How Locale.ai Reached About $480K in Annualized Revenue With 10 Customers in Its First Year of Sales (Interview with Co-Founder Aditi Sinha)

Introduction and Company Overview

Nathan Latka

00:00Hey folks, my guest today is Aditi Sinha. She is building locale dot ai, the control tower for operations team. She's one of the co founders. The company was started in 2019 when she and her co founder, Rishab, spotted a problem while working on data projects in their previous company. Locale is now 20 people strong and has clients in multiple geos. She has a graduate from BITS Pilani in India with a master's degree in economics and finance.

00:22Aditi, are you ready to take us to the top?

Aditi Sinha

00:24>> Yes, definitely. Great to be here.

Target Market and Customer Use Cases

Nathan Latka

00:26You bet. Okay. So, who's paying for locale dot ai and how are they using you?

Aditi Sinha

00:31>> Definitely. So, our overall target market is any company that has moving assets, it's what we call. So, that moving asset could be a vehicle, delivery people, salespeople, trucks. So, the companies that we are going after are delivery, mobility, logistics and so on. So, right now, we have global customers from across all geographies. For example, one of the companies that we work with in Europe is called Felix and they are an electric bike sharing system and they

01:01>> use the product to understand things like where are users booking their apps and whether the users booking their bikes. And if they are booking the bikes in those areas, do they have bikes available or not? Right?

Nathan Latka

01:12Interesting.

Aditi Sinha

01:12>> So, these kind of problems.

Pricing Model and Data Ingestion Packs

Nathan Latka

01:14And how is a company like Felix paying you? Is it per API call or a flat SaaS fee or how do you model it?

Aditi Sinha

01:20>> Sure. So, our pricing is actually based on the amount of data that we ingest from them. So, we have a base platform cost and every additional data point that they send is divided into different packs. So, it ensures that, you know, as the company is growing, we also grow along with them.

Nathan Latka

01:37Data measured by what? Like, again, of API hits or like measured by what?

Aditi Sinha

01:42>> Yeah, number of API hits could be a good proxy. You can say that.

Average Revenue Per Customer

Nathan Latka

01:45Okay. Okay. And then, so what's the average customer? I'm sure you have a range, but what's the average customer paying you per month or per year to use the tech?

Aditi Sinha

01:52>> Sure. It's about $5,000 per month. I would say I would quote that as an average number. And of course, it depends on like how large the company is, what are the number of teams that we're working with and what are the use cases.

Nathan Latka

02:06Yep, very interesting. Some of your work solutions you put on your website are things like hyper local delivery, ride sharing apps, app based workforce logistics and supply chain companies. Which one of these four industries is your biggest cohort, your biggest customer base?

Aditi Sinha

02:23>> Sure. So, biggest customers right now belong to the overall hyper local market, right? Which would include not only mobility companies but also like your on demand delivery, right? So, you tap something on the button and it comes to you. The problem statements in both those companies are quite similar, right? Which is what I was explaining to you earlier as well.

Company Founding and Product Launch Timeline

Nathan Latka

02:43Interesting. Okay, give me the backstory. When did you launch?

Aditi Sinha

02:47>> So, we started the company in March 2019. We launched the product last year in August. So, it's going to be about three years since we started the company.

Customer Count and Geographic Spread

Nathan Latka

02:57That's amazing. And how many customers today?

Aditi Sinha

03:00>> So, we have about 10 customers. These customers are divided into, I would say, very different sizes. So, we have customers who work in one or two cities and we have a customer that works in, let's say, 90 cities all over the world.

Nathan Latka

03:14And then Aditi, can I take 10 customers times 5,000 a month on average? You're doing about 50,000 a month in revenue right now?

Aditi Sinha

03:22>> Approximately, yes. A little less, but approximately, yes.

Nathan Latka

03:26So, maybe more like 40,000, something like that?

Aditi Sinha

03:28>> Something like that, yeah.

Where the Business Stood a Year Earlier

Nathan Latka

03:29And if that's where you are today, where were you exactly a year ago so we can calculate growth rate?

Aditi Sinha

03:34>> Actually, at this time of the year, we had just launched the product. So, this time of the year was when we started doing sales. So, all the sales effort over the last year or to come to this point has accumulated in this last one year.

Nathan Latka

03:50So, maybe like a thousand bucks a month or something very small a year ago.

Aditi Sinha

03:54>> Yes.

Nathan Latka

03:55Very cool. Alright, we love that. Now, have you bootstrapped this and kept your equity or did you decide to raise?

