Aloha (formerly Review Wave) Revenue (2024)

[00:00] Please help me in giving Matt Preydos from Review Wave a warm round of applause. [00:08] Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. This will be your mic. We'll grab a seat for you. Get up here. Get Get you featured. Alright. So talk first. Guys who knows about Review Wave. Have you used the product. You've seen the product. You've heard about it. Okay. How would you describe Review Wave. Do you know this guy. [00:27] New customer? [00:30] >> Nope. [00:31] Alright. [00:33] We go. [00:33] >> Yeah. [00:33] Perfect. [00:33] >> Yeah. You won't find our customers here because this is our new SaaS founder. Our product is definitely not for the SaaS market. It's for doctors. So So [00:42] tell us more about that. [00:43] Yeah, what's the product do? [00:44] Review Wave, doctors. [00:45] >> Sure, so about six years ago, I was running a digital marketing agency and did an analysis of all our clients, who was getting the most new patients, I found who had the most reviews got the most new patients, because we were using the same website, the same ads, all this kind of stuff. And so it literally started as a little side hustle, let's just show them how to get reviews, coaching didn't work, everything, went into technology, [01:06] >> it was manual that kind of worked, but then we automated it by connecting to the electronic health records that they already use, which you've heard that strategy over the last couple days, integrating into their stack, it was magic. We just automatically started asking the reviews, reviews came in, they got more new patients, and you know, that was the kind of the moment we're onto something. We've certainly grown way beyond just asking for reviews. We're in a [01:30] >> complete patient engagement engine, online scheduling, appointment reminders, automated campaigns. You know, it's it's a beast now. [01:39] Well, vertical integration is beautiful. Now everyone wants to I don't know about you guys, but some people my age, us millennials, they wake up in their bed and the first thing they look at is Snapchat on their phone or Instagram. Me, it's the Stripe dashboard. It's always the Stripe dashboard. It's did I sell while I was sleeping? And then I have a good day if you sell. Everyone wants to wake up and see this on their [01:55] Stripe dashboard. So what are we looking at right here? What does 25.53 in gross volume look like? [02:00] >> Yeah. So I mean, as you can see, it's it's not the hockey stick yet. We're we're still in the small, you know, upward tick, but it's doing the the hard things over and over again, consistently growing. We've doubled year over year every year for the first five years. And, you know, that's what it looks like. And it got us to, you know, the these different graphs. I'm not a big graph guy. I'm actually in PowerPoint jail [02:23] >> right now. Nathan had to walk me through because I don't do decks. [02:27] I'm like, Matt, you have such a fucking good story, but this deck is just not gonna work. Just let me do a deck and let me just interview you. And he was game. You're letting us do it. So that's good. [02:35] >> So, I mean I mean, I'm just I I'm an operator. I don't go around. I don't speak on stages. You know, literally Nathan asked me to speak and I was like, no. I'm I'm actually not gonna come. I just archived that email. I was like, I got too much shit going on. I went home that night and then I felt guilty because I've been exactly where you guys are in these seats and needing to hear one [02:54] >> or two nuggets that will allow you to go home and do something that'll change your business. So, I guilted myself into coming. Had no time to be here. Literally was he was trying to get me to do this deck while I was on my twenty five year wedding anniversary in Laguna Beach. I was [03:07] like I look really bad now. I look so bad now. Okay. But okay. So let's tap into that guilt. Right? What are those things where you're like, man, I really gotta tell these founders these couple of things about our early days? [03:18] >> Yeah. So, I mean, there's so many lessons that you learn from different stages. Right? You know, in the beginning, you know, when you're just trying to, you know, make any kind of money from, you know, like zero to a 100 clients, you have to just be on top of everything. Right? That we've come to learn was wartime. Like that was the wartime CEO in me where it's like, you know, you're screaming to get stuff done, like [03:40] >> you're breaking everything. Like systems don't matter at that point, just getting a result matters. And then, you know, you evolve into, you know, having more people and and then you have to have systems and training systems. You know, think one of the biggest realizations, you know, in the last year that I've had is whoever starts with you is typically not gonna finish with you. And that's something that most people don't talk about and they