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Valuation

$1.7B

2025 Revenue

$40.3M(Est.)

Customers · 2022

5K

Funding

$87M

Team

366

Founded

2011

Maropost Revenue, Valuation & Funding (2025)

Maropost is a Toronto-based SaaS company founded in 2011 by Ross Paquette that sells a unified commerce, marketing automation, and customer service platform targeting mid-market e-commerce and retail businesses. The platform combines a commerce cloud, marketing cloud, and service cloud covering e-commerce, email, SMS, help desk, live chat, chatbots, and ticketing in a single solution.

Paquette built the business without outside capital until a 2016 secondary transaction in which he sold roughly 20 percent of the company at a $163 million valuation, raising $37 million USD ($50 million CAD). He later bought those investors out using the uninvested secondary proceeds, returning the cap table to himself and employees. As of April 2022 the company was running at approximately $72 million in annualized revenue, serving just under 5,000 customers at an average of $1,800 per month, and targeting $8.3 million in MRR by December 2022.

Maropost reported a 52 percent EBITDA margin in 2021 on $63 million in revenue, a profitability profile Paquette described as central to his bootstrap philosophy. The company has expanded through two all-cash acquisitions of Australian businesses, Neto in late 2020 and Retail Express in late 2021, and was conducting a 2022 secondary round targeting approximately $50 million at a $1.7 billion valuation with more than 50 participants. An IPO or public listing is the stated long-term liquidity path.

Last updated

Maropost Revenue

Maropost reported $63 million in revenue for 2021 and was running at approximately $72 million on an annualized basis at the time of the April 2022 interview, with Paquette targeting $8.3 million in monthly recurring revenue by December 2022, which would imply roughly $100 million in annualized run rate.

Maropost Revenue GrowthReported revenue / ARR over time · latest figure estimated$0$25M$50M$75M$100M$125M20112013201520172019202120232025$0$26M$40M$63M$80M$40.3MSource: GetLatka.com interview on Apr 30, 2022 with Ross Paquette
YearMilestoneSource
2025Maropost Hit $40.3m revenue in December 2025Estimated
2024Maropost Hit $75m revenue in November 2024
2024Maropost Hit $97.2m revenue in October 2024Estimated
2023Maropost Hit $80m revenue in December 2023
2022Maropost Hit $60m revenue in April 2022
2021Maropost Hit $63m revenue in January 2021Watch[1]Estimated
2020Maropost Hit $45m revenue in December 2020
2019Maropost Hit $40m revenue in January 2019Watch[2]
2017Maropost Hit $26m revenue in January 2017Watch[3]
2016Maropost Hit $13.3m revenue in January 2016Watch[4]
2011Launched with $0 revenue

The company's revenue history shows consistent compounding growth from a standing start: $300,000 in 2013, $3.3 million in 2014, $13.3 million in 2016, $26 million in 2017, and $40 million in 2019. Paquette confirmed the 2019 figure in the interview, referencing a prior conversation with the host. Net dollar retention was described as on track to exceed 150 percent in 2022, which Paquette attributed to a cross-sell motion where customers enter through one cloud and expand into the others, with a representative example of a $1,000-per-month customer growing to $4,000 per month after adopting additional modules.

Using the 2019-to-2021 compound growth rate of roughly 26 percent annually as a ceiling and applying modest deceleration as a floor, a GetLatka estimate for 2022 full-year revenue would fall in the range of approximately $79 million to $90 million. This is a modeled range, not a figure Paquette stated.

Maropost Valuation, Funding Rounds

Maropost reached a $1.7B valuation in 2022, set during its Secondary Market round.

Maropost has raised $87M in total funding across 2 rounds, most recently a $50M Secondary Market round in 2022.

Maropost Capital Raised & ValuationCumulative capital raised and post-money valuation by roundCapital raised (cum.)Valuation$0$0$400M$20M$800M$40M$1.2B$60M$1.6B$80M$2B$100M2011201320152017201920212022$1.7BSource: GetLatka.com interview on Apr 30, 2022 with Ross Paquette
YearRoundAmountValuation% SoldSource
2022Secondary Market$50M$1.7B3%
2016Secondary$37M$163M23%Watch[1]

Founders

Ross Paquette

CEO

Ross Paquette founded Maropost in 2011 and serves as its CEO and Chairman. He was 38 years old at the time of the April 2022 interview and had just welcomed his first child. Paquette takes no salary, bonus, or options compensation, relying entirely on his ownership stake and dividends tied to the company's profitability.

