How Nife labs CEO Nida Sahar grew Nife labs to $272.3K revenue and 25 customers in 2024.

guys the hybrid Cloud platform knife dot IO they're doing 25 000 a month today in revenue from a thousand a month just a year ago their preced around they closed a year ago for half a million bucks at a five over a five million valuation looking to raise 500k now targeting a 10 million valuation we'll see if they can get it done 25 customers paying on average a thousand dollars per month a team size of 20 folks with eight engineers hey folks my guest today is Nina sahir she's been blessed with many empowering opportunities in the past 15 years of her career her corporate experience made her extremely passionate about technology and paved a way for the world of startups she's now working on nife knife dot IO not just for teaching her how to create technological impact but opening possibilities become an example for others uh specifically others other women in Tech it's an application life cycle management platform Nita you ready to take us to the top yes yes yes yes yes um thank you so much yeah you you bet so when did you launch the company and tell us a story about a customer that's using you today oh we started off a peak of pandemic 2020 2020 May and uh yeah I was stuck in Singapore in a room and then I didn't know what else to do because it was not my um country of origin and then my coach advised me that I should start a company and that's what happened uh the students are that simple but yeah so um you wanted a story of one of a customer who's using it so we have an interesting music app that's using our platform and they're doing this to live stream um uh their Studio the the production work so different musicians from different locations are actually jamming together and they have deployed their application through knife so that's really interesting that's very cool and so what is the average customer pay you per month today average customer pays anywhere between thousand dollars um to about thousand five hundred dollars per month yes and what do they get for a thousand a month uh they get a lot of automations done in uh in a single go so they can deploy their applications not just that um also they get performance metrics related to the applications who's using it how they're using it and how they can go ahead and um scale their applications to different regions and locations as well so your website says the fastest way to build manage deploy and scale any application securely globally with auto deploy from get zero devops servers or infrastructure management so should we look at this like robotic process automation software you can look at it as an application life cycle management software well make it not so buzzwordy okay make it real for my audience what does it actually mean it actually means your applications need a place to stay so we help them Reach their the exact location where they want to live uh so my example that I always give is Airbnb for servers right so we have a whole bunch of servers across the world and we know what the the kind of ecosystem and infrastructure each of the servers have so we help your applications go and live in the location that makes more sense for them not just for vacationing but yeah to um survive and to breathe okay and you got going in 2020 how many customers do you have today we have about 25 odd customers we are still very old say yes and so 25 customers paying a thousand a month means you're doing about 25 000 a month in Revenue yes we are that's great and where were you exactly one year ago so we can calculate growth rate we were at a thousand dollars that's about it tell me that story how did you get your first customer uh so a first customer came from one reference uh primarily uh yes that was the easy part I think getting the first customer was not that difficult I think the difficult part was getting the second third fourth fifth Customer because then we had to establish patterns we had to see uh what are exact icps who is our Persona which markets do we Target because we were all over the place really so uh I think we've a year ago we were still doing pre and spray I would say but then identifying the first uh getting my second or third customer became super super critical so I think um it was a lot of um what do I say marketing effort lot of sales effort LinkedIn reach outs don't ask it's it's been like a great learning process yes and how many folks today are full-time at the company we're about 20 at this time point of Time 20. how many of those are engineers eight eight okay and do you code I do code yes I'm a tech founder turned whatever business person yes that's awesome are you a sole founder do you have a co-founder I'm a solo founder yes oh I love that congrats it's so rare um did you have people saying oh Nita you've got to get somebody else and you said no I'm gonna do it myself like what was the thinking there investors said you need to find someone you're gonna go crazy I had my coaches who said that you know I'll go crazy I did try finding people it's not that I didn't but then it just didn't work out so so at one point of time I said you know just just forget about finding a co-founder if I have to build this and and the drama around finding a co-founder is also crazy right and you know um whatever so I said either I'm gonna build a company or I'm going to find a co-founder so I said Chuck finding a co-founder let me build this so there were a few investors who didn't worry about the fact that I was a solo founder even what drama the drama was person coming in asking for