Fundraising History and Seed Round Details

Aditi Sinha

04:01>> No, we have actually raised. We raised a seed round this year from one of the top tier institutional VCs here in India. They are called Chiratae Ventures. And in addition to that, we had people who participated from our last round including Better Capital from India and

Nathan Latka

04:20And what was the size of the seed round?

Aditi Sinha

04:22>> Sure. So, size of the seed round was $1,300,000

Nathan Latka

04:26And how big was the pre seed round?

Aditi Sinha

04:28>> The pre seed round was quite small. We have not actually disclosed the amount publicly anywhere as of now. But yeah, at that moment, we were just about five to six months old. So, it was quite small for us to just, you know, build the product.

Nathan Latka

04:43Yeah, you're talking like 40 or $50,000 in the pre seed round, something small.

Aditi Sinha

04:48>> A little bit more than that. Yeah. But as I said, we have not announced that publicly yet.

Nathan Latka

04:53Why would you not announce that publicly, but you would announce the 1,300,000 seed round? Why would it matter?

Aditi Sinha

05:01>> Because at that moment, it was just a call that we took because the round was a little small and we're still figuring out a lot of our stuff including, you know, what is it that we do, what is our positioning, a lot of those type of things.

Co-Founder Equity Split and Seed Round Dilution

Nathan Latka

05:14And how have you and your co founder thought about this? When you guys launched the business, did you just say, you know what, Aditi, we're equal partners, we'll just split it fifty fifty or did you do something different?

Aditi Sinha

05:24>> No, we did not do anything different.

Nathan Latka

05:26You just said fiftyfifty, let's move on.

Aditi Sinha

05:29>> Right.

Nathan Latka

05:30>> Yes.

05:30That's funny. Okay, but then there's two of you, Two co founders?

Aditi Sinha

05:34>> Yes.

Nathan Latka

05:34Okay. So when you went out obviously to do the seed round, you're raising 1,300,000. Most people today, they're doing a seed round are selling 10 to 20% of the business. Were you guys sort of in that same range?

Aditi Sinha

05:44>> Yes.

Nathan Latka

05:45Okay. Interesting. So call it like a 10 to 15,000,000 valuation, something like that. Okay. Interesting. And are you raising more capital now or are you still using your seed around money?

Aditi Sinha

05:55>> So the idea is for us to raise a series a in the next six months or so is what we have planned out. So we have some revenue goals in mind that we want to hit. And you know as we sort of start preaching there, start building those relationships, start those conversations. Yeah and by the way, also going to travel to The US very soon.

06:19>> Yeah, so the idea would be to sort of start those conversations with some investors. We have some angel investors already from US. So, the chief global officer, ex CPO at Uber is one of our investors. So, a lot of these people I really want to meet face to face because we've just been meeting with them on video.

Nathan Latka

06:37That's amazing. Which city are you coming to in The US?

Aditi Sinha

06:40>> So, I have some family in SF, so I'm going to start from there. And yeah, then I need to plan my entire trip. Also, depending on, you know, where do we land a lot of these calls with our customers.

Nathan Latka

06:51Yeah, Neyar, $40,000 a month today in revenue. What's your revenue? What do you think you need to hit before you can go raise a good Series A?

Series A Plans and Revenue Goals

Aditi Sinha

06:57>> Sure. So, a lot of like offers you started getting now, to be very honest. But we wanted to actually, you know, sort of hold off a little longer and try to get to like seven fifty ks approaching to a mill sort of a thing. So that, you know, when we go, come from a position of, you know, strength.

Nathan Latka

07:18Yep. No, that makes a lot of sense. And Aditi, how did you get these first 10 customers?

Customer Acquisition Strategy

Aditi Sinha

07:24>> So, it's a lot of things. But overall, so most of our customers, we try to reach out to them. So, it's a purely outbound effort. We try to reach out to them on LinkedIn, email and so on. But we also get some percentage of customers that are purely inbound that we get through our content. So, essentially, we want to double down on that as we go forward and sort of build a repeatable engine to get more

07:50>> and more inbound customers, right? Because when people are reaching out to you inbound, they already have a need, are looking for a product and it's much easier to sell to them with a smaller sales cycle.

Nathan Latka

07:59Yep, that's fair. Talk to me about your team today. How many folks?

Team Size and Engineering Hiring

Aditi Sinha

08:02>> So, are 20 people.

Nathan Latka

08:0420 people. How many engineers?

Aditi Sinha

08:07>> About 10? 11 engineers and I am so sorry about that.