Paquette described building Maropost from $300,000 in revenue in 2013 without outside capital until the 2016 secondary, which he later unwound. He characterized his philosophy as growth and profitability simultaneously rather than growth at all costs, and cited a 52 percent EBITDA margin in 2021 as evidence of that approach. He stated his long-term goal is to retain roughly 80 percent of the business post-IPO and to eventually hand the CEO role to someone else while remaining involved at the product and vision level.

Net worth was not discussed in the interview. A rough GetLatka estimate based on Paquette's stated approximate 80 percent ownership target applied to the $1.7 billion secondary valuation would imply a stake worth approximately $1.36 billion on paper, but this is a modeled figure using an unconfirmed ownership percentage and a valuation that was still being set at the time of the interview. It should not be treated as a confirmed figure.

Michael Litt

Board Member

I'm very interested in the way web-technology and streaming media are colliding. Video has already changed the way we communicate. It will change the way we sell, engage, convert and purchase - we're leading these innovations with Vidyard. Experience - Developing New Products to meet emerging consumer demands - Analyzing technology convergence - Platform Marketing - Product Management: - Initialization - Development - Support Goals Continued Personal Innovation, Winning with noble purpose Specialties: Product Management, Technical Marketing, Leadership and Sales

Q&A

QuestionAnswer
What's your age?41
Favorite online tool?-
Favorite book?-
Favorite CEO?-
Advice for 20 year old self-

Customers

Maropost was serving just under 5,000 customers at the time of the April 2022 interview, with Paquette expecting to cross 5,000 within a couple of months. Average revenue per user was approximately $1,800 per month, which the host used to derive a rough MRR figure of approximately $9 million, a figure Paquette described as give or take.

The company targets mid-market e-commerce and retail businesses. Neto, an Australian e-commerce platform acquired in late 2020, was a customer-facing asset with just over $10 million USD in ARR at the time of acquisition. Pricing details beyond the $1,800 monthly ARPU and the existence of a free tier were not discussed in the interview.

Maropost serves 5K customers.

Maropost Business Model

Maropost generates revenue through a subscription model selling its unified commerce, marketing, and service platform to mid-market e-commerce and retail businesses. The company reported a 52 percent EBITDA margin in 2021 on $63 million in revenue, confirming profitability. Paquette described the business as cash-flow positive and said dividends to himself as the sole shareholder have funded personal wealth accumulation and the company's acquisition activity.

Revenue per employee stood at just over $200,000 at the time of the interview, against a stated benchmark of approximately $129,000 for the average public SaaS company. Paquette said the company had already hired ahead of revenue and was targeting $300,000 to $350,000 in revenue per employee. With 305 employees and approximately $72 million in annualized revenue, the implied revenue-per-employee figure is consistent with the stated $200,000-plus level. Net dollar retention was described as on track to exceed 150 percent in 2022, driven by cross-selling across the platform's three clouds. Gross margin, burn rate, CAC, LTV, and churn figures were not stated in the interview.

Maropost has also pursued an acquisition-led growth strategy, completing two all-cash deals: Neto for approximately $60 million USD at roughly a 4x revenue multiple in late 2020, and Retail Express for approximately $55 million USD at a 4 to 6x revenue multiple in late 2021. Both were Australian businesses. The Neto figure of $60 million was introduced by the host and confirmed by Paquette with the clarification that the multiple was closer to 4x in USD terms. The Retail Express price of $55 million was stated by the host and not explicitly corrected by Paquette. Paquette described the acquisitions as funded by the company's operating cash flow and dividends rather than outside capital.

Point-in-time figures shared on the GetLatka podcast, each linked to the exact moment it was said on camera.

Customers (2022)

5,000

Ross Paquette: Just shy of 5,000 actually. We're about to, we should hit 5,000 in a couple months.

Watch

Average revenue per user (2022)

$1,800

Ross Paquette: Probably about $1,800 per month.

Watch

EBITDA margin (2021)

52%

Nathan Latka: You mean you guys are doing 50% EBITDA margins right now, last year? Ross Paquette: Yeah, about 52. Yeah.

