How Revastaff Grew Revenue from About $20K in 2018 to About $120K in 2020 (Interview with OJ Lopez)

Introduction and Background

Nathan Latka

00:00Hello, everyone. My guest today is OJ Lopez. He's a Filipino by birth, architect by training, salesman by vocation, Catholic by faith and family man by commitment, humanitarian by choice. After three heartbreaking business failures in his twenties in the construction construction and outsourcing industry, he founded revastaff.com in 2018 and now things are growing nicely. OJ, you ready to take us to the top?

OJ Lopez

00:23>> Yeah. Sure. Well, thank you so much for for inviting me on your show, Nathan. It's been so great.

What Revastaff Is: A Two-Sided Editing Marketplace

Nathan Latka

00:28So what is what is revastaff and and how are you guys making money?

OJ Lopez

00:32>> Yeah. So revastaff is a two sided marketplace. We we have photographers in the platform and we supply them with the post production staff like editors and floor plan artists and CGI artists and things of that. And mostly these are people from The Philippines, Vietnam, and India. And most of these real estate photographers are in The US. So we have about about 20 photographers in the platform and about 30 ish editor staff on the editor side and

01:04>> the drafter side, things like that.

How the Marketplace Works and Makes Money

Nathan Latka

01:06So one side of the marketplace are the photographers and editors. Who is on the other side of the marketplace? Who's hiring them?

OJ Lopez

01:12>> The the other side of the market is the The US side real estate photographers. On the other side of the market is the editors from The Philippines, Vietnam, and India, and then we just match the requirement of these editors whether it's gonna be photo editing in Photoshop or drafting floor plans. And at the end, the end user is actually the real estate agent who would market all these properties. So we're kinda enabling the photographers to streamline

01:41>> their process to outsource their post production work so that they would be able to shoot more houses during the day. And we take care of all the back end stuff for them and

01:54>> And we yeah. We we charge them per per photo, per floor plan, per render, and then it's just half and half for for the the guys on on the back end. So we we take a commission out of that.

Pricing: Per Photo and Per Floor Plan

Nathan Latka

02:07So let let's use a specific example. A US photographer who who's photograph taking pictures of real estate here in The US takes a picture. They want that one picture edited by one of your editors in The Philippines. What do you charge them for that one picture to edit?

OJ Lopez

02:22>> It's a a dollar retail. So if you're a new customer, we we we charge you $1 per photo, and each house is usually, like, 30 to 40 photos each house. So it's it's about, no, 30 to $40 for the photos. And then if they would want to add floor plans with that, it's $10 per floor plan, usually three three floors per house or three three plus. So the average would be around $50.

Monthly Volume: Photos and Floor Plans Processed

Nathan Latka

02:45Okay. And last month, how many photos were processed through your system?

OJ Lopez

02:51>> Last month, about 5,000 photos.

Nathan Latka

02:54Oh, wow. Okay. And how many floor plans?

OJ Lopez

02:56>> So that's about five divided by,

03:07>> I don't have the number off the top of my head, but it's usually about 400 houses, 400 to 500 houses each month.

Nathan Latka

03:14So 400 to 500 floor plans?

OJ Lopez

03:17>> Yeah. That's that's about right. Or times two of that. So it's it's just average about two floors two floors per house.

Nathan Latka

03:24What's house of floor plans?

03:26Got it. A thousand a thousand floor plans at $10 a pop is $10,000 a month in revenue plus 5,000 photos at a dollar each. That's another $5,000. So you're doing about $15,000 a month in revenue?

OJ Lopez

03:36>> Yeah. And then plus the VA side of things because, we do have supply them with virtual assistant, and then the three d renders and things like that and three d virtual tours, VR tours that we do also the editing. So it was roundabout 2022.

Nathan Latka

03:53And and this is impressive. I mean, you know, getting both sides of the marketplace is really difficult. How did you sign up 20 photographers in The US?

