to really dig in start do you ever miss practicing I'm not a practitioner I'm an English okay but did you open up your own place that's how you got this my parents are physios I know I'm an accidental entrepreneur I just keep doing I just say yes to things when they happen and then they turn into other things got it very good well that's Alison let's wrap up here with the famous five first question what's your favorite business book or last or last book you read in general well I'm currently reading the business of venture capital I'm in yeah yeah that's a good one number two is their CEO you're falling or studying oh that's a good question well I mean Elon Musk is just like I made amazing cuz of all the random things he does so I would say I mean who has time to follow anything yeah so Jane Jane's gonna be selling flamethrowers here here soon is that what's gonna happen well I'm interests I want to but more about is a rocket that gets me places really quickly because I'm I'm like always late for everything that's funny number three besides your own what's your favorite online tool for building the business besides which one besides your own oh well slack you can't I can't operate without slack it's that goes down everyone in my office just sits and stares their computer blankly like they don't know what to do it's also we're actually starting a remote team so it's building culture remote and it did its I huddle and it's amazing I don't know how people operate without it number four how many hours of sleep to eat every night yeah it depends if I'm on a work trip or not on a work trip average four and seven okay it's probably good so we'll say you know five and a half ish right yeah okay alright last last few questions here married single have kiddos I got three little ones oh yeah well they're not that little ten nine and six okay and separated okay so single and you might be asking how old you are I'm 36 36 last question take us back 16 years what he was your 20 year old self no I don't do regret or I don't know it's now to aggress it's not over it's not something you regret it's just something you wish you knew back then um oh that it's that it's okay to be me like I'm different and that's fine like I don't have to be a girl like every other girl I would I say turn your head real quick I love this haircut turn it all the way around is there anything on the back or just the side no it's aside do you think I should get in James shaved into there I think that would be so cool why did you make the decision to only shave one side versus both Oh flip it and grow it out if I want interested guys there you have Allison fun a character-building Jane up out of her own need back in 2011 so many years ago launch drone launch drone the venture and then said why doesn't anyone have this complained enough convinced someone else a 30 grand to basically build this application for her sensing they've scaled over 18 thousand customers four point seven million dollars an AR AR they've doubled year-over-year so doing about two two and a half million about a year ago under 5% gross annual logo turns with super healthy economics when they do pay to acquire customers CAC is about forty bucks so two-month payback really healthy with our team of 36 in Canada and now expanding remote into the US as well Jenna Allison thank you so much for taking us to the top yeah of course