Founder Interview
How SaaStock Grew from €350K to £2.9M Revenue and 3,000 Attendees Before COVID (Interview with CEO Alex Theuma)
- Interview Date
- August 18, 2022
- Interviewee
- Alex TheumaCEO
Company Metrics at Interview Time
Revenue (2016)
€350,000
Revenue (2019)
£2,900,000
Attendees (2019)
3,000
Historical Snapshot
These numbers were reported by Alex Theuma during the interview recorded in August 2022 and are a historical snapshot, not current figures. See SaaStock’s current numbers.

Key Takeaways
- 01SaaStock held its first conference in September 2016, attracting 700 founders from 34 countries
- 02Total revenue in 2016 was €350,000, split roughly 50/50 between ticket sales and sponsorships
- 03Revenue grew to over 1,000,000 in 2017, the second year of the conference
- 04Attendees nearly doubled from 700 in 2016 to approximately 1,400 in 2017
- 05By 2019, SaaStock had 3,000 attendees and £2,900,000 in revenue
- 062019 expenses were approximately £2,200,000, leaving the event profitable
- 07SaaStock signed a three-year production partnership with Catapult worth over £1,500,000
- 08The 2022 Dublin event targets 5,000 attendees with roughly 75 to 80 main-hall partners and 150 startup program companies
- 09SaaStock launched a Founder Membership peer group program targeting B2B SaaS founders from zero to $10,000,000 ARR
- 10The team had 17 people as of 2022
Company Metrics at Time of Interview
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Year Founded | 2016 | Founder interview, Aug 2022 |
| Revenue (2016) | €350,000 | Founder interview, Aug 2022 |
| Attendees (2016) | 700 | Founder interview, Aug 2022 |
| Sponsors (2016) | Over 30 | Founder interview, Aug 2022 |
| Revenue (2017) | Over 1,000,000 | Founder interview, Aug 2022 |
| Attendees (2017) | Approximately 1,400 | Founder interview, Aug 2022 |
| Revenue (2019) | £2,900,000 | Founder interview, Aug 2022 |
| Attendees (2019) | 3,000 | Founder interview, Aug 2022 |
| Expenses (2019) | Approximately £2,200,000 | Founder interview, Aug 2022 |
| Production Partnership Value (Catapult, 3-year) | Over £1,500,000 | Founder interview, Aug 2022 |
| Team Size (2022) | 17 | Founder interview, Aug 2022 |
Growth Breakdown
Revenue
SaaStock launched in 2016 with €350,000 in revenue split evenly between ticket sales and sponsorships. By 2017 revenue exceeded 1,000,000, and by 2019 it reached £2,900,000 with the revenue mix shifting to roughly a 70/30 split in favor of sponsorships as the event scaled.
Attendees and Customers
The first event drew 700 founders from 34 countries. Attendance nearly doubled to approximately 1,400 in 2017 and reached 3,000 in 2019. The 2022 Dublin event targets 5,000 attendees, combining roughly 2,500 to 2,800 paid tickets, over 1,000 partner tickets, speakers, media passes, and 10 to 15 percent complimentary or scholarship tickets.
Team
SaaStock had 17 team members as of the time of this interview in 2022. Alex Theuma noted he was the sole salesperson until the company crossed 1,000,000 in revenue, at which point the first sales hire was made.
Profitability and Funding
SaaStock has operated as a bootstrapped business. The 2016 event ran at a loss due to overinvestment in production, but the company reached profitability by 2019 when expenses of approximately £2,200,000 were covered by £2,900,000 in revenue. The company diversified into a Founder Membership subscription product to reduce reliance on the flagship annual conference.
Growth Strategy
Early Sponsorship Sales as Seed Capital
Alex Theuma used upfront sponsorship commitments as working capital, signing partners like ChartMogul up to twelve months before the event and collecting cash eleven months in advance. This allowed SaaStock to build on customer revenue rather than outside funding.
Outbound Sales by the Founder
With eleven years of sales experience, Theuma personally ran daily outbound outreach to land sponsors in the early years. He credited this hands-on approach with securing over 30 sponsors in the first year and doubling that number in 2017.
Scaling the Sponsor Tier Structure
SaaStock developed tiered sponsorship packages and learned over time that speaking slots were more valued by sponsors than complimentary tickets. Balancing editorial integrity with sponsor speaking opportunities became a key operational discipline.
