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Founder Interview

How ONEiO Reached $300K a Month with 80 Customers and Practically Zero Churn (Interview with Co-Founder Janne Kärkkäinen)

Interview Date
June 1, 2022
Interviewee
Janne KärkkäinenCo-Founder
Watch
Watch the full interview

Company Metrics at Interview Time

Customers (2022)

80

Valuation (post-money) (2022)

€20M

Series A Raised (2022)

$7M

Gross Churn (2022)

0%

Team Size (2022)

50

Historical Snapshot

These numbers were reported by Janne Kärkkäinen during his interview with Nathan Latka recorded in June 2022 and represent a historical snapshot, not current figures. See Oneio’s current numbers.

Key Takeaways

  • 01ONEiO had approximately 80 customers as of June 2022, up from 60 in 2019
  • 02Average contract value was approximately $3K per month in 2022, down slightly from $4K in 2018
  • 03Gross churn was 0% and net dollar retention was 100% at interview time
  • 04The company closed a $7M Series A in February 2022 at a €20M post-money valuation
  • 05Prior to the Series A, ONEiO had raised only a $1M seed round in 2019
  • 06Customer acquisition cost rose to $80K in 2022, up from $60K in 2018, with most of that cost being salaries
  • 07The team grew to 50 people across Germany, the US, Helsinki, and satellite offices in the Nordics and UK
  • 08ONEiO had 17 engineers and 5 quota-carrying sales reps at interview time
  • 09Bayer, a major pharmaceutical company, is a named customer reference
  • 10Janne Kärkkäinen is a guitarist who performed with Sunrise Avenue in front of crowds of up to 80,000 people

Company Metrics at Time of Interview

MetricValueSource
Customers (2022)80Founder interview, June 2022
Customers (2019)60Founder interview, June 2022
Average Contract Value (2022)$3K per monthFounder interview, June 2022
Average Contract Value (2018)$4K per monthFounder interview, June 2022
Gross Churn (2022)0%Founder interview, June 2022
Net Dollar Retention (2022)100%Founder interview, June 2022
Team Size (2022)50Founder interview, June 2022
Engineers (2022)17Founder interview, June 2022
Sales Reps (2022)5Founder interview, June 2022
Customer Acquisition Cost (2022)$80KFounder interview, June 2022
Customer Acquisition Cost (2018)$60KFounder interview, June 2022
CAC Payback Period (2018)13 monthsFounder interview, June 2022
Seed Round Raised (2019)$1MFounder interview, June 2022
Series A Raised (2022)$7MFounder interview, June 2022
Valuation (post-money) (2022)€20MFounder interview, June 2022
Seed Round Valuation (2019)$8MFounder interview, June 2022

Growth Breakdown

Revenue and Pricing

ONEiO's average contract value was approximately $3K per month per customer in 2022, down slightly from $4K per month in 2018. Janne noted there is no ceiling on expansion, as customers typically start lower and grow their usage over time.

Customers and Retention

The company grew from 60 customers in 2019 to approximately 80 by mid-2022. Gross churn was 0% and net dollar retention was 100%, which Janne described as the key proof point that validated the business model before accelerating growth.

Team

ONEiO scaled from 2 founders to a team of 50 people spread across Germany, the US, Helsinki, and satellite offices in the Nordics and the UK. Of those, approximately 17 were on the engineering and development side, with 5 quota-carrying sales reps.

Funding

ONEiO raised a $1M seed round in 2019 and operated capital-efficiently for several years before closing a $7M Series A in February 2022 at a €20M post-money valuation. Janne said the decision to raise was driven by confidence in the product after proving near-zero churn, and a desire to accelerate go-to-market.

Growth Strategy

Proving Zero Churn Before Scaling

Janne credited the decision to delay aggressive fundraising until the company had demonstrated near-zero churn as a core strategic choice. Once the retention proof point was established, the team felt confident putting the pedal to the floor on growth.

Managed Service Model for Stickiness

ONEiO positions itself as an integration service provider rather than a pure SaaS tool, meaning customers hand over the keys to a complex domain and ONEiO runs it for them. This managed service model creates deep operational dependency and is a primary driver of the zero churn rate.

Enterprise Reference Customers

Landing large enterprise reference customers like Bayer, which runs one of the largest IT outsourcing arrangements in Europe, gives ONEiO credibility in the IT services market and supports expansion into other large enterprises.

