How Splynx Hit $3M Revenue with 700 Customers Serving Emerging Market ISPs (Interview with CEO Alex Vishnyakov)

Introduction to Splynx and Alex Vishnyakov

Nathan Latka

00:00Folks. My guest today is Alex Vishnyakov. He's the CEO of Splynx, a SaaS platform for Internet and voice service providers that helps companies get their operations under control from a single place. That means billing and payment collections, ticketing, job scheduling, and network management. Alex, you ready to take us to the top?

Alex Vishnyakov

00:18>> Thank you for inviting me.

Customer example and what Splynx delivers

Nathan Latka

00:20You bet. So give me an example of a customer that's paying you and help us understand what they're paying you for. What do they get?

Alex Vishnyakov

00:26>> We work with small and medium sized Internet providers that usually operate on emerging markets. And

00:36>> at the moment, we have around 700 companies working with us, so it's a business to business.

Nathan Latka

00:40Those are paying customers?

700 paying customers and $3M annual revenue

Alex Vishnyakov

00:42>> Yeah. Paying customers. Paying customers. So we are currently on $3,000,000 annual revenue, and we started six years ago.

00:55>> And bootstrapped completely. So we started with my with my my friends and my business partner. So

01:06>> yeah. The as I said, the companies that we work with, they are quite small, so they are not that big. So monthly they pay us around 350 US dollars. So it means like $4,000 annually. Mhmm. And yeah. But we have clients from 50 different countries. So at the moment This is great.

Nathan Latka

01:25Yeah. Because you're Alex, do listen to the show?

Alex Vishnyakov

01:29>> Yes.

01:29Have you have you listened to the podcast before?

01:32>> Yes. Of course.

Revenue history: $1M in 2020, $2M in 2021, 70% growth

Nathan Latka

01:33No. I'm like, this is great. You're giving you you know all the questions I'm gonna ask, so you just give me all the answers. I love it.

01:40I'm like, I don't have to do any work. This is great. So no. The math the math makes sense. 700 customers paying 350 a month is about $250,000 a month in revenue, is $3,000,000 run rate. If you're doing about $250,000 a month today, where were you exactly one year ago?

Alex Vishnyakov

01:55>> We were on 2,000,000.

Nathan Latka

01:57So So nice growth.

Alex Vishnyakov

01:59>> Yes. The growth the growth per year in the last two years is around 70%.

Nathan Latka

02:03Mhmm.

Alex Vishnyakov

02:04>> So, of course, the first years yeah.

Nathan Latka

02:07I was gonna say, take us back one more year. Do you remember what was revenue in

Alex Vishnyakov

02:10>> 2020? It it it was 1,000,000, then we went to 2,000,000, so we doubled. And always in the previous years, we also doubled the the revenue. So we started with like $80,000, then we went to $250,000, then we went to $500,000, then we went to 1,000,000, 2,000,000, and at the moment That's awesome. 3,000,000. Yes. This is what we are heading now so far. That's amazing.

Nathan Latka

02:35Well, look. A lot of my audience might not be familiar with sort of Internet companies in emerging markets. Right? So why do they need you? What are they paying you for?

Why small ISPs in emerging markets need Splynx

Alex Vishnyakov

02:43>> Because they try to compete with the large players. So because we work with Internet and voice providers. So the companies that provide Internet connection to end users and, you know, you can compare. So for example, AT and T is a large operator, Vodacom, all these big players. But we work with the small guys, they try to beat these big operators. And these small players, they need software that will work efficiently and that will help them to

03:07>> manage their business and grow and compete and beat these large competitors. So what Mhmm. We bring them is that kind of software that does everything for them. So we manage everything in one single place. Now there's billing, payments, scheduling, network management, plenty of things that all the areas actually of Internet provider that we just bring it in one place and that really increases a lot efficiency of the company. So this small company then is able to

03:38>> to work well and and to compete and get get the market, sell their From your

Nathan Latka

03:44website, Splynx makes it easy to sell internet, connect, bill customers, and support your customers. Right?

Alex Vishnyakov

03:51>> Yes.

03:51Now, what got you into this space? Are you an ex internet guy?