Watch

Maropost Employees & Team Size

Maropost had 305 employees as of April 2022, of whom approximately 125 were engineers. The company carried only 15 quota-bearing sales representatives, a ratio Paquette noted was the inverse of what most companies his size would carry. He attributed the lean sales headcount to a product-led and virality-driven growth motion rather than a large outbound sales force.

At the time of the 2016 secondary round, the company had approximately 20 employees. Paquette said the company had been aggressively adding headcount ahead of revenue in 2022 and was targeting revenue per employee of $300,000 to $350,000 as it prepares for a public listing.

Maropost employs approximately 366 people as of 2026, down from 381 in 2024, including 32 sales reps that carry a quota. It serves 5K customers that rely on its solutions.

Maropost Team GrowthReported headcount over time01002003004005002011201320152017201920212023202500366366Source: GetLatka.com interview on Apr 30, 2022 with Ross Paquette
YearMilestoneSource
2025Reached 366 employees (December 2025)
2024Reached 381 employees (March 2024)
2023Reached 368 employees (November 2023)
2023Reached 368 employees (September 2023)
2023Reached 368 employees (September 2023)
2023Reached 368 employees (September 2023)
2023Reached 201 employees (July 2023)
2023Reached 357 employees (January 2023)
2022Reached 305 employees (April 2022)
2021Reached 312 employees (November 2021)
2021Reached 312 employees (August 2021)
2020Reached 168 employees (December 2020)
2020Reached 168 employees (November 2020)
2020Reached 153 employees (June 2020)
2019Reached 172 employees (December 2019)
2018Reached 140 employees (December 2018)
2017Reached 158 employees (September 2017)

Frequently Asked Questions about Maropost

What is Maropost's revenue?

Maropost generates an estimated $40.3M in annual revenue.

Who is the CEO of Maropost?

The CEO of Maropost is Ross Paquette.

How much funding does Maropost have?

Maropost raised $87M across 2 rounds.

How many employees does Maropost have?

Maropost has 366 employees.

Where is Maropost headquarters?

Maropost is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Full Interview Transcripts

Bootstrapped Maropost Hits $60m Revenue, 52% Profits, Doing $1.7b Secondary Right NowApr 30, 2022

