How Slidebean Ran Cash-Flow Positive at Around $100K MRR and 10,000 Subscribers (Interview with CEO Jose Cayasso)

Introduction and Frequent Flyer Miles

Nathan Latka

00:01Hello, everyone. My guest today is Jose Cayasso. He is the founder and CEO of a company called Slidebean. He's a TEDx speaker, graphic designer, and has transformed into a growth hacker. He's also a frequent flyer miles hoarder. Jose, are you ready to take us to the top?

Jose Cayasso

00:15I'm ready. Thanks a lot for having me again, Nathan.

Nathan Latka

00:17How many frequent flyer miles do you have?

Jose Cayasso

00:21Piling up on a couple 100,000 at this point.

Nathan Latka

00:23And does it just give you gratification to just hoard them and you're never gonna use them?

Jose Cayasso

00:28Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I try not to use them. Like, if I have money, try to pay for the ticket and then hoard more miles. You know, some family random trip, then I spend them just to make sure I do.

Where Slidebean Stands Since the Last Interview

Nathan Latka

00:38Alright. Last time you were on the show was back in June 2017. At that time, you had about 2,500 customers paying $50 a month, doing about $122,000 a month in revenue. Where are you today?

Jose Cayasso

00:57Actually not that far from there. And it's an interesting story. I was actually hesitant to come back and then say that we haven't really grown our monthly recurring revenue too much. But for the past year or so, we've been really focused on improving the app itself and improving so many holes, like so many holes in the bucket and the funnel and churn. So we kind of took an important company decision. We built ourselves to have a

01:25profitable team and then not to force ourselves to be in a position to raise money again, and then use that revenue simply to improve on the product, knowing full aware that we were going to stop most of the growth hacking efforts and simply dedicate on building a much more solid product to support our users much better.

Right-Sizing Without Raising More Capital

Nathan Latka

01:43Well, you for coming back on. I think people that do what you do have to be celebrated because many people think the only thing to celebrate is when you raise the next round of funding, which is totally inaccurate. So walk me through what you did to right size the business. First things first, you're still out, you haven't raised any more capital, you're just $850,000 in total?

Jose Cayasso

01:59That's right.

Nathan Latka

02:00Okay. You had a team size of 22. It sounds like you may have shrunk that a little bit to save some costs. What's the team size

Team Size and Product Focus

Jose Cayasso

02:05We're still 20, so not that far from where we used to be. But again, a much, much larger focus on the product. Again, when you're building our product so fast and when it grows so fast, in our case, we grew from zero to 80 ks revenue in a couple of years, you

02:25leave a lot of stuff

Nathan Latka

02:25You're talking 80,000 a month, right?

Jose Cayasso

02:25Yeah.

Nathan Latka

02:25And you were founded in 2014.

Jose Cayasso

02:31That's right.

02:33When you grow that fast, you leave a lot of stuff behind. You leave a lot of stuff that's not relevant enough because if you don't improve the servers, then the tool will crash in a couple months. Or some design rough edges that you never have time to polish. And it's really hard to kind of look back and see all the stuff that is pending, that you realize that if you keep focusing on growth and then supporting

02:59more customers, you're never going to be able to fix that. That's number one. And then number two, we have the advantage of running the operation profitable, which is something that few companies do, right? So if we're profitable, we really don't depend on further rounds of funding. We rather improve, for example, our margins and then developing the app and the automation so that less manual effort is required. And then working towards that,

03:32so that eventually when we decide to kind of focus or refocus on growth, we can do so with an app that's powerful enough to support where we're going next.

Cash-Flow Positive and Revenue Update

Nathan Latka

03:41That's great. Now, last time you came on, you said you were burning ten thousand to twenty thousand dollars per month, and that was net burn, not gross. So are you now cash flow positive?

Jose Cayasso

03:50We are, we are. We're actually dealing with a bunch of new problems this year, like taxes on our revenues and actual margins.

Nathan Latka

03:57Yeah, like there's actually something hitting the bottom line, so you have to pay taxes.