Nathan Latka

08:12That's okay.

Aditi Sinha

08:13>> 11 engineers and nine people in the business team.

Most Unique Customer Use Case

Nathan Latka

08:18Very interesting. And talk to me a little bit more about what you're building next. Like, actually, what's the most unique use case somebody is using you for right now?

Aditi Sinha

08:27>> Sure. So, we people use our product to understand anything that they want about their areas or any like behavior of their drivers, users, anything on their operations. Right? So, example, think of yourself to be InstaMart or InstaCart, sorry, or Postmates and understand okay what are the areas where you are not getting demand, are getting demand where you are doing delays, cancellations, all of that. So it's a lot of those kind of someone is at the door,

08:55>> Nathan. There's no one in the house. I'm so sorry.

08:57>> Can I please

08:58>> Go go grab it?

Nathan Latka

08:59I'm gonna yeah. Go grab it. I'm gonna describe I'm gonna describe a use case while you do that. So, one of the very interesting use cases on the website that Aditi has is are effectively ride sharing companies that use the platform. And the ride sharing companies can track where users drop off or where they leave their scooter, right? So where they drop the scooter. And that will inform Bird or Lime or whatever

09:21the scooter company is that, Hey, users are dropping off here. We should open up a hub there and deploy more scooters. They can track, you know, things like completion rates on the ride, conversion ratios, things like that. So that's a really good use case.

Aditi Sinha

09:32>> Yep, exactly.

Capital Allocation and Growth Plans

Nathan Latka

09:34All right, Aditi. Very cool. Okay, good stuff. Talk to me about where you're investing the capital right now that you raised. Is it in engineering, sales, somewhere else?

Aditi Sinha

09:43>> Most of it is in the engineering segment. As you know, it's so, so, so hard to find good engineers. So, I'm going to put a shameless plug here saying that we are hiring. But having said that, yeah, most of it is in engineering, some of it is on the business side as well. And sort of, you know, hire more sales folks and sort of get people penetrate more in our existing geographies.

Office Setup and Remote Work Policy

Nathan Latka

10:06Are you fully remote? Can people apply to work for you wherever they are in the world?

Aditi Sinha

10:10>> So, we are actually setting up our office in Bangalore, but we are not just restricted to that. So, we are following sort of a hybrid model. If people are remote, they can definitely apply to us. We will figure out some vocations or times and places where we could meet with them as well.

Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions

Nathan Latka

10:30Very cool. Alright, let's wrap up with The Famous Five, Aditi. Number one, favorite book?

Aditi Sinha

10:36>> Creativity Inc. By Ed Catmull. He's the CEO of Pixar.

Nathan Latka

10:40Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Aditi Sinha

10:44>> Brian Chesky from Airbnb.

Nathan Latka

10:46Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building your business?

Aditi Sinha

10:51>> I love Notion. But there are so many tools we cannot live without, including GitHub that we use extensively at locale.

Nathan Latka

10:58Number four. How many hours of sleep do you get every night?

Aditi Sinha

11:01>> How many hours of sleep?

11:05>> I try to not compromise on my sleep, so I try to get seven to eight hours of sleep every day.

Nathan Latka

11:11That's good. And what's your situation? Married, single, kids?

Aditi Sinha

11:15>> Single, of course.

Nathan Latka

11:16Okay, not married, no kids.

11:17How old?

11:18Do you mind me asking how old you are?

Aditi Sinha

11:20>> I'm 26.

Nathan Latka

11:2126.

11:22Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20.

Aditi Sinha

11:25>> When I was 20 years old.

Nathan Latka

11:27Yeah.

Aditi Sinha

11:30>> Enjoy life as much as possible. Enjoy college. Figure out what you really, really want to do and just go with the flow. So not what I would like to change.

Nathan Latka

11:38Locale.ai, they help delivery companies, ride sharing companies understand what's happening in a hyper local fashion with their API. They had a thousand bucks a month in revenue a year ago, now $40,000 a month in revenue as they look to keep scaling. Just closed a $1,300,000 seed round this year. I'd call it like a 7 to $15,000,000 valuation. Looking to raise a series a as they get closer to a million dollar run rate with their team of

11:5820. 11 engineers based in Bangalore are growing quickly.

12:00Aditi, thank you for taking us to the top.

Aditi Sinha

12:03>> Thank you so much, Nathan. And I'm so sorry there were so many background noises that you were making.

Nathan Latka

12:08No problem. You did great. Thanks for coming on.

Aditi Sinha

12:11>> Thank you so much again.

Nathan Latka

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