Soft Solutions Revenue (2024)

[00:00] Guys, softsolutionslimited.com, and they're building a tool to help any local business text message market to get their customers back faster. He learned this from firsthand through via his wife's dental practice. He spent $40,000 so far on the MVP. He wants to go and sell this all in India using a 100% commission model on sales reps. He hopes to bring on 50 new sales reps per month. Again, a 100% commission model. He's launching early next year. We'll [00:23] see what happens. Hey, folks. My guest today is Ankit Nagpal. He's a software engineer who's developing a new SaaS software for shop owners called softsolutionslimited.com. Ankit, you ready to take us to the top? [00:35] >> Yep. [00:36] Alright. So tell me why you wanna get into this space SaaS software for shop owners. [00:41] >> Okay. Yeah. So, so let me tell you a bit about myself. So I own a business in which we have around 5,000 customers. And I felt a need that we need a software in which I should be able to communicate with my customers regularly. It can be holiday events, it can be reminders. It can be some promotional messages for for the customers and through WhatsApp or Facebook or other messaging platforms. [01:17] Ankit, what is the what is the name just hold on one second. What's the name of that other company with 5,000 customers? [01:23] >> No. That's my business. I have a dental clinic. So I have 5,000 patients that are that are our customers. So what was happening was we were [01:38] >> not able to be in touch with all the customers. [01:43] >> They were not how can I say that? I we wanted to be in touch with our customers so that they visit us regularly so that we we get revenue, more revenue. [01:53] So Ankit, just to just to be clear, I'm very confused. You have a dental shop. You do fix people's teeth, and you have 5,000 customers, and you're frustrated you can't talk to them? [02:05] >> Yes. That that was that was from where we started with this with this product. That's [02:12] What I'm asking is you are you a dentist with a dentition? [02:14] >> No, wife is a dentist and she has those patients and patients were coming to us regularly and this they were telling us, Oh, we forgot your appointment or we did not get your message or for for the regular teeth cleaning and other services, annual checkups and everything. [02:33] Understood. So you're you're now building software to help your wife and others like your wife connect to their patients more frequently? [02:41] >> Yes, yes, exactly. So but we felt that whenever a patient came to us and we said, Oh, you missed your annual checkup and things like that, they always said, We forgot. So that very frustrating for me because I thought why they are not remembering us, they are not remembering our appointments. So the problem I found that most of them do not use email. They are like regular people. Use Messenger, Facebook, WhatsApp or Telegram or whatever messaging [03:16] >> platforms. So, and I tried to find some software something where I can schedule a message or something that your appointment is due on this date, and they get through whatever platform they are using. So we I was I have particularly I spent at least five ten days searching for anything that I can add. There are scheduling software available like Calendly and many other but they are mostly email and nobody needs email. So I mean, people do [03:47] >> not read email in my country. Usually, are like older people. They they usually check SMS and WhatsApp. [03:54] So So, Ankit, sorry. Just to we have a very short amount of time. So short answer to your best. I'm gonna try and get through a bunch of stuff here. Okay? So I think I understand why you're building this. When did you write the first line of code for your platform? [04:05] >> Okay. So I made a demo. So first of all, I I made a demo in March 2022, this year. [04:11] I Okay. So you just So you just started earlier this year. And is it just you building it? Or how many engineers are you working with? [04:18] >> Okay. So I started with I just made a simple demo demo software myself. I took around two months to make a demo. And then I showed the demo to many business owners. Like this is a software that can help you increase your business. So and what should be the price and like that. So I started myself. Now I now we are eight engineers, eight engineers handling different department like server and one person is handling app and [04:45] >> like that. So now we are eight. And I have built the team slowly over a period of time. I could not build the team on on the day one because [04:53] I I understand. I understand. Again, short answers here if we can because otherwise we're gonna end up not getting anything done. You have a team of eight. My question is, you told me before the show your pre revenue. So how are you paying these eight engineers? [05:05] >> Myself, from my pocket. Yeah. [05:09] 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 access this in a second, but you log in, you connect [05:32] 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 on who's doing the buying of your SaaS company, you're gonna [05:56] 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 whole thing outright. Now what's cool about this is this is [06:18] 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, 3.7 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 a bunch that have been acquired the valuation and the multiple. Maybe you're [06:44] 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. Alright. We're gonna go back to the YouTube video here in a second, but if [07:06] 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 the platform. I hope to see you there. Alright. Let's jump back into the [07:32] interview. Okay, does that make you nervous? How much of how much of your own money have you invested so far? [07:37] >> Okay, so I have 250,000 not invested. I have the fund fund of 250,000 that includes the salaries, salaries and development costs and opening of a few first three, four offices in my country. [07:52] Okay. So you've invested personally $250,000 to pay the engineers in [07:57] >> Yeah. The I will be investing. This is my fund pool that I have. Till now, I have invested around $40,000 till now. [08:05] Okay. So you've invested 40,000 to pay eight engineers for about five months, which has enabled you to build an MVP. [08:11] >> Not not for now. From from March to this month, but gradually, like, I started with one, then I added keep on adding, like, every two months, I'm adding one person. [08:20] Okay. Ankit, the point the point is over the past seven months, you've personally invested 40 k across eight engineers to build the MVP to where it is today. [08:29] >> Yes. Yes. Yep. [08:30] Okay. Is your wife paying for it yet? [08:36] >> Yes. Yes. On a monthly basis, yeah, some expenses. Yes. [08:39] No. No. Is she paying to use your software to connect with her dental clients? [08:45] >> Yes. We have made a small software demo just just just how can I say? Not the final launch, just yes. And we are sending messages. And she's not paying, but we are testing it on several businesses. [08:58] Okay. When are you gonna start charging your wife? [09:03] >> June June two thousand twenty three when we launch. When we officially [09:07] Why why so long? It's already working. Why wait until June next year to start charging? [09:11] >> I mean, I and my wife, we are same say, a family. So it's not about charging. Who cares? [09:16] This is business. This is war. Yeah. You gotta charge. Okay. [09:22] >> She's giving me feedback, so that's the compensation. Okay. [09:26] Fair enough. What about other people, though? Why don't you have other people paying yet? [09:30] >> Yeah. Because I had installed on 20 different businesses. They are all friends and family. Just for the feedback like how is it going, how much business, just I'm collecting data. [09:40] What are they telling you they're willing to pay per month to use it? [09:43] >> Yeah. So if I'm in India, so I'll I can 10 in Indian rupees because we are launching India. So everybody is comfortable with I'll say $10 per month is the is they're comfortable. [09:56] $10 per month would be about a thousand Indian rupees per month. [10:01] >> Less than. Yes. Less than. [10:04] Okay. And and how like, how will you structure the pricing? How many messages can they send for $10 a month? [10:10] >> Yeah. So we structure this, you can send as many messages to as many people through as many channels. So we have integrated all the platforms. So you can send message to any platform, any number of times to any number of people. [10:26] Yeah. But if you're doing Twilio's rails or someone else's rails, you have to pay per text message. You have real cost. At some point, $10, you lose money. [10:33] >> Yeah. So we have our own server. We have our own server. And we pay a fixed amount for a cloud server, and we don't have to pay per message. So we are having, yeah, automation at our own server. [10:46] You built your own mini version of Twilio, so you don't have to pay Twilio. [10:51] >> Yes. We have our own version mini version of Twilio for a monthly fixed cost. And we have integrations with all the most all the apps, popular messaging apps, so we can send messages to any anybody to to to N channel. Yeah. [11:07] What did this does this create friction with you and your wife? Does she at dinner say, Ankit, start charging for this thing. We need to make money. [11:14] >> Yes. It happens a lot, but I say that we I'm not ready because there are a lot of things to be done. And I am around 50%. The problem was, yeah, yeah, this happens because I did not build a team of eight engineers on the day one. It took me time. So now we are at very fast peak, but it took me time initially. So that's why there's delay. Yeah. Yeah. So it happens. [11:38] Why not charge with these early customers? Why not charge them like $5,000 to do it manually like an agency to start? [11:46] >> Yes. So so my plan is to automate to to give us software to automate these things which people are doing manually actually, if you know some business out there manually sending messages through WhatsApp or Facebook or Messenger. But the system is automatic. So it's about not charging customers too much for the manual thing. I want is everybody, every shop owner in India should be able to use my software for $10 per month. We there nothing has [12:17] >> to do. Just put the [12:19] Okay. Okay. You didn't answer my question. My question on your on your page right now, you have under our services, dental, India tourism, website development, online marketing, language translation, medical tourism. Why don't you charge consulting fees to some of these folks while you're building the software? [12:39] >> I [12:43] >> don't think I am ready right now to charge a fee. I it's not a finished product. So Okay. [12:48] Guys, I think Ankit, you guys listening on YouTube and iTunes, Ankit doesn't like money. [12:53] >> Yeah. No. I like money when I think the product is ready. When people when people will be happy using the software, then that's more satisfying for me. [13:03] Say it again. I like money. [13:05] >> Yeah. I like