How OJ Signed Up the First Photographers

OJ Lopez

04:01>> Well, it just started with one and I was just the one making the floor plan for that guy. And that guy started to hire photographers under him and asked Who us to is that guy?

Nathan Latka

04:13How did you know him?

OJ Lopez

04:14>> It's via Upwork. So we started like a freelance gig. Just me, I have architecture background, I just do the floor plans for for for that photographer, and then we offer it. I I and then when when we have like enough team of photographers, I mean, enough team of editors. Now, a few photographers churn and now I wanted to, to to give more jobs to those editors. I just started marketing by myself, cold calling photographers in The

04:41>> US and and, you know, cold emailing them, doing, you know, Facebook groups, marketing, things like that. And then that's where we got, few accounts in New York, few accounts in in, North Carolina. And now we have a new client. Actually, very exciting stuff. Just last week, we just landed a client in California that would, like, triple our number overnight. They have about 44 photographers in in their in their, system. It's serving, like like, four cities, but

05:08>> that's pretty brand new.

Nathan Latka

05:09So just to keep it back to make sure I understand, you were freelancing on Upwork saying marketing your skills to edit floor plans. One person found you, and then before you know it, he's referring a bunch of other people and you take it off and you start building this marketplace.

Building the Revastaff Platform with a CTO

OJ Lopez

05:24>> Yes. For sure. Yeah. That that's what happened. And then very recently, we we started our own platform. I I just got a CTO about, six, seven months ago and build in the REVAstaff, that app, which now streamlines all the processes before because before we were using third party software like Dropbox for FTP, Google Calendar for scheduling. So right now it's gonna be all in a one place to streamline all the processes from when the photographer shot

05:53>> the house and then upload that on our platform, and then the editors will be able to to get that on the other side of stuff and then edit it on Photoshop or Lightroom and and re upload that. And then, just one click, it will now be sent to the realtor, which is the end client. And then the end client will now ask, would now close the job or accept the job from the photographer's face face photographer

06:14>> photographer face us.

Revenue History: 2018 to 2020

Nathan Latka

06:16Yeah. I totally understand the product. That makes complete sense to me. To understand that the size of phone you built on Upwork, can you quantify that in 2020? How much revenue did you personally do via Upwork?

OJ Lopez

06:28>> Oh, we we well, Upwork was just 2018 and then everything was

Nathan Latka

06:32How much in 2018?

OJ Lopez

06:34>> 2018, we did about $20,000 in revenue. But we started mid of twenty eighteen and then 2019, we doubled that

06:45>> $40,000 and then 2020 we did about 120 k.

Nathan Latka

06:52All via Upwork?

OJ Lopez

06:54>> No, no, all organic, like cold calling, cold email, Facebook groups. Let that.

Nathan Latka

07:00I'm gonna me you up, but I just wanna get the story here. So you you launched in 2018 on Upwork. You did $20,000 in sales. You've been selling opportunity. You moved yourself off Upwork, launched revastaff, and you did approximately 40 k in 2019 and $120,000 in 2020.

OJ Lopez

07:15>> That's right.

Nathan Latka

07:15I see. What do you think you'll do here in 2021?

OJ Lopez

07:19>> We're we're we we project about a 100 250, but then with the new client coming in, as I've said, we we triple our our our our headcount overnight.

Nathan Latka

07:29We're How many

07:30with DPA?

OJ Lopez

07:33>> What's that again?

Nathan Latka

07:34What's headcount today?

OJ Lopez

07:36>> We have about 30 freelancers on our platform.

Nathan Latka

07:39How many are full time employees building REVAstaff?

OJ Lopez

07:43>> Every everything is is contractor, but about about 20 of them are working full time, but, they are considered contractor, not as full time employees.

Nathan Latka

07:51Okay. How many of the 20 are engineers?

OJ Lopez

07:54>> We have one CTO and one guy helping him out. So just a couple.

Nathan Latka

07:59So okay. So what are what are the team people on the team doing if they're not engineering?