Jose Cayasso

04:01Exactly.

Nathan Latka

04:02Yeah. Give me an update on revenue. What are you doing per month now?

Jose Cayasso

04:06So it's still in the range of 100 to 150 ks revenue. It fluctuates a lot. We run some promos that spike the revenue up. We motivate a lot of users to pay yearly, and that's something that any SaaS business should really focus on. When a customer pays yearly or prepays an annual plan, you have that revenue upfront and you have that revenue to invest again in growth or to invest in the product or to invest in

04:34the team. You also don't have to deal with churn for a few months. So we focus on that a lot. And then as we change the interface and so on, it fluctuates between those numbers.

Nathan Latka

04:44Yeah, but Jose, I imagine you probably keep a cash kind of base balance, you know, p and l and also a kind of a deferred revenue one. So really rev... On a on a SaaS company, anytime I hear revenues are volatile, it sends up warning flags. Because if you're doing... If you're taking an annual plan that hits this month and dividing by 12 and recognizing over twelve months, you still should see pretty smooth revenue numbers. So

05:08if you give me the monthly recurring revenue number on a deferred basis, what are you doing per month?

Jose Cayasso

05:13Yeah, and when we talk monthly recurring revenue,

05:19always talk at deferred. Like we never count

Nathan Latka

05:21So why your lead is it going up and down so

Jose Cayasso

05:21But

05:24the final, so monthly recurring revenue, which is around the 100 ks, that's one number, but the actual revenue that we collect in a month?

Nathan Latka

05:33It's cash, not The revenue, cash you collect.

Jose Cayasso

05:35The cash we collect, that's right.

Nathan Latka

05:36Yeah, yeah. And that's because of annual plans?

AppSumo Promotion Debate

Jose Cayasso

05:39Mostly annual plans. We've run a couple of promos like AppSumo, which is a very, very powerful platform. You know, we're talking $30,000 of revenue by just running

05:49that

Nathan Latka

05:49Yeah, Jose, come on. The only reason their thing works is because everyone goes, Wow, AppSumo's gonna give me a lifetime deal to a SaaS business. That's amazing.

Jose Cayasso

05:59But that's interesting. And we thought of that and we were super hesitant, but we noticed significant spikes in actual cash that comes through our own

Nathan Latka

06:07Well, course, credit card of course, because they're selling a one time thing and you basically give in to the urge of a 40 or $50,000 one time check, but you're sacrificing lifetime value on all these accounts.

Jose Cayasso

06:19I'll still defend it on two basis. One, these are customers that would probably not discover you otherwise. And then two, we

06:31get the cash from AppSumo like on a deferred net 60 or something. But the month the AppSumo promo runs, because of all the buzz that they generate around the product, we actually see an important spike in actual customers that come through the platform directly, simply because they heard from somebody in AppSumo. I don't know how many subscribers they have, a million emails or something, but it is significant. We've

Nathan Latka

06:31Have

06:54you done a cohort analysis though on that?

Jose Cayasso

06:57On the

Nathan Latka

06:58On the AppSumo customers? Look. AppSumo is like JCPenney. They... They're not coming in unless you give a coupon. Right? And and

Jose Cayasso

06:58That's right.

Nathan Latka

06:58And and they cancel. And they and they don't have no loyalty, and they switch quickly. And so, like, what Noah has built... Such a genius. Mean, such a smart guy because every CEO wants instant cash and he's going fine. I'll give you a $40,000 check, which is 30% of whatever sales we drive you.

07:21I'll give you that check, but guess what? You're gonna give me a great deal. I'm gonna basically switch your whole model from a SaaS business to a freaking agency. Agency. One time payment, and maybe our monthly thing will drive you a couple dozen subscribers each month and you'll use it to validate it. But the cohort typically is super high churn, they don't stick, they bombard your customer support, it wastes your time, but you get a little

07:40cash upfront.

