2026 Revenue
$10M
Customers
150
Funding
$0
YOY
28%
Avg ACV
$66.7K
Team · 2025
151
Founded
2011
Onde Revenue (2026)
Onde is a white-label ride-hailing software platform founded in 2011 and headquartered in Poland. The company provides what its CEO describes as an "Uber in a box" solution, enabling local operators to launch and run their own ride-hailing businesses across more than 70 countries. Onde supports over 40 service types and operates on a revenue-share model, taking approximately 3.9 percent of each trip processed through its platform.
The company reached $10 million in annual recurring revenue in 2024 after a roughly 13-year growth arc from launch. As of the June 2026 interview, Onde reported monthly revenue of 900,000 EUR and monthly cash flow of 100,000 EUR, with 28 percent growth. The platform processed $350 million in gross merchandise value over the prior 12 months across 150 customers, implying an average of $2.3 million in annual GMV per customer.
Onde is fully bootstrapped with zero outside funding raised to date. The company's founders have declined multiple acquisition offers. CEO Martin Gallardo, who joined six months before the interview at age 40, was brought in with a mandate to grow the business tenfold, and is pursuing two new strategic bets: launching Onde's own consumer ride-hailing brand in Poland and developing a mobility hub franchise concept positioned for the robotaxi era.
Last updated
Onde Revenue
Onde reached $10 million in annual recurring revenue in 2024, the culmination of a growth arc that began at launch in 2011. The company crossed $1 million in revenue around 2015, approximately four to five years after founding, and reached $5 million around 2018 to 2019. Growth continued through the COVID period and accelerated in 2022 and 2023 before arriving at the $10 million milestone in 2024.
| Year | Milestone | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Onde Hit $10m revenue in June 2026 | Interview |
| 2024 | Onde Hit $5m revenue in June 2024 | Interview |
| 2011 | Launched with $0 revenue |
As of June 2026, Onde reported monthly revenue of 900,000 EUR, which annualizes to approximately 10.8 million EUR. The company posted 28 percent month-over-month growth in the most recent reported month. Monthly cash flow was 100,000 EUR, implying a roughly 11 percent cash flow margin on monthly revenue.
CEO Martin Gallardo told Latka he believes the core white-label business can sustain 20 to 40 percent annual growth going forward. A GetLatka forward estimate, applying a deceleration-adjusted range to the trailing 28 percent monthly growth figure, suggests annualized revenue could reach between approximately 13 million EUR and 16 million EUR over the next 12 months, though this is a GetLatka estimate and was not confirmed by the CEO. Gallardo acknowledged the core business cannot achieve the 10x outcome he was hired to deliver, which is why the company is pursuing two new strategic bets alongside the existing revenue base.
Onde Valuation, Funding Rounds
Onde is a bootstrapped Ride Sharing Software startup. Founded in 2011, Onde has grown to $10M in revenue without raising any venture capital or outside funding.
As a self-funded Ride Sharing Software SaaS company, Onde has built its business with no outside investment.
| Year | Round | Amount | Valuation | % Sold | Source |
|---|
Founder / CEO
Martin Gallardo
CEO
Martin Gallardo is the CEO of Onde, having joined the company approximately six months before the June 2026 interview. He was 40 years old when he took the role. Gallardo is not a founder of Onde; he was recruited by the existing founders based on his background, which included serving as CEO of a payment gateway company in Saudi Arabia. He also ran his own strategy consultancy on a fractional basis before joining Onde.
Gallardo's compensation is structured around a performance package he described as an "Elon Musk package," with his equity tied to achieving a tenfold increase in company value. The founders who own Onde retained full control and brought Gallardo in as a professional CEO to execute the next phase of growth.
The transcript does not name the original founders of Onde, and net worth figures for any individual were not discussed in the interview.
Q&A
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What's your age? | - |
| Favorite online tool? | - |
| Favorite book? | - |
| Favorite CEO? | - |
| Advice for 20 year old self | - |
Customers
Onde had 150 customers as of June 2026, spread across 70 countries. The customer base is highly heterogeneous: the largest customer processes approximately 1 million rides per month and generates an estimated $100 million in annual GMV through the platform. The smallest customers handle as few as 20 to 50 rides per month.
