How SmartCue Went from Zero to $900 a Month in Revenue Within 45 Days of Launch (Interview with CEO Robin Singhvi)

Introduction and Business Overview

Nathan Latka

00:00Hey, folks. My guest today is Robin Singhvi. He helps deliver perfect live sales demos via his software tool, getsmartcue.com. Robin, you ready to take us to the top?

Robin Singhvi

00:10>> I am. Yes. Alright. Thanks for having me on the show, Nathan.

Nathan Latka

00:14You bet. Tell us more tell us more about the business. So could can you maybe give us a customer example? Who's paying you and what are they paying you for?

Early Customers and Product Description

Robin Singhvi

00:20>> Sure. So so we have we have about six customers right now, and, we have delivered SmartCue to them that enables their SaaS sales teams deliver, like the the tagline says, deliver the best product demos. Most of them are based in The US. We have a couple in Europe. So early days, but but we have we have, pretty good traction, and and we're getting some great feedback from the customers.

Launch Timeline and First Line of Code

Nathan Latka

00:48When did you launch the business?

Robin Singhvi

00:51>> Well, you know, we've been we've been building it for the better part of this year, and we've officially started selling it, in September 2021. So just about a month in.

Nathan Latka

01:03Did you write a first line of code?

Robin Singhvi

01:06>> I wanna say we wrote it on January twenty sixth of this year, which happens to be, you know, it's a it's a it's a big holiday in India. So so that's why I remember the date.

Nathan Latka

01:17Very cool. And and when who who'd you write it with? Did you write all the code? You have co founders?

Team Structure and Co-Founder Departure

Robin Singhvi

01:22>> No. It's it's just me. I have a team, a a dev team that's that's doing the coding for me. I I do have a technical background, but I I try not to mess with the code itself. I'm I look after the the sales side of the house.

Nathan Latka

01:36How much have you paid the dev team so far to get the product where it is today?

Robin Singhvi

01:40>> So we've we've put in about 8 k. For our own money. And who who's me? SmartCue. Well, it's me and my ex cofounder who's no longer with the company.

Nathan Latka

01:52So Okay. You gotta tell me more about that. This happens all the time, but people rarely talk about it. So you gotta tell me what happened.

Robin Singhvi

01:59>> Yeah. Well, unfortunately, don't think I have a juicy story there. You know? I think we started it together and and the plan was to do it together. But my cofounder, you know, he was still working at a different company at the time. They got acquired and he got a pretty decent retention offer. So so we just had to part ways amicably.

Nathan Latka

02:18Well, but but how about all the details? I mean, how did you get the equity back?

Robin Singhvi

02:23>> Well, so so we we reestablished the new c corp, redid our paperwork, and and in that, instead of, you know, being an equal split, we we kind of had had had him take some share of the company for the time and effort that he put in and that that he will hopefully to continue to put in in terms of referrals and introductions.

Nathan Latka

02:44And how much is that? We're talking 5% or, like, 30%?

Robin Singhvi

02:47>> Oh, no. No. No. No. Not not that big. It's it's in the single digits.

MVP Cost and Bootstrapping

Nathan Latka

02:51Okay. Got it. So more like 5%. Yep. Okay. Okay. Got it. So okay. So you got that taken care of. You're now sort of running the show, own 95% of the business. How are you bootstrapped outside of the eight k you've put in?

Robin Singhvi

03:02>> Yes. Just bootstrapped. All all my own money. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

03:05Very cool. So you're you're all in now. Talk to me about what these customers pay you per month on average.

Pricing and Contract Types

Robin Singhvi

03:11>> So we're we're charging $49 per user per month. And, you know, a couple of these customers have actually signed annual contracts with us, which is pretty good. Again, validation of what we're doing. And a couple of them are still on trial, so they you know, they're they're still on the thirty day, forty five day trial. But but we're looking at pretty good engagement numbers and adoption numbers from them. So we're very confident that they'll convert into

03:41>> paying customers.

Nathan Latka

03:43So when you say six customers, are those six seats, six users?

Robin Singhvi

03:48>> No. Six companies, and we I wanna say 18 users right now.

Nathan Latka

03:53Okay. Got it. So three on average. Three is team size.

Robin Singhvi

03:56>> Yep. You can say that.

Nathan Latka

03:58Okay. Got it. So each one each company is paying you on average a $150 a month right now? Yes. I see. Okay. So you went from nothing sort of launch sales about a month ago to now six customers paying 100 and a month for about $900 a month in revenue, right? Yes, that is right. Zero to one k in thirty days. That's book title right there.

