How PipelineEquity CEO Katica Roy grew to $1.1M revenue and 3 customers in 2019.

you're gonna love this interview just got done editing it i'm glad i got it live for you i'll be in the comments for the next 30 minutes hanging out answering any questions you have in fact leave a comment below about data points or what you think is going to happen to the company and i will respond to every comment additionally if you're just loving the content click the thumbs up and i will go and check out your profile as well and give your videos some love as well in the meantime enjoy the interview hello everyone my guest today is kataka roy she's a gender economist and ceo of pipeline an award-winning sas company that leverages artificial intelligence to improve financial performance through gender equity pipeline launch the first gender equity app on salesforce's app exchange she's a thought leader in the first half of 2019 and our articles have generated over 600 million impressions okay you ready to take us to the top i am all right so this is an interesting space um i guess the hardest thing you must uh you must have to deal with is actually attribution around equality what is the potential upside if you fight really hard to make sure you get equality is that right that's right so how do you quantify that yeah so uh we quantify it because we actually did research across 4 000 companies in 29 countries and what we found was that for every 10 increase in uh gender equity in companies there's a one to two percent increase in revenue interesting okay so when did you get into this what year did you start writing code uh but i i started writing code in 2002 but i launched pipeline in 2017. okay so we're i mean but were you basically coding the mep of this all the way back from 2002. no no i started pipeline in 2017. okay i'm a former programmer uiux designer so when you asked me that oh oh oh oh i was like well wait a second i started coding a long time ago okay so wait bo sorry so just to be clear when was the first line of code ran for pipeline uh 2017 2017 okay and then how long were you coding before your first dollar of revenue uh that's a good question um i probably well we we launched with our first customer and then um so 2018 was when we had our first paying customer okay and i always like to ask this question how much cash did you guys sink into the mvp before your first dollar of revenue about three hundred thousand dollars okay like that and so where'd most that money go was it really just engineering expenses yeah back end back-end structure a little bit on front end but we api into the back end of their hr tech stack right so their core hr platform their applicant tracking system so the back end engineering of the platform is a lot more complex that plus the ai than the front end okay and which which i'm curious what integration right now is most used with which company gusto workday oh it's work day interesting okay um well we work with mostly with enterprise companies that's why yeah yeah um okay so tell me more about that right so give me a general sense of your pricing is it pure sass yeah so we charge 60 well yeah mostly we charge 60 per employee uh per year billed annually so however many employees now that includes uh so from a financial statement perspective that also includes implementation and customer success so the majority of it from a financial perspective is sas but not a hundred percent fair enough we don't charge separate fees for that i'm sure you have serious power loss through your customer base some really big ones some really small ones but because of time i'm going to force you into a sweet spot what would you say the average enterprise brand pays you per year to use your technology uh 350 000 okay 350. so this is very much enterprise sales motion you have a field sales team yeah okay well and so i guess i said do you have do you utilize a field sales team to land these accounts not right now um we actually have a pretty there's just a couple people who are working on sales okay so how many if you don't mind me asking me so what's total team size today all together we have about 20 people 20 both uh employees and contingent yep okay how many engineers besides you i i there that's a good question i don't know that after these are your people you should know there are my people i know but well it moves a lot but we have about i'd say about half the team okay and then how many are actually kind of quota carrying sales reps would you say two oh two where did you find them from i mean these are your first two sales hires they're critical yeah you know um most of the sale so we did a lot of that through retained of you know uh you know through someone who who actually has a lead into enterprise sales reps and and a lot of the sales um right now are generated for myself and then our head of operations because of all the writing that you do well that yeah that's right exactly yeah so let's let's talk about that's right so your first couple let's say your first five customers right where did you how did they find you how did you get them on board um mostly from my speaking or from my writing okay well you're making it sound too easy back into that right how did you how did you get on stages yeah um so i uh you know that the upside is i was a little bit older when i started pipeline so i already had i was already somewhat known in um in the talent management human capital world but i started writing first for forbes um and the huffington post those were my first and i did a lot of uh free speaking so um a lot of folks would ask me to speak and i would volunteer to speak um and then that progressed from there so now obviously i write for fast company and salesforce and bloomberg and um others as well okay so when i guess the first couple customers you had come in was there a particular article that did really well for you in terms of attracting those first customers um probably the first one which that i published on forbes which is why we need gender equity now so really that beginning to look at gender equity as a an economic opportunity rather than a social issue yeah so this was published back on september 14th of 2017. why we need gender equity now uh this got about 45 000 views according to forbes and you're saying when people saw this this is when they said who is this you know who's this person i need to go meet her yeah yep but you didn't have the tech at that time did you we just launched uh the we launched portion of it we launched the full in 2018. full in 2018. okay and uh okay good so that's how i kind of got your first customers there and then um i mean help me understand scale today how many customers are you serving right now we serve three okay so we have three big customers yeah yeah yeah so enterprise sales motion three customers 30 you know 360 000 a year i mean that puts yeah are you guys over a million dollar run right at this point um we're almost there you'll pass it this year you think yeah yeah good and what is that up from a year ago it sounds like you were pre-revenue a year ago right um yeah we had our first revenue last year so we um grew uh 6x almost 6x year every year it's a little unfair because obviously it's easy to multiply small numbers but you know you might as well say it while you can well yeah and you work really really hard for those big deals yeah enterprise deals as a first um as a first uh as a startup are really really hard yeah so you were doing about 15 000 a month exactly a year ago now doing about 80 90 000 a month yeah it's like close to that yeah that's good okay um and these two sales reps uh so i mean these are obviously long sales cycles how do you set up your sales process uh considering there's you know three customers but two sales reps what do you mean like what's the structure of it yeah like in other words you know you have you onboard these sales reps and you have to give them things like a quota target right and and a commission