don't tell [04:02] >> you, so you're not emotionally prepared for that it happens. So if you have people that you're really close with that have started this company, that been with you for a while, you know, life changes and sometimes they leave. [04:11] And so Wait, Matt. Let's dive deep there for a second. So all of you guys think about your original cap tables from however many years ago, the original founders. Just raise your hand if you had some sort of well, it's not dramatic. I won't call on you to, like, throw your old cofounder under the bus because they won't let you buy back their equity. But just raise your hand if you had some old cofounder or someone [04:27] that had equity where there was some kind of friction. Raise your hand high. This is, like, come to this is the Oprah moment of SaaS. Right? We're all together. Right? So what was your story? [04:35] >> Even just the cap table. Right? It's it's just it's also employees, you know. Had a had a gentleman who was with us from very, early on, and he was with us for over three years. And, you know, had a life change where, you know, got a girlfriend. She was a while a ways away. He wanted to work remote. We said, absolutely not. We are not remote first. We're remote we're remote never. I hate that business model. [05:00] >> But, you know, so then he got mad at us and, you know, put in his notice like, I'm gonna leave. And we said, cool. You know, you can stay as long as you continue producing. And he just stopped doing good work. Right? He started slacking on how he handled clients and caused some upsets. [05:14] Matt, what's context here? How big was the team size when this particular thing happened? [05:17] >> He started with us when we had, like, seven people and, I mean, he got let go this year and we're, you know, over 70 people now. [05:25] Seven. [05:26] And was he leading some VP of revenue, some critical [05:27] >> He he high up in our support team. Support team? He great. He was he did great work for while he was here. I mean, literally, I had him over at my house every Thanksgiving for three years, you know, like, he he was part of the family. Right? But life changed and he had to exit and then I'll tell you what, he didn't like us on Glassdoor. Glassdoor's a Somebody needs to start a review site for employees. [05:52] >> I know it's illegal so we can't do it, but can you imagine if you got to look at the reviews from employers about employees before you hired them? Because man, the things they say about us. [06:01] That's an aim that's that's an amen moment. Someone's gotta start that. There's a biz there's a billion dollar business in here. Someone's gotta just build that and go to town. Yeah. Okay. So talk to me before we get into actual doctors, pricing, packaging, things like that, what any co founders? What did your cap table look like on day one? [06:18] >> I owned a 100%. [06:20] You still own a 100%? [06:21] >> No. [06:22] Okay. So what happened? You didn't raise though, right? Bootstrap? [06:23] >> Yeah. [06:24] >> So I mean certain, you know, key employees and and whatnot. We did have one small, like early early, you know, 150 k from, Angel at that point was a strategic kind of deal, but, we've never spent the money. It's been in the bank the whole time. It did allow us to, you know, tell people we had money in the bank. So made a few hires easier, but but now we've, I'm a 100%, you know, bootstrap guy. [06:43] >> We've never had a burn rate. I couldn't sleep at night having a burn rate. I would just go nuts. [06:49] That's amazing. Okay. So how are you able to do that? If we go back to your revenue growth here, were you pre selling contracts in 2018 to 2020? Like what was the average price point these doctors were paying you per year? [06:58] >> Yeah. So we started at $99 a month and I hate annual prepays, so we never did them. So we literally, and we were free trials. So first for, first thirty days was free, and then it was $99 a month on a month to month kind of contract. And we've over the, you know, six years moved that from a 99 starting point to two ninety nine, three ninety nine, four ninety nine, and with another 300 available add [07:22] >> ons. So we definitely pushed the, you know, go up market scenario there. [07:26] I was gonna say, so on this screen right now, everyone's seeing you're spending $1,800 to get these doctors as customers, but the average initial ACV is about what today? [07:35] >> I mean, you know, you've got 35,000 is what our, you know, guys calculated, but in reality, at our growth rate, half of our customers came on in the last eighteen months. So you can't even I mean, can't really get an LTV when they've only been with you for, you know, one to eighteen months because but at the end of the day, is our is our CAC on there? [07:53] >> No. It's not. [07:54] Yeah. It churn is though. [07:55] >> So, you know, point seven six. So less than 1% logo churn month over month. So they're not going