How Peeva CEO Michael Hamilton grew to $17.6M revenue and 251 customers in 2024.

hey folks my guest today is Michael Hamilton he's the founder and CEO of Piva that's p-e-e-v-a before uh tuning into entrepreneurship he developed more than a decade of experience in New York managing litigation support and e-discovery projects for some of the nation's largest law firms and corporations all right Michael you ready to take us to the top sure yeah absolutely what's an e-discovery project electronic data Discovery is just glorified photocopying electronic format there you go okay so Loop this now into what Piva is working on and how this has to do with pets and microchips uh it really has absolutely nothing to do with it other than um ultimately dealing with large data sets uh the pet problem is ultimately a data problem the field of uh Veterinary Care in general is extremely fragmented uh it lags behind other Industries technologically and to resolve the problem over Missing Pets you have to resolve the data problem that's what we're essentially doing with a critical mass of data on Kiva is a universal pet tracking system so we can read any brand of microchip our microchips can be read by any brand a scanner we're the first to re-record analyze catalog any brand of microchip regardless of the manufacturer and we pair literally millions of pet microchip IDs with Pet Medical Records in one centralized location so that streamlines uh veterinarian shelter worker workflow to ensure that microchips are scanned and pet owners are instantly notified the exact second that their pets uh microchips are scanned so we're essentially two you know b2c and we're B2B right so that might get a little confusing when you want to start uh talking about percentages um you know ARR and mrr and all that I would say I'd say you're B2B but really then it's it's it's C to D consumer to dog right um flushing that out yeah help me understand people are going to hear microchips they're gonna go wait a second wait a second so let me just sort of break the time and try and dump it down for me um if I how you have a great golden retriever um he sees the vet once every you know two months sometimes it's a different bet though because I'm on vacation or I'm moving around how do you incentivize vets to submit the data it could be different bets to your central database that then shows on the microchip yeah that's an excellent question with every hospital that we on board we take a hard look at the data right so we have a breakdown of every pet you know that has a microchip uh the brand of mic per chip every pep that does not have a microchip uh to break down like how many pets you know how often they're seen that year so we know exactly what we're getting into so we're essentially providing a service for them by you know pulling all this data together right and then you know we're able to Garner a critical mass because every pet that is already chipped with another brand is auto enrolled into Piva at no cost of the hospital or uh the pet owner they just have to kind of confirm their accounts right but that's really really important do you also make your own chips or are you just aggregating other people's chip data we distribute our own chips uh we do not manufacture we distribute them um I see we will register any brand of microchip and to offset that upfront cost right um you know that's our required to scan every or vet techs every pet that comes in into their office and then vet techs had you know a line list of six or seven bullet points the benefits of microchipping specifically microchipping with Kiva they then register the pet on site and then we build the vet oh what's going on there YouTube good to see you guys now imagine this you love watching these interviews with SAS Founders but imagine if we took all of the valuation data out from over 2807 interviews I've done manually saves you a lot of time well we've done this we've built the into the beautiful interface inside of founder path check this out I'll show you how you can 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evaluations 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 got it so what what brand I'm looking at your website right now this is very interesting it almost looks like a turkey syringe ISO compliant transponder that holds like it looks like a pill almost who's manufacturing these for you uh a company called wixie in Shanghai okay how'd you I'm less interested in who they are I'm more interested in why you pick them uh our electrical engineers uh just vetted everybody out it was very important that they have what is called an ISO certification see in the states part of the problem is not all microchips can be read by all microchip scanners because there's multiple Distributors multiple frequencies so uh you know in Canada the UK and everywhere else they have a specific frequency um so we chose that brand over the others to truly be a universal uh microchip but we can also read any other brand of microchip as well yeah so what does one of these things cost you me well not you but the company the company Piva what do you pay like they're the it's it's a volume game I mean if you got them individually they'd be really expensive but literally like less than a dollar like 60 cents I mean when you're dealing with hundreds of thousands of these things they're they can come down and cost considerably okay interesting so when you first launch them I'll get your origin story here in a second but when you first launched what was the order size you you got as your sort of first you know slot of inventory are we talking like like a thousand or ten thousand or a million or what no no 4 000 chips okay okay interesting and so that cost you what something like four thousand bucks a little more than that at the time uh maybe closer to six okay so you don't have a real like Capital allocation problem here that's not I mean that's an upfront cost but it's not a heavy upfront cost no no I mean it it's it's a volume gamer it really truly is uh yeah um you know in regards to our actual launch date I mean basically I started Piva LLC like from a one bedroom apartment like years ago but we didn't actually start taking in Revenue till um late 2018. we