Jose Cayasso

07:44I mean, yes, but the reality is, okay, many of these customers will go away. They'll just give you the money

Nathan Latka

07:51So why do you want them? That's my point though. Getting

07:55AppSumo customers is not necessarily good for your long term health. And you're potentially seeing that over the past year, right?

Jose Cayasso

08:01No, I'll give top of my head numbers. I'll say that out of the 100% customers that subscribe from AppSumo, which is a few thousand,

08:10I'll say 80% try the product a couple of times and then don't come back. Some pressure on the customer team the week the promo runs, but that's about it. And then the other 20% actually become very active, very powerful customers, because the AppSumo audience

Nathan Latka

08:27We'll quantify that though.

Jose Cayasso

08:29Quantify that.

Nathan Latka

08:31So what's that cohort's churn?

Jose Cayasso

08:34Because there's no churn. It's a one time payment and they'll never pay again.

Nathan Latka

08:39Then what do mean they're a powerful thing then? All they do is they pay you once and then you have to support them for life.

Jose Cayasso

08:45Yeah, but it's, I mean, for a SaaS company, supporting customers is super cheap, but they're powerful in the sense that they refer the product, they're super active. And we actually, we were hesitant of kind of considering their feedback or the stuff that they use, but many of these AppSumo customers have become some of our power users in the sense that they have discovered every single feature in the app, which is something that not everybody necessarily does.

Nathan Latka

09:09Doesn't, you're running a nonprofit.

Jose Cayasso

09:13All right, all right.

Nathan Latka

09:14No, seriously, like, I I always wonder about this because again, what Noah has done is genius. I I'm not hitting him by the way. I mean, it's the CEO's urge for quick cash that is the fault of these, of like why these work so well. But like, that's that's just... That's why it works. They they... It's interesting to me. And the also thing people never consider is you're selling these lifetime plans, but you know if in

09:37two years you have to shut the company down or you sell the company and the acquiring company shuts it down, you know dang well you cannot commit to a promise to support someone for life. No no SaaS company can. And so by selling

Jose Cayasso

09:37No. I think it

Nathan Latka

09:37So, like, I have a big issue when people sell lifetime plans. I think it's cheap. I think it's a marketing tactic, and I think it's totally disingenuous and hurts your

09:55personal brand if and when you have to shut the company down or sell it.

Jose Cayasso

10:00Think the SaaS companies... We'll have to see what happens with lifetime plans with SaaS. I don't think that, you know, no SaaS company has been here for more than, I don't know, twenty years.

Nathan Latka

10:08Then why would you sell a lifetime plan?

Jose Cayasso

10:11Yeah, then I mean, I don't know what'll happen.

Nathan Latka

10:14Why not sell a lifetime plan and then and then the next week shut the company down?

Jose Cayasso

10:19Yeah. You could do that, I guess,

Nathan Latka

10:21But do you see my point? I just think you undercut I think you undercut yourself because I remember when I... When you came on the first show, I'm like, this is a great tool, which we haven't talked about by the way. Should talk about what the tool actually does. Great tool. Visual content is in right now. So, like, he... This is hitting on, like, the perfect time, perfect market. But, like, you you... You've you've you've taken

10:39the thing and you've you've gone, like, doing an AppSumo deal, you've gone like downstream, right? If you're going that direction, you have to go like Hootsuite model, high, millions of paying customers at a really low price point versus enterprise, which is I thought the track you were on last time.

Jose Cayasso

10:52That's a change and that's interesting, that's also an interesting story. So we kind of like look ourselves in the mirror and we compare ourselves with other presentation platforms. So it turned out we are literally the only presentation platform today that's premium only.

30,000 Monthly Signups and 3% Conversion

Jose Cayasso

11:11We offer a free trial that lasts about fourteen days, and that's about it. But even in the trial, it's a limited trial. You can't present when you're in a trial and you can't necessarily download your presentation when you're in a trial. So that's created some issues with our free users. So, even today, we're subscribing around 30,000 new signups every month. So we get 30,000 people who are interested in using Slidebean, who've discovered it for one reason

11:36or the other, and coming to the platform, hopeful to try it and excited about it. And then we have a paywall, which makes it disengaging for many of them. So we convert an average of a SaaS company, which is around 3%. So 3% of them become paid customers. So out of these 30,000 people, we get around 900 that eventually become paid customers. But we've started thinking about the other 29,000. Like these are people who were just

12:05kicking out the door even though they were willing to try it.

