Oases Technovations Pvt. Ltd. Revenue, Valuation & Funding (2024)

[00:00] Guys, engage. Work is your full suite HR tool, especially if you're based in India. Surendra is growing quickly, $8,000 a month in revenue a year ago, now $20,000 a month in revenue. He's been very capital efficient, just a $100,000 in a pre seed round raised where he sold 20% to angels. His team is 44 today, 15 engineers, five quota carrying sales reps as they look to scale to be your, again, full applicant tracking system, payroll management, [00:23] the full life cycle of your employees, he'll help you manage it. Hey, folks. My guest today is Surendra Varma. He's an HR professional with twenty years of experience in the field. He's worked extensively in HR policy design, automation, strategic HR, business partnering, and all sorts of roles. He's now building emgage. Work. That's the URL. It's a smart virtual HR management platform. Alright. Surendra, you ready to take us to the top? [00:46] >> Oh, yes. Yes, Nathan. Thank you. [00:48] So should we think of you like an applicant tracking system? [00:52] >> No. It's not an application tracking system. So it's a virtual smart manager, virtual manager, which basically does anything or everything post recruitment. So, it primarily takes care of things right from onboarding till the separation piece. Primarily something which an HR operation guide us right from, say, helping you to onboard people, getting the induction done, managing leave attendance, employee health desk, query management, payroll, confirmation processes, appraisal coordination, and the separation management is something [01:27] So you're more like remote.com then. It's your full stack, start to finish. [01:31] >> Correct. Correct. Correct. [01:32] I see. Okay. Give me the backstory. When did you launch the company? What year? [01:36] >> So I've been into entrepreneurship for almost ten years now. I started with a recruitment firm, which was primarily a services firm. Emgage started in 2018 because my first half of career has been working with a lot of corporates, know, mid sized building organization. And being a Founder as well as being HR, I realized that there are common problems that every organization goes through, specifically all the startups and MSMEs, right? Most of these companies, either 70% of [02:07] >> MSMEs do not have their own HR department, right? [02:10] Well, Surendra, I just want to let me just stay focused on your story for a second. So you have a service, you have a surface consulting company, you launched the software in 2018, fast forward to today, what's the average customer paying you per month or per year to use the technology? [02:26] >> If I talk about you know, INR, it is 1.2 lakh per per annum. And if we convert that into USD, it's it's something around around $1,213,000 dollars per annum. [02:45] So if someone's paying you $13,000 per year, how many employees are they managing on your platform? [02:52] >> Yeah. So currently, are managing more than 12,000 employees. [02:55] Across how many companies? [02:57] >> This is across 130 customer. [03:00] Wow. Okay. And and walk me through, go back to 2018. Did you also get your first paying customer in 2018 or did it take you a year or two? [03:10] >> So we got we launched our product in 2018 beginning and we got our first paying customer in mid of two thousand eighteen. [03:18] How did you get that customer? Tell me that story. [03:21] >> So it was it was basically a friend who was facing a challenge that, you know, the person the the friend didn't have he was running an IT company and he didn't have an HR department. And he knew me because we were working together in the last organised meetup. He said, I mean, why don't you help us in terms of managing the HR department. I really don't want to hire someone full time to manage because I really [03:41] >> don't need someone to be full time. And that's how the whole story began. [03:46] Yep. That makes sense. Okay. So you you onboard him. And then is your only pricing model charging per number of employees managed on the system or is there some other metric you charge on? [03:57] >> No. It is it is per employee per month. The number of employees that we manage on the platform. Yeah. [04:02] Okay. So 12,000 employees across a 113 customers that pay on average $13,000 per year, that would mean your monthly recurring revenue today is about a $135,000 per month. Is that about right? [04:17] >> So I'm saying, you know, 13,000 per annum. Okay? [04:22] >> Yep. So [04:23] So a 113 customers times $13,000 per year would be 1,600,000 annually divided by 12 would be a $135,000 per month. Is that accurate? [04:35] >> Not really. So we probably in terms of when I talk about our MRR is is around 20,000 USD per per month. [04:43] 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 [05:06] 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 [05:31] 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 [05:53] not built off