Alex's background and how Splynx was founded in 2016

Alex Vishnyakov

03:55>> Yes. I started as a network architect or a network engineer, but also I was working as a project manager, product manager for some online companies in Czech Republic. And then in 2014, I went to I was invited to South Africa to work as a network architect there to help to run the local company to build quite large network. So I was helping them, and meanwhile, I found out that the market is emerging and there are many

04:21>> new players coming there in South Africa and and in all other African countries as well. And when I came back, when my contract ended, so I came back 2016, and we decided to write a software that will start helping these companies to to operate efficiently. So that's that's how it started all.

Nathan Latka

04:39Oh, 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

05:03your Stripe account, you see your valuation real time, you can see what 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 get

05:27a 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 not

05:49built off random data. Again, you guys hear these interviews on YouTube. All these datas are built from real time valuation data points founders 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 going

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06:37wanna 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 interview.

07:04It's amazing. And how many folks are on your team today full time?

Team size: 50 people, 35 engineers

Alex Vishnyakov

07:07>> We have 50 members at the moment. Five zero.

Nathan Latka

07:10Five zero? Yeah. Mhmm. How many are engineers?

Alex Vishnyakov

07:15>> At least 35.

Nathan Latka

07:1625. Okay.

Alex Vishnyakov

07:17>> 35.

Nathan Latka

07:20Yes. Five. Now I imagine your churn is very low. Once someone signs up, they can't just turn you off. Right? What is your churn like today?

Churn rate and customer stickiness

Alex Vishnyakov

07:28>> Very low. Very low. So if I can tell you that if we if we gain 15 customers per month, we lose maybe two customers. But mainly, it's a new companies that we're not able to onboard, for example. So we made some mistake or they had no time to onboard. So usually if company signs up, so they do not leave it because the whole operations of their company is just linked or is completely connected to our software.

Nathan Latka

07:55Mhmm. And when you say our software, are you the sole founder or or do you have a co founder?

Alex Vishnyakov

07:59>> Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm a co founder and managing director.

Nathan Latka

08:02That's amazing. Okay. So how many founders are there?

Alex Vishnyakov

08:06>> At the moment, we have four founders.

Nathan Latka

08:08Four. Okay. Did you guys just split equity evenly at the start?

Founder equity split and co-founder structure

Alex Vishnyakov

08:11>> Not that much, but more or less, yes. There is a one main developer who who started it all, and then I joined, and then we took one apartment that helped us a bit to finance the whole process. Okay. So

Nathan Latka

08:25it might be like the bigger one owns 30% and the other three sort of split, you know, 20%, 25% each, something like that.

Alex Vishnyakov

08:31>> The biggest one has 48%. Then me and my partner, we have twenty, twenty four, and there is one silent partner with eight percent.

Nathan Latka

08:41I see. How do you guys think about and this is a question I get a lot from Bootstrap founders. How do you guys think about building your personal wealth using your SaaS company? Do you pay yourself dividends per year, or how do you think about that?

Dividends, reinvestment, and bootstrapping philosophy

Alex Vishnyakov

08:52>> Yes. We pay some dividends, but actually we try to reinvest. So Mhmm. But we pay we pay dividends. Yes. Of course, we have some salary also that we pay, and we decided to to pay dividends, I think, three years ago, and we haven't increased this amount as we decided to get we just need to get some money from that, but we would like to reinvest to the business to grow because there are plenty of things still

09:15>> to do. And we are growing in this year, and I think we'll be more than 50 people till the end of the year. So I'm I'm planning to have 80 people on my team. And in one year, I want to have 100 because we have launched also several new products or sub products that help us to operate in more areas, let's say in different markets and different countries as well. So it's not only emerging markets, but

09:40>> now we are getting also many requests from United States because as you know, States also is plenty of there are plenty of areas that are not covered by Internet, rural zones, and there are many providers that require services like or software services.

Nathan Latka

09:56Mhmm. So three years ago when you paid out some dividends to co founders, how how much are we talking? Like, 100,000 or more or less?

Alex Vishnyakov

10:05>> 200,000, more or less.