As an example of a mid-tier market, Gallardo cited a partner in Mauritania processing 30,000 to 40,000 rides per month at an average ride cost of $2. Revenue is heavily concentrated at the top, with the top five to ten customers accounting for a disproportionate share of total GMV.
Onde's standard setup fee is $5,000 for a basic configuration. Customers who purchase a launch package pay $15,000 to $20,000, which includes agency services such as Google Ads campaign setup and management. The ongoing pricing model is a revenue share of approximately 3.9 percent of trip value, with discounts available for high-volume operators. The company was in the process of repricing and repackaging its offering at the time of the interview, exploring options including a subscription tier and a free first month to improve customer launch success rates.
Onde serves 150 customers.
Onde Business Model
Onde generates revenue through two mechanisms: a one-time setup fee and an ongoing revenue share on trips processed through the platform. The setup fee ranges from $5,000 for a basic configuration to $15,000 to $20,000 for a full launch package that includes agency-managed advertising. On the launch packages, Onde takes a 20 percent margin on ad spend and passes the remainder to media channels, primarily Google Ads.
The ongoing revenue share is approximately 3.9 percent of gross trip value. Total GMV processed over the prior 12 months was $350 million across 150 customers, implying an average of $2.3 million in annual GMV per customer. At a blended 3.9 percent take rate, the implied revenue from GMV alone would be approximately $13.65 million, though actual reported ARR was $10 million as of 2024, suggesting a blended effective rate closer to 2.9 percent after discounts, which is consistent with Gallardo's comments about volume-based pricing exceptions.
Gross margin was reported at approximately 20 percent. Engineering costs represent 60 percent of total operating costs, reflecting the company's heavy investment in R and D. Sales and marketing spending is approximately 10 to 12 percent of costs. The company's top growth channel is Google Ads. Monthly cash flow was 100,000 EUR on 900,000 EUR in monthly revenue as of June 2026, confirming the business is cash-flow positive. Profitability beyond cash flow was not discussed in detail. The ad spend payback period on Google Ads campaigns is estimated by Gallardo at approximately 90 days. The company's planned secret project, described as robotaxi-adjacent infrastructure, carries an estimated payback period of one to two years.
Gallardo noted the company is exploring revenue-based financing of $2 million, with $1 million allocated to Google Ads for the Poland brand launch and $1 million to the secret mobility hub project. The dispatching cost advantage Onde claims over Google-based infrastructure is 3 percent versus 30 percent, which Gallardo cited as a key competitive differentiator for the robotaxi opportunity.
Point-in-time figures shared on the GetLatka podcast, each linked to the exact moment it was said on camera.
Customers (2026)
150
“we are in seventy countries and hundred and fifty customers basically.”
Gross margin (2026)
20%
“I think we will grow like twenty, thirty, forty percent per year on a twenty to forty percent margin.”
Annual profit (2026)
100,000 EUR
“last month I think we were making nine hundred thousand euro. Yeah, and and the profit like a hundred thousand euro.”
Onde Employees & Team Size
Engineering accounts for 60 percent of Onde's total cost base, indicating a heavily technical team composition. The exact headcount was not disclosed in the interview. Sales and marketing spending represents approximately 10 to 12 percent of costs, suggesting a lean commercial team relative to the engineering organization. Total employee count was not discussed.
Onde employs approximately 151 people as of 2026. It serves 150 customers that rely on its solutions.
| Year | Milestone | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Reached 151 employees (December 2025) |
Frequently Asked Questions about Onde
What is Onde's revenue?
Onde generates $10M in revenue.
Who is the CEO of Onde?
The CEO of Onde is Martin Gallardo.
How much funding does Onde have?
Onde is bootstrapped and has not raised outside funding.
How many employees does Onde have?
Onde has 151 employees.
Where is Onde headquarters?
Onde is headquartered in United States.
