Popup SRL Revenue, Valuation & Funding (2024)

[00:00] Guys, popup.lol helps restaurants drive online engagement during physical events. They've got a 100 customers paying, call it $35 a month oh, sorry. 25 customers paying $35 a month doing about $875 a month in revenue. That's up from nothing a year ago because they just launched in February 2022. They raised $80,000 in funding so far from friends and family who own 20%. The last valuation was $900,000. They're building us with a team of three. We'll see what [00:24] happens next. Hey, folks. My guest today is Francesco Teodori. He's the cofounder of popup s r l, an innovative startup engagement providing innovative solutions to the entertainment and hospitality industry. It's effectively social media, a social menu for nightlife at popup.lol. Francesco, are you ready to take us to the top? [00:42] >> Yeah. Yeah. [00:43] Alright. What does social menu for nightlife mean? Is this like a list of restaurants or what? [00:48] >> Well, it's not actually a list of restaurants. Our is a digital solution. We came up with the special QR code, which doesn't give you only a digital menu, but there is a real time social experience where people can actually interact in real time in venues. [01:07] Okay. But what are you showing them? What what what tell me how a customer is using you. [01:11] >> Yeah. So basically, imagine you are you are in a bar or in a restaurant, scan a QR code, you land in a digital menu. Together with the digital menu, you have another section section where you have a people room and a boardroom where people can actually see who is nearby in the venue. They can interact with the chat messages and dating interactions, and they can also post the board meeting. [01:38] How would they know who's nearby if the other people nearby haven't logged into the same application? Don't you have to get everyone to log in? [01:45] >> Yes. But we also have a geotech mechanism which allows us to actually understand who is within a geo fence. So basically, through the GPS coordinates, we are able to understand [01:59] Yeah. But how do you get my data? Let's say you're at a restaurant sitting down using popup dot I'm sitting five feet away. You log in to the popup.lol app. How would popup.lol know that I am sitting five feet away? [02:11] >> Yeah. You you have to log in. [02:12] Yeah. So how I mean, isn't that a massive problem? I never log in to I hate scanning things to look at a menu when I sit down at restaurants. Why would I log into a social app inside the barcode QR scanner? [02:23] >> Well, you can actually access the the menu without any login. But in order to access the social features, you have to access by logging in. And the reason why you you would log in is to see what are the other people. So if you don't log in, you you don't see the other people. So it's like a social. So if you if you want to participate in the social experience, you have to register and also show [02:53] >> to the other people your your social details. [02:56] How many people registered last month? [02:59] >> We had over 200 people. [03:01] Okay. So 200 people. And are any specific geography, or is that all over the world? [03:06] >> No. We currently are running a pilot in Italy, in the center of Italy. We mostly are working in the Marche, Abruzzo, which are two regions in Italy. [03:18] And of those 200 that registered last month, how many restaurants was that across? [03:23] >> We have, as of today, a 100 restaurants. [03:27] Okay. So on average, how many people logged in per restaurant last month? [03:33] >> This is something I need to check, but usually, we have over 1,000 visits in a in a in a venue. [03:42] But not visits. People log register, cause you have to register to see people next to you. You told me you had 200 people register last month across a 100 restaurants. [03:52] >> Based on logins, we have on average, let's say, 300, 500 people logging in. [03:59] Oh, what's going on there, YouTube? Good to see you guys. Now imagine this, you love watching these interviews with SaaS founders. But imagine if we took all of the valuation data out from over 2,807 interviews I've done manually, saves you a lot of time. Well, we've done this, we've built it into the beautiful interface inside of Founderpath. Check this out. I'll show you how you can access this in a second. But you log in, you connect [04:22] your Stripe account, you see your valuation real time, you can see what it changed over the past eighty eight days and even set goals for valuation this year. Now the secret evaluation is there's many different ways to value a SaaS business. So the reason you're gonna see three or four different valuations inside of your Founderpath dashboard, this is all free by the way, is because depending on who's doing the buying of your SaaS company, you're gonna [04:46] get a different valuation. A VC is gonna pay a different valuation, Private equity firm is different. If you're gonna do a minority sale, that's different. And if you sell the whole business, that's a different valuation. You can see all those when I hover over here. Right? So the teal is what a VC would pay. Yellow is what private equity and red is if you sold the whole thing outright. Now what's cool about this is this is [05:08] not built off random data. Again, you guys hear these interviews on YouTube. All these datas are built from real time valuation data points founder 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 [05:34] going out right now and you're raising your seed round. We'll go in here and look at all this recent seed deals that went down, what they raised, what valuation they raised at, and what percent that they sold. There's never been a larger dataset of SaaS valuations than what you can get now inside of Founderpath. And we're thrilled to bring it to you. All right. We're gonna go back to the YouTube video here in a second. But [05:56] if you wanna check this tool out, if you wanna jump in and sign up, you can check it out for free to get your valuation at this link, this link, founderpath.com/products/valuations. Or if you go to founderpath.com and hover over products, click on get your valuation here, and go ahead and sign up to give it a whirl. Again, all that valuation data live right inside the platform. I hope to see you there. Alright. Let's jump back into [06:22] the interview. Okay. So what's the difference between a login and a register and a register? [06:27] >> Sorry. Can you repeat, Nathan? [06:29] You told me you have 200 registered last month. What's the difference between a register and a login? [06:35] >> What's the? Sorry. I I I don't I don't hear you very well. [06:39] You told me that you had 200 people register last month. [06:43] >> Yes. [06:44] And you just told me that 500 logged in last month. [06:49] >> Yes. [06:50] How are those two things different? [06:53] >> Well okay. What I so over the the life of our