Nathan Latka

10:06200. Okay. And that you guys split amongst the four of you. Right?

Alex Vishnyakov

10:09>> Yes. Yes. Exactly.

Nathan Latka

10:11Interesting. And so how do you when team members sign up today, do you give all team members some, like, some amount of options or no?

Alex Vishnyakov

10:18>> Not yet. Not yet. Okay.

How Splynx acquires customers: marketing and brand building

Nathan Latka

10:20Interesting. And so moving forward, you're reinvesting everything. You're driving growth. Help me understand what the growth how are you adding so many customers? You have 700 you're adding 15 per month. Where are you finding these customers?

Alex Vishnyakov

10:33>> We put a lot of efforts in in the marketing. So, I mean, we try to to build the brand from the day one. So we we we try to convince people that this software is exactly what they need and not competitors. So we do spend a lot to to online. I mean, a lot of efforts, maybe not investments to online tools, but a lot of efforts. I think I have quite good marketing team. Two people there

10:56>> working very professional. So and sales is also performing very well. So that's

Paid ads spend and sales team structure

Nathan Latka

11:02spend any money on paid ads?

Alex Vishnyakov

11:04>> Yes. We do. We do. But not that much because, you know, we have the niche is very is quite small.

Nathan Latka

11:11So How much last month do you spend on paid ads?

Alex Vishnyakov

11:14>> I think around, like, $4,000.

Nathan Latka

11:16Okay. So not a lot at all.

Alex Vishnyakov

11:17>> Yeah. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

11:19Yeah. And then tell me how your sales team is structured. Do the salespeople have quota?

Alex Vishnyakov

11:23>> Yes. Of course. They they do have. So they they do have some fixed salary, and then based on on the sales that they bring or all they process, we pay them some percentage on annual revenue, first year of the annual revenue of of What percent? 3% and up to 5%. Depends on on their involvement.

Nathan Latka

11:45Three to 5%. Okay.

11:46>> Interesting.

11:47And how how how much how many deals do you expect reps to close? What is their annual quota?

Alex Vishnyakov

11:54>> There is no annual. There is a monthly quota that they need to to to get and it's based. So at least at least they must bring us like, the minimum is everyone should have, like, $1,000 monthly revenue, the new one. So if they if they they make it, then we start talking about some kind of bonuses. Yeah, usually,

Sales rep quotas, commissions, and compensation

Alex Vishnyakov

12:20>> it's just that way. So they

Nathan Latka

12:23Yeah. So how do you make that math work? So if you have a salesperson that's adding a thousand dollars of new monthly recurring revenue every month over a year, right? They're gonna add 12,000, right? Times twelve months. So about a 150,000 of ARR. Are you able to pay them way less a 150,000 so that you actually make money on that sales rep?

Alex Vishnyakov

12:44>> Yes. What we because they are employees of our company, you know, so they are quite they have very strict rules on how they work. So it's not they they are a bit limited in what we what options they have. So we have this strict policy. They need to reach this 1,000. And so if they reach it so that we pay them that three to 5% of of

Nathan Latka

13:08I understand that. What's the what's the base though you would pay? Like, if I join you today and I do a thousand dollars a month of new deals, what would you pay me as a base?

Alex Vishnyakov

13:19>> That will be not that simple because you are from United States. So it depends on the country where my my accounts, they work from from the countries with a lower income, let's say.

Nathan Latka

13:29So that that's why I'm asking. Yeah. How low? How low can you give it to this talent?

Alex Vishnyakov

13:35>> No. With all the bonuses, what they have, they have around 3,000, 4 $3,000 monthly salary. That's what they have.

Nathan Latka

13:43Okay. Got it. So you could have a sales rep that's making $36,000 per year if they hit a 150,000 of new ARR closed, $1,000 a month for 12

Alex Vishnyakov

13:54>> Usually, they make more. They make, like, 2.5 thousands monthly.

Nathan Latka

13:58Okay.

Alex Vishnyakov

13:59>> You know? So so it means I'm I'm saying that 1,000 is a minimum when we say that they work and they perform. So in in in general, they they make around $2,000 to $2,500 monthly each each of them, you know, so that's

Plans to raise capital and new market expansion

Nathan Latka

14:12I see. And how many are there? How many quota carrying reps?