anywhere. They stay with us. [08:01] What do you guys care about more? When you guys run your monthly financials, do you care more about a really healthy LTV to CAC ratio or a very fast payback period? [08:11] If you care more about payback period, raise your hand. A quick payback period. Instant cash payback, raise your hand. Okay. And then hands down. So is everyone else on the other side? Other side? Yeah. I mean, the the tricky thing I see is you see folks that do what probably your CFO did for this deck, which is take your monthly churn, do one divided by monthly churn, and they get a number of months of LTV, then [08:31] multiply by your ARPU, which is how you get 35,000 LTV. Yep. The problem is if it takes you twenty four months to get the money back, you have to raise capital to do that. How do you cover the burn? So how do you get your money back so Yeah. [08:41] >> So I mean, we are 18% profit rates right now. So we've got plenty of money to scale. Certainly, as we find new channels and do different things, and if we start to lose that, you know, profit margin, then we would have to raise. But we have not to date had to raise. [08:57] So just to be clear, you just broke recently $1,000,000 in monthly revenue and MRR. And so you're talking about $180,000 a month to the bottom line. And so as a founder that's generating cash flow, how do you personally think about that in terms of wealth management? Do you put it back in the business? Do you diversify into real estate, crypto, God forbid, or anything else? [09:14] >> I mean, I gambled a little bit in crypto. That'd go well. But but, I mean, yeah, real estate, you know, different funds that have preferred returns and and things like that. Try to be on the safe side on that. But I look at my business as what will create my total wealth and then any of the investments is more of just like, keep it keep it safe, keep it protected over there, but, know, takes take some [09:33] >> off the table. I still invest in the business, so, you know, it's I could take a lot more if I try it. [09:38] So the what you guys are looking at now is actually the slide deck that Matt said he sort of put together, and I didn't dig deeper in asking Matt via email. Well, what's the slide deck for? But it looks like you're trying to do something now because you put your slides together in beautiful story. So what's happening now? Are you looking to raise? [09:53] >> So we're we're toying with the idea. So depending on where you guys are at, I mean, probably get hit with all the emails. Hey, you know, would it be helpful if we met, you know, even if you're not looking to raise, you know, the the typical There's there's one guy who trains all these guys how to how to send an email, because it's the same template. But, it's like right when you hit 200 k a month, [10:12] >> there's some API they have into Stripe that just tells them start sending those emails to that guy, right? But no, so I I actually started taking those calls just to see what's what. Right? I I didn't go to school for any financial stuff. I walked out of college after six weeks. I'm a sales and marketing guy. I've never been in the VC world. I've never played there. So once we started to get success, was like, well, [10:34] >> what are these guys about? What are they gonna talk about? You know, what are they gonna look at? And so I actually used them, three times in the last three and a half years to dissect our business and tell me what's wrong with it. Right? They're all gonna be, you know, like, oh, your business is so great, right up until the point where you're like, give me money. And then they wanna tell you what everything that's [10:54] >> wrong with your business. And so you wanna get to a term sheet. You don't wanna just have the nice talks because that's where they're like buttering you up. Right? That's the the pre Tinder date or whatever, not the like, let's go home part of Tinder. They they're they're drastically changed. So get to the point where they drastically change because all of us as founders have inflated ideas of what our businesses are worth. Thanks to Qualtrics selling [11:15] >> for like 22 times revenue and whatnot. Right? So everybody's like, oh, this is guaranteed 10x. Well, not in today's market. Like the economy right now, everybody's puckering up. It's like seven times revenue is is where they wanna kinda max out at. Right? So you gotta know and and you gotta know what they're not gonna like about you. And start to understand. I mean, if you only dated once and got married, did you marry the right person? [11:38] >> I don't know. Like, you get out there and meet some people. Right? So that was kind of my theory on taking these calls. And I didn't design this deck. I paid somebody to do it. [11:45] It looks great. It looks great. Yeah. So I mean, this is an important part of any deck, whether you're raising debt or equity as the slide that you're looking at right here, is