[00:00] Hey folks, my guest today is Ross Paquette. He's building a company called maropost.com launched or at least earliest date I've got revenue data on call all the way back to 2016, 2017. Now scaling up. Now he took some capital from an outside partner and said, You know what? I like the Bootstrap life much better. He said, You know, I'm gonna buy them back. And he did it. Now he's continuing to scale. They're doing M and A. [00:20] One of the great Bootstrap success stories. Ross, welcome to the show. [00:24] >> Thanks so much for having me, Nathan. Okay. Did I get that right? When was founding year? It was actually 2000 Jesus, what year are we now? It was 2011. Sorry. [00:35] Ah, okay. Okay. So '20 And then for folks that have not heard of you before, quickly, what do you guys do? What are you selling? [00:41] >> Yeah, absolutely. So we have a single solution that encompasses, commerce cloud, marketing cloud and service cloud. So effectively e commerce and retail marketing automation, email, SMS, and then help desk, a live chat, chatbots, ticketing, and so on. And our target market is mid market e commerce and retail businesses or organizations. [01:03] Hot, very hot space. So when did you, do you remember the year you guys passed a million bucks in revenue? [01:09] >> Yeah, that would have been 2013, I guess. [01:12] And what was that like? What were you selling back then? Is it the same thing today or [01:15] >> is it changing Yeah, no, mostly email marketing and marketing automation. So we very quickly went from 300,000 in revenue in '20, I guess that would have been 2013 actually. And then 2014, 3,300,000. 2016, if I'm not mistaken was $13,300,000 and then $26,000,000 in 2017, if I'm not mistaken. [01:36] Interesting. And then you told me on the last show you broke 40,000,000 in 2019. [01:40] >> Yeah, correct. Yeah. [01:42] Very cool. Okay. So how many of these companies or customers are you serving today? [01:46] >> Just shy of 5,000 actually. We're about to, we should hit 5,000 in a couple months. [01:51] Holy cow. Okay. And average company is paying about what in terms of ARPU? [01:56] >> Probably about $1,800 per month. [01:59] 1,800 a month. Okay. So, I mean, can we can multiply those bad boys to get MRR? [02:03] >> If you want. Yeah. [02:04] And that's 9,000,000 in MRR? [02:07] >> Give or take. Yeah. Maybe I'm a bit less, maybe a little bit over. Yeah. Yeah. Will you break let me let [02:13] me ask you this. Will you break a $100,000,000 in ARR this year run rate? [02:16] >> Just shy of it actually. Sorry. Yeah, just shy of it, most likely. [02:22] So you think by December 2022, so this year you'll do about 8,300,000 in MRR that month? [02:26] >> Correct. [02:27] Yeah. I love that. Okay. So now let's reverse engineer from a 100,000,000 run rate, right? So you're getting there a bunch of ways. First off, you're preserving equity with some buybacks. You're doing some acquisitions with M and A. Let's talk about the funding strategy first. So thought you wanted to raise and you did. What year was that and how much did you raise? [02:43] >> That was 2016 and we did an all secondary round for 37,000,000 US, 50,000,000 Canadian if it was relevant. [02:50] Okay. 37,000,000 US and that was a 100% secondary to you or also early employees investors? [02:56] >> Yeah, it was a combination. Like everybody got a bonus and all that kind of stuff. [03:00] Okay. Okay. And what valuation was that at? [03:03] >> 163,000,000. [03:05] Did that feel fair at the time? [03:07] >> Yeah, it did. [03:08] Yeah. Okay. [03:09] >> At the time. Yeah. Yeah. And that [03:10] was post or pre? [03:12] >> Yeah. That was, there was technically no post or pre because it was all secondary. So Okay. Got it. Got it. Got it. [03:18] Yeah. So we could take 37 divided by 163. They bought about 20%, 21% of the business. [03:23] >> Yeah, exactly. [03:25] Okay. And then you sort of casually said it felt good at the time. What happened? [03:29] >> Yeah, mean, was, it's easy to look back. I mean, was all very positive. They're really great people, great groups, but, you know, coming from a fully bootstrapped approach where the business is based on profitability and growth at the same time and not grow by all costs, where effectively the founder being myself is gambling with the growth of the business, which is as I see it. You know, we were just really weren't aligned from a philosophical perspective, [03:55] >> but I don't think that would have been any different with any other parties, frankly. Think it was just, you know, it was just how the times were then with from an investment standpoint, and at least from, kind of the VC to to, you know, kind of startup VP firms as well. And so for us, it just really didn't make sense to continue down that path. [04:16] 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 [04:39] your 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 [05:04] get 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 [05:25] not 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 [05:51] going out right now and you're raising your seed round. We'll 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 [06:13] you 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. All right. Let's jump back into [06:39] the interview. And so, I mean, a lot of people, a lot of you might right now be listening, thinking about raising capital or doing a secondary like you just described, but they're really not sure like what their first board meeting is gonna be like. You obviously didn't like what you saw or heard in your first couple of board meetings. Otherwise