Salary-Heavy, Personalized Sales Motion

The $80K CAC is almost entirely composed of salaries rather than paid advertising or digital marketing. ONEiO relies on personalized, relationship-driven sales, with reps in Germany, Finland, and the US working collaboratively rather than on individual quotas.

Inbound and Market Awareness Exploration

Janne noted the team is actively exploring inbound and content-driven market awareness as a channel, though he acknowledged they have not yet found a repeatable formula for paid or digital marketing that produces clear returns.

Best Quotes

“I think from our standpoint, we are kind of like combining the domain expertise and the SaaS product to be this kind of, like, service provider offering, which means that we can actually our customers can hand out the keys to this particular domain, which is not that kind of, like, easy to fulfill, and we'll take care of it.”
“I think it's, like, between the 3 or four. Yeah.”
“We are really proud of the fact that we have practical practical zero churn. So in a way, we we have tested it. So it is the the kind of solution that we are providing is really good. Our customers are really happy, and they hardly never leave.”
“I think it's yeah. Well, usually, it's the VCs that define what series it is, so we don't really care. Yeah. But you could call it a. Yeah.”
“LTV tech is quite quite extensive since we don't have really churn. So so the calculation would would if you need to divide by zero, it's a little bit tricky.”
“Of course, company of our size is is salaries, of course. And”
“No. No. No. It's it's personalized, personalized labor that we need to do. And, of course, inbound and discount market awareness is something that we are exploring a lot, but it's a tricky business.”

What Happened Next

This interview captures ONEiO at a specific moment in June 2022, shortly after closing its $7M Series A in February of that year with 80 customers and a team of 50. The figures here reflect what Janne Kärkkäinen reported at that time and should be treated as a historical snapshot. For current revenue, customer count, team size, and other metrics, visit the ONEiO company profile on GetLatka.

View Oneio’s current profile and metrics

Full Transcript

Chapters

Introduction and Guest Background

Nathan Latka

00:00Hey, folks. My guest today is Janne Kärkkäinen. He's a value driven entrepreneur, father of four, and a team sports enthusiast. Played a lot in a band in front of 80,000 people. He set up three companies and sold one. Now he's building a next phase of evolution in B2B collaboration called ONEiO.cloud. It's an integration service provider. All right, Janne, you ready to take us to the top?

Janne Kärkkäinen

00:20>> Yeah, sure.

What Is an Integration Service Provider

Nathan Latka

00:21Okay. So what does that mean? An integration service provider?

Janne Kärkkäinen

00:26>> Well, it actually means this kind of like I think you're you're talking about SaaS all the time, so it's kind of like a private thing. But I I think from our standpoint, we are kind of like combining the domain expertise and the SaaS product to be this kind of, like, service provider offering, which means that we can actually our customers can hand out the keys to this particular domain, which is not that kind of, like, easy

00:52>> to fulfill, and we'll take care of it. So, anyway, we'll take in the whole nine yards from from customers. So

Nathan Latka

00:58So it's a combination of there's there's you have a software that's built, but you also do it for your your users, their services too.

Customer Story: Bayer and IT Outsourcing

Janne Kärkkäinen

01:06>> Well, two sides. So in a way, of course, you need to ramp up stuff when you implement implement integrations. That's only a tiny part, but I think the most valuable part is the running of things. So in a way, we run it. So in a way, we're we're like your mobile operator for your phones if you are comparing to your collaboration things between the b two b businesses. So Okay.

Nathan Latka

01:27Maybe help us get a better understanding of this. I mean, can you tell us the story of a a current customer and and how they use you?

Janne Kärkkäinen

01:34>> Usually, it's it's our prime domain is IT services. So in a way, companies, enterprises, have IT services, so they need to deliver different kind of things for their internal customers, so to speak. So in a way, what they need to do is orchestrate these kind of things. So what nowadays is a is a trend is that you actually don't in house everything. You don't do your, like, initial stuff, application support, whatever that it needs to be

02:06>> kinda like to fulfill all of these things. You outsource these things. So it means that you need to be able to orchestrate everything that you do, and that means that you need to be able to collaborate with your vendors. So in a way, for example, we have a good reference case, Bayer. It's a big pharmaceutical company. They have this, like, the biggest outsourcing bid there has been in Europe. I think maybe globally, but it's $1,000,000,000 or

Average Contract Value Then and Now

Janne Kärkkäinen

02:33>> euros is outsourcing. So Mhmm. They need to operate all these things that they are buying buying from these vendors like Capgemini or or Yep. These things.