Robin Singhvi

04:19>> Hey. You know, I mean, I'm glad I got on this podcast, Nathan. You make me feel a lot better than I was before I got on this call about the one k we have in the bank.

How the First Six Customers Were Acquired

Nathan Latka

04:27Well, I mean, look, the I don't know why it's shocking, but everyone starts at zero. So Yeah. Everyone went to their first dollar, their first 500, their first grand. It happens to everybody. So Yep. So tell us how you did it. Where'd you get these six how'd you land these six customers?

Robin Singhvi

04:44>> It's it's really just, you know, my network over the years. I I've always been in b to b SaaS. I've been part of multiples health tech startups all in the enterprise SaaS space. And so I'd like to believe that I built up a lot of goodwill and connections from my network. And most of them actually are from my network. We have two that were, you know, sort of cold referrals. You know, I I posted messages on

05:12>> Slack groups and stuff like that. I wanna say

Nathan Latka

05:14Tell me a Slack group you posted in.

Robin Singhvi

05:16>> Yeah. Actually, I that's what I was gonna say. I think I posted a message in one of your Slack groups, and I got a I got a a lead from there. And October twenty first, Thursday, today, I was actually on a call with the with the founder of that company who said, yes. Let's let's let's pilot SmartCue. So

Nathan Latka

05:36When do I get my 20% affiliate commission? I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. No. That's great. I love hearing that. Okay. Good. So you're you're taking a target approach in SaaS groups. Well well, actually, no. Maybe not SaaS groups. What specific Slack groups are you gonna target if you keep using that as a channel?

Robin Singhvi

05:53>> So so I'm trying to target sales enablement SaaS groups and trying to target product marketing SaaS groups because, you know, it's it's interesting that this function of building, maintaining, creating, and delivering demos resides in different functions in different companies depending on their stage, depending on the industry. So whether it's a sales enablement function that that that manages that process sometimes in in a little more mature companies. And in some other companies, it's a it's a hybrid

06:23>> of product and product marketing teams that actually are responsible for doing it. And then there are just sales teams which have, like, sales engineers or solution consultants, that actually manage and create these demos. So I'm trying to target, you know, these type of roles at SaaS companies and and trying to find whether Slack channels or LinkedIn groups, where I can actually, you know, spread the word and and get some interest going.

Zoom App Store Growth Strategy Debate

Nathan Latka

06:47I mean, when you look at, like, TSheets and Intuit acquired TSheets for $350,000,000 because TSheets ranks number one in the Intuit AppExchange, there's a very clear model for growing a big SaaS company by dominating one AppExchange. It just strikes me as very obvious that what you should be doing only is dominating the number one spot in the Zoom AppExchange for sales tools. Why aren't you playing there?

Robin Singhvi

07:07>> You know, we I think we will. I think it's just we're still so early that we wanna make sure that we have the product nailed down, validated, getting some real good user feedback, you know, building up the product based on user feedback, and then going into one of these channels. Right? Distribution channels. So whether it's the Zoom App Store or the Salesforce App Store or, like, you know, going through a app

Nathan Latka

07:31Salesforce store or will be too tough. It's too mature of an app store. You'll never get to the top ranking. Zoom is the opposite. It's so brand new. You move quick, you rank high, you dominate that spot for the next ten years and you build a $100,000,000 business pretty quick. I just don't understand why aren't you why isn't that like the number one priority?

Robin Singhvi

07:48>> I don't know. I guess I guess it'll have to be. We'll we'll have to explore that. You know? Right now, the the, you know, the whole focus really was was to try and land a few customers. You know? You'll have to cut me some slack, and I've just been doing this for a month now. I'm like, okay. What's the best way to do it?

Nathan Latka

08:02Well, look. I could be wrong, by the way. I'm I'm just I'm being polarizing on purpose. Right? I mean, it just strikes me that this from what very little I understand, that's what I would be doing.

Fundraising Plans and Valuation Discussion

Robin Singhvi

08:11>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I think you're probably right. I think I'm I'm gonna look at it real quick because that's the next step. Right? I mean, in terms of what we're trying to do next is, one, get a technical cofounder. Two, get a growth marketer on board and raise some money raise some funding along the way as well. And then really focus on on on, you know, getting that that scale and traction quickly.

Nathan Latka

08:36How much do you wanna raise?

Robin Singhvi

08:38>> We're looking to raise about $2,000,000.

Nathan Latka

08:41Why do you need $2,000,000 to build this?