Venue Strategy for Long-Term Scale
By choosing the RDS in Dublin rather than more expensive London venues, Theuma kept initial costs manageable and secured a venue capable of hosting up to 40,000 attendees, giving SaaStock room to grow without relocating.
Founder Membership for Recurring Revenue
SaaStock launched a peer group membership product targeting B2B SaaS founders from zero to $10,000,000 ARR, offering monthly masterminds, networking events, expert workshops, and an annual retreat. This diversifies revenue beyond the single annual conference model.
Best Quotes
“It was 2016. September 2016 was the first SaaStock. We pretty much worked on it for a for a whole year, twelve months of period. I had no prior conference experience, but having set up a a SaaS blog and podcast, SaaS Revolution Show, then done some local SaaS meetups and looking for that entrepreneurial thing to do.”
“given twelve months to work on a single event, you know, I spent a lot of time, you know, doing their like grafting to get 700 founders from, think, like 34 countries to the first conference.”
“I got a quote of €10,000 and I only had to put 1,000 down. Right. And I was like, I can do that. And then, you know, with the rest of it, you obviously, I'll just, you know, sell tickets and I'll sell sponsorship and it'll cover my costs.”
“I was the first sales guy in the business until we got over 1,000,000 in revenue and then we made our first hire.”
“This is like €350,000 roughly.”
“2019, 3,000. Yeah.”
“It was 2,900,000. This is like in in sterling, pound sterling.”
“SaaStock is seven years old now, but for three years we've actually not been able to run our flagship conference and our main primary driver of revenue.”
“What we're building with the SaaStock Founder Membership is we're trying to build, you know, the world's leading support organization with B2B SaaS founders. So it's a bit like a YPO or an EO for SaaS, but very, it's purely focused on B2B SaaS founders that are on their journey from zero to 10,000,000.”
What Happened Next
This interview captured SaaStock in August 2022 as it prepared to return to its flagship Dublin conference after a three-year COVID hiatus, targeting 5,000 attendees in October of that year. The figures here reflect what Alex Theuma reported at that point in time and are not current. Visit the SaaStock company profile on GetLatka for the latest available data on revenue, team size, and growth.
View SaaStock’s current profile and metricsFull Transcript
Chapters
- 0:00Intro and Founder500 Event Promo
- 0:48Introducing Alex Theuma and SaaStock
- 1:26Origin Story: First SaaStock in 2016
- 2:59Choosing the RDS Dublin Venue and Early Costs
- 6:58First Sponsors: ChartMogul and ProfitWell
- 8:502016 Revenue and Ticket-Sponsor Split
- 11:212017 Growth: Attendees, Sponsors, and Revenue
- 11:57Lessons Learned Selling Sponsorships
- 16:192019: 3,000 Attendees and £2.9M Revenue
- 18:01Expenses, Production Partner Catapult, and Venue Costs
- 19:422022 Event: 5,000 Attendee Target and Ticket Mix
- 21:24SaaStock Founder Membership Peer Group
- 22:58Spotlight on Expandi and Closing Remarks
- 23:33Discount Code and Outro
Intro and Founder500 Event Promo
Nathan Latka
00:00Hey guys, recording this here on what is it? Friday the nineteenth. Maybe you're seeing this on Monday at the latest, but wanna let you know we are almost sold out for Foundercomp Sorry, Founder500 in Austin, Texas here in about a week. It's gonna be an amazing event. 500 B2B SaaS founders. I'm looking at the attendee list. There's almost 60 founders with more than $67,000,000 in ARR. It's an incredible group of group. There's over one and fifty
00:27with more than 1,000,000, more than a million revenue. It's an incredible group. You don't wanna miss it. Grab your hotel, grab your flight, grab a ticket right now. I'll put the link in the bio, in the description here on YouTube. And I think there's only about three tickets left. Okay, about three tickets left. I'd love to see you guys there. Don't be bashful. Grab your ticket now. Hey, folks. My guest today is Alex Theuma. Usually, I
Introducing Alex Theuma and SaaStock
Nathan Latka
00:48read off a thing and I go, okay. What bio did they give me? But I can just speak from the heart with Alex, man. This thing started like, I met this guy. It's gotta be over four years ago at this point, and I learned I learned a couple things about Alex. Number one, a guy runs an incredible SaaS conference called SaaStock, which is coming up here shortly, October seventeenth and nineteenth in Dublin that you wanna
01:05check out. But never challenge this guy to any sort of beer drinking. He will not only drink you off the stage, he will dance you off the stage, he will sing you off the stage, he will take over the stage. Alex, are you ready to take us to the top?