structure and all that i mean how do you structure that i mean they really have to only close two or three deals a year to make it worth it right yeah and i you know i think for us um actually you know uh well yeah i mean that's a good question we don't release a lot of what our um comp plans would be externally though i mean just to answer that question well just to be clear my question is more like you don't have a ton of customers so those two sales reps haven't closed a ton of deals the max they could have closed is three so i'm just trying to understand what you have to put a stake in the ground and you make a sales hire right because they have to kind of know what they think they could earn at full on target earnings if they hit their quota i'm just trying to understand the general structure is it is it are you feeding them the leads are they hunting for their own leads is it three deals a year two yeah we feed them we feed them bleeds okay and do you have because we know we yeah go ahead and what's your thesis i mean do you expect them on full ramp to be closing to 300 000 annual deals a year or four or ten yeah two to three two to three yeah you wouldn't you wouldn't close i mean it's just too big to try and close that many in a year yeah and it's too early to talk about kind of churn and expansion revenue right yeah yeah what about i mean so these first couple customers obviously you've done a great job with your own personal brand are you able to back into any kind of fully weighted cac on these accounts or no it's it's too variable it's unknown yeah yeah the sample size is too small to actually be able to quantify that with any uh confidence like with any you know it's just too small now have you bootstrapped the company did you decide to raise no we raised uh how much total that we haven't released publicly oh but i will tell you it's um uh it's um in the seven figures okay um was it an equity round or note equity okay well i mean we can look that up right you have to that obviously gets filed with the sec some uh i don't think all of it does i mean yes it does it's equity well equity it does but we did an equity and a note um but the way that we uh structured the note there's a cap on it and anyway we didn't raise up to that cap but okay i just want to get a general idea we have to be specific but generally speaking it sounds like your race call it's you know something less than two million dollars right yeah okay good um and was that recent or are you planning on raising again here soon we're raising now okay and why is now the right time to raise because um we have enough uh we have enough traction in terms of enterprise customers and deal size to make that make sense right so we raised our first round pre-revenue and now we're revenue so it makes sense for us to raise our next round and how do you think about how much to raise now what do you want to target um we're uh you know we'd like to um raise you know two to three times what we raised in our first right in our first race okay so was that like four to six million bucks something like that something like that okay and where would you i mean obviously you're that's it's gonna hit you in terms of dilution right so you have to be careful about how much you raise why do you need that much money uh why do we so you know we are actually working on we'd like to build out the sales team that's the number one thing that we'd like to do um and then um continue to work on marketing right so my brand is very strong and we'd like to continue to build the pipeline brand as a sort of product marketing coming up underneath that mm-hmm okay yeah i mean it sounds like you're a very good communicator with how many impressions your writing has gotten so i mean that would be key obviously in taking in terms of getting you know if you're at a million dollar run rate right now you're trying to raise four to six million and only sell 10 or you know 20 percent i mean you've got to basically figure out how to get like a 30 40 x uh kind of a multiple on your current revenue you think you can invest investors to get you there yeah i think we'll see i think we have a pretty good sales pipeline and we got some good metrics so yeah very good all right um good stuff so looking to raise right now and now are have you gotten the business back to profitability are you still burning from your first round oh we're still burning okay and how do you think about i mean everyone has a different threshold in terms of what they're comfortable in terms of sleeping with at night relative you know they're burn relative to their revenue i mean are you cool burning 100 grand a month or is that too much we earn less than that okay will you want to get to break even before you go raise the next round just for more leverage or no no okay so you're cool burning and still going into the next race with burn yes yeah interesting very cool who who do you compete most directly with would you say internal analytics teams that's such a diplomatic answer well because it's actually true because there are a number of um point solutions in what we in in the uh and inclusion tech space but when you really look at what pipeline does which is across all the five key talent decisions that you make uh we mostly actually it's true we actually mostly inc compete internally that is to say um to help them understand the difference between um look back analytics and a look forward recommendations engine that's actually informing the decisions that they make okay let's wrap up here with the famous five number one what's your favorite business book oh that's a good question um probably blue ocean number two is there a ceo you're following are studying right now um that's a good question um i mean i you know there's a few like indra new year she's no longer a ceo but she was for a long time mary barra is another one yeah pepsi mary bar at gm because she's one of the only one of only two female ceos in the fortune 500 that also has a majority female board um so she's one that i'm following as well number three what's your favorite online tool for building a company slack number four how many hours you sleep to eat every night five hours that's not a lot that's not healthy i track my sleep i'm actually one of those people that can actually get by on five hours really that's incredible okay and what's your situation married single kiddos um i'm married uh i i i've been married for like 14 years and i have two kids they're eight and 12. oh wow oh my gosh you have your hands full okay and do you mind me asking how old you are well i have a state i have a stay-at-home husband that's amazing husband has been a stay-at-home dad for 11 years so he is incredible so i love that we do this together i mean he's not part of pipeline but anyway he makes it possible do you mind me asking how old you are 45 45 okay so last question take us back to your 20 year old self what's something you wish that she knew i wish that my 20 year old self knew that she was more powerful than she thought she was and that her voice mattered guys there you have it pipeline equity making gender equity possible uh launched just about call it 12 18 months ago doing about 15 000 a month a year ago now up to about 80 000 a month about to break that million dollar kind of run rate threshold they've raised less than 2 million dollars to date but hoping to go out and do a raise here shortly between four and six million dollars to continue to drive growth really to hire more sales people and spend and do some marketing tests currently burning uh call less than a hundred thousand dollars per month team size 20 folks 10 engineers two quarter carrying sales reps as kataka looks to scale iconica thank you for taking us to the top thank you you guys know i fight like heck to get these data points for you from these ceos that rarely do these kinds of shows if you want more shows like this make sure you 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