you wouldn't have bought them back out. So what act, what were you expecting and what happened? [06:58] >> To be honest with you, it was, that's actually a great question because I had absolutely no idea. So like no preparation whatsoever, very little from a content perspective. We were doing like, again, I think about 16,000,000 at the time with maybe 20 employees in the business. And yeah, I just had zero experience from that perspective. So it really wasn't anything on that front. Think it was a combination of things that happened over, you know, over the [07:24] >> three year period that, you know, it was just like, we better separate here or this is going to go sideways. The business had gone from triple digit growth to single digit growth, You know, so really nobody was happy across the board and I don't take a salary or compensation. I do well if the company does well. So I'm very focused on, again, continuing to build the business, not just, you know, Ross has got, you know, compensation [07:47] >> coming from salary and options and all this kind of stuff as well. So what did you do about it? Sorry. [07:54] So you didn't, you didn't obviously like that sort of pressure. It didn't make a lot of sense. Right. So what did you do about it? You raised this capital. Are they still on the cap table today? [08:02] >> No, no, no. So I bought them out or, you know, there's a few more nuances to it, but yeah, we effectively decided on a figure. I went our separate ways and [08:12] Ross, you think I'm just [08:14] >> gonna let you off the hook by saying we decided on a figure? [08:16] How the hell do you come with a figure? They just paid 163,000,000 valuation. Can you convince them to sell them back at like 1x? Or they're gonna say, Ross, you gotta give us a premium. Our capital is tied up for you. [08:23] >> No, it was nothing like that. It was just kind of what you said. Okay. So they're like, [08:28] if we had put the same $37,000,000 in the stock market, we would have earned 10%. So give us 10% more than 37,000,000. You can have your 20% back. Something like that. [08:37] >> Something like that. Yeah. [08:39] All right. Fair enough. Okay. And then what? So you get that deal done. Where did you get that money from, by the way? Was it the cap? I mean, was that all the money on the balance sheet? [08:47] >> All the secondary funds. So effectively at the time I had just taken the capital, didn't spend any of it, invested it and, you know, the money was just sitting there. And so I think we're very fortunate in that regard to have done an all secondary round whereby, you know, we didn't put all the money into the business, spend the money, and now we're like, we're totally screwed here Yeah, on both [09:08] that a ton of sense. So, okay, got it. So you do that in 2016. Let's, before we talk about like more recent capital news, let's talk about product between 2017 and today, right? So how has that evolved? Have you done any acquisitions? [09:20] >> Yeah. Yeah, so we did the two acquisitions that you mentioned that we've spoken about before. So we acquired a company out of Australia called Neto back at the end of twenty twenty. So right in the thick of COVID and then acquired another coincidentally Australian business as well at the end of twenty twenty one. Clearly we have an affinity for Christmas deals and that was in the point of sale space called Retail Express. And so back to [09:46] >> your question, which was, you know, how has the product evolved? We've had the same vision for the last six years, which was this unified, again, commerce marketing automation and support solution. And so really we acquired those businesses to just help bolster a lot of the knowledge, lot of the understanding, a lot of the nuances that come from retail and e commerce that, you know, we just didn't have the experience with. And so those have been very [10:11] >> successful for us, especially as we're continuing forward in our product strategy. [10:16] How do you measure success of an acquisition? [10:20] >> Good question. I mean, the percentage of failures is so high. You know, think you're able to look back and say that the asset still has retained the value or amplified the value of the overall business, that's successful, right? Things aren't always going to work out with the, you know, with the founders or with the previous leadership team. Things aren't also going to work out, always going to work out from a customer technology perspective. But I think [10:44] >> if you can look back and say, would still do this, you know, twenty four months later, twelve months later, even for that matter, you know, that's really the key, you know, to the success side of things. And I don't think that's very common in, you know, in all the examples that you and I have both seen over the years. [10:59] No, I would agree. So Neto, how much ARR were they doing when you bought them? [11:03] >> Do you remember? They were around just over 10,000,000 USD. [11:08] Okay, got it. And bootstrapped? [11:12] >> No, they had, they were owned by, this is all public information. So they were majority, their majority shareholder, sorry, Telstra. It's an Australian telco, so similar to AT and T or Verizon, but in Australia. [11:24] And so was that an advantage or a disadvantage that they were owned by a big conglomerate? [11:28] >> I think it was actually in a way it was an advantage because Telstra is a huge company. They were making changes effectively with the strategy that they were implementing that caused them to acquire or invest in a business like that. And so, you know, when