Alex Theuma
01:16>> I'm ready, Nathan. I'm ready.
Nathan Latka
01:18Alright. So give us the quick background. Obviously, you've got the big event coming up here in about three or four weeks. But how did what year did you put on the first SaaStock?
Origin Story: First SaaStock in 2016
Alex Theuma
01:26>> Yeah. It was 2016. September 2016 was the first SaaStock. We pretty much worked on it for a for a whole year, twelve months of period. I had no prior conference experience, but having set up a a SaaS blog and podcast, SaaS Revolution Show, then done some local SaaS meetups and looking for that entrepreneurial thing to do. The community and the audience that I built sort of back then was saying like, why don't you do a
01:53>> SaaS conference? And I was looking for that entrepreneurial thing to do and it kind of all came together. Obviously the limiting factor was zero experience in conferences, which obviously was a big challenge. But, you know, I had that, I should say blind entrepreneur optimism that kind of said, well, it's not going to be rocket science and I'll be able to do it. But obviously I learned a lot of hard things along the way. But, you know,
02:17>> given twelve months to work on a single event, you know, I spent a lot of time, you know, doing their like grafting to get 700 founders from, think, like 34 countries to the first conference. And I'd say the rest was history. But, you know, there's a there's a
Nathan Latka
02:32lot of history, you know, in between that time. But that was the first one, 2016. We were joking before this. You know, we were talking about like, it's hard to run a VC fund. It's hard to run a SaaS company. Mean, I will tell you, I've had a SaaS company. Founderpath sorta it's not VC. Right? It's debt. We don't take equity. But, like, it's kinda the same. There's a fund we manage there. And then also, like,
02:49we now have, like, a mini event. Dude, events are maybe the hardest because of just the, like, the nature of the pressure. For example, in 2016, do you remember the initial check you had to write to reserve the space?
Choosing the RDS Dublin Venue and Early Costs
Alex Theuma
02:59>> Do you know what? It was super small initially, and I and I but I kind of got, I'm not so like hoodwinked into it or in terms of the strategy from the the particular venue. But, know, when I was looking in London, you know, as a Bootstrap Founder, I was being asked, you know, like looking at venues, they were like £80,000. I didn't have that sort of money and you had to put, you know, a good
03:23>> deposit down for that. So I ended up looking in Dublin, Ireland and we looked at the venue, which is the RDS, which is the same venue that Web Summit, you know, used to run at. And the last Web Summit was in 2015, 2016. They had 40,000 people there. So this venue has like real capacity to scale. And when I looked at this beautiful concert hall, which was the first sort of space that we were kind of
03:45>> like booking and Hall 3, I got a quote of €10,000 and I only had to put 1,000 down. Right. And I was like, I can do that. And then, you know, with the rest of it, you obviously, I'll just, you know, sell tickets and I'll sell sponsorship and it'll cover my costs. I think that 10,000 ended up being nearer to 40,000 by the time of the conference because you've got to pay for certain things that you
04:07>> just didn't really realize that were kind of there. And if you want to use, you know, any square inch of their property, you'll get charged for it. So there were a lot of things that I just wasn't aware of, and it ended
Nathan Latka
04:18up becoming quite expensive, certainly for the first time for me. 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
04:42access this in a second. But you log in, you connect 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
05:05on who's doing the buying of your SaaS company, you're gonna 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
05:28whole thing outright. Now what's cool about this is this is 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 three point seven 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
05:52a bunch that have been acquired the valuation and the multiple. Maybe you're 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,
06:17we're gonna go back to the YouTube video here in a second, but 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
06:42the platform. I hope to see you there. Alright. Let's jump back into the interview. Wait. So so, again, a lot guys, I think a lot of you guys are SaaS founders listening, thinking about launching your own user conferences. There's a lot to learn here from Alex. So, what were what were the 30 k and surprise costs you didn't anticipate?