Nathan Latka

12:08It's How very dangerous many customers are you at today?

10,000 Paying Customers and New $8 Price Point

Jose Cayasso

12:12Around 10,000 people.

Nathan Latka

12:14Okay. Well, so last time you were at 2,500 paying customers. Now you're at 10,000. Now let me ask you a question. That 10,000 number you just gave me, does that include the couple thousand that are one time payments that are not real SaaS revenue?

Jose Cayasso

12:27No. No. These are these are actual subscribers.

Nathan Latka

12:29Those are actual monthly subscribers?

Jose Cayasso

12:30Yep.

Nathan Latka

12:31Okay. So your price point must must have come way way down. Last time you were at $49 a month. What's it at now?

Jose Cayasso

12:37That's right. We're... Our base plan now starts at $8 a month.

Nathan Latka

12:40Interesting. Yeah. So you've really gone story. You've really gone down market.

Jose Cayasso

12:45Yeah.

Nathan Latka

12:46Why? What drove that?

Jose Cayasso

12:47Yeah.

12:48And so I'll go back to this story. So we were the only presentation platform, the only premium presentation platform out there. All the others, PowerPoint, PowerPoint's a premium product, but it comes in your computer, right? So you almost get it for free. Google Slides is free, Keynote comes with every Mac. So we realized that we were competing with these products that were very differently priced. And then again, we were bringing 30,000 people in every month, converting

13:13about 3% of them, and then the other 29,000 losing.

Nathan Latka

13:15You still are today.

13:16That's kind of your rate today, 30,000 in, That's convert nine

Freemium Experiment and Country Testing

Jose Cayasso

13:20our rate today. So we've started really considering becoming a freemium product. This is very dangerous. This is the most dangerous experiment we've considered because we are a profitable company and because we don't plan to raise money. We're not in a position to raise money now. We are-

Nathan Latka

13:20You'd

13:36get killed, if you raise money today, it'd be a huge down round.

Jose Cayasso

13:40Right, right, right. So we are not in a position to raise money, but we want to try freemiums. We want to give something so that these other 29,000 people can become users and we need to measure, you know, there are two inevitable curves if we switch to Flip and make the product freemium, which are conversion rate will go down, we don't know how much, but it'll go down because people who used to pay no longer have

14:06to because they have some stuff that they can do for free. And then engagement should or should go up at least a little bit. Now the question is, if engagement, which is monthly active users, organic traffic, referrals, word-of-mouth, how much will that increase and will it compensate for the downfall of conversion rate? And it's very hard to test this. I mean, there's really no way to know unless we actually do it and test it. So we

14:33actually started rolling this out in a few countries.

14:36I can't say which country specifically, because I don't want people VPN ing our

14:41app.

Nathan Latka

14:41Do you think people care that much to VPN in to save $8?

Jose Cayasso

14:45I don't know. Don't know, we'd just rather avoid it. But we're very transparent about this whole process. I wrote a full blog post on kind of our thought process behind this. And then that's the idea. In these countries where we've launched the freemium version, we are testing how much does engagement increase, how much does organic traffic increase, One week, one month, six months after we become freemium in that country. And does that compensate for the conversion

15:10rate? And is this something that we can roll out worldwide?

Enterprise vs. Down-Market Strategy

Nathan Latka

15:13Tell me who's not a customer fit for you, a customer you don't want?