built I mean this has been very very weak it's been bootstrapping my brother and I like to call it drip financing if you will on you know so based on meeting milestones and having certain needs then we throw more money in and we've you know it got pretty expensive I mean it was initially all my money in the beginning how much did you put in yourself a couple hundred thousand great is it making nerd that make you nervous at the time um no it really didn't because I just had um so much support at that time on from the University of Buffalo I mean academic chairs I mean this was after like a root cause analysis I had um you know was offset by different grants I also had buy-in from you know a highly uh regarded veterinarian here that sold off two practices to a major corporation and then um you know once I started putting my own money in it it's just like it's kind of like a no lose situation plus I was a single guy at the time just loved my dog when I was a little kid my dog was still and never got him back I identified the problem and this truly is the only way to resolve the problem yeah okay this makes sense so so grants your own money at the beginning 2015 got going 2018 was first Revenue how many today how many chips now have have been installed via Piva um our chips uh well a lot of them have been distributed um as far as how many have actually been implanted we estimate I I could I would say you know around 176 000. wow and how many of you shipped uh a little under three hundred thousand interesting so why would someone ask to be shipped one but then get nervous about actually installing it it's not that at all the problem is um there are uh free microchip registries uh one in particular uh you know has a class action lawsuit against it right now they actually got shut down um they were marketing themselves as a benefit to the public good by offering free registrations but essentially they were just building up marketing lists I mean think about it whenever you're signing up for something free your products yeah that's spam now they know you're a pet owner a dog owner the breed it's age you you can sell that data off for you know once once the volume of the data grows so does you know now that most consumer purchases are made online um you know uh online marketing firms and data Brokers are willing to Shell out um you know a fair amount of money for those of course content you're not making money though on these chips though right you're you're selling tell me how you're making money you're selling to the vet right uh we are providing inventory to that yes I would love to um sell two best but it's basically like we give them an inventory of chips we provide them with kiosks scanners marketing literature they um a bill that the pet owner and then we build the vet it's essentially a win-win for everybody I see how do you know how much to build a vet each month is it based off how many of their customers they've got to sign up yeah yeah absolutely I mean we obviously any organization whether you're selling red sweaters or milk you're going to know exactly where your inventory was shipped right so we um can you know track it by Lot number by range of microchips and then just we can build and just real time we know exactly what um so what what are you billing the average vet today per month are we talking like 100 bucks a month or like 10 000 a month uh so on average throughout all our hospitals it works out to be about 488 um implants a month uh and is that a dollar is that a dollar per implant or something uh no they actually right now and um this is kind of causing some contention because we have to raise our pricing um some vets are charging about eighty dollars for a one-time fee some vets are charging as low as forty dollars for a one-time and then we are literally um going halfway with with that side oh you don't have a fixed rate you you go a percent off their revenue we build them for every pet that is in plants and not only do we you know yeah but as a percent of their what they're charging you're not setting the pricing uh it depends on where they are in the country like cities like New York Austin Boston you know they're willing to obviously pay a little more whereas cities and I I don't know um in in the midwest certain places they are um not going to charge as much well so what are you billing me if I'm a hospital in the midwest it's 488 implants what Bill am I getting from Piva most likely each month for about how much money I multiply that times uh 20 it works out to be um you know average I mean we have it broken down um per hospital that we built so you know if it's a 488 times whatever that is times 20. so yeah so 10 10 grand a month yeah 10 or 11 000 a month interesting I would say and how how can they pay that if they're only charging the dog owner 80 bucks one time um we literally know what their price points are and we split right up so we know what they are charging so it's not recurring then if they charge 80 bucks one time and then it's free after that you're only making fifty percent of 80 bucks one time right as of right now on you know barriers to entry you know we're industry newcomer um or competing against the status quo which are owned by companies like Merck and Henry Sheen and you know multi-billion dollar organizations that have been around since the 90s um you know we got to come in and just basically say take some scanners take some kiosks use us let's make you guys money right I mean and it was a really really comfortable uh Nathan I'm not going to blow smoke it was a really really comfortable situation um at the beginning uh it's funny what do you mean like what was what was Revenue in 2020 I I essentially was in a company we didn't have to worry about social media our Veterinary Partners were essentially doing sales for us okay so we were just billing that it just totally neglected social Facebook all that stuff just wasn't oh my God I get all this but like help so like how many folks are on the team you can quantify this by saying how small your team is today right so how many are on the team full time today okay as of today there are 14 of us okay interesting so and they're all full time uh yeah yeah and your boots dropped or you decide to