Robin Singhvi

08:46>> We don't need $2,000,000 to build, SmartCue, but I think, we could use all the dollars that we can get to actually acquire customers.

Nathan Latka

08:55But you don't know how to acquire cost but you don't know to customer you don't know how to spend money to acquire customers, do you?

Robin Singhvi

09:01>> You know, we have hypotheses, that whether it is, you know, on SEO, whether it is actually doing, you know, Google LinkedIn ads, we're actually trying to trying to spend money on video, instead of just doing, you know, blogs and that kind of content, actually doing video content. So we have ideas on how we wanna spend some of that money.

Nathan Latka

09:20But I think that's been looking at you're gonna sell such a big chunk of your business if you raise $2,000,000 at this stage when the in my opinion, the clear free no. You don't even pay for it. Go to market is like dominate the Zoom app exchange. Like, what? Why? I just don't understand. I mean, you'd have to sell, you probably raised 2,000,000 on four pre, maybe five cap, right? Like a safe, but it's so dilutive.

09:42Why would you do that?

Robin Singhvi

09:43>> So I guess it's going to be a discussion, but we're talking to a few investors and we're looking to raise 2,000,000 on a 10,000,000 valuation. Insanity. That's so crazy. Well, is it though? Nathan, because if you look at other companies in this space, so if you talk about some of the bigger ones, which is, like, MindTickle of the world, world's Chorus dot ai, Gong is a big one. Those are some of the more established names.

10:11>> They're, like, almost touching billion dollars. MindTickle crossed the billion dollar valuation. And then if you No.

Nathan Latka

10:15No. Gong's at 7 ones. Gong's at 7,500,000,000. Chorus sold to ZoomInfo recently where investors Yeah.

Robin Singhvi

10:21>> 600,000,000.

Nathan Latka

10:22Yeah. But that wasn't a good exit. That was a shitty exit. That was a terrible exit for for how much they raised. Sure. Right? So, like, I don't understand why you use them as comps.

Robin Singhvi

10:33>> Well, and on the on the other hand, the smaller companies, like, you know, if you talk about walnut. That actually just raised a 15,000,000 series a, they raised a they raised a 6,000,000 seed round. There's Navattic. There's Demoflow. So so the the space is heating up. And, honestly, the advice I got is, from from quite a few people is that raise as much as you can so that you don't, like, you know, you don't you

10:58>> don't go back to investors with your hat in your hand that you you're you're out of money in, six months. And and then deploy Who are those who

Nathan Latka

11:05are those people that you're getting that advice from?

Robin Singhvi

11:08>> So these are these are some of my bosses from some of our previous companies that have exited. They've they've kind of, you know, run and exited multiple startups. So so, you know, I mean, I I do value their opinion. But, you know, again, you know, I'm going out and saying that this is how much I wanna raise at this much valuation, just like you said that, hey. That's kind of crazy. No one would give you this

Nathan Latka

11:31>> money.

11:31No. No. I didn't say that. Did not say no one would give you it. I think you could get that easy. I still think it's silly from a dilution perspective. Everyone thinks success is how much you raise.

Robin Singhvi

11:41>> Don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. And that's that's not my point. Right? My point is not to raise so that I can show off, but it is so that I want to be able to build the business so that it sustains itself. And, you know, I don't get into that crazy cycle of trying to raise every six to twelve months.

Bootstrapping vs VC Debate

Nathan Latka

12:00Know what Robin, the second the second if you raise $2,000,000, you can't just sit. You you have to go spend that. You increase your burn. That is what becomes the crazy cycle. A bootstrapper who only spends what his customers pay him or her is sustainable. They will outlast the VC backed competitor every time, and they will probably win every time. An example is CallTrackingMetrics versus Chorus. Right? Bootstrapping $20,000,000 in ARR, very sustainable. Raising VC

12:26is not a path sustainability. It's the opposite. They want you to go to a billion or zero faster. That's the opposite of sustainable.

Robin Singhvi

12:33>> Okay.

Nathan Latka

12:34In my opinion.

Robin Singhvi

12:35>> Okay. Yeah. No. No. That's I I think that's that's fair. It's, you know, I think it may also depend on the people you raise from. Like, what is that VC's investment philosophy? Some of the folks I'm talking to, I think I I think, you know, we're on the same same level.

Nathan Latka

12:52Robin, find me a VC that doesn't want you to go to a billion or zero in the next two years.