First Sponsors: ChartMogul and ProfitWell
Alex Theuma
06:58>> Oh, oh my god. The list is as long as my arm. Like, one big surprise cost actually was I started selling selling sponsorships, and my first two sponsorships was the first one was to ChartMogul. The second one, and I kind of pre sold that one before the conference because Nick Franklin said, look, you know, if you do this conference, we'll sponsor it. And so as soon as I had a venue and as soon as I think
07:22>> I had the date before I had the website, I went to Nick and said, you said you would sponsor it. And he did. He kind of put his money where his mouth is. It was like €15,000 I think, something like that, which is pretty good. Right? And this is placing a bet on somebody that's never done anything like before. So it's a good bet. When we went live, you know, surprise, surprise. The first person that kind of
07:46>> contacted me then was Patrick Campbell from ProfitWell, ChartMogul's competitor. And we ended up doing the deal on Christmas Eve with PC. I'd sold Same all of same these $15?
Nathan Latka
07:59I think they paid a little bit less, a little bit of a discount.
Alex Theuma
08:01>> But Patrick was a hard negotiator. Yeah. And even doing the deal on Christmas Eve, was like, come on, it's Christmas. I need I need the day off. But I was I was grateful to get the deal done because obviously that gave me extra runway. However, getting to the point, I sold all these packages and silver and gold and etcetera. What I didn't realize was I was selling these booths and I didn't have had no idea what
08:23>> the cost of the booth was gonna be until like six months later. So actually on some of them, I'd lost money on some of the sponsorship deals that I made. So that was kind of a big real, you know, kind of kick in the teeth. And I tried in some cases to pass the cost on to the vendor, but in some cases they weren't, you know, amenable to that. So that was a bit of a learning.
08:45>> Certainly, maybe the biggest kind of like F up, I would say.
2016 Revenue and Ticket-Sponsor Split
Nathan Latka
08:50How many total sponsors did you end up with in 2016? Do you remember?
Alex Theuma
08:53>> You know, it was it was pretty good amount. I want to say it was like over 30. And we and the revenue was fifty-fifty with ticket sales for the first year. I think I had a good advantage in that I had eleven years sales experience. So, and like given that I was, let's say a solopreneur, you know, back at that time and very hungry and driven, know, I was every day doing outbound and, you know, we
09:22>> didn't get much inbound even though PC was an inbound, but I was just contacting everybody and, you know, managing to get some meetings and going out to meetings and closing deals. And yeah, so that, you know, that kind of really helps. So I was the first sales guy in the business until we got over 1,000,000 in revenue and then we made our first hire.
Nathan Latka
09:42Interesting. Sales hire that is.
Alex Theuma
09:44>> Yeah.
Nathan Latka
09:44Yeah. So, going back to 2016 real quick, what was total revenue?
Alex Theuma
09:49>> This is like €350,000 roughly.
Nathan Latka
09:52Okay. So, like 175 from ticket sales, 700 tickets, another 175 from 30 sponsors?
Alex Theuma
09:56>> Pretty much. Yeah. Pretty much.
Nathan Latka
09:58Interesting. And do you remember the- This must have been a celebration. You remember the largest sponsorship you sold in the first year?
Alex Theuma
10:06>> Oh, I remember the largest one we didn't sell, but I mean, the quick story there was obviously you've got these, you know, the different tiers, right? And you've got your top tiers, which is often like a diamond or I think back then it was platinum. We started at five ks and I think we went up to 60 for the first year and we had no takers for the 60, but at one point Workable kind of, you
10:30>> know, had a look around at this and they were thinking about being the lead sponsor, but I think they offered me like 30 ks for the 60 And
10:41>> I said, no, I said, well, I'm not doing 50% discount, etcetera. And then a couple of months later, I went back to them and I said, oh, look, you know, it doesn't look- Well, I didn't say it doesn't look like I'm going to shift this package, but, you know, how do you feel like could we make it happen? And, you know, they thought about it, but then at that point they didn't have enough time to really
11:00>> execute against the biggest kind of like package because of, you know, the resources and the planning they needed. So, I was kind of like, shit, I should have taken the money. But back then, obviously I didn't because I
Nathan Latka
11:12But took discounts too yeah.
Alex Theuma
11:13>> You learn.
11:14>> That's a that's incredible.
Nathan Latka
11:15Okay. So let's build the story out. So 2017, do you remember total attendees?