steak not wanting to work and then you know the whole thing about hey I am I am the CEO of whatever Telecom organization I'm coming down to your company so I need to get this much pay and I don't know what not so um I think the co-founder conflict part I think probably I could write a book on it so yes that's that story oh what's going on there YouTube good to see you guys now imagine this you love watching these interviews with SAS Founders 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back to the YouTube video here in a second but if you want to check this tool out if you want to jump in and sign up you can check it out for free to get your valuation at this link this link founderpath.com forward slash products forward slash 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 the interview that's great you mentioned investors have you raised capital or have you bootstrapped yes yes we've raised we've raised about um half a million close to half a million at this point of time okay when did you close the round we closed around in August last year okay 500 000 and you maybe call that your seed round we are about to raise a seat around yes okay so that was your pre-seater on for 500 okay most most folks in their pre-see will sell you know 20 of the company is that how about about how much you sold uh we sold about 10 of a company okay ten so you were at about five million valuation yes we're about a 5.5 million valuation guess how'd you convinced folks to give you a five million evaluation you know in the middle of 2022 markets are going a bit crazy you know you're early on how'd you get that valuation done couple of things one is the the topic of what I'm selling or the the product that I was working on or which is now ready itself had a lot of uh potential especially um the layers that we're building on next uh this year and the year after that are more focused on 5G so that's one part of it the second aspect of things is that we had um a lot of sales coming in you know mid uh early last year to through the time I was Raising we already had a few customers and we had good reviews there was a second thing the third is I think come what may our execution is super strong um a small lean team with um really low burn so I think the investors uh kind of appreciate what is low burn uh we do about 10K burn that's about it okay so you're profiting monthly right now about 15 000 a month yes that's great and so if you have profits I mean why raise money why give up 20 10 of your company yes so um there are a couple of things the amount of scale in which we want to um build the next part of the product is huge the second thing is the kind of customers that we want to capture the enterprise-based customers who have a slightly higher paying capacity uh the sales procedure is way too long what we have right now is easy targets easy customers and if we continue doing this our volumes will be higher but our um the the purse is going to be uh leaner so we want to ensure that we target the big accounts long LTV um you know have that in place as well so this is these are some of the things that we we really need to accelerate growth into so this is what you're raising now how much are you targeting to raise we're targeting about 500k that's about it uh because we already um a little bit Revenue positive so what we want to do is um put in that money from the uh the kitty that we're saving every month plus the money that we're raising into building something uh bigger than what we have right now and what valuation are you targeting on this new round um I I mean it's a conversation that I probably have with my investors if that is okay I'll skip this one well I guess the reason I'm asking is the equity markets are really hard right now right so and also like if you're profiting 15 000 a month already it seems strange that you would go and do a very tough Equity Market to try and raise 500 000 bucks instead of just staying heads down and focusing on growth and profits so it's a call that we're still taking but um what the thought process right now is there are there are features that we want to build in that are more important at this point of time like the whole decentralization of web and so what we do today is distribution of applications when we say application lifecycle management but the whole decentralization topic is slightly more bigger and more important and that's the reason why we want to build it now and if we wait for another year or so then it's going to be slightly problematic the second thing is I I do agree that uh the the market is really low and uh not just low it's the funding winter right and winter has been here to stay for a longer time so um but um if we don't build it out now then it's going to be there's going to be more competition coming in next year so keeping that in mind we just want to raise a small check right now in order to continue building um our efforts into the the new part of the product and uh you know scaling them scaling the product from that perspective um I mean that's what that's the rationale behind it really it's not that we want to raise like a two mil or three mil we don't want to do that much and we don't um necessarily think that any investors would be willing to put in that much uh money as well so if Ambassador comes to you today and says oh my gosh I love what you're building here's 500k but I want 30 of the company how do you respond or no I I don't think I don't think that's that's going to be possible Evolution oh Bonita you just said that you really wanted money because you have to invest in