OJ Lopez

08:04>> They're the ones doing the work. Photoshop and doing No.

Nathan Latka

08:07No. Don't include the marketplace. That'd be like Uber calling all their drivers employees, which is not the case. I'm just curious. How many people are on your team building REVAstaff? Not the editors, not the photographers. Right. Right. Right.

OJ Lopez

08:18>> Gotcha. So so we have one CTO and then one guy helping him out, a product project manager kind of thing, and then a couple of VAs. So like four people.

Nathan Latka

08:29The four. Okay. Got it. That's great. And have you bootstrapped us or raised?

Bootstrapped and Seeking Capital

OJ Lopez

08:32>> Yeah. We've been bootstrapping. It's very hard to raise in The Philippines, man. So being on your show, hopefully, you would be able to get some American dollars coming over here.

Nathan Latka

08:41Why do you wanna raise capital?

OJ Lopez

08:44>> Well, the market is so huge. I mean, we're we're just serving about 2,000 realtors, and, there's about 2,000,000 realtors in The US, and we can leverage, obviously, what we have here in The Philippines because, you know, our our people are are are doing full time work and they are getting paid American dollars and it's still below minimum wage US. But here, it's like three times the minimum wage here. So it's uplifting their quality of life and

09:17>> we saw this opportunity that we've been able to scale this to many Filipinos, Vietnamese, people from India who can just go to the platform, have like a full time career just making photos and editing photos all day long and they will be able to have photo of life working from home and things like that. During the pandemic, we have people just saying, we are lifesavers. No. We got we got laid off from from our our our

09:49>> our companies, and then we have we saw this platform, and now we were able to take care of our families and things like that. So so given that opportunity, I I I would be good because we're already earning a 200 k, US and living in The Philippines. That's like, you know, we're living like kings. Right? But and and living by the beach and things like that. But seeing this this opportunity that this can really scale with

10:14>> also working with photography

How OJ Would Deploy $50,000

Nathan Latka

10:15I don't mean to cut you off, but again, I wanna get a lot in in a very short amount So of so if you did like, you had another $50,000 today, where would you spend it?

OJ Lopez

10:25>> Marketing.

Nathan Latka

10:27What specifically? Are you having ads or what?

OJ Lopez

10:30>> Yeah. Yeah. Ads and salespeople. So right now, it's just me. Just me, like, cold calling, closing deals. So maybe if if I would be able to duplicate myself, like, three OJs, then that would, you know

Nathan Latka

10:43What would that cost you in The Philippines to hire another OJ?

OJ Lopez

10:47>> I would start with probably just a thousand dollars a month for for somebody to to, like, do all those things that I can do.

Nathan Latka

10:56Yeah. I would look at doing this deal, but but let me ask you a question before I do this. If someone wrote you a $50,000 check, how much equity would you be willing to give them?

OJ Lopez

11:04>> We we we did ask we did like did a a Shark Tank show here in The Philippines, and we asked for 100 k for 10%.

Nathan Latka

11:14Okay. So so so value in the business at a million bucks, which seems fair. It's about four x revenue currently. Now did you deal there or no?

OJ Lopez

11:22>> No. No. Because they they wanted more and it's not it's not like a start up there. So that's why the the ecosystem here in The Philippines is not mature enough that they would want more equity on their side and, the deal was kinda like getting us a in house team of the real estate company, something like that. Yeah. Do the deal.

Nathan Latka

11:43OJ, I have you know, I I'm building Founderpath. You know, we're helping founders.

OJ Lopez

11:47>> But I wanna talk to you about that Founderpath.

Nathan Latka

11:49Yeah. I mean we've already we've already done deals with founders in Malaysia and The Philippines. I believe that if you're building a SaaS company, it doesn't matter if you're in Silicon Valley or the beach in The Philippines. A SaaS company is a SaaS company. I love what you're building. So the way we think about a deal like yours is we would take your monthly recurring revenue, $15,000, multiply times three, so it's about $45,000. If you go

12:13to founderpath.com today and sign up, we could essentially get you that in under under a day. So I'd love to look at that. We don't take any equity. I mean, sounds like on the valuation you just asked for, you'd be willing to give me 5% of the business for fifty grand. I'd give you 50 k. You'd have to pay it back over a year, I would take no equity.