Nathan Latka

02:46Now when I interviewed you back four years ago in 2018 and also three years ago back in 2019, you said that on average customers are paying you sort of, you know, around $4,000 per month. Is it still in that range?

Janne Kärkkäinen

02:58>> I think it's it's been kinda like, to a certain extent, of course, lowering, but then, of course, to to kinda look more. So it's it's kinda like a thing that gets expand. So you start with something which could be lower than four, but then, of course, there's no ceiling on that if if you need to I understand. Many, many

Nathan Latka

03:21If look at an average, though, is it about 4,000 a month?

Customer Count and Team Growth

Janne Kärkkäinen

03:23>> I think it's, like, between the 3 or four. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

03:26Okay. Okay. Got it. That's great. And and we when you came on last week, talked obviously about how many of these customers you signed up. I believe you're a low volume, high price point. Right? So how many customers are you working with today?

Janne Kärkkäinen

03:38>> I think we're, like, short of 100. So 80 to a 100.

Nathan Latka

03:42Okay. That's nice growth. Again, I think last time we chatted, you had about 60 customers. So have you expanded your team to support the extra customers? What's your team size today?

Janne Kärkkäinen

03:52>> We're more I think we today, we started with two. I think we are, like, 50 now.

Nathan Latka

03:58So Five zero?

Janne Kärkkäinen

03:59>> Yeah. So we have a team in Germany, in US, and in in Helsinki, and, of course, two two satellites over there, Nordic and and UK.

Nathan Latka

04:09Oh, 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

04:33your 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

04:57get 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

05:19not 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

05:45going 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 We're right, gonna go back to the YouTube video here in a second, but

06:07if 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

Funding History: Seed and Series A

Nathan Latka

06:33the interview. Now can and can I take 80 customers times 4,000 a month? You're doing about $320,000 a month today in revenue.

Janne Kärkkäinen

06:42>> I think it's quite close to 300. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

06:45Okay. About 300,000 a month. And you've bootstrapped, I believe. Correct? Or have you raised?

Janne Kärkkäinen

06:53>> We are not that

06:55>> it's a young company, so we've we've done this for ten years. We could start the first five or six. We have, like, a minor seed funding of 1,000,000. I think it was 2019, 2018. And this year, we raised our first round of 7,000,000.

Nathan Latka

07:13Oh, you did raise? Okay. Got it. Yeah. You did a million seed back in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. And most folks, when they were raising seeds back then, you know, you're selling, you know, 10 to 20% of the business. Is that about what you sold?

Janne Kärkkäinen

07:24>> Approximately. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

07:26Somewhere in there? Okay. So like a 5,000,000 cap, something like that.

Janne Kärkkäinen

07:29>> And then I think about 8 or or nine.

Nathan Latka

07:32Oh, eight. Okay. Great. So you got better terms. You got better terms than I would say others did. What prompted the switch? You're pretty capital efficient. Right? Up to last year, you had only a million raised, but you had over 3,500,000 in terms of run rate. Why did you decide to raise capital?

Zero Churn as the Core Proof Point

Janne Kärkkäinen

07:47>> I think it's, know, like, obvious that we've done this exploration of of our own business model and the kind of, like, offering that we have, and what is really our like, we are really proud of the fact that we have practical practical zero churn. So in a way, we we have tested it. So it is the the kind of solution that we are providing is really good. Our customers are really happy, and they hardly never leave.

08:13>> So this was the point where we felt that, okay, the solution works. Now we need to put put the pedal to the floor and get some some acceleration to the market.

Nathan Latka

08:24When did the round close?

Janne Kärkkäinen

08:27>> On February this year.

Nathan Latka

08:29Ah, so you beat you closed right before the market the market took a dive. Right? So would you call this your series a?

Series A Terms and Valuation

Janne Kärkkäinen

08:37>> I think it's yeah. Well, usually, it's the VCs that define what series it is, so we don't really care. Yeah. But you could call it a. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

08:45Yeah. And then most times again in series a, you know, you're selling, you know, maybe a little bit less than the seeds, so maybe 10% of the business. Or were you sort of around there?

Janne Kärkkäinen

08:54>> Little bit more than 10. Yeah. Okay.

Nathan Latka

08:56So that would have been, like, a $55 or $60,000,000 valuation, something like that.