positions you guys beautifully because of how capital efficient you've been. So, I mean, have you put this into practice? Have you been on calls and presented this yet? What's the response been [12:01] >> Yeah. So we sent this out, the beginning of summer, which, note take the note, don't ever try to raise during summer. Everybody's on vacation. Nobody wants to, like, make meetings and stuff, so it's very hard to get VC firms to do anything during that time. But, yeah. No. We sent it out to everybody who basically reached out ever to us to just get some feedback, see what the deal was. That was, you know, probably 40 different [12:22] >> firms. From that, we ended up in 30 different, conversations. And, from that, we got down to, like, three basic term sheets and, you know, and then we actually signed one and started letting them do diligence to see, you know, what would happen. And I ended up kinda like not liking them, kinda pulling back a bit. [12:43] Was it them or the terms? [12:44] >> Them. So personally them. [12:45] Yeah. [12:46] >> Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, there's lots of money out there, but it's like, who's giving you the money and what else are they giving you besides money? And funny enough, they gave me some references of people they did deals with, and so I called them and one of them was like, dude, just so you know, they're only money. I was like, wow, this is their reference? That wasn't very good for them, but, [13:08] >> so, you know, if I'm gonna, you know, bring somebody on and they're gonna get to take this ride from 10 to 50,000,000 with us over the next couple years, I want somebody who's gonna contribute more than just the money because I, you know, I don't need the money right now. [13:20] And you also have great leverage. So talk about what you're asking for here. No. Maybe you're not asking for it. It sounds like you withdrew, but what were you asking for? [13:27] >> Yeah. So, I mean, we were looking at, you know, pretty much a $150,000,000 valuation, 20% deal, 50% for secondary, which is where you take it off the table and then 50% to leave on the books. So we were gonna take that 15,000,000. We've got a short list of some companies that we wanna acquire to go into other verticals and, you know, as a go to market strategy in other verticals. [13:47] Does anyone have any questions on that? Just the structure of the ask. I mean, I again, I don't mind when founders go raise equity if there's a massive secondary component because you and then you're getting rich. Right? That's fantastic. You don't have to wait for, you know, an IPO to, you know, build wealth. So does anyone have questions on the ask and how he structured the deal? Just yell yell it out. I don't yeah. Chris, Chris [14:04] person yeah. Go ahead. [14:06] At what point does it make sense to look at taking money off the table? [14:11] >> It's a great question. [14:13] So repeat it real quick. [14:14] >> So at what point does it make sense to take money off the table? At the end of the day, it's a personal question. You know, how much are you, know, giving up? How much are you getting now? You know, there's some derisking factors. But at the end of the day, if I wait two years, you know, instead of this valuation, if, you know, we get to, you know, five x from where we are, what did I [14:35] >> lose by taking it now? You know, I'm not gonna make that up in an investment. Right? So it's a hard personal choice, know, I mean, you've heard a lot of different things over the last two days about how people did things and there's no one answer that's right for anybody, right? Somebody was like, bootstrapping is is trying to break even at the end of every year and like, I don't believe in that. Like, give me my [14:54] >> money. I want some money now. So I take chips off the table every single month. Right? I take distributions, while growing the business at a very rapid pace, etcetera. But, you know, so it's it's all personal choice. [15:06] And, I mean, we talk about distributions again, you said earlier 18%, right? So you're effectively taking distributions for anything you don't want leave in the business at the end of the month. Yep. Yep. Yeah. So, and then, I mean, I'll add on to this on the secondary stuff. A lot of VCs, like if this is your this would be your first round, right? Yeah. So but like let's say you do a small round, they will always [15:26] look at the prior term sheet. So if you've if you've already set precedents that you do a small secondary already, it's way easier to get a bigger one the next time. So like I would argue as soon as you can ask for, even if you're only raising a million bucks, just get a 100 K, create the pattern in your legal history and your legal docs that you're gonna ask for that. It makes it easier in the [15:43] future. This is some something that I've seen. So so we'll see. Now did these guys that you really liked agree to these terms before you