OJ Lopez

12:27>> Wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Definitely. We're gonna do that deal.

Nathan Latka

12:29Alright. Well, let's talk we'll talk

12:31more about it after the show. So you hire sales people to scale you. How do you sign up more? Are the editors all fully booked right now? Do you need to onboard more editors or no?

Editor Supply Side Is Solved via Facebook

OJ Lopez

12:42>> Yeah. Well, the market is actually just a Facebook group. There's a lot of editors out there just looking for jobs. So if we have like overflow work, I would be spammed by editors just asking for work. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

12:53Okay.

12:54Great. So you you really that side of the marketplace is solved. You really need to get more photographers in the real estate space using your platform.

OJ Lopez

13:02>> That's right. Most most photographers, especially the ones that are starting it out, they would want to edit their own photos. But, we we want to tell them that, no, you could actually get more work and just outsource editing. So if you if they are doing like one or two house a day, and they could get like four or five and and, you know, get rid of all the back end stuff and have REVAstaff take care of

13:24>> that for them.

Nathan Latka

13:25How many of the 20 photographers put at least one picture or floor plan through you each month for like the past six months? In other words, is it sticky? Do they keep using you?

OJ Lopez

13:35>> Yeah. Yeah. Every time that a photographer would use us,

13:40>> they would use us at first, they would use us for floor plans because they wanna edit their own photos, and then they

Nathan Latka

13:46would My question is though, is it sticky? Are they coming back every month and giving you new floor plans and new photos?

OJ Lopez

13:52>> Yeah. For sure. For sure. So we just started with, as I said, one photographer, then five, then 10, then right now it's about 20.

Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions

Nathan Latka

13:59Amazing. Okay. You're going something special, man. Let's let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, favorite business book?

OJ Lopez

14:07>> I will go old school, E-Myth.

Nathan Latka

14:09Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

OJ Lopez

14:14>> Right now, it's gonna be Elon Musk.

Nathan Latka

14:17Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building revastaff?

OJ Lopez

14:21>> Revastaff.com.

Nathan Latka

14:23Besides your own?

OJ Lopez

14:26>> Dropbox.

Nathan Latka

14:27Number four, how many hours of sleep do you have every night?

OJ Lopez

14:31>> Seven to eight.

Nathan Latka

14:32And what's your situation? Married, single, kids?

OJ Lopez

14:35>> Wife, two kids.

Nathan Latka

14:37Very cool. And how old are you?

OJ Lopez

14:39>> I'm 35.

14:40>> 35.

Nathan Latka

14:41Last question. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20?

OJ Lopez

14:44>> I was 20 that everything will be okay.

Nathan Latka

14:48Guys, he started on Upwork, did $20,000 in revenue in 2018, helping real estate agents edit their floor plans and their pictures. He then built his own platform, revastaff.com, did the $120,000 in 2020, on track to 250 k this year in 2021, has about 20 photographers that are spending on average $75 per month on the platform. So $15,000 in MRR, ask for a $100,000 for 10% of the business ultimately turned down. We'll see if we can get

15:14a deal done on Founderpath. OJ, thanks for taking us to the top.

OJ Lopez

15:18>> Thanks, Nathan. Appreciate it.

Nathan Latka

15:21One 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

15:45central. 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

16:06fundraise, a big sale, a big profitability statement, or something else. I don't want you to miss it. Additionally, if you wanna take this conversation deeper and further, we have by far the largest private Slack community for B2B SaaS founders. You wanna 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

16:27that 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. 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 gotta push

16:46them away. Click the thumbs up below to counter them and know that I appreciate your guys' support. Alright. I'll be in the comments. See you.