Jose Cayasso

15:19The classic people that we kick out the door actually, which is a bit compared to what we talked about last time is corporate customers. So we sometimes get like a large company that would come in and say, we had a situation with for example. So they would come in and say, Hey, we wanna use your product, someone from the management team, someone high up in the company, we want your product, but we need you to customize

15:42this and this and this and this for us. That's not our customer today. Why? Because all our focus is on making this product fit for the other 29,000, right? On roughing up the edges. If we dedicate part at least of our development team to building features that will only work for that company or for other large customers, then we kind of lose track on the other end. You have- Enterprise is actually not our customer today. What

16:09we do with Enterprise, and we have customers from Nike, for example, I mean, it's a name that came up, but it's real, but it works the other way around, it works bottom up. So somebody in the company discovers it, pays for Slidebean out of their own card, or with little permission request, and then they start rolling out the product. And we see companies that went from one to 10 or 20 accounts, not coming from the management

16:36team, but for somebody in the company that just discovered it.

Nathan Latka

16:39Yeah, yeah. Mean, look, when you told me about the enterprise deals, if you reply back, no. We can't customize it like that. Right? But we're we're willing to set up a a license for you. What would you be willing to pay? And if they came back and said $10 a month. Right? Like, you you know, it's it's interesting to me because you cut off those conversations. And I just wonder if, you know, freemium products, like, I've

16:56interviewed a bunch of people that have done this really, really well and things like LastPass. You know, everyone has online passwords, things like Expensify. Right? Everyone has expenses they need to track. Things like Mint. Right? These things work on things that everyone has to do. And I just wonder how many people have to do presentations, or are there other use cases you've discovered that every person does on a daily basis that they can use Slidebean for?

Jose Cayasso

17:20Yeah, and it's something that we deal with as well. Most of our churn, for example, is coming from people that don't need to make presentations on a monthly basis. But that's the reality of pretty much any presentation platform.

Nathan Latka

17:34And they've maybe a freemium model at this price point, but if you do an enterprise deal, there's where a little professional services setup fee, actually the lock in can be very good the numbers are huge.

Jose Cayasso

17:45That's true, that's true. But one other struggle with presentation platforms that we discovered on the enterprise end is

17:53in the end, when people think about a tool to make presentations specifically as much as cool as Slidebean is and as much time as we save them, we inevitably get compared with Google Docs, we inevitably get compared with PowerPoint. So PowerPoint already came in all the systems that they purchased and came with Office. And Google, it probably comes in with the email that they're using, right? So we don't get that side to side comparison, we get

18:21an additional expense sort of situation, which makes it,

Nathan Latka

18:25we understand understand that.

Jose Cayasso

18:27Okay, so if you

Nathan Latka

18:29You say you feel like you're competing with Google Docs and you're competing with PowerPoint?

Jose Cayasso

18:34No, but in the minds of the person who made an enterprise decision, we sort of are.

Nathan Latka

18:39Why would you go down market and make yourself more free, more like these are the free tools? Why wouldn't you go the opposite way and say, no, we don't even... We're so totally different than Google Docs or PowerPoint. That's why we're $10 a month. Here's why X, Y, and Z.

Jose Cayasso

18:52Yeah, yeah. The only presentation platform that does that today is ClearSlide. They've become kind of like the ultimate sales platform for... The ultimate yep, presentation platform for sales people.

Nathan Latka

19:04Well, PandaDoc. I mean, I can actually name 10 companies in this space that do presentations for a specific cohort of user. Some of it's board decks, some of it are for salespeople, Some of it's managing these things so that when a salesperson on a sales call and they say, yeah, I'll follow-up with slide deck x, they can quickly find the slide deck. Like, I can name 10 companies that have gone upstream that are doing presentations that

19:26are killing it, that are not competing directly with these freemium products. Because see what you're doing is you're basically saying, you know what, I'm gonna compete directly with Google Docs. I'm gonna make it free, go freemium and try and get more users than Google. And I just question your ability to execute that.