pulled out from for personal reasons? [15:51] >> We didn't quite get the full, 150 ask, but the rest of the terms, yes. [15:54] Okay. Andre, do you have a question? [15:56] >> Same question. So if someone's at 2,000,000 ARR, growing 70% year over year, could they get a secondary done? [16:05] >> 2,000,020. I mean, it depends how much you wanna take off the table. So what we found is because we were only willing to do like a 20% deal, they weren't getting as much skin in the game. They didn't really like they don't love the secondary amount even though they all say on their website they love giving you liquidity. They don't. They want you to be, you know, tied to the to the game and, you know, not [16:23] >> go off and and be distracted. So, it it depends and you probably get more favorable secondary if you do more than 20%. That was probably one of the hardest parts of our ask is where, you know, they had a lot of problem with that. [16:35] I do think I want touch on one thing here because I don't know where else you would get this if it wasn't here. Did you get into tax consequences of the secondary and how to process it? And if so, you know, how did you think about doing that if you did close it? So let me give you two options. [16:48] >> Pay a lot of fucking taxes. [16:50] Yeah. Well, so two big options, right? Did you decide to go the route of having that 15,000,000 go into the company first and the company repurchasing your shares? Or was it the investor buying your shares directly and then which you have common and then they auto convert the common to preferred in this round? Yeah. The latter. The latter. [17:07] >> Yeah. [17:07] That's what most do, but it's a little harder to negotiate. Why did you decide on the latter versus the company buyback route? [17:15] >> I actually didn't even look at the company buyback route. You know, I just again, I don't play in the in the venture world. So I'm I look at things, what's the simplest thing? Like, I have shares, you're gonna buy them, I'm gonna take the money. Then that was just kind of the thing. Nobody brought it up. So is it is there some tax advantage to that strategy? [17:32] How many people are in The US? US headquarters? [17:36] >> Yeah. So, [17:37] now the name is gonna totally escape me. What's the program where it's $10,000,000? It's sheltered. There you go. If you do a secondary so what QSBS is, if you hold your shares, your C corp, your shares more than five years, and then you sell for $10,000,000, effectively, can shelter that $10,000,000 as the founder. However, if you do a secondary above a certain amount and take money off the table, it can kill your QSBS eligibility. [18:03] So you wanna make sure if you do do a secondary before five years, you don't screw up your QSBS eligibility because when you do sell for whatever you end up selling for one day, you know, a billion dollars, if you have kids and set up trusts, you can actually use the QSBS 10,000,000, not just one time for your own, but trust for your kid, your wife, and I've seen people do this with $60,000,000, $70,000,000 bucks. So you [18:21] don't wanna lose that tax shelter. [18:23] >> So I I tried to start looking at like how do I do all this tax planning stuff and what I found is it consumed more of my head and time where I couldn't run the business the way I wanted. And finally, was just like screw it. I'll just pay the taxes because I'm gonna grow the business so much bigger, faster that it's just not worth screwing around. [18:39] That's probably the right approach. I just don't like writing a $5,000,000 check to the government, you know. Cool. Let's talk about one last thing because I think this is pretty freaking cool. Your cofounder is your wife, it's working. You've been together for twenty five years. Twenty five What's working? The the appropriate stuff you can talk about. [18:56] >> You know, business, marriage, whatever, there's gonna be ups, there's gonna be downs, you gotta be able to, you know, take the good with the bad. You gotta keep pushing through, and, you know, admire when things don't go your way and figure out how to make them go your way. [19:11] That's The ultimate question is, does does Kirsten own 51% or do you own 51%? [19:16] >> Technically, it's in my name, but in California, in marriage, that, like, it's equal. [19:20] Very very cool. Okay. So it's cool. Now now in terms of the background here too, were you both doctors first, software second, or were one of you software first? [19:28] >> Neither of us are doctors. Okay. I walked out of college after six weeks, never went back. She never even went to college. We have no degrees. We have no, you know, reason to be in the position we are in, and we just did it because I don't give a fuck about the rules. [19:43] I love that. Alright. Let's wrap up here with two things. One, what you're reading and then where you're giving back because this was important to you in our email exchange. So let's talk