12:59Find me a VC that says, you know, Robin, it's cool. Just build a nice sustainable business that that flatlines at 20,000,000 revenue, but it's very profitable and you pay yourself dividends. You find me a VC that says that.

Robin Singhvi

13:10>> Fair enough. And and that is obviously not my VC pitch. And and of course, I wanna grow the company, but I I don't wanna I I don't wanna go crazy. Right? I I wanna do it my way. I I realized that I do need external funding to stand out.

Nathan Latka

13:26Robin, why why why have you why have you told yourself that story? I think it's a false narrative.

Robin Singhvi

13:34>> You know, I think that there is some merit in what you're saying. And I think I will go back and evaluate what you're saying if that fits into how I'm thinking of running the business, where I see myself in the next twelve to eighteen months. But I think over the past ten months since we've been building the business, this approach of of raising this sort of money and this sort of valuation

14:01>> seemed to to sit well with me.

Nathan Latka

14:03You know what's gonna suck?

14:05You know what's really gonna suck? You're gonna raise 2,000,000 at a 10 pre.

Robin Singhvi

14:08>> Yeah.

Nathan Latka

14:09Fine. Whatever. Your buddies that you but you take your buddy, your old boss's money, whatever. Great. Great for you.

Robin Singhvi

14:14>> Mhmm.

Nathan Latka

14:15Then you're gonna keep growing revenue, you're gonna get a $6,000,000 acquisition offer, and you still own 70% of the business. You'd love to take that deal because it makes you rich very quick.

Robin Singhvi

14:23>> Right. It gets blocked. You can't do that because you

Nathan Latka

14:26have to sell for at least a couple times the valuation that the folks just put money in at. So now you're stuck on this like mouse trap where it's like IPO or bust. Your optionality is drastically decreased.

Robin Singhvi

14:37>> Right. Well, but but but, I mean, wouldn't I actually be in a good good space if if something like that happened, Nathan? Like, you know, all things considered, you know, I I've been trying to build something new. It's risky. It looks like I've done well enough where someone is offering me a good chunk of money that, you know, is like, okay, you've built something really valuable. Now, of course, there's the difference in valuations. Like, I'll give

15:00>> you six versus, you know, you're valued at 10. You know, sure, there may be some heartburn, but but for me, I'm like, oh, okay. So, you know, my idea was cool enough where people wanna actually give me money for it. Now I just Does

15:13>> make you feel good?

Nathan Latka

15:14Does that make you feel good deep down and make you it make it gives you gives you light and bubbly inside?

Robin Singhvi

15:19>> That that someone will pay me money for a photo op No. They're not paying you.

Nathan Latka

15:23They're not paying you for your tool. They're buying They're they're they're they're signing you up for a track that is billion or nothing in the next year on a VC track where you're raising every 12 months, otherwise risking it down around, you know, happiness levels are harder to manage, all sorts of stuff. And they're not they're not using your product, are they?

Robin Singhvi

15:42>> The VCs? Yeah. Obviously not. But I don't know. I mean, if I if I get into the right VCs, you know, I'll get introduced to the right, you know, right pipeline of customers, you know, have that cohort, get that network going. Yes.

15:56>> Yes. Network cohort customers, of course. Yes.

Nathan Latka

15:58All sounds I mean, look, by way,

Robin Singhvi

16:01>> if you get 2,000,000 If they put me on a if they put me on a billion dollar track, you know, billion or bust, I think it's still okay. As a first time founder, solo founder now, you know, if I'm put on that track and and, you know, what are the odds on day one? Right? What like, 90% of going bust and, like, I don't know, 95 going bust and 5% of going to a billion? That's okay

16:24>> because, one, I've hedged my bets. Right?

16:26>> With No. No. No.

Nathan Latka

16:27But what about see money.

Robin Singhvi

16:28>> Sorry.

Nathan Latka

16:29What about what is wrong what about the percentage that is you grow to a 3,000,000 or $5,000,000 business that you own 95% of and you're making personally $2,000,000 a year? Why can't that be a percentage of the outcome?

Robin Singhvi

16:43>> I don't know. You've got

Nathan Latka

16:44a 60 shot of doing that. You've got the largest everyone listening right now, if you're starting out, you've got the largest percent shot at bootstrapping to a million to two to three to five and building a beautiful life. Right? That that is your big that is, like, the least risky way to sort of build a great company. The second you raise VC, the odds that you go to zero are much higher, but also you slightly increase

Product Walkthrough: Teleprompter for Salespeople

Nathan Latka

17:02the odds that you go up to, you know, be one of the one out of, you know, a thousand billion dollar unicorns. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, we can debate this all day long. I'm I'm being a little facetious here to just push it. Right? But but, ultimately, it's it's obviously your decision, and you'll make you'll make the right one for you at this time. So this is good. Tell me more about the the product. So it looks

17:19like what I'm getting is basically a pop up on Zoom calls to prompt me to say the right things in, like, my sales pitch. Is that sort of the use case right now?