random data. Again, you guys hear these interviews on YouTube. All these datas are built from real time valuation data points founders 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 [06:18] 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. All right, We're gonna go back to the YouTube video here in a second, but [06:40] if 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. Alright. Let's jump back into [07:06] the interview. Okay. So which of the which of the metrics are wrong? Either your average ACV is wrong or your customer count is wrong? [07:15] >> No. So I I assume that, you know, the per annum revenue in USD is calculated wrong. So, [07:28] >> so if I go back and check it out, so it's going to be it's not 13,000, it is going to be 1,300, 1,400. [07:34] I see. [07:34] >> USD. Yeah. USD per annum. [07:37] That makes sense. So you have a 113 customers paying something more like a $150 per month or $1,300 per year. [07:45] >> Right. Right. [07:46] Okay. That makes sense. So if you're at $20,000 a month today in revenue, where were you exactly one year ago? Do you remember? [07:53] >> So we were we were almost 8,000 USD per month, twelve months back. [08:00] That's great. So where's the growth coming from today? You told us about your first customer. How did you get how are you getting customers today? What's your growth channel? [08:08] >> So our GTM is primarily focused in terms of talking to founders, right? And, you know, we have an inbound. So we do a lot of content marketing. We publish a lot of knowledge articles around the HR challenges faced by startups founders in MSME. And that's how we primarily try to kind of, you know, give a lot of insight about how HR needs to get managed. So a lot of LinkedIn marketing, lot of email campaigns. We reach [08:39] >> out to a lot of founders. [08:40] What's your favorite LinkedIn tool for LinkedIn marketing? [08:43] >> So it's a sales navigator, primarily to reach out to the right people. [08:48] Yep. That makes sense. And how many folks are full time today on your team? [08:51] >> So we are close to 44 people team. [08:54] 44 people. Okay. Wow. And are you only servicing like, I know with remote.com, they actually have legal entities in every country, and then they're they're and they employ a record, but that's a lot of work. Are you only working with companies that are hiring employees in India, or can someone use you if they're hiring and paying employees in Canada and London and all over the world? [09:15] >> Right. So we have customer base. So primarily it is focused on India, but we do have couple of customers. I would say 3% of our customers having an office in multiple, you know, geographies or multiple countries. [09:26] And what's your model? Are you the EIR, the employer of record? [09:32] >> Yeah. So we it's like so if if you understand PEO, which is Professional Employer Organization market, right? So we we kind of give you the platform and we also give you a virtual HR manager who is going to kind of ensure that your entire HR gets managed by that particular dedicated virtual HR manager. Of course, everything happens on the platform. [09:52] But Surendra, this is like a very it's a very direct and it's a very legal question. When when when if I'm using you and I hire an employee, are they signing an employee contract with emgage as the employee on record or are they signing it with me and you're just helping me manage payroll? [10:08] >> So so we are an extended HR department. They have they signed the employee agreement with the the customer directly. [10:15] Okay. So you're not an EOO. You're not an employer of record then? [10:18] >> No. We are not. We are not. [10:20] Okay, understood. Understood. And talk to me about how you've capitalized the business to date. Are you bootstrapped or have you raised capital? [10:26] >> So we have angels on board. Right? And these are the people who are my ex CEOs from my last organization. So there are two angels that I have on board. They've been recently been onboarded. It's been it's been a year and from the time that they've joined in [10:40] So they invested last year? [10:42] >> Last year. [10:42] Yes. How much do they invest? [10:45] >> So they invested almost 100 k. [10:47] Okay. And most folks in their pre seed round are selling, you know, 20% of the company. Is that kind of what you gave them? [10:54] >> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. [10:55] Okay. Interesting. So you value the business at something like $500,000 a year ago? [10:59] >> Right. Right. [11:00] Was that the right move? [11:03] >> Yeah. I mean, the the idea was not to get an investment, but idea was to get people they are not just an investor, but they are they are adviser on board. So so these folks have a background of of of creating a company and running it to taking it to almost $200,000,000 revenue in ten years. And I have worked very closely with them, where they were business heads and I was part of HR team. And I [11:29] >> knew that this, you know, I need their experience to kind of help me scale up. So a lot of mistakes that I was doing probably with they coming on board, you know, if you see the surge in the in the monthly recurring revenue from $8,000 to $20,000 today, it's it's, you know, credit goes to these two folks. Yeah. [11:49] That that makes sense. And how is your team structured? 