about books first. [19:52] >> Yeah. So, you know, I mean, I've spent probably a $250,000 in the last ten years on my education. So I didn't go to college college, but I, you know, I've joined, you know, masterminds, you know, everything from Dan Kennedy to Frank Kern to Dan Martell, know, all great experiences. But it's amazing at what you can get out of books. So, you know, every sing every single founder should be reading, you know, a book, to four books [20:15] >> every single month, right? You know, what you do is who you are was absolutely amazing, if you haven't read that. Never lose a customer again, we actually give that book to every single one of our customers, because what we do is based on never losing a customer and having a good patient experience, those kind of things. Every single one of our, customer support people read that book as the second book that they read. The first book [20:35] >> they read is How to Win Friends and Influence People. That's the, ultimate book that any team should be, you know, reading and and helps build a culture that, you know, can like each other over a long period of time. [20:45] Important. Anyone else you wanna shine light on or these these are the ones? [20:48] >> These are the main top ones. [20:50] >> Everything on here is amazing. You know, there's there's so much here, and so much not even here, you know, I was in Dan Kennedy's mastermind. He said to me, he's like, look, you can buy everything I've ever written for $219. Anything you spend above that is just to be closer to me. And, I mean, I've literally paid, you know, $20,000 to go to his house for the day, you know, I've I've to be close to him [21:13] >> and and have those conversations and stuff. But it isn't There's so much in those books and and I wouldn't be where I am today without them. [21:20] Andre, fire one question, we'll wrap up with donations here. [21:22] One question. Great. [21:23] >> Great topic. Love it. Took 10 pages of notes. But when you recommend a book for your employees Yeah. Monday, they read it, or do you just recommend it? Said, here's the book. So we actually pay them fifteen minutes a day to read and encourage them to read more. You know if they read it, I do it like 8% learning time and I have no clue. So it's all over the board. Know, they'll go [21:46] >> through periods of doing it and then they'll go through periods of not doing it. Then, you know, at our, you know, kind of monthly town halls, I'll read excerpts of them and I'll talk about, you know, different things to try and encourage them to read. But not all of them read and not all of them stay. [22:01] Nice. I wonder if there's a correlation between. Alright, Matt. Take us home here. You some of these organizations are very close to your heart. Tell us why. [22:09] >> Yeah. So, I mean, donations, tips, all these things, you know, I feel like it's important as you get to any kind of successful level to keep the economy going and and help people who, you know, maybe can't help themselves. And so there's a ton of different things that we've done. Operation Underground Railroad, they help with human trafficking victims. NEGU is actually local in Orange County, provides joy jars, which are basically jars of toys to kids battling [22:36] >> cancer. We even took our entire team over their headquarters and packed jars over there, had a great team building event there. But, you know, any you know, I mean, well, I was born on Camp Pendleton. Both my parents were marines. The the USO deal, you know, we got 20 soldiers that were deployed to be able to record a bedtime story for their kids back home. You know, so just, you know, there's people doing things to create [22:56] >> the environment that give us the life that we have and what we can do as founders. And I feel like it's very important to give back. And, you know, not only in these donation things, but like tipping, you know, you'll find the more you invest in the people that you see on a day to day basis, you I talk about it as putting deposits in your staff or deposits just in people that are gonna be around [23:17] >> you. You know, we went we go to the sushi place all the time, and I could see the waiter was just having a bad day one day. And I mean, our bill was, like, $60. It wasn't much, but I tipped him a $100. And the next time we came back, which was like two months later, it was a long time, he came running from the other corner over, like hugging my wife. He thought she did it, [23:34] >> not me. But like, you know, he was so excited to see us back. And now literally every time we go there, he's like whipping the staff, like, hey, make sure they sit right away. Hey, where's their food? Why isn't it on time? Like, it'll change the way that people interact with you. So invest in as many people in your life as you can, and they'll invest back. [23:51] Guys, that note, talk about a well rounded founder. Guys, give it up for Matt Preydos at Review Wave.