these products features that you need right now because if you wait a year it's going to be bad this is why I asked the question about Anita this way yeah yeah yeah come on dude no no no no no we're very strict on evaluation so um where we value ourselves right now is about 10 million so if we if we don't uh get a valuation in power with what we have released previously it's going to be really bad for our previous investors so we're not gonna how do you match that though I mean those investors last year or when you're a thousand bucks a month in Revenue I mean this is sort of silly to do but at a 5 million post money you could argue as a 410 X multiple on your Revenue which is sort of silly to do that early stage right so what do you mean when you say it's got to match the last valuation we raised at well no I don't mean it has to match the last valuation what I mean to say is it's going to be really not fair for my previous investors if I give away 30 of my company for 500k so that that's what I'm trying to say it's not going to be fair for anyone involved even in in the company yeah but life's not fair there's a ton of companies right now doing down rounds where the current investors are getting way more than investors last year see if you've done it Nathan frankly if you run into a situation like that um I think I'm just gonna back off and say hey it's okay let's continue working on what we have because we're not in a bad shape at all let's continue doing that and then you know see how we can scale with whatever resources we have because we've been lean and we can be leaner than what we have been so far so that would be the call but uh definitely not downsiding I mean the valuations are talking about 30 500k is is actually it's not it's not suitable for anyone yeah well but this is why I'm pushing you uh I don't know like some of the top companies right now can't get grounds done at valuations they like and so that's why when I pushed you and said do you why do you need this money now I think you build a great company that has profits why not reinvest profits that's why I was asking the question so we'll see what happens I mean do you have a term sheet from somebody right now on the terms that you want uh we don't have a term sheet we do have very uh late stage conversations going on with two of the investors so uh from that perspective our valuation isn't as low as what you're saying so I think I think we're in good shape uh from that perspective well I hope you get it done without having to sell a bunch of the company let me just put it that way okay all right on that note let's wrap up here with the famous five need a number one what's your favorite book my favorite book is mindset number two is there a CEO you're following or studying uh see you actually I'm not following any any cu as much I think of uh yeah number three what's your favorite online tool for building the company at this point of time it's active campaign because we do a lot of email marketing CRM and so on so on and so forth so it's active campaign number four how many hours of sleep do you get every night oh my god um good a good night's sleep is for us uh that's not healthy yeah but I'm sorry I'm a solo founder what can I do um yeah some days I do land up sleeping for uh 10 hours but then it's really not healthy what I do yes okay well there you go so you catch up we just don't want to perpetuate the notion that if you want to call yourself a good founder it means you only have to sleep for four hours a night I wish I could sleep seven hours per night I really wish I could do that but I've just not been able to do it you just well you just catch up you sleep four hours and you sleep ten hours sometimes so that makes sense all right and what's your situation married single kiddos um I'm single I have I do have cats though so yeah yeah it's okay great and Nina do you mind me asking how old you are I am 37 37 last question something you wish you knew when you were 20. something I wish I knew I when I was in 20. I think I was too serious very nerdish so I wish I knew how to have more fun which I now know guys the hybrid Cloud platform knife dot eye oh they're doing 25 000 a month to stay in Revenue up from a thousand a month just a year ago their pre-seed around they closed a year ago for half a million bucks at a five over five million evaluation looking to raise 500k now targeting a 10 million valuation we'll see if they can get it done 25 customers pay on average a thousand dollars per month the team size of 20 folks with eight Engineers Nita thanks for taking us to the top thank you so much Nathan one more thing before you go we have a brand new show every Thursday at 1pm Central it's called Shark Tank for SAS 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 our poo CAC LTV you name it they share it and the buyers try and make a deal live it is fun to watch every Thursday 1 p.m 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 SAS World whether it's an acquisition a big fundraise a big sale a big profitability statement or something 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 SAS 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 for that at nathanlacka.com forward slash slack in the meantime I'm hanging out with you here on YouTube I'll be in the comments for the next 30 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 but I do it so that we can all learn we have to counter those people we got to push them away click the thumbs up below to counter them and know that I appreciate your guys's support all right I'll be in the comments see ya