44 full time. How many are engineers? [11:54] >> So my tech team is around 15 people. [11:57] Yep. Where are they all based? At Bangalore, Chennai, somewhere else? [12:01] >> They are in Ahmedabad, which is so the the the state is Gujarat, which is near to Mumbai. [12:09] Mumbai. Okay. Near Mumbai. Great. And do you have any quota carrying sales reps or no? [12:14] >> No. We do have we do have full time five sales representatives. [12:19] How do you set their quota? [12:21] >> Yeah, so the quota is again, you know, bringing the monthly return revenue. So they'll have to ensure that, you know, there is a minimum commitment that every customer that they're bringing at least twelve months minimum commitment. And then the rest, when we onboard the customer, after that it is primarily the service delivery team which has to ensure that the lifetime value of a customer moves beyond twelve months too. So our average lifetime value for a customer [12:49] >> is around two and a half, three years minimum. [12:52] But you haven't been around for three years. You're just multiplying your churn by ARPU. I mean, that's it can that can be a we'll see if that turns out and pans out to be right. But I guess my question I'm asking is what quota? What actual dollar figure quota do you give your sales reps? [13:07] >> So currently, you know, what we do is we we ask them to kind of add up anywhere around, you know, 7 to $8,000 PO, which is spread across twelve months. Mhmm. That's what primarily we we give them the quota. [13:25] And you want them to do that once per month? [13:28] >> Once per month. Yeah. Every month they'll bring this new. Yeah. [13:30] So you want your five quota carrying reps to close one new $8,000 per year customer per month. [13:38] >> Yeah. [13:38] Okay. And how many of your sales reps last month hit that quota? [13:43] >> So we had four people hitting that. So last month, we we kind of closed it almost, you know, 20,000, [13:55] >> you know, PO. [13:58] Yeah. So, like, three contracts at $8 a pop, something like $24,000 in new new new annualized business. Right. Very cool. Well, listen, we're rooting for your Surendra. We're out of time though for today. Let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, what's the last business book that you read? [14:13] >> I didn't get you, Nathan. [14:14] The last business book that you read? [14:17] >> I read the book in which I am currently holding is Multipliers. [14:22] Yeah. That's a good one. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? [14:27] >> I follow Steve Jobs. [14:31] Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building emgage? [14:36] >> My favorite online tool that I like is there's a product called HiBob, which I follow. And there's something called Bambi, Bambi HR in in US. [14:46] Number four. How many hours of sleep do you get every night? [14:50] >> I ensure that I have at least seven hours sleep. [14:53] Okay. That's good. And situation, married, single, kids? [14:57] >> I'm married and I have two daughters. [14:58] Two kids. And how old are you? [15:01] >> Oh, the the elder one is around [15:03] No. No. You. How old are you? [15:05] >> I am 41. [15:07] >> 41. [15:08] Last question. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20 years old? [15:11] >> I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. [15:14] To start a company faster, Yep. [15:17] >> Yeah. I did it when I was 31. [15:19] Yep. Guys, engage. Work is your full suite HR tool, especially if you're based in India. Surendra is growing quickly, $8,000 a month in revenue a year ago, now $20,000 a month in revenue. He's been very capital efficient, just a $100,000 in a pre seed round raise where he sold 20% to two angels. His team is 44 today, 15 engineers, five quota carrying sales reps as they look to scale to be your, again, full applicant tracking system, [15:42] payroll management, the full life cycle of your employees, he'll help you manage it. Surendra, thanks for taking us to the top. [15:48] >> Thank you, Nathan. Thanks for having me here. [15:50] 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 [16:15] 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 [16:38] fundraise, a big sale, a big profitability statement or something else. I don't want you to miss it. Additionally, if you wanna 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 [17:00] 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, but I do it so that we can all learn. We have to counter those people. We got [17:19] to push them away. 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