Janne Kärkkäinen

09:03>> Not really. It's like a

09:07>> 20 to 25 from from

Nathan Latka

09:0920 to 25,000,000 valuation.

Janne Kärkkäinen

09:11>> Euros. So so that's how I got 30.

Nathan Latka

09:1330. Okay. And that's pre money or post? Post. Post. Okay. Cool. Well, that that I mean, looking back now, obviously, you've only had it for two, three months. Did that valuation feel fair for where you were at the time?

Janne Kärkkäinen

09:26>> I think so. Yeah. Well, I well, we started the path towards the the next round just before the COVID hit so that we can run into a few issues because you cannot meet people, and it it usually be this invest into the team. So it's kinda like looking at the eyeballs more more or less. Of course, you need to have the numbers and ideas and and these type of things, but at the end of the day,

09:51>> it's it's the team that they invest, and I I feel that that was a little bit tricky for us because we need to do everything online and so forth. So

Team Composition: Engineers and Sales Reps

Nathan Latka

10:00Yep. Yep. How many of the 50 people on your team today are engineers?

Janne Kärkkäinen

10:06>> I think it's more or less from the engineering, like, development side, I think it's, sixteen, seventeen. Then we, of course, have support engineers and this kind of, like, more technical people, not but not big developers, maybe five, six.

Nathan Latka

10:21Okay. So maybe 23 total, something like that. Yeah. And then do you have quota carrying sales reps, Janne, or no?

Janne Kärkkäinen

10:28>> Yeah. How many? Well,

10:33>> few are kind of like having, like,

10:37>> like, multiple roles, but I think in in Germany, we have two.

10:43>> In Finland, three. US, two.

Nathan Latka

10:46So it's Five total?

Janne Kärkkäinen

10:48>> Yeah.

Nathan Latka

10:49Yeah. How did you figuring out your first salesperson's quota is not easy for a SaaS founder. How did you set your quota for your first sales hire?

Janne Kärkkäinen

11:02>> I can't really recall. So it's gonna

Nathan Latka

11:04You're not sure?

Janne Kärkkäinen

11:04>> Okay.

11:05>> I yeah. And and I I think when it comes to these sort of quotas and and and

11:11>> things to how to measure these kind of sales, I think in in our case, particularly, it it is a team effort. We don't really we feel that it's it's kind of like a weird our our bonus mechanisms are are more kind of like joint. So when the team and the whole company Yeah. Makes an effort, then we'll yeah.

CAC, Payback Period, and Retention

Nathan Latka

11:31And you shared back in 2018 that you were spending, you know, about $60,000 to get a new customer paying $4,000 a month. Right? So you had a payback period of around thirteen months. Are those still the same metrics?

Janne Kärkkäinen

11:45>> I think we've gone up a little bit.

Nathan Latka

11:49Okay. So Spend a little more.

Janne Kärkkäinen

11:52>> Well,

11:53>> I'm But you still have I'm I'm not sorry?

Nathan Latka

11:56I was gonna say you still have the really good retention, right, above 100% net dollar retention?

Janne Kärkkäinen

12:00>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's right. LTV tech is quite quite extensive since we don't have really churn. So so the calculation would would if you need to divide by zero, it's a little bit tricky.

Nathan Latka

12:13Yeah. Yeah. That's tricky. Now when you say the CAC went up a little bit, where I mean, that's $80,000. Where are you spending that money? How are you using it?

How CAC Is Spent

Janne Kärkkäinen

12:22>> Of course, company of our size is is salaries, of course. And

Nathan Latka

12:28Okay. So most of that CAC is salaries, not paid marketing expenses, paid ads?

Janne Kärkkäinen

12:32>> No. No. No. It's it's personalized, personalized labor that we need to do. And, of course, inbound and discount market awareness is something that we are exploring a lot, but it's a tricky business. Amazing. We haven't really found, okay. We put money there, and we'll so we're all good in a in a the face of story.

Nathan Latka

12:54Before we wrap up, I have to ask about the three guitars behind you. How did you get in front of 80,000 people? I mean, are you in a band or a solo performer or what?

Janne Kärkkäinen

13:02>> Yeah. I used to be in a band, like, ten years ago. So

Nathan Latka

13:06That's a what was the name of the band?

Janne Kärkkäinen

13:08>> It's called Sunrise Avenue.

Nathan Latka

13:10Sunrise Avenue. And the biggest venue you played was 80,000?