a company that's doing billions and billions of dollars in revenue, you know, is making a turn, you know, a $10,000,000 revenue company is really not that important to them. They're just thinking [11:53] >> the strategy is different now. Let's exit the, you know, investments that we've made across the board and move into the new direction we're moving in. [12:00] So I [12:01] >> think everybody was very motivated to, you know, to complete the transaction in a mutually beneficial way. [12:07] Yep. And I guess when you look at how Ross likes to structure deals, Of that total price that you paid for Neto, what percent was like all cash upfront versus them taking a ride with you now and sitting on your cap table? [12:18] >> No, no, it was all cash. So we paid all cash. Yeah. Our cap table is still myself and the employees. That's it. [12:24] Wow. That's incredible. Okay. So so 60,000,000 all cash upfront for Neto. Six x multiple. [12:31] >> Yeah. [12:31] Interesting. And can you share those same metrics? [12:33] >> I'm sorry. That was in USD. So it's a little less than that. It was closer to 4x multiple. [12:37] I see. I see USD. Okay, cool. And what about by the way, you like 60,000,000. Retail Express, think was a $55,000,000 deal. Same sort of size, 10,000,000 revenue? So a little bit smaller, [12:48] >> but completely boot strapped and founder owned and operated. The founder there is now our Managing Director of Australia and New Zealand, coincidentally. [12:57] That's super cool. And did you pay about the same multiple, four to six X, something like that? [13:01] >> Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Okay. And, but in his example, there was a little bit more, you know, a big part of it was the partnership continuing forward, you know, having an aligned vision on the business. So I'm really excited to have him here and he's obviously a big advocate for us in Australia. [13:16] So I'm keynoting SaaStock here in a couple of days. And I said, I wanna put some of this at the front of my keynote. And what I wanna put there is founder, a lot of founders don't know, this is gonna sound very conceited, but don't know a better way to ask it. Founders know how to get personally rich or wealthy without exiting, which they don't wanna do because it's like selling your baby. You're gonna go do [13:33] the same thing again. So what if there was a way to not sell your baby, but still generate personal wealth? The way you obviously can do that is sort of via secondaries, dividends, things like that. You know, obviously without sharing personal net worth and things you don't wanna share, but how have you built the business so you can extract personally wealth and build a great life? So [13:50] >> it goes back to my comment before. So I don't have a salary. I don't have a bonus. I don't have anything. I have my ownership in the business and if the business does well, I do well. So typically through dividends as you just described and we've been fortunate enough to build a strong performing business when it comes to cash flow and EBITDA and profitability. So that has really driven that side of the coin. Granted that's not [14:13] >> very common, certainly not in the tech spaces we've seen. Most companies are burning through capital. So I think it just it takes that unique focus on ensuring that a profitable business is a part of the strategy as well. So as in, it's great to grow 50% year over year in my opinion, but it's also great to have a 40% or 50% EBITDA margin around the cash flow side of things. [14:35] You mean you guys are doing 50% EBITDA margins right now, last year? [14:40] >> Yeah, about 52. Yeah. [14:41] This is insane. Guys, this isn't, I'm laughing. I'm laughing because I mean, this isn't small scale we're talking about. I mean, this is like, I think you guys had like a $63,000,000 in revenue USD last year or something like that. Right? [14:52] >> He's like, yes, yes. [14:53] Right. So 53%. I mean, you guys do the math, 53%. [14:57] Now, Ross, obviously that whole dividend, that's not all coming out of business. It's not all personally your money, [15:01] >> but We use it for the acquisitions. [15:03] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But then you also obviously, you, even when you pay the dividend, do you structure it in a way where it's weighted? So for example, if employees own 10% of the business, you own 90%, you're gonna pay out 10,000,000 in profits. It's split evenly like that? [15:16] >> No, we don't, we don't have any shareholders except for myself. So we have option holders like everybody else. And we're very generous with that side because we want people to enjoy in the journey that we're going down, but they are nonetheless still option holders. [15:29] So I guess my question would be, do you let them, so if you, Ross, as Founder, pay your spot a dividend, which I love, you should, it's a great way to build wealth, this is why you've started a company in the first place, it's for freedom. Do you enable the employees to sell back options to the company at like a certain price? They can, okay, got it. So they can't get, so how will they get liquidity [15:47] long term? [15:49] >> They would get it when we hit an exit event. So in our case, when we go public or via public listing or direct listing or an IPO, is our path. I mean, alternatively, you know, most other companies are trying to sell themselves, so that would be their liquidity event. But for us, that is the specific path we're heading down. [16:06] Ross, I think you would be a terrible public company CEO because it's your personality at