Full Interview Transcripts
OndeJun 29, 2026
Nathan Latka (00:01) Hey folks, my guest today is Martin Gallardo. He's the CEO of Onde, which is based in Poland. Per his own bio, he's scaling this company to over 10 million bucks of revenue with tech built for sort of the ⁓ Uber in a box industry. Local feats completing against go global players. They're not charging per additional driver or trip. They support over 40 service types and advertise crazy uptime. He he joined just about six months ago as a CEO. Martin, you ready to take us to the top? Martin (00:28) Yes. Nathan Latka (00:29) All right, why join six months ago? You're not a founder, you don't have founder equity, why join? Martin (00:33) Exactly. No, actu actually I was the CEO of a payment gateway company in in in Saudi and they came to me as like, okay, based on your your CB, we are looking for a professional CEO, and you take all all the boxes, right? And I said, ⁓ no, I have it very comfy, I'm fractional, running my own ⁓ strategy house, I I have it very good. But then they were sort of coming back to me as like, really, you have the profile for us. ⁓ and And then I said, okay, how old I am? Like 40 years old? Okay. Let's do some crazy shit. So they they they give me the mandate to do to grow the company ten times, right? So that's actually my equity play is connected to to ⁓ let's call it Elon Musk package. So so yeah, so basically I need to take ⁓ bootstrap ⁓ 10 million error ⁓ SaaS company and build it into a billion dollar company basically. Nathan Latka (01:34) So the company, just to be clear, the company has passed ten million of ARR. Martin (01:38) Yeah. Nathan Latka (01:40) That's and is it growing or did growth flatten? That's why they brought you in. Martin (01:43) It it was flattening, right? So that's one of the reasons they they they brought me in. So it was like a typical S Curve and ⁓ then you are sort of flattening or stuck on the business model that you have and then of course they were thinking that okay, now it's time to bring a professional management and and take the company to the next level. Nathan Latka (02:01) Can you share, can you sort of reverse engineer the story for me? What year did the company launch? Martin (02:07) So the year where the company launched, you mean? Yeah, so that's ⁓ fifteen years ago. Actually we are going on a summer party two weeks from now to celebrate the fifteen years. One five. Yeah. Nathan Latka (02:09) The year. Twenty eleven. Wow. Okay. When did they break a million of revenue? Do you know the year? Martin (02:22) I think twenty fifteen, something like that. I have sort of the chart somewhere. but yeah, it's ⁓ in about four or five years the after four or five years they break one million, yeah. Nathan Latka (02:35) Yeah, I'm trying to capture that S curve you talked about. So yeah, because that's ultimately why you came in. So one million around one million in twenty fifteen, where did they hit five million? Martin (02:36) Yeah, I know. The the score, yeah. Yes. And then and then it was going really good twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. I would say like around that time, five million. and then COVID came, ⁓ but they were continue continue growing, especially like twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three. I think they were growing ⁓ a lot. And basically they arrived to ten million in in twenty twenty four, right? And since then has been. Nathan Latka (03:04) Martin, real quick, your speaker, your speaker's rubbing your shirt and it's making your audio quality go down. Just try to keep it away from your shirt. Yeah, but don't do that because I don't want you to cover your face. Like maybe open your collar a bit more or something so that when it falls, it yeah, it doesn't hit your collar. I don't want you to have to hold it for twenty minutes. So all right, that's better. There we go. Okay, so five million in twenty eighteen. COVID was tough. No one was driving during COVID, right? Martin (03:08) ⁓ okay. I'll keep it away. Yeah. Yes. Huh. Exactly, right. Yeah. Nathan Latka (03:30) Okay, so COVID was tough. Twenty twenty six, you break ten million bucks of AR, you come in. Now take us into the product today. So what do you do and how do you double revenue? Martin (03:38) So what what we are doing is of course we ⁓ have not the typical SAS where basically a lot of customers are the same. So we have a pretty pretty different customer base. So we got guys that are doing one million rides a month. Okay, so that's a pretty big ⁓ feast of engineering. So we I will not claim we are Uber, but I will say it's not far from bold or other type of right hailing technology. And we have the entire setup of things like imagine like you can enter into the Uber engine, if en if Uber was a car, right? And you can control everything, like tariffs, ⁓ like ⁓ zones, like imagine setting up Uber whatever you want in in the world, even in your neighborhood. You can set it up, right? And we allow you to do that. and compete locally with Uber and it then it's your choice. You can be ⁓ limo or you can be a cheap alternative or you can be a super local. ⁓ So that's that's your choice, right? And what happens is a lot of people they try, some of them they