2017 Growth: Attendees, Sponsors, and Revenue
Alex Theuma
11:21>> Total attendees 2017. So we pretty much doubled. It was it was it was just under 1,500. So it's like 1,400 and something. Yeah. Yep. And sponsors?
Nathan Latka
11:31Sponsors, we probably doubled again.
Alex Theuma
11:33>> And revenue, we tripled. I wouldn't say, well, actually, maybe more more than tripled.
Nathan Latka
11:40So you broke a million second year.
Alex Theuma
11:42>> Over a million. Yeah. For the second year.
Nathan Latka
11:44Yeah. Yeah. And still fifty fifty split?
Alex Theuma
11:47>> It's like almost. Probably like sixty forty, but in favor of partnerships. But Yeah. Yeah. Revenue was the split was fairly even.
Lessons Learned Selling Sponsorships
Nathan Latka
11:57Did you learn- Did you learn anything about those? I mean, the sponsor sales are what's key. It's basically your seed investment. Like, at any event company, your sponsor paying up front as a seed investment. Do you learn anything going from 30 to 60 in your first year just about selling sponsorships in general?
Alex Theuma
12:11>> I did. I did learn, you know, certainly it was a new sale for me. So I had to kind of really understand, know, the value proposition, what it was that, you know, the customers were after. And obviously it was was very good, you know, from a cash flow perspective because we could, you know, sign up a partner like we did with ChartMogul twelve months ahead of the event, you know, and get the cash in the bank,
12:34>> you know, eleven months ahead of the event. And that kind of really kind of helps you build the business on customer revenue. Right? So definitely a strong model. Just trying to think like in terms of like the biggest learnings. I mean, I think maybe it's just kind of like
Nathan Latka
12:51Wait, Alex, let me be more specific. Something that you you threw in your sponsor media pack in 2017 that you didn't think sponsors would care about and it ended up being the thing a lot of them cared about?
Alex Theuma
13:03>> Yeah. Good question.
13:09>> They didn't really care about tickets. Tell you that that's sort of one thing, right? So you keep adding in. I was like, okay, I remember having a conversation with Intercom and to try and make the deal more sweet with them and they ended up not doing it. This was in 2016 in principle because they don't sponsor or they at the time, first time conferences, but they did sponsor in 2017. But I tried to get this deal
13:32>> and I was chucking them like 25 tickets, 30 tickets, etcetera. They're like, we don't really care. We don't want 25 people out of the office, you know, not being productive. You know, you could argue that it could be productive. Right. But certainly that was a big learning. Like tickets was really not something that really kind of adds that much value. Speaking is what everybody kind of really wants. Right. And that was also sort of like big
13:57>> learning. And we definitely, you know, for the first time to the conference, I was like, look, we're not paid to play and we don't want to be full of sponsors, you know, on stage and, you know, you're wary about the, you know, the editorial side of things and our discerning customers, you know, being pitched to or kind of seeing like another sponsor up on stage. But I think it's one of these tricky things that I think
14:20>> every conference organizer needs to balance and manage. Right. Because some of your sponsors are really adamant that, hey, they need to be speaking, but you've also got to be pretty firm and fair that, well, look, these are our, you know, editorial guidelines and you kind of need to stick to them. And if we are going to give you a speaking slot because you've got the credibility and, you know, great content, but you just can't go in
14:43>> and start pitching your products. And they they should know that anyway because a product pitch will just, not go down well. But you still get those ones that kind of sneak through even if you do the vetting and, you know, things like that. And some people just don't care. And the bigger companies in some instances just like, you know, don't really care and don't really listen.
Nathan Latka
14:59You don't invite them back, you know.
Alex Theuma
15:01>> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Nathan Latka
15:02So and then, okay. So over 1,000,000 of revenue in 2017, do remember expenses?
Alex Theuma
15:07>> In 2017, I don't fully sort of remember expenses, but like we, you know, we were just above breakeven, you know, we- Yeah.
Nathan Latka
15:17Cool. So, like, call it like 800, 900 in expenses, like 1.2
Alex Theuma
15:20>> We over- Again, another lesson twenty- Maybe across all the years, but certainly maybe not a lesson learned. 2016, 2017, arguably we overinvested for a young, you know, even first time conference. Right. So the first event we lost money and actually and the feedback, you know, in real time for most people was like, this is better than what we expected, you know, and maybe you and people were saying, have you you've probably over invested in stage production,
15:51>> you know, in sponsor booths and so on and so forth. We had And I'd be, you know, we work with a great production partner that we still work with, but they perhaps also like oversold me and I kind of went for the best. You know, you can have like this, you can have that in the middle or you can have the best. And I was like, I want the best for my event. And and that was
16:09>> the most expensive. And, you know, and then I I was just confident that we'd be able to sell more and make a profit. And, you know, that kind of came back to bite me a little bit in the beginning.