all. Yeah. [16:13] >> I'm not interested in that either. And that's not my goal. That's different. My goal is more to retain 80% of the business and be able to operate from a product perspective or a vision perspective and really be supportive to somebody like that. I don't aspire to be the CEO of a public company. [16:27] I say that in a joking way, but that's a compliment. Yeah, I mean, you don't fit the mold, right? Like you're doing things a very different way, which I think is frankly healthy. But my question still stands though. So if you don't wanna IPO, don't want to exit. You want to keep 80% and grow it yourself. [16:41] >> We do want to IPO or we do want to go public. [16:43] That's the goal. You do want to IPO? [16:46] >> Correct. But I don't aspire to be the CEO of that public company. You know, after a few years I will, you know, of course, either, you know, bring somebody in from outside or have somebody, you know, elevate within the organization and we're positioning ourselves even now for those stages. I see. [17:02] Okay. Very cool. Now, the reason we're recording this is twofold. One is that I wanted your story ahead of SaaStock cause you're actually doing some deals in Sweden and The Nordics. But second is, I think you did recently a secondary. So update us. What did you recently do? [17:14] >> Yeah. So just as of Sorry, it's still ongoing right now. So I'm not even sure if I should share this, but we're doing a secondary round at a $1,700,000,000 valuation. [17:25] I love this. Okay. So just for people that don't know what a secondary is, can you explain it in maybe two, three senses? [17:29] >> Yeah, absolutely. So secondary is providing liquidity to the shareholders as opposed to directing funds right into the business in terms of primary. [17:40] Yep. So if we take, let's say you're at like a, well, I mean, what are you doing right now at MRR? [17:46] >> 6? I have to look. [17:48] 6,000,000? Just shy of that. Something around 6. Yeah. So I mean, so that would put you right now at like a run rate, whatever. What is that? $72,000,000 run rate, right? [17:56] >> It's just under 60. [17:58] Under 60. Okay, cool. So I'm trying to back into your multiple, right? So did you Was it a competitive process and that's unable to drive up the multiple? [18:06] >> Not really. We've gone with a much wider net. So there's not just one or two or even five parties involved. There's more than 50. We've taken a bit of a different approach to this because we have a lot of people who have been involved in the business for years, been in, you know, customers of the business, partners in the business, employees, family members, friends. This was their opportunity to really to enter into the, you know, it [18:30] >> wouldn't be the cap table again, but effectively enter into an investment that they can, you know, join the journey over the next few years as we head to our public listing as well. [18:38] And so what do you think the size of the secondary will be? You know, 50,000,000, 10,000,000, a 100,000,000? [18:43] >> Yeah, probably close to 50,000,000. [18:45] 50,000,000. Okay, interesting. So this is sort of a way for, you know, partners, friends, supporters, marketing agency owners who love you to death and sell out of Maropost to buy in pre IPO. [18:57] >> Yeah, exactly. Interesting. [18:59] Super interesting. How do all your other sort of IPO metrics, rule of 40, you good? [19:04] >> Yeah, we're good on that one. Yeah, absolutely. [19:07] Net dollar retention. [19:07] >> Can't remember the actual, yeah, this year will be well above 150. [19:13] Okay. That's world class. I'm trying to think of revenue per employee? [19:18] >> Revenue per employee is just over 200 right now, but it'll be significantly higher. We've been staffing up, you know, much like other companies are aggressively. [19:27] That, well, so sorry, that number will go down because you're adding headcount? [19:31] >> No, no, no. So we've added the headcount. We're already in that process right now, but we've staffed up for a much higher revenue multiple at [19:37] Which the end of the is great because you're already above average. Most public trades companies, it's about 129 average revenue per employee. You're already at 200. Rule of forties, rule of whatever higher, and net dollar retention is already world class at 150. [19:48] >> Yeah. We're targeting about over 300, 300, three fifty on the employee side of things. [19:53] I just love that you track it. I never talked to a pre IPO founder that's even tracking revenue per employee. Really? It's not even a thought, unfortunately. So I think it's great. How have you driven, you know, something, I guess we'll wrap up on this. That net dollar retention surprised me because you're selling to mid market. These aren't enterprise deals necessarily. How are you gonna be able to get- how are we going to keep gross churn low and [20:14] then also cross sell enough to get up to 150 net? [20:16] >> Yeah. So the key element of the platform is people are usually coming in for one, you know, through one of the areas of the platform. One of the three or one of the four arguably is, you know, e commerce retail marketing or service clouds. And so they're coming in through one of those and then we're cross selling them over the rest of the platform. So if anything, 150 is probably generous because somebody could easily come into [20:41] >> Service Cloud and maybe they're using Shopify or they're using Klaviyo for marketing and that's fine. And then we cross sell them into those solutions and all of a sudden what was a, you know, 1,000 a