don't manage to launch and some of them are extremely successful. So our customer base is extremely different. So you have guys with one million rights a month, and then you have guys with twenty rides a month, fifty rights a month, right? So and you have a sort of I don't know, airport shuttle in Canada, and then you have like ⁓ five thousand drivers in Tanzania. for example, right? So you have like we are in seventy countries and hundred and fifty customers basically. So but it's a really, really ⁓ difference on the size and since we are on revenue share, of course we have very different segmentation on on the on the customer base, right? Nathan Latka (05:20) So here's what it sort of looks like inside the app a little bit. And you go down here, you're saying your pricing plan is built only around Revshare, no fixed fees? Martin (05:27) There is a setup fee because obviously it takes some time to set up these these apps. we make the design for them, ACO, so we set up everything for them basically. We spin up the servers and all of that. So there is like a setup fee around five thousand dollars. And then is is basically revenue share three point nine percent. Nathan Latka (05:45) How do you help with them? I've never seen somebody do this before that you say, Not only will we sell you the software, we'll help you get your first eight or sixteen thousand app installs. How can you guarantee this? What do you do? Martin (05:54) Yeah, so we have a lot of experience launching these ⁓ apps ⁓ for for customers and we do different things. So we do like Google Ads, we can do Meta, we do also Apple ⁓ ads on the store. So we have our own agency team. so of course if someone buys like a set of fee package of five thousand, we don't do it. But if they buy like fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, then we in it includes sort of the launch package with ⁓ agency service, right? So we will actually set up a campaign, run it for you and we will ensure that you You have of course, it depends on the country, right? On Africa we get a lot of downloads, and in the US is much less. So of course, yeah. Nathan Latka (06:29) Do you pay for that acquisition that Google ads out of the one time setup fee? Okay. Martin (06:33) Yeah, yeah. So so we we take like a twenty percent margin on the ads and and yeah, the rest is basically going into ads. Nathan Latka (06:41) Okay. And then you're taking the your revenue model as percent of trip cost. So w I mean what percent? What's the smallest and biggest percent? Martin (06:50) It's about three three three point nine. I mean we sometimes we do exceptions for for ⁓ we can do a bit of discounting or exceptions or yeah. If someone comes with l let's say if someone comes I have a ten thousand cars fleet, right? So I warranty you that I'm going to be having certain volume, right? That's a little bit like payment gateways, right? So of course we can take a look and we can sort of try to make a discount. But generally it's it's three point nine. We're In the middle of an entire repricing of the entire SAS, right? So we want to convert it more into a like SaaS like. and ⁓ we know that we need to maybe bet more on them and actually perhaps actually have it almost for free for the first month for them. So let them lunch, right? and give them like 30 days free. That increases the the the chances of them growing because of course the more they grow, the better it is for us, right? So the more we can delay. our fees, the higher chances that we have for for growth. So this is a little bit of a dilemma for us, right? So how much CAC versus LTV you do you want to capture? ⁓ how much payback time do want to have versus how much long term success ⁓ because it's not only the conversion rate, it's also the success rate of these guys, right? So it's it's a paradox and and we are in the middle of a re repackaging and and pricing of of the entire thing. Nathan Latka (08:17) Well so what's your best answer to that right now? How are you signing up new customers? Martin (08:22) So most of of what we do, how we sign sign customers, I mean, it's like our customer is like finding a diamond on a haystack. I mean, it's not a CFO or a chief of of of staff. It's a guy who wants to beat over. And that's a very specific type of person. It's actually pretty difficult to find. So we really behave like a venture capital type of thing. Like we have like a big funnel and we just scout, we promote a lot, ⁓ especially a lot of Google ads. ⁓ Which works good. AI search is starting to show up quite quite well, a bit of YouTube, but mostly Google Ads. And and is a lot of sales goals. Like showing them okay, what are you going to launch, what's your volume, and ⁓ yeah, showing them the software, demo it and so on. We are trying to move more to a mix of product led growth, ⁓ plus sales assisted rather than sort of sales heavy process. So that's one of the things that we're doing, sort of spin out a ⁓ demo environment for very cheap, let them play, but not release the app. The app will be an upsell to the core experience, which is a progressive web app, like a booking, right? ⁓ on a web. but the app of course they have a cost, right? So we have to upsell it with a setup fee, right? But perhaps