Jose Cayasso

19:42It is a question. And again, this is why we don't roll out free everywhere. We need to make sure that this will work. Upstream, was a struggle mainly because the way we built Slidebean, we built it as a presentation creation platform. And PandaDoc, as you mentioned, or DocSend for example, which is another example, they're built for a specific purpose or from the get go, DocSend was a document tracking platform. So they have the technology and the

20:16analytics and the dashboard to really measure that. All these four years, we've spent building a creation platform that ultimately also works very differently from what you see in a traditional software. It works very differently. It's a very quick learning curve compared to something like Prezi, but it is very different. So this is what we are experts at, and we realize that we're not yet experts at document tracking, though we offer that feature. We're not yet experts

20:46at, I don't know, at sales presentation, we're experts at saving you time when creating decks.

20:54And the reality of our marketing funnel, and we kind of pay attention to these 30,000 people we get every month. If we were to go upstream, we could say, No, we're just not going to focus on you guys anymore. But we have 30,000 leads that we didn't have when we got started. This is another story, at the very beginning, and this actually saved our company, we have, the closest example to Slidebean when we launched was a

21:23company called Bunker that went out of business two, three years ago. We had a somewhat similar product, and they took the freemium route at that point. So they were free, they had a very hidden paid plan, but they were just looking for the million and million customers. They went out of business because they couldn't get to their next round and they didn't have cash to survive. We were lucky, and also made the right decision of becoming

21:51a premium product then, which gave us the cash and the revenue to support the team, and to allow us to continue to build the platform. But as we've tested the waters, and we did for most of last year with enterprise and with going upstream, and we failed at that for a number of reasons that we can talk about,

22:11our next bet was freemium and putting ourselves

Nathan Latka

22:13Which is what put Bunker out of business.

22:17Just said the reason Bunker went out of business is because they ran out of runway trying to pursue a freemium model and get millions of users.

Jose Cayasso

22:24That's right. That's right. That's what put them out of business, but it's also what has Prezi at the point where they are today.

Nathan Latka

22:30How much has Prezi raised?

Jose Cayasso

22:32Prezi was raised about $300,000,000 or something.

Nathan Latka

22:35Because it's expensive to compete with Google and PowerPoint.

Jose Cayasso

22:38Oh, of course it is very expensive.

Nathan Challenges the Business Model

Nathan Latka

22:40Yep. So like, I'm trying... Jose, I'm trying to get in your head to understand why you think you have a standing chance to do this on a model that is not heavily, heavily VC backed. Basically, you've done is you said, know what? This is a risky model. We've been flat over the past year. I'm gonna go cash flow positive, which is fine. Buy yourself some time. But, like, you're just locking yourself into a lifestyle business where

22:58you're gonna keep paying yourself $80,000 a year salary stuck with a cap table of VCs that you're gonna work for a decade to try and get their $850,000 back when you could be using the years right now, which are your most valuable years of your life, going and taking a billion dollar risk on something much bigger. Why not sell this company for a million dollars and get the hell out?

Jose Cayasso

23:14Alright. It's it's a valid point, but

Nathan Latka

23:16Would you sell for a million?

Jose Cayasso

23:18No. Of course not.

Nathan Latka

23:19Why not?

Jose Cayasso

23:21Because we... You know, and and, you know, if I were selling for a billion, I'd I'd just rather have a lifetime on business.

Nathan Latka

23:26See, I sold my... I Heyo. People don't know this. Heyo was doing about your size. Almost exact same story. You know what I sold it for? I sold it for $300,000 because I realized the opportunity cost of being a 24 year old and paying myself a $120,000 salary, which is what I was paying myself, we were venture backed for the next decade, was way... It was very safe and very comfortable. But these are the premium years

23:47of my life. Thank God I sold that company at a huge loss. I gave investors back about 80¢ on the dollar. And you know what? They're all... I've made them all money. I'm now an investor in many of their funds as an LP because of the money I've made doing other software projects. I just hope you don't get stuck. That's all I'm saying. Because I think you're talented. And I think the way you think about problems

24:05is really, really important. But I also think you have to deal with another thing, is you've raised capital and you feel a little guilty about trying to figure out how get that money back to them.

Jose Cayasso

24:14Right, right, And we have the advantage of having a very good relationship with our investors and they're kind of on board with the plan. But I'll take it in and then I really respect your opinion.