Janne Kärkkäinen

13:14>> Yep.

Nathan Latka

13:16Wow. I'm I'm looking up pictures of you from back in the day right now on Google. You were you were you were quite the you were quite the guitarist.

Janne Kärkkäinen

13:25>> Yeah. Well, that's for somebody else else to decide, but but because it was little experience, of course. Yeah.

Sunrise Avenue and Playing in Front of 80,000 People

Nathan Latka

13:33Do you still do you still get a chance to play today?

Janne Kärkkäinen

13:36>> Yeah. Well, I have another band at the moment. Well, not that active, though, but that's called Phoenix effect. You can you can find that in

Nathan Latka

13:44Uh-huh.

Janne Kärkkäinen

13:44>> Spotify as well. However, I think we're the Sunrise Avenue is is having a fair amount tour at the moment, actually, I'm I'm planning to join the guys in on stage in in July, so it's gonna be exciting stuff. Yeah.

Similarities Between Band Life and Building a Company

Nathan Latka

14:00That's I'm on stadium.

Janne Kärkkäinen

14:04>> Stadium station.

Nathan Latka

14:04Metal I'm on metalshockfinland.com reading about you. So this is your last Cool. This is your last stadium. What how many folks are you guys expecting to be in attendance?

Janne Kärkkäinen

14:15>> Well, actually, they renovated the stadium just now. I'm not sure, but it should be in, like, 40.

Nathan Latka

14:21Wow. Wow. Very is there is there any big similarity between building a software company and playing a guitar in front of 80,000 people with your band?

Janne Kärkkäinen

14:33>> Maybe not directly playing, but actually, like, doing a band. I think that there's a lot of similarities, so it's kinda like you you need to build the prototypes, do demos, sell it to a separate company, kinda like a market yourself, like, question yourself all the time, you name it. So it's a it's a similar role, and I I think that it's been exciting things to to go, like, have these experiences and and and bring them to

15:00>> different kind of domains. So it's a

Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions

Nathan Latka

15:02That's exciting. Interesting. Well, hey. Let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, what's the last book that you read?

Janne Kärkkäinen

15:11>> I think it has to be some sort of like a well, it's a Finnish book.

15:20>> Finished book. I'll just say finished book.

Nathan Latka

15:23Yeah. It's Alright. Good one.

15:25Number number two, is there a founder that you're following or studying?

Janne Kärkkäinen

15:31>> Not really. No.

Nathan Latka

15:32K. Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building ONEiO?

Janne Kärkkäinen

15:42>> Well, we have this lucid ports, lucid depth, which we use for this kind of sketching.

Nathan Latka

15:47What's it called?

Janne Kärkkäinen

15:49>> Lucid lucid port lucid chart.

Nathan Latka

15:52It's lucid. Oh, lucid chart. Yeah. Yeah. Number four. How many hours of sleep do you get each night?

Janne Kärkkäinen

15:58>> Oh, eight at least.

Nathan Latka

16:00And what's your situation? Married, single, kids?

Janne Kärkkäinen

16:03>> I'm in a modern family of of six kids and a mess. So

Nathan Latka

16:08Wow. Okay. Married six kids. Holy cow. And how old are you?

Janne Kärkkäinen

16:12>> I'm 45.

Nathan Latka

16:1345? Mhmm. Okay. Last question. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20?

Janne Kärkkäinen

16:20>> Sorry?

Nathan Latka

16:20Something you wish you knew when you were 20 years old.

Janne Kärkkäinen

16:28>> That's it. Actually, I don't know everything.

Nathan Latka

16:34Guys, there you have it. ONEiO.cloud is helping service providers, you know, IT servicers deliver stuff to their retail customers, application support at scale. We had him back on in 2018, smaller than much larger now. He's grown to over $300,000 a month in revenue, 3,600,000 run rate. He was very capital efficient to only a million raised back in 2019 to grow a $3,000,000 business. Said, you know what? Now's the time to step on the gas. He

16:59just closed a $7,000,000 series a in February at around a 30,000,000 valuation. 50 people on his team as he looks to scale. And, oh, by the way, he's a guitarist in a band with their farewell tour hitting here in July with 30,000 people. Man man of multiple talents. Janne, thanks for taking us to the top.

Janne Kärkkäinen

17:15>> Thanks, man.

Nathan Latka

17:17One 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

17:42Central. 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

18:05fundraise, 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

18:27for that at nathanlatka.com/slack. 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

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