we will also do the subscription instead of revenue share until certain volume, right? So we ⁓ we are exploring three or four different packaging ⁓ options, ⁓ but it is yeah, it's complex. Nathan Latka (09:49) Yeah, you're B to B to C. What's the total transaction volume you processed over the last twelve months? Martin (09:55) Three hundred and fifty million dollars? Nathan Latka (09:57) Okay, got it. So not everyone's paying the three point nine percent, because you'd be doing more than ten million. Maybe some of them are on discounts where they're paying maybe three percent or something. That's a lot though. I think that'll surprise a lot of my audience. Three over three hundred and fifty million of GMV flowing through your platform and you have a hundred and fifty customers, right? Martin (10:04) Correct. Yeah, correct, correct. Yes, yes. As as they grow, yes. Yeah, correct. Nathan Latka (10:17) So I mean that's a lot of I mean well three hundred and fifty million divided by one hundred fifty customers means on average they're doing two point three million dollars in terms of the value of the rides they're doing every year. Is that right? Wild, interesting. Martin (10:27) Correct, that's right. But that's the average, but that that's average, right? So you have a very like skew, like the the we have very high r revenue concentration on the top five, ten. And then we have a huge scale of small taxi companies, basically, right? Nathan Latka (10:44) Yep. Those the the largest customer processes how much through you annually? Martin (10:49) ⁓ I can't say because he will kill me. No, I can but let's say that about a hundred million. Nathan Latka (10:52) Well that we don't know who it is. Don't say his name. Okay, got it. That's concentrated in your top couple customers. I I see. And and I guess walk me through like for you, this to me is like a very special kind of entrepreneur you have to go find, right? So like is this gonna be the go forward strategy or are you gonna pivot the business dramatically in some way? Martin (11:03) Yes, yes, yes. Yes. We are going to pivot the business dramatically. I cannot say much about it. But but of course we are going to maintain this business. And I think with good management, OKRs, a lot of focus, ⁓ segmentation, packaging, ⁓ product led growth. We are implementing ATIO CRM. we have Gleep now for customer support. So we are doing everything we can to do like the best white label size business we have. And I think we will grow like twenty, thirty, forty percent per year on a twenty to forty percent ⁓ margin. I think that's perfectly doable. Yeah, yeah. I mean this last month we grew twenty eight percent, for example. Right. So so Nathan Latka (11:50) You're profiting twenty to forty percent right now. Okay. What does that mean? So last last month what was total revenue and then total profit? Martin (12:01) ⁓ last month I think we were making nine hundred thousand euro. Yeah, and and the profit like a hundred thousand euro. Nathan Latka (12:11) That's great. So where do you reinvest that? How are you how are you allocating capital? Martin (12:14) on the new business. So we are we are preparing for to launch in something ⁓ quite radical on on the right hailing concept. of course I mean we have an amazing technology, right? and we are the only company in the world with this level of technology that does not have its own brand. So that's pretty much all what I can say. But but you can ⁓ more or less get get what is going. But but there is a lot of demand for for what we do, but we need to tackle it from another angle. Plus we need to position ourselves on the robo taxi thing. Like if you see in the US it's it's blooming, right? So we have a very efficient dispatching, right? ⁓ and that that dispatching is is ⁓ we are able to do dispatching instead of 30% like Google is taking, we can do it for three percent, let's say, right? So how where are we going to put our dispatching? That's perfect for the robotaxis, right? ⁓ so when they come we can do the Robo Taxi or we can do the Y label app for a Robotaxi company, right? So so that's also another angle that that we are exploring. Nathan Latka (13:21) But I think like why does Google's Waymo product right rely on Uber? And it's because Uber has the consumer's attention. It's how the GMV like goes up, right? So how much value in this business really is what you do just in the software? Isn't most the value actually in the cars, the assets, the drivers, and also the consumers using it? Martin (13:29) That's correct. Exactly. It's a huge value chain and there is a little bit of game for everything, right? So so if if you look at the only the technology side, of course there is a lot of value in it, but there is of course a lot of value on the customer base, right? And the driver base, eventually the robotaxi. But but the robotaxis is going to take much longer, not because of technology, but because of capital deployment. I mean people underestimate the huge investment like trillion dollars to put on the robotaxis we need, right? To to to displace the the drivers globally it's it's just insane amount of money. ⁓ but yeah. Nathan Latka (14:14) Yeah, but isn't do you do you think there's a world I mean, look, if