2019: 3,000 Attendees and £2.9M Revenue
Nathan Latka
16:19Well, you've certainly grown it. Again, guys, if you're listening now going, wow, what a great origin story. You can see now the final product this year coming up in three or four weeks. October's official starting October 16. Right, Dublin?
Alex Theuma
16:29>> Yeah. October 17. So, yeah, probably, what is that? Five, six weeks time. And, like, it's gonna be our biggest one yet. We've had a three year hiatus because of COVID. So that's a weird thing. So SaaStock is seven years old now, but for three years we've actually not been able to run our flagship conference and our main primary driver of revenue. So it's kind of a weird thing. So like, I kind of say, well, are we
16:55>> actually four years old, you know, in a seven year kind of time frame? But, but yeah, so it's really weird and we're going like 2019, we had 3,000 attendees and we're going for 5,000 this year.
Nathan Latka
17:09Oh, you had live 3,000 in 2019?
Alex Theuma
17:11>> 2019, 3,000. Yeah.
Nathan Latka
17:13Wow. Okay. Do you remember revenue then?
Alex Theuma
17:16>> It was 2,900,000. This is like in in sterling, pound sterling. Right.
Nathan Latka
17:21Okay. Fifty fifty sponsors tickets still?
Alex Theuma
17:24>> No, no. It started to shift. The bigger you get and certainly in our experience, and we've seen this in the market, the bigger you get, the more the revenue tends to shift towards sponsorships versus tickets. Because as you kind of scale, there's got to be there's a blend of like tickets coming in through paid tickets, through partners, through some, you know, complimentary for scholarships and things like that and media and so on and so forth. So
17:48>> you start to see that shift towards more like a seventy-thirty split towards partnerships.
Nathan Latka
17:54And in that, when you did your last full year, when you did it in 2019, 2,900,000 revenue. Do you remember total expenses that year?
Expenses, Production Partner Catapult, and Venue Costs
Alex Theuma
18:01>> It was quite a bit, maybe like 2.2, something like that.
Nathan Latka
18:05Wow. Okay. So, still profitable breakeven. Which was the biggest expense? Is it just venue or booth construction or something else?
Alex Theuma
18:12>> Venue is a big one. We're talking about 6 figures. And then just overall production. So, you know, we work with a production company, Catapult. They're great. You know them. Each year we've actually signed up a three year partnership with Catapult worth over 1,500,000
18:33>> with them and to them at a minimum. And yeah, this kind of always our biggest expense. And maybe in 2019 we spent about $75,800 ks with them, something like Yep.
Nathan Latka
18:47And the venue is 6 figures. I'm actually surprised. I'm sure I'm surprised the venue isn't 7 figures. You got you got that whole venue for under 1,000,000.
Alex Theuma
18:53>> Yeah.
18:54>> It's because I guess it's also like the the space. We definitely did get it for under 1,000,000. And yeah, I guess kind of like good pricing in Dublin. But yeah, like we buy the space in various sort of like blocks and so that we could scale this to 40,000, you know, in the future. But- But in terms of the rooms that we book, you know, it's been, I would say, fairly good value for money, even though
19:19>> it's a big expense. But comparative to, let's say, you know, what folks are paying in The US and, you know, it's- Oh, yeah.
Nathan Latka
19:25It's pretty good value for money. Silly what we pay to do an event in New York compared to what you can get at RDS.
Alex Theuma
19:29>> New York's crazy. Yeah.
Nathan Latka
19:30Yeah. Of 2022, again, you're expecting 5,000 this year. Now, look, one thing you always wonder is, hey, how many of these are sort of tickets to a minority scholarships, partners, etcetera, versus sort of paid? What is that usual? Like, what do you anticipate that being this year?