money. [13:07] Okay. I like money. Amazing. [13:10] Okay. So you're investing. You're investing. You're gonna launch in June next year. You have eight people on the How do you plan to reach all the dentists in India? [13:19] >> No. Not just dentists. The software is a common software. It can be used by dentists, hotels, restaurant, anybody. [13:26] Okay. But you're starting with dentists? [13:29] >> Not not just dentists. I'm starting with everyone. [13:32] Well, it's kinda hard to start with everybody because then you're billed it for nobody. Right? You've built it for dentists because I'm on your website right now and it's all talks about dentists, dental services, your wife is a doctor, a dentist. [13:43] >> Yeah. If you go to the product section, if you go to the product section, there is a software called marketing software. In the products, they will website and in the website, you go to marketing software. There you will see what industries we are targeting. So there's a list of industries. [14:00] Well, yeah. But but but but you don't have any markets right now because you're pre revenue. Don't you have to pick one market to like dominate before you go say we're gonna be everything there for everyone? [14:09] >> Yeah. So this doesn't work actually. But you are think thing is true. But the the point is we are we'll be hiring approximately 50 sales representatives per month like that. I'll be hiring in bulk. So I cannot tell everyone to just go to the dentist. I'll be like go to any business owner that you know in your network and sell it to him by the restaurant or any shop or anybody. [14:32] You're gonna hire 50 sales reps on day one? [14:35] >> Yeah. On on on first month. Every month, my target is to hire 50 sales rep every month. [14:43] How much do you pay them base? [14:45] >> Yeah. That's a commission based on the commission business. [14:47] Oh, got it. So you're gonna so you don't have to pay anything unless they close sales? [14:52] >> Yeah. Yeah. That that that's Okay. [14:54] If I'm running around India and Ankit comes up me to on the street and says, I wanna hire you, Nathan. A 100% commission. Go sell my dental go sell my software to a water park. I'm gonna go, well, how do I know people are gonna buy your software? Do you have sales? And you're gonna say, no. We're just starting. I'm gonna say, I'm not gonna sell your software. You don't have any sales. So how do you [15:13] recruit people on a 100% commission basis? [15:15] >> Yeah. So we have various ways. We have developed our own CRM to this. So so the recruitment process is simple. We we post job on on the online platforms, monster.com and other online platforms. And we have applicants and they apply to the job. If they're interested, they sell it in their network. They're not going on the street. Everybody knows at least four or five friends who are business owners. So they'll be selling to their network and [15:46] >> will be getting commission or then they'll be getting commission for it. [15:49] That's a multi level marketing scheme. [15:52] >> Multi level marketing, not exactly because we have a real product. It's not in multiple we are not making members of members. It's just [16:03] Fair. [16:05] >> Big big team of sales representative on commission basis, not a regular salary employee on a for sales. [16:11] Fair enough. Alright. Well, listen. We're rooting we're rooting for you. I want you to make money as fast as you can, but right now we're out of time. Let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, favorite book. [16:22] >> Favorite book. [16:27] >> Let Us C++. I'm from computer programming. I'm a programmer. So [16:32] And number two, is there a founder you're following or studying? [16:41] >> No. I I I'm not I'm not following. [16:43] Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building softsolutions? [16:48] >> The the website or the software? [16:50] Your just your favorite your favorite tool, online tool that you use. [16:54] >> Okay. The the most favorite tool right now is ClickUp. There's a it's a productivity tool, software software project management tool named ClickUp. So that is my favorite tool. I've watched whole team there. [17:07] Number four. How many hours of sleep do you get every night? [17:11] >> Six to seven. [17:13] And what's your situate well, we know you're you're married. How many kids? Any kids? [17:17] >> Yeah. One kid. Yeah. [17:18] One kid. Okay. And how old are you? [17:21] >> 37. [17:22] 37. [17:23] Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20. [17:27] >> That I can make this software that I'm building if I could make it ten years back. [17:33] Guys, softsolutionslimited.com, and they're building a tool to help any local business text message market to get their customers back faster. He learned this from firsthand through via his wife's dental practice. He spent $40,000 so far on the MVP. He wants to go and sell this all in India using a 100% commission model on sales reps. He hopes to bring on 50 new sales reps per month. Again, a 100% commission model. He's launching early next year. We'll [17:57] see what happens. Ankit, thanks for taking us to the top. [17:59] >> Thank you. [18:02] One 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 [18:27] Central. 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 [18:49] fundraise, 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 [19:11] 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. We [19:30] got to push them away. Click the thumbs up below to counter them and know that I appreciate your guys'support. All right. I'll be in the comments. See you.