you told me today, right, that I could spend three million dollars to go buy ten Waymo's in Austin, Texas and put them on your on on on an app or your app, I'd still, even if I had all that, I would be going, Well, wait, what's gonna be most expensive? How do I go get the actual writers unless I'm just using it for my friends, basically, right? So how do you think about that? Martin (14:35) Of course, of course. That yes, that this is why we are not going through the Robotaxi yet. We are starting to explore it, but we need to bring our own brand to the market. And we need to get riders, right? And this is this is why the the we are basically I mean I will tell you, we are launching our own brand, basically, right? I cannot say where, but we are launching our own brand to start saying that okay, okay, we we need to get the riders to expand our time, to expand our market sizing, right? ⁓ Plus we are going to learn a lot of things as our our own brand and we will also bring it to all of our wide level customers. So we are going to have like Marriott. Marriott has his own brands, but it has sister or partner brands, right? You have Citys you have Courtyard, right? They have their own brand. They have their local taste, right? But they are all part of the same sort of technology, umbrella and blueprint, right? So so that's pretty much where we are going now, where we're going to have like, yeah. Nathan Latka (15:30) But if I'm walking out of the JW Ariot in downtown Austin and you get a ride to the airport, I'm not gonna oop ask people what's the Marriott app to get I'm gonna open Uber and just order my thing to to the to the airport. So is your technology really for like if they have six shuttles on site and they wanna allow their hotel guests to book something at nine AM tomorrow morning to go to the airport, they're gonna use you? Martin (15:48) No, it's it's i it's really like like Uber. So the only thing is if Uber charged you thirty dollars, I could probably charge you twenty two. Right? ⁓ but the only thing is I need about hundred and forty million dollars just to start on that route. Right? So that's obviously ⁓ for next year, but we will we will have to to discuss and and talk to investors if we will really take that route, we are doing some tests. We will do a pilot, we will do A V testing, we will gather the the numbers and then we will go to the investors at the end of the year and say, is this the route that we should take to do 10x? Because the current business to be honest, it cannot do a 10x. Like as I said, I can grow it twenty, thirty, forty percent per year. Great. We have a lot of offers from private equity firms that they want to buy us. Yeah, it's okay, right? We can sell it in three to five years and have a good outcome. But that's not the 10x that I was that I was hired for, right? So ⁓ so of course we need to do a test, right? Nothing. Nothing. Fully bus trap, owned fully by the founders. Nathan Latka (16:49) How much has the company raised today? So if they all own it and you guys control it, if someone came to you and offered you fifty million bucks all cash to sell the company, you wouldn't sell. Martin (17:01) No. We got several offers. We will not sell. Nathan Latka (17:03) Why? I I guess I'm trying to understand if I believe the go forward story. If you're telling me, Nathan, I want you to believe that when you wake you're staying at Marriott in Austin, Texas, you wake up in the morning, you go outside, and you need to get to the airport, you open Uber, it says thirty bucks to get to the airport. I have to if I want to believe your story, I have to make the bet that somehow I'm gonna know about the Marriott app in the first place. And then second, saving six bucks when I'm trying to like speed to the airport quickly is worth the switching cost to then go in, download a new app. Maybe there's bad Wi-Fi. Like that's you're betting your whole business on that. Martin (17:37) You are completely correct in Austin, Texas. And you are completely correct on every major city in the world. But what about the rest of the world? So we operate in seventy countries, right? Where we beat Uber locally. Some of our partners are beating ⁓ why? Because in some countries, I mean, let's say you go to Mauritania in Africa, right? We have some partners there. And the ride costs two dollars on cash. Who operates? Uber cannot operate there. But we do thirty thousand rides, forty thousand rides per month. And like that is a lot of countries on earth, a lot of secondary cities in Europe, where the cost base of Uber it does not compute. Nathan Latka (18:18) Okay, that's a different story though than what you launched to me, which is you told me people you told you you you you came in the podcast and said we this is for people that want to go compete with Uber. That's not what you just told me. You told me you're operating where Uber cannot operate. Martin (18:20) Exactly, exactly. I I cannot launch in the US. Exactly. That's the right thank you. Yes. Nathan Latka (18:32) Okay. So you don't have to worry about the Marriott customer in Austin, Texas. You're serving you're it's the same way people like offer lending products to the unbankable. You're offering dri you know, a driver to somewhere