Robin Singhvi

17:25>> Yeah. So I I think you nailed it. Like, if you wanna simplify what SmartCue does is think of it as a teleprompter for your sales team when they're on these Zoom calls. So depending on where they are, it'll contextually sort of queue you up, tell you what to say depending on your industry use case. Like, you know, the problem with sales demos or product demos today is that they suck because they're very vanilla, very cookie cutter,

17:48>> and not always personalized. Right?

Nathan Latka

17:51And I would love, by the way, if that was a header on your website. The the the Zoom teleprompter for salespeople and ideally add a niche on the end for salespeople and health care.

Robin Singhvi

18:02>> Yeah.

Nathan Latka

18:03But you communicate that. I got it instantly the second I scrolled down. Like, it makes perfect sense. So

Robin Singhvi

18:08>> Yeah. And I'm writing it down because I'm like, oh, yeah. That I I should probably put it on my website.

Nathan Latka

18:11Well, that's your idea, not mine. You said it.

Team Size and Dev Team Details

Robin Singhvi

18:13>> Yeah.

Nathan Latka

18:15Okay. Cool. So So

Robin Singhvi

18:16>> that that's what it is.

Nathan Latka

18:17Yeah. And and how are you so moving forward, you're targeting Slack groups, testing you're some other stuff, six customers today. Are you hire what's the team size right now? How many people?

Robin Singhvi

18:25>> It's just me right now. It's just me right now and a dev team.

Nathan Latka

18:28Small. How much do you pay the dev team per month?

Robin Singhvi

18:31>> Like I said, you know, put in 8 k, and we're putting in about a $1,000 a month.

Nathan Latka

18:37Okay. And where are they based? Argentina, Krakow, somewhere else?

Robin Singhvi

18:40>> Actually, in India. They're they're based in Bangalore.

Nathan Latka

18:43Yeah. Bangalore. Interesting. Definitely one Bangalore. Four people. Very cool. Are you going through, like, Toptal or a firm like that? Or you you know these people directly?

Robin Singhvi

18:50>> No. You know, I I know these folks.

Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions

Nathan Latka

18:53Yeah. That's very cool. Alright. Let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, Robin, favorite business book?

Robin Singhvi

18:59>> Zero to one, by by Peter Thiel.

Nathan Latka

19:02Number two, CEO you're following or studying.

Robin Singhvi

19:06>> This guy called Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm in India.

19:10>> Paytm CEO.

Nathan Latka

19:11Okay. Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building a business?

Robin Singhvi

19:15>> Loom. Yep. That's a good one.

Nathan Latka

19:17Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?

Robin Singhvi

19:21>> Do you want an average? Yes. I want to say like five.

Nathan Latka

19:25Alright, not bad. And what's your situation? Married, single, kids?

Robin Singhvi

19:29>> Married, nine years, no kids.

Nathan Latka

19:30Oh, wow. Okay. And how old are you?

Robin Singhvi

19:32>> I'm 36.

Nathan Latka

19:3336. Last question.

Robin Singhvi

19:34>> Something you wish you knew when you were

19:35>> 20. That it's easy enough to start a business and it's okay to fail.

Nathan Latka

19:44Guys, there you have it. Get SmartCue launched here in 2021, just started pricing in September, so call it a month, two months ago. They went from nothing to a thousand dollars a month in revenue in under, call it, forty five days. Now looking to scale, considering raising $2,000,000 at a 10,000,000 valuation, we'll see what happens there. But he's basically put an eight ks to get the MVP built and he owns over 95% of the business and

20:03leverages a dev team in Bangalore, four people. He pays 1 k per month to keep pushing the product forward. Again, teleprompter for salespeople on Zoom. We'll see what happens next. Robin, thanks for taking us to the top.

Robin Singhvi

20:13>> Thank you so much, Nathan, for having me.

Nathan Latka

20:16One 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

20:41Central. 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

21:04fundraise, a big sale, a big profitability statement or something else. I don't want you to miss it. Additionally, if you wanna take this conversation deeper and further, we have by far the largest private Slack community for B2B SaaS founders. You 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 up

21:25for 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. We

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