Nathan Latka

24:28Well, I'm pushing you not to convince you one way. I just want to get more in your brain, right? You ultimately do your thing, but again, I think you're very talented.

Jose Cayasso

24:35Okay, that's fine. And again, I really respect you questioning me.

24:41You know, someone with your experience in the end, we don't get to chat. I don't get to chat with a lot of people with your background, and then you questioning me is enough for me to kind of rethink what we're doing.

Nathan Latka

24:52Well, listen, don't, people give you advice all People give you advice all day long, so don't let me bounce you around too much. And I don't have a ton of experience. I we're the same age, but I have talked to about 3,000 of these founders and tried to simulate patterns. And I've I've fired the questions at you today based off some of the patterns I've seen. We'll certainly stay in touch and it'll be fun to see

Favorite Business Book and Tools

Nathan Latka

25:10what you're doing. Thank you again for coming back on knowing that you were gonna have a conversation like this. It sounds like you kind of anticipated it. So I appreciate that. Wrap up on a much friendly, easier note. Give me your favorite business book.

Jose Cayasso

25:24Traction, the book on the 23 different growth methods. As I've focused on the growth stuff, it's really amazing to reconsider stuff that you've never thought of and to force yourself to think of growth tactics that are not in your direct experience. So that is my favorite business book still.

Nathan Latka

25:44Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Jose Cayasso

25:52I really like Josh from Baremetrics.

25:56I like what he does with his blog. I think that he sort of accepted that his startup, and started being as a large venture backed company, is becoming more of a lifetime business. And that's something that the startup billion dollar round story is the one that we all aim for. But sometimes when times are rough, you have to deal with the other options, which are not bad, are super bad when I talk to you and you

26:25say, Hey, you wanna settle for a lifetime business? But Josh has sort of lived up with that. So I really love

Nathan Latka

26:25Yeah,

Jose Cayasso

26:25his

Nathan Latka

26:33look, The second... It doesn't matter if you raise a dollar or a 100,000,000. The second you've raised with someone else's money, they can tell you they're patient. They can tell you they love you. But ultimately, when their LPs come knocking and saying a decade late and say, where's the return? And they need that. Right? It's gonna for... It's gonna force action. You can't just... I don't think you just sit on it. Now maybe you VCs listening are

26:52gonna email me after this and tweet at me and go, Nathan, you're wrong. We would sit in a company for a decade. Right? And not and not care. But we'll see what happens. We'll we'll we'll see what happens.

27:01Number number three here, Jose. What's your favorite online

Jose Cayasso

27:01Intercom.

27:05I think it's the most... It's the backbone of our company in so many senses, Intercom.

Personal Life and Closing Advice

Nathan Latka

27:10Number four, how many hours of sleep do get every night?

Jose Cayasso

27:15Five hours, I would say.

Nathan Latka

27:16Okay, and what's your situation? Married, single, do you have kids?

Jose Cayasso

27:19I'm married and I have a kid.

Nathan Latka

27:21Oh, good. How old is the kid?

Jose Cayasso

27:234.5.

Nathan Latka

27:24Oh, that's great. And how old are you?

Jose Cayasso

27:26I'm 29.

Nathan Latka

27:2729. Last question.

27:28What do you wish your 20 year old self knew?

Jose Cayasso

27:33That you can start your own business and make a lot of money out of it. I wish I knew that early on. You can take more risks more risks when you're younger and you don't have a family to support.

Nathan Latka

27:42Guys, start a business faster. That's what he would have told himself. Building up Slidebean, presentation software for everybody. Founded in 2014, now at about 20 people. He right sized the business over the last year. They raised $850,000 flat year over year doing about a $100 per year in revenue, but again, profitable, which is key. It's buying him time to run some of these tests that he's thinking through. So hopefully, we'll have you back on, Jose.

28:02You'll give us an update on the test, and we'll keep cranking. In the meantime, thanks so much for taking us to the top.

Jose Cayasso

28:06Thanks a lot, Nathan.