Uber and Lyft won't go. I see, 'cause the economics don't make sense. And why don't the economics make sense for them? Martin (18:41) Exactly. Because the economics they don't make sense for them. ⁓ so their return on investment, why would you not put another extra dollar on New York? Why would not put another extra dollar on the Robotaxis in San Fran? Why would not put another extra dollar on an airport at in Houston, right? So they will deploy capital where they have the highest return on investment. So that's the thing. Second is the structural cost. So they have a structural cost on dollar per trip. And their structural cost is higher than the trip in, let's say, forty to sixty percent of the countries on Earth. Nathan Latka (19:23) Why can't they though, if the laborer like if the driver is willing to take less money and consumers are willing to pay only two dollars per per ride, why is that set of economic conditions unique to the the person that uses your app to build their business versus Uber moving in themselves directly? Martin (19:39) Could you could you rephrase that question again? Nathan Latka (19:42) Yeah, if economic conditions in a specific country in the world mean that you can only charge two dollars per ride, that statement is gonna be true both for you and Uber. So again, why can you operate but Uber can't? Martin (19:53) Microspace. Nathan Latka (19:55) It's a too small of a market. Uber's not interested in moving in. That's what you're saying? Martin (19:58) Uber is not in Uber is not interested on such a thing, but it will still be a billion dollar market. But Uber is only interested on playing where he can have a one hundred billion dollar market, right? So ⁓ it's just simply allocation of of capital and focus. There are other players that they are successful in those countries, like Indrive, for example, or Django from Russia. So they are sort of our they are competing with some of our customers. ⁓ Nathan Latka (20:06) Mm-hmm. I see. Yeah. Martin (20:28) But but yeah, so most of it's not only on all of those countries where our partners are. We will not compete with our own partners, so that's for sure. Like so we will launch in the places where Nathan Latka (20:38) Well hold on. Are these you leave these on your website, so I'm comfortable sharing them, but are these all your partners or are these your competitors you want to replace? Okay. Martin (20:44) These are competitors, yeah. But to to to be honest, none of this is really a competitor. Like many of our leads they come to us and they say, like, it's literally a toy compared to what you got. Like ⁓ so so it's it's really we are at another level technologically than than than those guys. but I would say it's even in the US there is some space to do it, but it will have to be on a like a tier Nathan Latka (20:57) Uh-huh. Martin (21:13) three city in the US, for example, where Uber is just not that interested, right? So you cannot compete with Uber. It's just impossible to compete with Uber and with Vault ⁓ in the bigger cities, right? It's just impossible. ⁓ or even tier two City in in the US is not possible, right? But there is a lot of other places on earth where it is possible. It is possible we I how we have the data. We know how it's possible, right? We know how much ⁓ commissions you need to give the drivers. You know how much you need to decrease the prices to win. ⁓ Nathan Latka (21:24) Or lift, yeah. Martin (21:43) We have a lot of cases. I mean we have we have Lanchin. In Europe, one of our our customers and he beat Uber in in a pretty big city in Europe. And another one in Saudi Arabia in one of the cities in Saudi. Right. So it is possible to beat them, ⁓ but not on the capitals, not on the biggest markets, because it's just ⁓ it is just the price elasticity for that type of customer, like even me myself, I will use Uber if I go right now to Dubai, right? Because I'm used to it. Right. ⁓ of course once I have my own brand and and I'm aware it's going to be cheaper at the end, but I will have to be aware and I will have to use it, right? So it's very difficult to compete in in Dubai, in London, in Madrid. But there is the market is huge, and if you find your positioning and your segmentation, I think this is something that that you can of course play both with our partners today and also with our own brand where we don't have partners. Nathan Latka (22:41) If you had an extra five million bucks to grow the business, where would you invest it? Martin (22:45) that's exactly what we are doing because we are taking ⁓ some some sort of revenue based financing. so of course we are going to invest it on the new business. Because the current business works pretty good. the ROI of I getting of taking one dollar into the current business is smaller than one dollar into the new business. So so that's ⁓ that's pretty clear. Yet I mean w I would like to put more on engineering even though our engineering cost is like sixty percent of the cost. So we are very heavy on ⁓ R and D, we are very lean on sales, like we spend like ten, twelve percent on sales marketing. so it's I could put more on sales, but I'm going to get much more. I'm not sure. But if I launch the the the new business line, ⁓ of course also