raise we are we are bootstrapped on I love that we've finally gotten to the point where we're making more more money than um your prop you're profitable today then yeah yeah okay uh yeah okay um I'm I'm going through this quick because we're about out of time I just want to get more of the data here so so you're profitable team of 14 bootstrapped which we love um how many individual hospitals or vets are you in today that use you individual customers it's 251 at the moment cost wow okay so you think across the 251 you've got about 176 000 installs uh yeah so if um yeah installs yes now obviously there are more um non-paying customers obviously I mean I say a ton more um but what is what's really made us um the most money recently um you know especially uh this year over last year and we're talking about like 1200 percent over is on the online stuff um yeah Michael hold on before you tell the online story though so what total revenue last year was about how much do you guys break a million yes okay two million or no between one and two so I don't really you know um I'm a single dad you know I don't really like to uh share a lot of that information um unless I have to I mean in print no problem 79 is a barrier fee I don't have to worry about certain people reading things but anything that's um that's that's sorry why does a single dad have to do with how much data you share like well it's not it's not data it's it's how much money I'm thinking got it well yeah I mean look I'm trying to understand the the I want to respect of it's any boundary you set up but I'm trying to understand the business right so if you did more than a million in 2020 and then you said you grew over 1200 year over year um no no we we grew 1200 over 12 um we have like between October sorry January 1 month to dates or or year to dates um from uh January 1 to today October 26 over last year we've grown over uh 1200 over 21. so if you're growing from a base of a million twelve hundred percent I mean that would put you that's like so so again you're getting a little confused between the b2c stuff and the B2B stuff right um you know it's total it's two separate um it's it's two totally separate sales oh my God I'm just talking about rev I'm like I'm just talking right I didn't talk B to B B to C I'm just Revenue so all across the board um this year over last year at this time uh We've made uh 991.8 over last year 20. over a full year last year or just January to October last year uh January to October 26th of last year got it you've made 900 times more Revenue than that same period I I'm sorry percent sorry percent 900 and I meant to say 9x you're met you're not 9x increase would be 900 percent correct I see um when you say that there's a b2c model that I'm not understanding you're right I don't understand that where are you how what are you selling to Consumers you're not selling direct to Consumers you're taking a percent of what the vet sells to their consumers no no no no so it's think of it as two different lines of business okay so straight to Consumer is register any brand of microchip with Piva online so as an added layer of protection owners that have chips pets and planted with chips offered by our competitors will register with Piva for a handful of reasons um you know we have different features and functions we as of right now uh we don't have an annual um subscription model we're a little more expensive on the front end um but you know we can say pay once protect your pet for life we also make what is called our API available to other legitimate Registries so they don't have to register with the primary register registry a second time because um that if somebody out out of our Network searches in another database they'll say this pet was registered with Piva on such and such date and then our telephone number will display so and you're not making money though on it it's a free that's free it's a free registration database for anyone with the dog no no it's 54.95 per month or per year per year per year okay got it so you charge consumers directly they put their dog in your system to make sure that if their dog is stolen you can find them or something like that I misspoke it's it's a one-time fee as of right now for 54.95 I see I see the reason a dog owner would do that though is if their dog gets lost or stolen and then that the person who stole it the robber takes them to a vet boom it's going to get flagged and you're gonna help them recover the dog absolutely okay got it model makes sense to me yeah until now uh it didn't really benefit that's to actually scan a dog for a micro searching through all these different Registries so by making the transfer of vital health information quick and easy it saves them time right and that saves the money and then provides better quality of care yeah Michael makes sense we're out of time let's wrap up here with the famous five number one favorite book uh Catcher in the Rye number two is there a CEO you're following or studying uh Mike Bloomberg is ultimately my favorite CEO number three what's your favorite online tool for building Piva um ASP that number four how many hours of sleep do you get every night uh okay very good and I think you said mentioned not married one kiddo more kids one one right now one right now okay and last question something you wish you knew when you were sorry how old are you today and then something you wish you knew when you were 20. I am 45 years old today um something that I wish I knew when I was 20. uh do not start a tech company unless you have a tech co-founder or learn is is much about code as you possibly can um yeah and there you have it piva.com to help you not only keep track of your dog or your animals in general in case they're lost or stolen but also to make sure all your medical records from the vet perspective all stand one place you can have that history they've shipped 300 000 of these ships they believe about 176 000 have actually been installed and did over a million bucks in Revenue last year with a team of 14 bootstrapped which we love Michael thanks for taking us to the top yeah thanks for having me 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 their 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