2022 Event: 5,000 Attendee Target and Ticket Mix
Alex Theuma
19:42>> Yeah. So this year, we're probably looking at something like, you know, 10 to 15%, which will be, you know, scholarships, complementary tickets. You know, we're looking at diversity and inclusion tickets. We're looking at, you know, founders with zero revenue, you know, founders that less than, I think, of like $250k, you know, in ARR and so on. And so we get a number through that. And yeah, then we kind of like look at like media passes
20:15>> and, you know, other kind of avenues.
Nathan Latka
20:17You'll think they'll do about 4,000 then paid tickets.
Alex Theuma
20:20>> Well, yeah, but there's also like partners. So, if you look at- So, we've got a huge- From a partner side of things in the main hall, we're gonna have about 75, 80 partners, which are, let's say are the kind of the, the AB kind of tier partners, bigger, bigger company names, right? We're talking, you know, companies like Intercom and Chargebee and Founderpath and so on, right? And then we've got our startup program, which will be another
20:47>> 150 companies in the startup program. And through that, through partners, you're probably doing, you know, a thousand plus tickets as well. So from a sales side, I would say that we're looking at probably about 2,500 or maybe 2,800 paid plus the thousand plus partners plus speakers plus your your media passes, plus your comps, etcetera. And it and it all kind of adds up to, you know, just over 5,000.
Nathan Latka
21:17Now you're diversifying. Before we wrap up here, talk to me a little bit more about this founder membership concept you guys have launched. What do people get if they buy that?
SaaStock Founder Membership Peer Group
Alex Theuma
21:24>> Yeah. Yeah. Good question. So what we're building with the SaaStock Founder Membership is we're trying to build, you know, the world's leading support organization with B2B SaaS founders. So it's a bit like a YPO or an EO for SaaS, but very, it's purely focused on B2B SaaS founders that are on their journey from zero to 10,000,000. So you get peer groups, support groups, you know, like monthly mastermind, you get to build out a global network of
21:47>> SaaS founders and some networking events and you get specific education. So beyond the usual SaaS content, whether that's through our podcasts or conferences, we bring in experts like we've got Dave Kellogg coming up in a couple of weeks. He's coming in to do a workshop on scaling into The US. And so we leverage our network of these great people to come in and run these sessions. Additionally, you know, we get things like the SaaStock Founder Members
22:11>> Annual Retreat, which you came to, you know, in Amalfi and we bring I think it was incredible. Yeah, to come together for a couple of days to kind of network, do round tables, learn from each other and learn from mentors and those that are a few steps ahead. So it's, know, founders can't go it alone. Right? And some do, right? You do have solo founders. So we're looking at really, you know, whether you're bootstrapped, solo founder
22:34>> or VC backed to kind of get you that support from other founders to really kind of help you, you know, make better decisions, you know, get more confidence in terms of what you're doing and help you grow
22:44>> to semi and ARR faster.
Nathan Latka
22:45Very cool. Last question before we wrap up. You always feature up and coming founders. You know, your startup program, if you had to pick, I'm gonna ask you to pick a baby. Pick one of them, know, that speaking this year that you're just like, wow, these guys in five years, they're the next Intercom.
Spotlight on Expandi and Closing Remarks
Alex Theuma
22:58>> Yeah. Good question. Like off the top of my head, let's go with Expandi, Stefan Smolders. I think he's speaking at your event. They've got to 7,000,000 ARR in like two and a half years, bootstrapped, you know, doing something right. And so, off the top of my head, Stefan Smolders.
Nathan Latka
23:15Guys, check it out. SaaStock.com. Grab tickets quickly. They're almost sold out. The event's coming up. I'll be there. If you're there, text me (703) 431-2709. We'll spend some time together. Obviously, Alex, you're about to go into hunker down mode with all the last minute details associated with events. We're rooting for you, man, and I'll see you soon.
Discount Code and Outro
Alex Theuma
23:33>> Thanks, Nathan. There's also a code for your users. Latka 30 will give you a 30% discount. Boom.
23:37>> LATKA30. Yeah.
Nathan Latka
23:38Alright, guys. Go buy. Go go use that bad boy app. We appreciate it. Alex, thanks so much. See you soon. Thanks, Nathan.
23:48One 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
24:13Central. 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
24:36fundraise, 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 SaaS 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
24:57up for that 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 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.
25:17We got to push them away. Click the thumbs up below to counter them and know that I appreciate your guys'support. Alright, I'll be in the comments.
Alex Theuma
25:23>> See you.