month customer is now a $4,000 a month customer. And those other areas of the solution are of significantly higher, maybe not cost base, but value for the business overall. [21:01] That makes a ton of sense. And what's the full team size today? How many people? [21:06] >> Three zero five. [21:07] Three zero five. And how many of those are engineers? [21:11] >> About 125. [21:13] Okay. So heavy there as expected. How many sales reps that carry a quota? [21:17] >> Only 15. [21:18] Interesting. Why do you say only? [21:20] >> Because usually companies would have, you know, usually the numbers would be the other way around to what I just described. So, you know, you'd have a 100 people in sales at a minimum and then marketing would be another 50 or 60 even, and then the rest trickles down through support and client success and development and so on. [21:38] Well, Ross, this is a hell of a story man. We're rooting for you. Let's wrap up here with Famous Five. Number one, favorite business book? [21:44] >> Favorite business book? Elon Musk's autobiography. [21:47] Number two, by the way, is he about to take over all of He has 9.2% of Twitter. He's gonna take over the whole thing or what? [21:53] >> I don't think so. No. I don't [21:56] think Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? [22:00] >> Probably him to be honest with you. It's not like I'm a fan or anything, or I should say I'm not a fan, but I'm not a fan in particular. I just really appreciate the hard work and I can obviously sympathize with the fact that it, you know, takes so much of that to get to where he's been. You know, Maropost is of course not comparable to Tesla in any way, shape or form, but, know, we certainly [22:19] >> hard worked our way to a lot of our successes. [22:21] Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building Maropost besides your own? [22:26] >> Good question. [22:29] >> Honestly, probably Microsoft Office. They've just done a great job. [22:33] >> Tried and true. [22:34] Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night? [22:37] >> Six hours. [22:38] Six? That's impressive. Because you have a new one, so that's impressive. Six hours is pretty good actually. [22:42] >> I've been lucky to maintain that, to be honest with you. I've been talking a lot about it. Yeah. [22:46] I forget. First kid or is it second or third? [22:49] >> First kid, yeah. And a week old. [22:50] Wow. Well, hey, congratulations, man. That's so I was my email was right on when I said, I think the baby's due. Was literally Yeah, exactly. Yeah. [22:56] >> It was last Friday or sorry, the Friday before last. [23:00] So I was only two days late about. That's great. [23:01] >> Two days late. [23:02] Exactly. [23:03] It's amazing. Alright. And how old are you, Ross? [23:05] >> I'm 38. [23:06] 38. Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20. [23:10] >> Something I wish I knew when I was 20. Jesus. [23:17] >> Good question. [23:19] >> I wish I knew how hard it would be to get to this point. [23:24] >> I think at the time it seemed very easy and it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. [23:27] Not an easy journey guys. Maropost launched back in 2011. They did 300 ks in revenue in 2013, 3,300,000 in 2014. Fast forward to 2016, did 13,300,000 and sold $37,000,000 worth of capital, call it capital on 163,000,000 valuation. So sold 20% of the business and said, you know what? I don't like these board meetings with other investors. Wanna buy them back. Did. Now the company basically him and employees own a 100% of the business. They've [23:52] scaled up to $60,000,000 in ARR serving over 5,000 customers, 52% profit, EBITDA profit margin last year, and now are raising call between 50 and $60, $70,000,000 bucks in a secondary at a $1,700,000,000 valuation, about a 28 X multiple. This is how you build a great SaaS company, keep control and build a great life as he welcomes his first little one in the world. Ross, thanks for taking us to the top. [24:15] >> Yeah. Thanks so much, Nathan. [24:18] 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 [24:44] Central. Additionally, remember these recorded Founder interviews go live. We release them here on YouTube every day at 2PM Central. To make sure you don't miss any of that, make sure you click the subscribe button below here on YouTube, the big red button and then click the little bell notification to make sure you get notifications when we do go live. I wouldn't want you to miss breaking news in the SaaS world, whether it's an acquisition, a big [25:06] fundraise, a big sale, a big profitability statement or else. I don't want you to miss it. Additionally, if you want to take this conversation deeper and further, we have by far the largest private Slack community for B2B SaaS founders. You want to get in there. We've probably talked about your tool if you're running a company or your firm if you're investing. You can go in there and quickly search and see what people are saying. Sign up [25:28] for that @nathanlatka.comslashslack. In the meantime, I'm hanging out with you here on YouTube. I'll be in the comments for the next thirty minutes. Feel free to let me know what you thought about this episode and if you enjoyed it, click the thumbs up. We get a lot of haters that are mad at how aggressive I am on these shows, I do it so that we can all learn. We have to counter those people. We got to [25:47] push them away. Click the thumbs up below to counter them and know that I appreciate your guys'support. Alright, I'll be in the comments. See you.

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