of our of our company, we we had to set several registered. So last month, we we had 200 people registered. Mean, log logging in the the platform. [07:14] >> So 200 people were the registered. The 500 were those logging in who actually accessed the the social menus. [07:23] Understood. So the 500 logins came from people that may have registered months ago. [07:32] >> Yes. Exactly. Yeah. [07:34] So 500 logins across 100 restaurants is an average of five logins per restaurant in a month. I mean, what's the likelihood that those five people that log in at the restaurant were even there at the same time so they would see each other at the same time? I mean, don't you log in and register to this thing and you see [07:43] no one around you? [07:45] >> Oh, that that's correct. This is something we are working on in order to improve our experience. Indeed, of the time, the pilots that we have run were in specific events. So our, let's say, validation was [08:04] >> during digital events where people were explained on the functionalities and how this tool worked. So as of now, the restaurants are using this mostly in special events. [08:18] And how much do the restaurants pay you per month to use the technology? [08:23] >> So they on average, they pay €30. [08:27] Okay. So about $30, $35 United States dollars per month, and you're at a 100 restaurants. You said you have a 100 customers? [08:37] >> Yes. But let's say, [08:41] >> we we have a business model where where we provide some customers with a free version, which has some limits. [08:51] Then many are paying? [08:53] >> We have 25 paying. [08:55] Okay. So 25 times $35 a month. You're doing about $875 per month in revenue. Is that right? [09:02] >> Yes. Sometime more because we also have annual subscriptions where they basically pay upfront the whole fee. [09:13] Well, sure. But I'm not asking on a cash basis. You would divide that fee by 12 to get your monthly recurring revenue? [09:19] >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [09:20] Okay. So put this on a timeline for me. When did you guys launch the business? [09:26] >> We went to the market in in February, but we made some some pivoting in the in the midwife. [09:32] Oh, so you just launched this year? [09:34] >> Yes. Yes. [09:35] Amazing. And who is we? How many cofounders? [09:38] >> We have two people. It's me and Daniele, the the CTO. So the let's the magic mind behind the technology. [09:45] Did you guys split equity fifty fifty? [09:48] >> No. He he has a lower advocate because he has a a small lower involvement in the in the project. [09:58] So you took, like, 60%? [10:00] >> Yes. It's so it's basically 50% me. He has, like, 25. Then we have we have the family and friends round, which has 20%. And then we have 5, 6% for the rest of the deal. [10:19] That makes sense. How much did you raise in the friends and family round? [10:23] >> We as of today, we raise we raise the 80 k. [10:27] Okay. 80,000 on the friends and family round. And that was at a sounds like about a 500,000 cap or valuation? [10:35] >> At that time so the latest valuation is 900,000. [10:40] So Yeah. But you raised if you you told me friends and family owned 20% of the company. Right? [10:45] >> Yes. [10:47] And they put an 80 k. Right? [10:49] >> Yeah. But we we had we have split this into smaller rounds where [10:55] >> we basically [10:56] >> increase the the valuation. [10:59] I see. I see. Okay. Very cool. Tell me how you're gonna grow. Right? So, I mean, this this strikes me as a very, very hard problem to get everyone in a restaurant to register for this because you have to have other people on the platform at the same time in the same spot to get network effects and and, you know, make the app useful. [11:17] >> Yeah. So actually, we were so first of all, we are improving our user experience. So we are making it really, really easy to register and to understand how our solution works. And we have we have seen that there are several organic registrations. So without any marketing people by themselves just register on the on the social menu because they are curious of our social features. And second, we are trying to raise new capital in order to go [11:54] >> like bold on on this through events and mass [12:00] Why do have to raise more money? Do you have any money left in the bank? [12:04] >> We yes. But we we require more more money to to go bold. [12:11] Okay. Fair enough. And how many folks are full time on the team today? [12:15] >> Sorry. Can you repeat, Nathan? [12:17] How many folks are full time at the team today? Employee? [12:21] >> Full time, we have two people, and we have three people part time. So let's say three three people full time. [12:29] Yep. Very cool. Well, Francesco, we're rooting for you, but we're out of time today. Let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite book? [12:37] >> My favorite book, it's the Lord of the Rings. [12:40] Mhmm. [12:41] Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? [12:45] >> Surely, it's Elon Musk. [12:47] Number three. What's your favorite online tool for building popup? [12:53] >> I would say Figma. [12:56] Number four. How many hours of sleep are you getting every month? [13:00] >> How many hours of? [13:01] Sleep. [13:03] >> Sleep. It's yeah. I would say five. [13:06] Okay. And what's your situation? Married, single, kids? [13:10] >> Single. [13:11] Okay. And how old are you? [13:14] >> I'm 30. [13:15] Last question. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20 years old? [13:20] >> Well, [13:24] >> better understanding on what means starting and what means being entrepreneur. Maybe I I would have started being entrepreneur before. [13:34] Guys, popup.lol helps restaurants drive online engagement during physical events. They've got a 100 customers paying, call it $35 a month oh, sorry. 25 customers paying $35 a month doing about $875 a month in revenue. That's up from nothing a year ago because they just launched in February 2022. They raised $80,000 in funding so far from friends and family who own 20%. The last valuation was $900,000. They're building us with a team of three. We'll see what [13:59] happens next. Francesco, thanks for taking us to the top. [14:02] >> Thank you a lot, Nathan. See you. [14:06] One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM central. It's called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it deal or bust. One founder comes on, three hungry buyers, they try and do a deal live and the founder shares back end dashboards, their expenses, their revenue, ARPU, CAC, LTV, you name it, they share it. And the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch every Thursday one [14:31] p. M. Central. Additionally, remember these recorded Founder interviews go live. We release them here on YouTube every day at two p. M. 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. 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