for the valuation wise, it's it's a better game. Right. ⁓ so especially if you borrow money, if you do revenue based financing, it's extremely interesting because if you deploy the capital efficiently, even though it's an expensive instrument, but it's a great instrument. And as I send you an an email, it's not that typical in Europe. In the US you are doing an an amazing job. and you are one of the pioneers of talking about this topic, which is great. ⁓ but in Europe it's not that common. But you can use that. If you know how to deploy properly, you can of course increase the valuation and then you can raise capital instead of the other way around. Nathan Latka (24:09) Well, so how do I mean, yeah, you know what I do? My full time thing is I've you know, I manage my fund, right? We we've made seven hundred plus investments here. So how can I convince you to take money from us? What are you seeing in the world of revenue financing? Martin (24:14) Exactly. So revenue based financing I I'm very open to to talk to you right now. R right. I mean we are we got a couple of offers from ⁓ PE firms from the US and yeah, I will absolutely like to talk to you like one or two million runs. Like absolutely. Nathan Latka (24:37) What would be what will be the right payback period for you? One month, two months three month I'm sorry, three years, two years, one year? Martin (24:43) Yeah. Like one month will be a bit a bit tough. Yeah. No, we so we got an offer now, for example. I will tell you an offer. ⁓ we Nathan Latka (24:46) Yeah, sorry, years, years. Yeah, yeah. You can name the other party too. Like you don't have to hide it 'cause it's on my show. I promise it's fine. Martin (24:57) I cannot name it, but but they offer five years and one point seven X, right? So you you will pay one point seven back of the money re through through your revenues, regardless. Like if it's five years, then you have like an eleven percent annual or something like that. If it's one year, you pay seventy percent, right? that's that's the offer. Nathan Latka (25:17) And what's the what's the dollar amount that they'd fund on day one? Martin (25:20) five million. So they they can borrow us five million dollars. Nathan Latka (25:25) But how how much would you want on day one? You don't want to obviously draw money that you're not going to use immediately, right? 'Cause then you're Martin (25:29) Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. No, I I I can deploy two million right away. Nathan Latka (25:35) Uh-huh. So what would I have to do at Founder Path to make you a better offer that matches your business? Would it be two million immediately paid back o you know one point four X over two years? Like I guess do you want to save money on the fee or keep your term as long as possible? Martin (25:52) The as long as possible it's not that important for me, right? But the but the one point four X is more interesting than one point seven. Like and if you tell me it's in two years or seven years, I mean we'll I will think about the time, but I will only borrow if I have a very strong business case to give it back in two years, basically. So I have I've calculated, yeah. Nathan Latka (26:06) Yeah. Well, that's why I'm asking, right? We we like to match we like to match the capital I deploy with your use case for it to grow the business. So if you told me you're gonna put it all in ads, well that's an instant ROI. If it's gonna be something else hiring engineers, well then you need a longer payback period. Martin (26:18) Exactly. So it is is going to be a plant. I will say like one million on ads right in three months spent all of it. ⁓ and one million on actually ⁓ secret project that is revenue generating as well, that has a payback in about two years. so that's basically the what we are looking at ⁓ at the moment. Two months, ⁓ two million to deploy in three months and and yeah, combination of ads which will have a ninety days payback time approxim and and ⁓ The other has a one to two years buyback time. The other million. Nathan Latka (26:58) Great. Well look, we'll chat more we'll chat more after the show. But yeah, I mean this is exactly why we do what we do. I still want to push you on some of the product stuff. I'm curious the new thing is that you're cooking, but I'm sure you have a way to spend some capital to drive more growth and we love that you're bootstrapped. Martin (27:11) Yes, yes. ⁓ Absolutely. no, so that's that's it. Let's let's let's talk more about it. I mean the the entire point is ⁓ do this and then let's look at the numbers, A B testing, growth hacking, let's say what actually do we get out of these dollars, right? Does it make sense to go through the route of the 10x or maybe it's actually su suicide, right? And we will let the data speak, right? And then it's like okay, we see the numbers and then we see that okay, we can do this one hundred times, right? We can spend on these ads, we are going to get this money, then we need hundred million, hundred and...
Data and Sources
All figures on this page are taken directly from interviews or are estimates from public sources and proprietary models. Not financial advice. Read full disclaimer.
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