Alex Vishnyakov

14:14>> Two two two two. At the moment, we have two.

Nathan Latka

14:17Two, okay. And how many folks are marketing? Just two?

Alex Vishnyakov

14:21>> Two marketing guys, yes.

Nathan Latka

14:22Okay, cool. And then that makes a lot of sense. This is very cool. Listen, this is a heck of a story here. Do you plan to keep bootstrapping or you plan to raise?

Alex Vishnyakov

14:31>> We are thinking about it at the moment.

Nathan Latka

14:33Uh-huh. Probably And why is that?

Alex Vishnyakov

14:37>> As I said, we launched several products and we are also actively now starting working on the markets that we were not present and where the competition was a bit tougher. So now we need to touch it first, see first two, three months how it will perform, how it will go there. And if everything will work well, we will probably think about raising some money.

Nathan Latka

15:01And how much would you look at raising, you think?

Alex Vishnyakov

15:06>> Not in our plans at the moment. So haven't thought about it. Just need to get the numbers first, you know, to get, yeah, get the first results of of this new products that we are launching and the new markets. And then Understood.

Famous Five: books, tools, and personal life

Nathan Latka

15:21Well, Alex, you're on an exciting journey, man. I'm certainly rooting for you. In the meantime, though, let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite book?

Alex Vishnyakov

15:29>> What my favorite book is?

15:37>> War and peace from Leo Tolstoy.

Nathan Latka

15:40>> That's good.

15:41Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Alex Vishnyakov

15:44>> Yes.

15:46>> I have I'm following few CEOs of and one CEO that runs quite big company in in Russia at the moment. And so his name is Alex Yanovsky. So he is one of my teachers. So and I I follow him.

Nathan Latka

16:05Number What he does.

Alex Vishnyakov

16:06>> Yes.

Nathan Latka

16:07Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building Splynx?

16:10>> Online tool?

Alex Vishnyakov

16:16>> We do plenty of things that we built ourselves. We we use Splynx for our own operations as well, so that's very interesting to do to to help. Jira, like, basically, Jira we use for for everything.

Nathan Latka

16:29So Alright.

16:30>> Number four. How many hours of sleep do you get every night?

Alex Vishnyakov

16:33>> Can you say it again?

Nathan Latka

16:34How many hours of sleep do you get each night?

Alex Vishnyakov

16:38>> Eight hours, tried seven, six. Last week it was five or four hours.

Nathan Latka

16:42And what's your situation, Alex? Married, single, kids?

Alex Vishnyakov

16:47>> Yeah. Married. Married.

Nathan Latka

16:48Any kids?

Alex Vishnyakov

16:49>> Yeah. Four kids at the moment.

Nathan Latka

16:52Oh my gosh. You're really busy.

Alex Vishnyakov

16:54>> Yes.

Nathan Latka

16:55Four kids. How old are you?

Alex Vishnyakov

16:57>> I'm 39.

Nathan Latka

16:58>> 39.

16:59Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20.

Alex Vishnyakov

17:06>> Yeah. Get some advisor, and I'll get some person who can who who help me in in this, like, business trip or business journey. That's

Nathan Latka

17:15Guys, Splynx helps local Internet providers compete with the big guys like AT and T and emerging markets. They broke a million dollars in revenue in 2020, 2,000,000 last year in 2021. And right now, last month, they did $250,000 in revenue. So they're at a $3,000,000 run rate today, helping 700, again, of these internet providers in emerging markets that pay on average $350 per month. They're bootstrapped today. They only paid out some dividends, you know, three years

17:38ago to help the founders make some money, but there are 35 engineers on the team today out of 50 total. Just now ramping up their sales team with two folks there, two folks on the marketing as they continue to bootstrap and are learning if their new products are gonna take off. If it does, they might think about raising. We'll see what happens. Alex, thanks for taking us to the top.

Alex Vishnyakov

17:55>> Thank you. Thank you so much.

Nathan Latka

17:58One 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

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